Present Darkness (5 page)

“I appreciate your help,” Emmanuel said when they emerged from the suburban jungle and onto a patch of grass. “But I can’t drag you deeper into the investigation. Not after last time.”

“What will you tell Shabalala?” Zweigman ignored the reference to his own near-death experience and ducked under the clothesline. He accepted that life inflicted wounds and life healed them. Surviving the war in a concentration camp had taught him that lesson.

“If this Aaron is actually his son, then I’ll tell Shabalala the truth,” Emmanuel said. “I just haven’t figured out the right words yet.”

“There is nothing right about this situation.” Zweigman studied the garden. “No son of Shabalala’s could inflict such a brutal attack.”

“I don’t know,” Emmanuel said. “I ran wild at the same age and got myself into plenty of trouble.”

“Drinking and riding in stolen cars with girls,” the doctor guessed. “Nothing involving blood and broken bones, I’m sure.”

“No,” Emmanuel said. “That came later.”

A pulse of bright red light blinked from the driveway. Evans, the policeman left to guard the front of the property, broke into the yard.

“The kaffir ambulance is here, Sergeant,” he said. “It’s in the drive.”

“Show the attendants through, Evans.” Emmanuel checked his watch in the glow of electric light spilling from the neighbour’s window. Eleven forty-two. If he’d held steady for half an hour longer, Zweigman would still be in bed instead of attending a crime scene.

“The line between life and death is not set in stone,” Zweigman said, reading Emmanuel’s mind with a glance. “The quicker a wound is cleaned and stitched, the better a patient’s chance for survival and recovery. You know this from the war.”

“I do,” Emmanuel said. They might not have saved the man’s life with their open-air operation but they had, at least, increased his chances of his surviving the night.

“Back here. Back here.” Evans waved his arms in the air, excited by the coming end of shift. With the injured black man out of the way, he and the boys could return to their homes, loosen their belts, and knock the top off a cold beer. “Come down this passage and into the yard.”

Two burly black men muscled through the gap between the house and the garage carrying a canvas stretcher with a small first aid kit resting in the folds. Zweigman motioned them to follow him into the garden. Emmanuel let them get well ahead. The handover from field doctor to hospital attendants was a courtesy Zweigman would insist on.

The ambulance men worked fast and in silence. Within minutes of their arrival, the injured man occupied a bench seat in the rear of the ambulance kitted out with donated blankets and hand-rolled bandages. The younger of the two attendants pressed Zweigman’s hand in his massive paw and simply said, “Bless you, Baba.”

And they were gone.

“Do they have far to travel?” Zweigman asked.

“Miles and miles,” Emmanuel said and dismissed the policemen who’d bunched together next to a blue police van. They scrambled aboard, stretching out their limbs and breaking open packets of cigarettes. The engine revved and the van jumped the lip of the curb before vanishing into the neat grid of white Johannesburg streets.

He ushered Zweigman through the Brewers’ front garden to a blue Ford sedan, glad to see the doctor depart the crime scene for his own warm bed.

Emmanuel slipped behind the wheel of his police-issue black Chevrolet and started the engine. He turned on the headlights. The houses on the street were dark now, but for a solitary window in the bungalow next door. He glanced across at the unpruned rose bushes, expecting to see the angular figure of Mrs Lauda bordered by the wood frame.

Instead, he saw Cassie Brewer standing with her right palm pressed to the glass, her yellow nightie a splash of colour under a pale face pinched tight with fear. She stepped aside and switched off the light, leaving a black void.

*

The girl took quick, shallow breaths though her open mouth. The rough cotton sack covering her face wasn’t a pillowcase grabbed up from a bed and shoved into a pocket. It was designed and made for this purpose alone: to be pulled over the head and then tightened around the neck with a drawstring. The exact fit frightened her. More so than the soft purr of the car engine that sang for miles and miles of smooth, tarred road that led away from the city and all her familiar places.

