Let the Dead Lie (32 page)

'Constable.'
He flashed the ID. 'What's going on? You've got the whole Point in uproar.'

'Where
have you been, Detective Sergeant?' The uniform smiled and tussled with the dog
lead. 'We got him.'

'Who?'

'The
Indian who killed Jolly Marks.' The constable was dragged away by canine force
and his words were cut by the whimper of the excited dogs. 'He ran but we'll
find him.'

The
Alsatians set off at a lope. Pedestrians scattered from the pavement and the
way lay clear for the police hounds. The labourer in the doorway had not moved.
Emmanuel had not moved either. The constable's cheerful promise was a heart
stopper. Zweigman and Shabalala came over to him.

'They
are not looking for you, Detective Sergeant,' Shabalala said. 'They are
looking, I think, for an Indian man.'

Further
down the street, the Alsatians stopped to examine a dignified Indian in a
pinstripe suit. The scent didn't hold and the dogs set off again, panting.

'They're
after the Indian who killed Jolly Marks.' Emmanuel repeated the constable's
words even though there was no sense in them. Two Indian suspects had
mysteriously shrunk to one. The sharp call of police whistles and the
thundering of boots on the pavement meant that a fistful of money was being
thrown at the apprehension of Jolly's killer. Someone had loosened the
law-enforcement purse strings. This effort was for the arrest of a child
killer. It was interracial. It was a propaganda opportunity that could not be
squandered.

'A
witness gave the police a description of two dark-haired Indian men who were
seen near the crime scene. Now it's down to one Indian and they're pretty sure
he's guilty,' Emmanuel explained. A slew of uniformed police cut across the end
of Browns Road. He pointed to them. 'Look at the number of cops. The Black
Maria is to mop up any stray natives flushed out in the search. Dozens of pass
violators and a child killer caught in a single afternoon. Whoever is in charge
of this operation is going to get a promotion.'

'You
are no longer the prime suspect. The mistake has been rectified,' Zweigman
said. 'You are free.'

'Someone
let me off the hook and now an innocent Indian man is on it instead.' Emmanuel
shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, bunched them into fists. 'Neither one
of us is guilty.'

And
there was still the outstanding matter of the double murders at the Dover
apartments. Emmanuel felt certain that his name would still be on those arrest
warrants.

'The
man you talked to at the storehouse, he is the one the police are searching
for?' Shabalala said when Emmanuel showed no joy at being released from the
hangman's noose.

'No.
Brother Jonah is white and American.'

'Then
who are the police after with their guns and dogs?' Zweigman puzzled aloud.

'I
think I know,' Emmanuel said and moved off the pavement for two black men who
were running full pelt for the alley. Their rubber shoes, fashioned from
discarded car tyres, hit the pavement with hard slaps. Two light-haired boys,
similar enough to be twins, stuck their heads out of a stationary Chrysler and
giggled at the chaos of the natives and the police running around in all
directions.

On
the opposite side of Browns Road, Amal Dutta lurched from door to door in a
frantic search for something.

'Amal.'
Emmanuel hurried across the asphalt and touched the boy's shoulder. The
teenager's body vibrated with harried breath. 'Slow down. Stop. What are you
looking for?'

'Giriraj.'
Amal took a great lungful of air. 'I have to find Giriraj.'

'Why?'

'I... I...'
His words petered out and Amal
slumped against the wall, his lungs wheezing.

'Sit.'
Zweigman appeared at Emmanuel's shoulder and spoke directly to the stricken
boy. 'Sit down on the step and put your head between your knees. Good.' The
doctor squatted in front of Amal and placed both hands on his shoulders. 'There
is enough air for every living thing. Take a deep breath. And another. Good.
One at a time.'

Shabalala
wove through the crawl of traffic and joined Emmanuel on the footpath. A crowd
of Afrikaner and English rail yard workers gathered on the corner of Point
Road, all whispers and pointed index fingers. It was clear that, for once, the
opposing European sides agreed on something. Emmanuel moved to block their view
of Amal. Outraged citizens could so easily turn into a mob and community-minded
action into a full-scale riot.

