A Beautiful Place to Die Part 28

Paul Pretorius stood up and closed the gap between them with his slow swagger. "So." The hulking soldier smiled at him for the first time in their acquaintance. It was an unpleasant sight. "How does it feel to be at the a.r.s.e end of the investigation, Detective Sergeant?"

"You've got a confession from the suspect?" Emmanuel said.

"Another hour or two and it'll be done," Paul said, stroking the bristles on his chin to emphasize how long a night it had been for those at the center of power. "I tell you what, those boys inside know what they're doing."

"They're sure he's the one?"

"Absolutely. And you thought Pa's killer was some degenerate white man. Looks like you'll have to run back to Jo'burg with empty pockets. Shame, hey?"

Emmanuel knew just the thing to wipe the smile off Paul Pretorius's face: a single image of the respected white police captain nursing a giant hard-on in a coloured woman's bed. That would do the trick. It was just as well the packet of p.o.r.nographic photographs was on its way to van Niekerk and well out of his reach.

"The constables aren't here?" He continued with the conversation as if the arrogant Pretorius son hadn't taken the whip to him. Paul was destined to find out the truth about his father one day, and Emmanuel hoped he'd be there to witness the moment.

"Hansie's out with his girl, and Shabalala I haven't seen." Paul Pretorius strolled back toward the group of men seated in the shade with a shrug that implied he had more important things to do now that he was finished baiting a detective with no power and no credibility.

Emmanuel moved onto the kaffir path. He had to find Shabalala and explain to him that protecting Willem Pretorius's memory was a waste of time. With enough pressure he might even be able to find out the ident.i.ty of the mystery woman in the photos.

At the juncture of the kaffir path and the main street he spotted Constable Hepple nestling close to a hugely bet.i.tted brunette with milkmaid's arms. It was the girl from the churchyard: the one Hansie had targeted after the captain's funeral. The lovebirds didn't notice him until he was almost on them.

"Detective Sergeant." Hansie sprang back and straightened his jacket over his slim boy hips. "I...I didn't see you."

"You were busy," Emmanuel replied, and the girl made a hasty attempt to straighten the neckline of her dress. "Do you know where Constable Shabalala is?"

"The location." Hansie's breath was short and his color high. "Lieutenant Lapping said for him to come back tomorrow."

"Lieutenant said Hansie could have the day off as well." The girl's work-worn hands fluttered up over her enormous b.r.e.a.s.t.s to stroke the diamond center of her necklace. "We were going for a walk."

Emmanuel pointed to the necklace nestled in the girl's cleavage. "That's an unusual design. Can I take a closer look?"

"Of course." The milkmaid flushed with self-importance and lifted her chin to allow a better view. "It's real gold and diamonds."

"A flower," Emmanuel said, and examined the gold petals set with a sparkling diamond stamen. It was the necklace worn by the brown-skinned woman in the captain's flesh extravaganza. Hansie shuffled closer, intent on protecting his girl from the big-city detective's attentions. Emmanuel ignored him. The farm girl's mammaries were important only because their eye-popping size ruled her out as the model in the photos.

Emmanuel's brain leapt from one bizarre scenario to the next in an attempt to explain the appearance of the gold flower around the neck of an Afrikaner brunette. Did Captain Pretorius have a multicolored harem of women he rewarded with identical gold flower necklaces?

"Where did you get the necklace?" he asked.

"Hansie." The girl beamed at her idiot boyfriend. "He gave it to me just now."

That explained the sweaty clinch. It wasn't every day a farm girl was given an expensive piece of jewelry to flash around.

"You've got good taste, Constable." Emmanuel placed his hand on Hansie's shoulder and moved him farther onto the kaffir path. "Where did you get the necklace?"

The boy tensed at the serious tone and sc.r.a.ped the toe of his boot into the sandy path.

"I don't remember."

"Tell me."

"I...I found it."

"Where?"

The constable's cornflower-blue eyes filled with tears just as they had when the Pretorius brothers made a move to beat the daylights out of him at the crime scene.

"By the river. On the path leading to the veldt."

Emmanuel regretted not letting the Pretorius boys give Hansie a solid pounding. It was more than the imbecile policeman deserved.