The kidnappers smoked cigarettes in silence. The smell of tobacco and leather permeated the sack. The frayed end of the drawstring rubbed against her neck, irritating her skin. They’d left her hands free but she dared not loosen the string. Any movement might attract attention and it was safer to remain quiet in the back seat, unmolested, at least for the length of the ride.

She could feel leather under her thighs. Wind rattled the passenger side window and her dry breath caught in her throat. Seventeen years old and already an expert at running away. Charity homes, juvenile facilities and Christian youth camps, no place held her for longer than she wanted to be there—and the interior of this immaculate car was not a place she wished to be.

Escape remained possible; a quick lift of the door handle, a hot rush of summer air and then a leap into the dark. Landing on the road would hurt. The alternative—staying with men who owned homemade hoods and prowled alleyways for lone prostitutes—would hurt multiple times more. One way or another, tonight would end in her blood.

She moved her right hand across the supple leather, slowly inching in the direction of the door. The tarmac ran smooth beneath the car wheels. The road would lead her back to the city, to the room with a single cot in the corner and a window ledge decorated by pigeon droppings; a dump made beautiful in her mind’s eye.

Cool metal curled under her hand. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out the wind that rattled the window glass. Now. It had to be now. Her fingers lifted the handle. She eased sideways, ready to take the leap. A hand encircled her wrist and tugged her away from the door with a jerk.

“Do you know who I am, sweetheart?” the man who’d blocked the alleyway asked. His fingers tightened against her skin to make a handcuff.

“No,” she croaked. In her heart she already knew plenty about the big man. He was patient: sitting in the front seat, smoking a rollie, waiting for her to break cover like an antelope drinking at a waterhole. He was not angry that she’d tried to escape. He was amused. Cold enjoyment, the girl knew from experience, was worse than violent rage.

“I’ll tell you who I am, sweetheart,” the big man said. “I am your salvation.
”

4.

Negus dozed on an iron cot pushed into a corner of the European detective’s room at Marshall Square Police Station. The room was a large space with cracked linoleum floors and two fans that whirred from the ceiling. Wooden desks covered with paperwork and empty coffee cups cut the space into a grid.

“No-one waiting for you to get home, Cooper?” Mason stood in the enquiry room door with an unknotted tie, rolled-up shirtsleeves and damp patches under his armpits. The station interview rooms sweltered in summer.

“Just a bed,” Emmanuel said and threw his hat on his desk. The weight of one more lie added to all the others barely registered. Besides, the Lieutenant asked too many questions.

“One of the boys, Nkhato, has been released,” Mason said. “The senior priest at Saint Bart’s confirmed he was in bed at lights out. That was at nine. He’s clean. Makes you wonder what other errors that Brewer girl made.”

“A bad ID on both boys is possible,” Emmanuel agreed. That would be a sweet result even if the Police Commissioner cancelled holiday leave until an arrest was made.

“It’s possible.” Mason stifled a yawn. “I need you in with the Shabalala boy. Work your magic. Play up the born and bred in Sophiatown angle and maybe he’ll tell you the truth about where he was last night.”

“What makes you think he’s lying?” Emmanuel asked.
The Sophiatown angle?
The Lieutenant had definitely gone through the personnel files and picked up details that should have remained private.

“You’ll see.” Mason retreated into the corridor and proceeded to the last door on the right. Emmanuel followed. There was still a chance the schoolboy in the interview room and Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala were not related.

Mason opened the door to a windowless room painted prison green. A bright electric bulb cast a harsh light over the small wooden desk and the black youth seated with his back against the wall. Plucked from bed by the police, he wore blue cotton pyjamas and polished brown leather school shoes without socks. A school blazer hung over the back of his chair, superfluous in the heat. Mason shut the door and leaned against it.

“I’m Sergeant Cooper,” Emmanuel said, sitting down opposite the boy. He was clearly a younger version of Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala of the native branch. “And you are?”