Balmy
Durban was no stranger to savage outbreaks of bloodshed. Beer hall riots and
inter-tribal fighting claimed dozens of lives. Anti-rent rise protests in the
late forties had ended in the frenzied looting of Indian stores and the
savaging of shop owners and innocent bystanders. The civil English facade was a
hair's breadth away from chaos. And that was the essence of empire: the
unspoken tension between civilised appearance and stark reality.

Emmanuel
squatted next to Zweigman. Shabalala stood to protect their backs. The Zulu
constable also felt the low tremor of suppressed violence that travelled in the
air like an electric charge before a storm. Police guns were the thunder and
lightning.

'Tell
me,' Emmanuel said to Amal.

'The
police are looking for Giriraj.'

'What
for?'

'Because
of the boy we found in the rail yard. Because of him.' Amal licked his lips, miserable.
'The policemen want him for that.'

'For
the murder?'

'Yes.'

'Did
you call and give them Giriraj's name?'

'No.
Never.'

'Parthiv?'

'Not
him either.'

'Who
then?'

Amal
glanced down the length of the street then leaned forwards. 'Mr Khan.' He
whispered the name like a witch casting a spell. 'It was Mr Khan. He knew that
Parthiv and I were in the rail yard near the boy's body. He said to Maataa,
"If the police know this, they will arrest your sons. They will go to jail
and they will hang for that white boy's murder".'

The
meeting between the Duttas and Khan hadn't been a peace initiative. It was a
promise of disaster for the Dutta family.

'Khan
blackmailed your mother,' Emmanuel said.

'No.'
Amal's smile was cynical. 'Mr Khan said it was an exchange of information.'

'Of
course,' Emmanuel said. 'Tell me about this exchange of information.'

'Mr
Khan said that the police did not have to know about me or Parthiv. He could
fix this problem.'

'But...?'
There was always a 'but'.

'The
detectives knew that Indian men were in the rail yard. Mr Khan said he had to
give the police something to use. Just one name in exchange for our freedom.'

'Giriraj.'

'Maataa
said no. Parthiv said no. I said no.' Amal struggled to his feet. Emmanuel and
Zweigman stood at either side of him while he fought back tears. 'Mr Khan told
us that Giriraj was a bad man. A thief. A liar. That he stole from us and spent
the money on prostitutes.'

Khan's
informers had been working overtime. He probably knew more about Jolly's
murder and the plan to capture Nicolai and Natalya than the detective branch
did.

'Then,'
Amal continued, 'he picked up the telephone and dialled a number and asked to
talk to a . .. a . . .'

'Detective
Head Constable Robinson.' Emmanuel supplied a name but Amal shook his head in
response.

'No.
It was a British Raj name.'

'What
do you mean?'

'Two
surnames joined together,' Amal said, then continued with the story. 'Whose
name shall I give the police?' he finished, imitating Khan, then fell into an
uneasy silence. The end of the story was being played out on the streets around
them.

High-pitched
whistles screeched like metal birds and police wheeled as people ran past them.
Giriraj came flying around the corner, crossed the tarred road and poured on
the speed. The white rail workers raised a shout and a group of them gathered
and ran after the Indian man.

'Giriraj!'
Amal shouted, but the Dutta family bodyguard was deaf to everything but the
police whistles and the thunder of footsteps behind him.

Humans
found it remarkably easy to turn against each other, Emmanuel thought. If
someone was a different colour, had a wandering eye or was left-handed then
turning against him became even easier. How elemental and comforting to believe
that wrongdoing could be identified by a physical trait. The police and the
others were after Giriraj, but all Indian men - fat, thin, tall and dwarfed -
were, for the duration of the hunt, courting danger.

Amal
took off after Giriraj and Emmanuel raced after him.

'Giriraj!'
Amal's plea blew away on the wind.