"You're talking about the riverbank where the captain was found?"

"Ja." Tears rolled down the constable's face and dripped onto his starched uniform. His mother was going to have to spot clean the fabric this evening.

"The necklace was on the path the boys used to get back to the location?" Emmanuel clarified the facts and struggled to stop his fingers digging into the flesh of Hansie's shoulder. Surely the National Party government realized that giving a uniform to a boy like this was the same as giving it to a monkey?

"Ja, on that path."

"Why didn't you call me to look at this unusual thing?"

Hansie chewed on his thumbnail and gave the question his best efforts. It was an excruciating exercise to watch. "Well...A woman's necklace has nothing to do with the captain dying. I mean...it would be like a woman was there with him...and...there wasn't a woman with him, so...because...Captain wasn't like that."

"Hepple." Emmanuel dropped his hand from the young man's shoulder and rifled in his jacket pocket for the car keys. "That necklace is evidence. You have until this afternoon to get it back from your girlfriend and give it to me. You understand?"

"But...she...she really likes it."

"This afternoon," Emmanuel said, and made for the Packard. He had an idea now of what Shabalala was hiding and why the Zulu policeman was covering up for his boyhood friend, Willem Pretorius.

He ran through the unplanned maze of dilapidated dwellings, on the lookout for the pink door that he was told marked the Zulu constable's house. He found it and pounded twice. The door swung open and Shabalala stepped back in surprise.

"A woman was with him," Emmanuel said. "There was a woman with Captain Pretorius at the riverbank on the night he was shot."

"It rained and many of the marks-"

"Don't give me that rubbish, I'm not buying it today. You're a tracker. You knew Pretorius wasn't alone that night."

The Zulu-Shangaan made an effort to speak and when that failed, he reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a blank-faced envelope, which he handed over without saying a word.

"What's this?"

"Read it, please, nkosana."

Emmanuel tore the envelope open and extracted a folded piece of paper with two lines of text written on the lined face. He read the words out loud. "'The captain had a little wife. This wife was with him at the river when he died.'"

"You were the one who sent me to King's farm," Emmanuel said. He recognized the hand. It made sense now. The person who'd left the note ran like no one he'd ever seen, ran with a relentless stride that had left him gasping for breath out on the veldt. Captain Pretorius and Shabalala stirred the hearts of the old people as they crossed the length and breadth of the Pretorius farm without stopping, without drinking. Like so many white men, Emmanuel thought, I was beaten by a warrior of the Zulu impi.

"What happened that night on the riverbank? I'm not going to tell the Pretorius family or the other policemen. So go ahead and just say it."

Shabalala paused as if he couldn't bear to put into words the things he'd kept bottled up for so long.

"The captain and the little wife were together on the blanket. Captain was shot and fell forward. The little wife, she struggled from under him and ran on the sand to the path and then the man pulled the captain to the water. This is all I know."

"Christ above, man. Why didn't you tell me straightaway?"

"The captain's sons. They would not like to hear these things. None of the Afrikaners would like to hear this story."

The Pretorius boys were the unofficial lawmakers in Jacob's Rest. Anton and his burned garage were an example of the rough justice they meted out to offenders. What chance did a black policeman stand against the mighty hand of the Pretorius family?

"I understand," Emmanuel said.

Shabalala had to live in Jacob's Rest. Writing unsigned notes was the simplest way for him to help the investigation and stay out of harm's way. It was better and safer for everyone involved if a white out-of-town detective was the one to uncover the truth about the captain.

"Detective Sergeant." The Zulu constable motioned to the back of the house. "Please."

Emmanuel followed Shabalala through the neat sitting room into the kitchen. A black woman stood near a table. She looked up with a concerned expression but did not make a sound.

Shabalala led Emmanuel through the back door. They took seats on either side of a small card table. In the yard behind Shabalala's house there was a chicken coop and a traditional kraal for keeping animals overnight. Behind the kraal the property fell away to the banks of a meandering stream.

Both men looked toward the distant hills as they talked. The serious business of undressing Captain Pretorius could not be done face-to-face.

"Do you know who the woman is?"

"No," Shabalala said. "Captain told me of the little wife but not who she was."

