A Beautiful Place to Die Part 23

"I was just wondering how the attacker avoided Captain Pretorius. The captain was out here all the time, wasn't he?"

"Here? Who says he was here at my place?"

"I meant the kaffir path. Captain ran past here a couple of times a week, didn't he?"

"Sometimes he went past and sometimes he didn't. He didn't hand out a timetable."

"No, he didn't."

Emmanuel raised his hat good night and set off with Shabalala. Once the last of the house servants headed home, the path became the domain of Willem Pretorius and a handful of coloured men breaking up from a once-a-week poker game. Did the captain abuse his power and molest women he knew were unlikely to be taken seriously by the law? What option did a mixed-race man have but to pick up a gun and go after the offender in order for justice to be served?

"Hamba gashle. Go well, Shabalala," Emmanuel said, and the tall policeman swung his leg over his bicycle and steadied himself against the handlebars. He couldn't bring up his suspicions about the captain just yet.

"Salana gashle. Stay well, Detective Sergeant." The black man rode off into the failing light. Soon he was gone, leaving behind a red sunset.

Emmanuel walked on past the coloured church and shops. He moved past backyard fences locked and barred against the night, past the path that ran to The Protea Guesthouse and his room, then around the outside curve of the town that showed him civilized backyards pus.h.i.+ng against the untamed veldt.

He kept his pace up until he reached a rickety back gate. He took out a letter he had retrieved earlier that afternoon from Miss Byrd at the post office. It was addressed to the captain, but it was actually for Harry from one of his daughters. Now living as white, she had no other way to communicate with her father without putting her new social status in jeopardy.

The ghost of Willem Pretorius breathed in Emmanuel. He walked to Harry's back door, rapped twice and slipped the Durban-postmarked letter into the old soldier's shabby room. He moved away quickly, as he knew the good captain had, and made his way back onto the path.

Darkness surrounded him. He stopped now and then to listen to the voices drifting out of back rooms. An evening prayer over dinner, an argument, a child's unsettled cry...The people of Jacob's Rest were preparing to say good-bye to another day.

At Granny Mariah's again, he leaned back against the barred gate and pictured Davida's little room surrounded by herbs and flowers. Gum leaves rustled and the wind sighed.

Off to his right a catlike footfall disturbed the undergrowth, then fell silent. Emmanuel stilled. Another footstep advanced in the dark. Something or someone was moving slowly in his direction. He eased his weight forward and the gate fell back into place with a loud click.

There was a sharp release of breath and the slither of a body in the dark. Emmanuel wheeled off the kaffir path and turned full circle as he tried to pinpoint the source of the furtive movements. The whisper of gra.s.s and leaves was the only sound. He released his breath and the night enveloped him. Under the cloak of darkness, he felt a human presence close by. Someone was out on the veldt watching.

The next day, Emmanuel walked into the police station at 9:20 AM AM, ready for anything after he had questioned Erich Pretorius. Instead of an ambush, he found the Security Branch policemen and commando Paul Pretorius cl.u.s.tered around the captain's desk. The phone rang and Piet jumped on it.

"Ja?" he said, tapping a fresh cigarette from his pack and inserting it into the corner of his mouth. Paul and d.i.c.kie leaned close to the phone. There was an electric current in the air that signaled the beginning of a big push. The Security Branch was ready to make a move.

"Don't do anything." Piet sucked the nicotine from his cigarette. "We'll be there in three hours. You will wait for us. Understood?"

The phone was slammed down and Piet swung to d.i.c.kie.

"Go to the hotel and get our bags ready. We move tonight." He turned to Paul. "You coming?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." The hulking soldier was primed for action, his neck and shoulder muscles knotted tight in expectation.

"Just enough for one night," Piet cautioned him. "We'll bring the package back here sometime tomorrow. Do the work under the radar."

Emmanuel pushed himself off the wall and approached them. He wanted to report in and be dismissed in quick order. The border crossing into Mozambique was only minutes away.

"Anything I can do to help?" he asked the Security Branch team.

Piet blew a plume of smoke into the air. "Where have you been?"

"Looking into the molester case. I'm following up a suspect who lives in Lorenzo Marques. An underwear salesman."

Piet's eyes narrowed and Emmanuel wondered if he'd gone too far by including the underwear comment. The Security Branch officer scrutinized him for a moment and tried to work out the angles on the Mozambique lead.

The phone rang and Piet picked it up before d.i.c.kie or Paul got a chance. Pockmarked Piet loved being in command.

"Don't do anything," Piet breathed into the phone. "Follow and observe. That's all. We will direct the operation when we arrive."