“Aaron Shabalala. And I have already told the other policeman everything. Many times.” If Aaron knew who Cooper was, he wasn’t showing it.

“I wasn’t here,” Emmanuel said. “You’ll have to tell me where you were earlier tonight.”

“I was at school, then at Principal Brewers’ house, then at home.” Aaron stretched out his legs, already familiar with this line of questioning. He was tall even when seated and muscle was starting to fill out his shoulders and chest. His broad face had no expression. Whatever his emotions were, they were hidden behind a calm façade. Emmanuel recognised the cool countenance and the loose physical grace with which the Zulu youth moved.

“Do you know why the Lieutenant and I are asking you about where you were last night, Aaron?”

“Some men broke into the principal’s home and beat him and his wife,” the young Shabalala said in a quiet voice. “The principal was a good man. His wife was hospitable. They took us into their home and fed us with kind hearts. I would never harm these people.”

“What about their daughter?” Cassie had blushed before describing the Zulu youth. There might be something there. “Did she also have a good heart?”

Aaron hesitated, caught out by the question. The mask that hid his feelings slipped, and a bright flash of anger registered in his dark brown eyes. He cleared his throat and said with careful deliberation, “The daughter sat and ate at the table with us.”

“Did you go back to the Brewers’ house after you’d finished eating dinner, Aaron?” The anger Emmanuel had seen was brief but real. The Zulu youth had a temper. He controlled it well but what might happen when that control slipped?

“I did not go back to the principal’s house. I got off the bus and walked for a long time. Then I went back to my home.”

Mason sucked his teeth to show what he thought of that answer. Emmanuel felt the same. The boy would have to give up a name, a location and at least one witness to back his story.

“Where did you go, exactly?” A bar crowded with drinkers, a card game, a brothel; any place with people, would be a plus.

“Nowhere. Just walking.”

Emmanuel retrieved his pen and notebook and placed them neatly on the tabletop. “Give me the name of one person, just one, who saw you wandering through Sophiatown on Friday night.”

“I kept to the shadows. Nobody saw me.”

“Really?”

“It is so.”

Surely this boy, the son of a detective constable, understood the penalties for serious assault and theft. What part of “you’re in deep shit” did he not comprehend? A knuckle rapped hard against the interview room door.

“Lieutenant,” Detective Constable Negus’s sleep-affected voice said. “Phone call for you.”

“Take a message. I’m busy,” Mason said.

“I already offered but the man says it’s an emergency and you must come now. Something about a shepherd and his sheep.”

“All right.” Mason straightened and gripped the door handle. “You’re with me, Cooper. We’ll give Shabalala ten minutes to think about what he really did last night and hope that he remembers the truth by the time we get back.”

“I have told you where I was.” Aaron flexed his right hand, testing the joints. “I was walking.”

Emmanuel paused at the door and gave Aaron a look like the one he’d given Cassie:
You are lying, boy, and I know it.

*

The hard linoleum floors amplified the gritty sound of Lieutenant Mason’s voice and the slam of the telephone receiver as it hit the cradle. Negus stood by the edge of the cot, waiting for knock-off time. Emmanuel sat at his desk, mulling over Mason’s decision to pull him from the interview room. Either Mason really didn’t trust him, or the ex-vice cop was so mired in a “one man undercover” mentality that dominating all aspects of an investigation remained second nature.

Lieutenant Mason stepped into the squad room, jacket buttoned up and black hair slicked back. Churches of all denominations would happily invite him to join a prayer circle. Emmanuel, however, wouldn’t let the Lieutenant anywhere near pets or children. While Mason appeared utterly indifferent to the call that moments ago had him slamming down the phone, the tightness in his shoulders and the hard lines around his mouth reminded Emmanuel of his own father before a rage. The calm exterior was a lie. Mason had a violent temper fed by a decade of dirty police work.