Emmanuel sank back in his chair. He'd had about enough of Willem Pretorius's fire walls. Why didn't he boast about his conquests like a normal man?

"What did he tell you about the girlfriend?"

"He said he had taken a little wife from among the coloured people and that the little wife had given him...um..." The pause lengthened as Shabalala sought the most polite way to translate the captain's words.

"Pleasure? Power?" Emmanuel prompted.

"Strength. The little wife gave him new strength."

"Why do you call her 'little wife'?" He'd seen the photographs and there wasn't one thing in them that his own ex-wife, Angela, would have agreed to do.

"She was a proper little wife," Shabalala stated. "The captain paid lobola for her, as is the custom."

"Whom did he pay the bride-price to?"

"Her father."

"You're telling me a man, a coloured man, agreed to exchange his daughter for cattle?" He leaned toward Shabalala. Did the Zulu policeman really believe such a far-fetched story?

"Captain told me this is what he did. He had respect for the old ways. He would not take a second wife without first paying lobola. This I believe."

"Yes, well. I'm sure the white Mrs. Pretorius will be delighted to hear her husband was such a stickler for the rules."

"No. The missus would not like to hear this." Shabalala was deadly serious.

The sound of a woman's voice singing in a far-off field carried back on the breeze. Spread out before them, a great span of gra.s.sland ran toward distant hills. This was one Africa, inhabited by black men and women who still understood and accepted the old ways. Five miles south in Jacob's Rest another Africa existed on parallel lines. What made Willem Pretorius think he could live in both places at the same time?

"We have to find this woman." Emmanuel pulled the Mozambican calendar from his pocket and laid it on the small table between them. The time for secrets was over. "She was the last person to see Pretorius alive and maybe she can tell us what he was doing on these particular days."

Shabalala studied the calendar. "The captain was in Mooihoek on the Monday and Tuesday before he died but he did not leave the town on the other days."

"What do you think those red markings mean? Did he go somewhere for a few days each month?"

"No. He went to Mooihoek to buy station supplies and sometimes to Mozambique and Natal with his family but not every month."

"These markings mean something." Emmanuel sensed another dead end coming up. "If Pretorius was doing something illegal...smuggling goods or meeting up with an a.s.sociate...would you have known?"

"I think so, yes."

"And was he doing anything like that?"

Shabalala shook his head. "Captain did not do anything against the law."

"You don't think the Immorality Act counts?" Emmanuel was amazed by the tenacious respect Shabalala still held for his dead friend. Of all the people in Jacob's Rest, Shabalala had earned the right to be cynical about Willem Pretorius, the lying, adulterous white man.

"He paid lobola. A man may take many wives if he pays the bride-price. That is the law of the Zulu."

"Pretorius wasn't a Zulu. He was an Afrikaner."

Shabalala pointed to his chest just above the heart. "Here. Inside. He was as a Zulu."

"Then I'm surprised he wasn't killed sooner."

There was a shuffle at the back door and the round-faced, round-bottomed woman from the kitchen carried a tea tray onto the stoep and set it down on the table.

"Detective Sergeant Cooper, this is my wife, Lizzie."

"Unjani, mama."

Emmanuel shook hands with the woman in the traditional Zulu way, by holding his right wrist with his left hand as a sign of his respect. The woman's smile lit up the stoep and half the location with its warmth. She was a fraction of her husband's height but in every way his equal.

"You have good manners." Her graying hair gave her the authority to speak where a younger woman would have stayed silent. She gave the calendar a thorough look-over.

"My wife is a schoolteacher." Shabalala tried to find an excuse for his wife's inquisitive behavior. "She teaches all the subjects."

Lizzie touched her husband's broad shoulder. "Nkosana, may I see you in the other room for just a moment, please?"

There was an awkward silence before the Zulu policeman stood up and followed his wife into the house. It didn't do well for a woman to interrupt men's business. The murmur of their voices spilled out from the kitchen. Emmanuel sipped his tea. How Captain Pretorius arranged the purchase of a second wife was not as important as finding the woman herself. She was the key to everything.

Shabalala came back out onto the stoep but remained standing. He tugged on an earlobe.