He slammed the phone down and turned his attention back to Emmanuel. His smile was an unpleasant trench dug into his irregular face.

"This Mozambique trip better be in connection with the molester case. I don't want a repeat of yesterday."

"That was a mistake." Emmanuel told Piet what he wanted to hear. "I overstepped the bounds and it won't happen again."

"Better not." Paul Pretorius moved toward him with his index finger stuck out like a sword. "You're lucky we didn't find you yesterday, my vriend."

There was a pinp.r.i.c.k of pressure on his chest as Paul gave him a hard jab. The fact that Emmanuel would escape punishment made Paul angry.

"Go pack your things," Piet instructed calmly. "If Cooper crosses the line again, we'll deal with him in a more thorough manner. Understood?"

"Good," Paul said. The lure of a future beating was enough to placate him and get him moving toward the front door.

Piet collected the files on the desktop and handed them to d.i.c.kie. "Pack these and put petrol in the car. I'll meet you back at the hotel."

Emmanuel gave the Security Branch plenty of room to make their exit. He'd allow them an hour to clear town, then head to the border with the name of the photo studio tucked in his jacket pocket.

Piet paused at the front door and glanced over his shoulder with cold eyes. He was still bothered by the Mozambique lead and didn't like the idea of the English detective roaming over international boundaries unsupervised.

"Remember my promise?"

"The English snot beaten out of me?" Emmanuel said. "Yes, I remember."

The Security Branch team disappeared onto the street. A big Red fish was on the hook and that far outweighed the need to punish a flatfoot a.s.signed to chase a deviant.

Emmanuel walked through to the back of the station and found Hansie and Shabalala sitting in the yard.

"Where's Lieutenant Uys?" he asked, taking a seat between the boy policeman and the Zulu constable.

"Gone," Hansie said. "He gets to ride with the others."

Exclusion from the carload of hard-knuckled men obviously upset him. Even Hansie understood that being sent outside with the kaffir while the other white men talked business marked a low point in his law enforcement career.

"Go inside," Emmanuel told Hansie. "You can sit behind the captain's desk and answer the phone."

Hansie was up and running before the sentence was finished. Evidently, he'd never been allowed to sit in the captain's chair before.

"What have they said you must do?" Emmanuel asked Shabalala in Zulu.

"Stay here. Go home when it is dark and come again tomorrow."

"I have to go to Lorenzo Marques for only one day. Can you keep that boy inside, out of trouble, and doing his job?"

"I will do what I can," Shabalala said.

"Detective Sergeant-" Hansie called out in a shrill voice. "Detective Sergeant Cooper?" Hansie was jumping from foot to foot in the back doorway.

"A messenger. He has a special envelope."

Emmanuel's stomach tightened with excitement. Could he really be this lucky? He rushed to the front office, where a dust-covered messenger waited by the captain's desk. Hansie followed close behind.

"Can I help?" Emmanuel asked.

"Envelope for Lieutenant Piet Lapping." The young man in the brown traveling overalls spoke through a tight mouth.

"Are you a courier?" Emmanuel asked, knowing full well that the Security Branch trusted no one outside the organization to relay information.

"No." The messenger's mouth became a hard line of discontent. "I'm the Security Branch."

Emmanuel understood the reason for the taciturn speech pattern. The young messenger, the cream of the police academy and hand-selected for the Security Branch, was not pleased at being chosen for the lowly task of delivering an envelope to a backwater. The value of information had not become apparent to him yet.

"Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper," Emmanuel introduced himself. "You've missed Lieutenant Lapping, I'm afraid. He's out on a mission and doesn't know when he'll be back."

"They've all gone." Hansie spun a circle in the captain's chair. "They even took Lieutenant Uys with them."

"I'm happy to sign for the envelope." Emmanuel moved in on the disgruntled messenger and his package. "I'll make sure Lieutenant Lapping gets it when he gets back."

"It has to be signed over to Lieutenant Lapping. Those are my orders."

"Lieutenant Lapping has to be the one to sign for the package?"

"That's right."

"You could place it into the police mailbox at the post office," Emmanuel suggested. Miss Byrd had explained the workings of the postal service to him in great detail at their first meeting. "Only Lieutenant Lapping will be able to sign it out and he'll have to produce identification before they let him have the package."

"I don't know..." The messenger rubbed at the dust that had collected on his smooth-shaven chin when he'd turned onto a farm lane by accident, then had to double back to the main road. The motorbike tires still had fresh cow dung stuck in the treads.

"Maybe Lieutenant Lapping will be here tomorrow when they send you back with the package," Emmanuel went on. "Or maybe he'll be here the next day. I can't make any promises."