Traffic
crawled then stopped when a squad of uniformed policemen swarmed across the
road and veered in the direction Giriraj had fled. Emmanuel glanced over his
shoulder. Shabalala and Zweigman were still with him, and behind them were more
rail workers and police. If they stopped they'd be trampled under the momentum
of the crowd.

Amal
slowed. Emmanuel grabbed his arm and urged him forwards. 'Keep running,' he
said and dragged the boy along the pavement by force of will.

Ahead
was a busy four-way intersection strung with electric tram lines and anchored
on the corners by traffic robots. Trucks and cars idled at the red light. An
ordinary Monday afternoon. Durban's image was still intact and bathed in winter
light. Giriraj, trailed by pursuers, neared the corner.

The
traffic light turned to green. Cars surged into the intersection. Giriraj
jumped the lip of the pavement and hit the crosswalk in full flight. A car
braked hard and a horn blared. Giriraj skirted the front bumper of a maroon
Mercedes and disappeared behind a delivery van. A second vehicle blasted its
horn, a long, sustained note of alarm. The electric lines of the tram shook
with the force of a sudden deceleration. Brakes screeched. A flock of seagulls
shot skyward.

Emmanuel
found extra speed and cut in front of Amal. Traffic in the intersection seemed
cemented in place. A sweaty man, four back from the lights, craned out of his
driver's window to find the reason for the hold-up. Across the line of
ornamented car bonnets, Emmanuel glimpsed a grey-haired woman with a hand held
against her mouth; the universal sign of distress that he'd seen countless
times at crime scenes and in war zones: a scream held back.

He
edged past the delivery van. Heads were craned out of the windows of a tram.
Two women on the sidewalk clutched each other's arms. A uniformed driver with
his hat askew and his face red stood in the doorway of the tram. He was
shaking.

'He
ran ...
he ran straight in front of me. I couldn't stop . . .'

Emmanuel
cleared a path through a small circle of onlookers. Giriraj lay on the asphalt,
his limbs arranged at the impossible angles affected only by the dead. The
oiled surface of his bald head was riddled with cuts and a leather sandal had
been thrown onto the opposite sidewalk. Emmanuel kneeled to check for a pulse.
Zweigman joined him on the road and Emmanuel pulled back and let the doctor
take charge. He suspected that they both knew the result of the examination. A
mortuary van, not an ambulance, would attend the scene.

'Giriraj
. . .' Amal broke through the circle of onlookers. 'Giriraj.'

Emmanuel
stood up and tried to block Amal's approach. The boy scooted to the right and
dropped to his knees beside the once mighty body of Giriraj, now crumpled and
vacant.

'Help
him,' Amal pleaded of the white-haired doctor. 'Please.'

'He
is beyond help and beyond hurt,' Zweigman said. 'I am sorry. He is gone.'

The
tram driver turned away and the ticket conductor patted his back with a rough
hand in the way of a man unused to displays of emotion. 'I didn't see him . .
.' The driver's voice was a coarse whisper. 'He ran out of nowhere. There
wasn't enough time to stop.'

'I
know.' The conductor sat his work companion on the footpath. 'Plenty of
witnesses saw what happened. You won't get the blame.'

The
pursuit teams, the rail yard workers and the police arrived in separate waves
of blue and olive drab. A bulky sergeant, sweat-stained and fragrant, began
moving the crowd off while the rest of the squad set up a human cordon around
Giriraj's body.

'Step
back,' the sergeant barked. 'This is a crime scene. Everyone back four steps.'

Emmanuel
motioned Zweigman away from the body, then leaned down and spoke close to
Amal's ear. 'Time to leave,' he said. 'Now.'

'I'll
wait.' Amal was dry-eyed. 'I'll wait for the ambulance to come.'

Emmanuel
checked the crowd. The stunned tram passengers and the disappointed rail
workers struggled for a better view. Constable Shabalala stood head and
shoulders above the gathering. Any minute now elements of the crowd would shift
focus from the dead man to Amal. They would want to know who he was, this young
man kneeling by the side of a child killer.