The messenger looked around the small-town police station like a doctor inspecting a plague house. He didn't want to set out before dawn and travel across the country only to be turned back again and again.

"Only Lieutenant Lapping can sign it out?"

"With identification," Emmanuel emphasized.

"Okay." The messenger pretended to give the idea serious thought even as he pulled his motorcycle gloves on in preparation for the trip back to the city. "Is the post office close by?"

"Down the street," Emmanuel said. "I'll take you over and get Miss Byrd to sign the envelope into the police box."

13.

IT WAS 12:15 12:15 in the afternoon when Emmanuel parked the Packard on the beachside strip in Lorenzo Marques. The calm waters of Delagoa Bay lapped the sand and seagulls wheeled overhead. Tourists of every skin color strolled along the promenade, the women dressed in bright cotton dresses, the men in casual drill shorts and open-necked s.h.i.+rts. in the afternoon when Emmanuel parked the Packard on the beachside strip in Lorenzo Marques. The calm waters of Delagoa Bay lapped the sand and seagulls wheeled overhead. Tourists of every skin color strolled along the promenade, the women dressed in bright cotton dresses, the men in casual drill shorts and open-necked s.h.i.+rts.

Emmanuel took a deep breath of the fresh salt air. It felt good to stand in the sun and know that the Security Branch and the Pretorius brothers were in another country. He crossed the wide avenue to the ocean. The tide was in. Fishermen cast nets into the water and low-slung Arab-style dhows skimmed the horizon line. To the south stood a long wooden jetty with boats moored alongside.

A group of red-faced anglers loaded a wide trawler with supplies for an offsh.o.r.e fis.h.i.+ng safari. The jetty was the obvious place to find a paid guide to take him to the photo studio.

"Hot samosas, ice cream..." Vendors called out their wares as he strolled along the beachside. A sallow-faced street performer amused a group of tourists by throwing peanuts into the air for a monkey tethered to a fraying rope. At the entrance to the jetty, homemade placards advertising island visits and fis.h.i.+ng charters crowded together. One sign stood out. It advertised Saint Lucia Island. A sleek wooden sailboat, a hymn to expensive old-fas.h.i.+oned craftsmans.h.i.+p, was tied up behind the sign. Saint Lucia Lady Saint Lucia Lady was written along the sailboat's stern. was written along the sailboat's stern.

"Baas...senhor...mister..."

A group of dark-skinned boys waited for the opportunity to shake the change loose from the pockets of visiting tourists. A spindly-legged youth ran over to him.

"Prawns, beer, peri-peri chicken? Whatever the baas wants, I will get it," the youth said. The last part of the sentence was accompanied by a vaudeville wink and a smile that revealed two missing front teeth. The boy was about seven years old and already familiar with white men in search of illicit pleasure.

Emmanuel fished the name of the photo studio from his pocket and read it out loud. Chances were the worldly little guide with the stick legs couldn't read or write. The street was his cla.s.sroom.

"Carlos Fernandez Photography Studio. You know this place?"

The boy said, "I know all the places in Lorenzo Marques. I will take you for only fifty pence, baas."

Emmanuel handed twenty-five pence to the boy. "Half now, the other half when we reach the studio. Okay?"

"Come." The boy waved him along the seaside strip and past an array of ice cream vendors, grilled-corn sellers and trinket peddlers. The streets pulsed with life and Emmanuel relaxed for the first time since finding Captain Pretorius floating in the river.

They moved across a wide avenue bordered by flame trees and straggly jacarandas and then navigated the edges of an open-air market selling fresh fruit and fish. Further on, the little guide took a left, then a quick right before stopping in front of a nondescript building without a street number or business name to identify it. The front window display, an old-fas.h.i.+oned light box camera, positioned against a dusty, blue velvet drop curtain, gave the only indication of the building's purpose.

Emmanuel handed his guide the balance of his payment and pushed the door to the photo studio open. A corpulent Portuguese man sporting an oily black toupee and a half-dozen gold necklaces around his tire-wide neck sat behind the low wooden counter. He smiled and showed a mouth full of gold and silver fillings.

"How can I help?" The greasy fat man sounded as if his windpipe were lined with loose gravel.

"I'm here to collect for Willem Pretorius," Emmanuel said. "He's been detained and can't make this month's pickup."

The man stroked the quivering folds of his neck and pretended to think. "Pretorius? I don't recall that name."

"This is Fernandez Photo Studio, isn't it?" Emmanuel kept cool and kept pus.h.i.+ng.

"Of course. But I still do not recall the man you are collecting for."

"He's big, with a broken nose and short blond hair."