A Beautiful Place to Die Part 32

"Take a good look at it. Open it up and tell me if you see anything unusual about the contents."

Emmanuel cracked the yellow cover and made a show of checking the inside before closing the file and resting his hands on the folder.

"It's empty."

"Hear that, d.i.c.kie? It's empty." Ash from the lieutenant's cigarette fell onto the file but Emmanuel did nothing to remove it. "It's obvious to me now that Cooper was promoted quick smart because he's sharp. He's got it up here, in the kop, where it counts. Isn't that so, Detective Sergeant?"

Emmanuel shrugged. They weren't having a conversation. Lieutenant Lapping was running through the standard textbook interrogation warmup that demanded the interrogator make at least some attempt to extract information via voluntary confession. Beating suspects was h.e.l.l on the hands and the neck muscles, and from the look of him, Piet was coming off a heavy night in the police cells.

"I'm not angry." The lieutenant went down on his haunches like a hunter checking a spoor trail. "I just want to know how the f.u.c.k you managed to extract the contents of a confidential file while it was under lock and key."

Up close, Emmanuel saw the blue smudges of exhaustion under pockmarked Piet's eyes and smelled the gut-churning mix of blood and sweat coming off his person. It was a rank abattoir fug overlaid with the mild lavender perfume of a common brand of soap.

Emmanuel did his best not to pull back from the Security Branch officer. "Maybe district headquarters forgot to include them," he said.

Piet smiled, then took a deep drag of his cigarette. "See, with any other team of police, I'd buy that explanation. But this is my team and my team doesn't make mistakes."

"I'd go back to district headquarters and see who typed the report and posted the file," Emmanuel suggested.

"Done all that," Piet replied almost pleasantly. "And what I found was this. You, Detective Sergeant Cooper, were the person who helped the messenger sign the folder in to the police box when it arrived in town."

"I was being polite. One department of the police is supposed to help another department, isn't it?"

"My first thought is that your close friend van Niekerk tipped you off about what was in the folder. You knew the file was coming and somehow you managed to lift the contents. Did one of those spinsters at the post office let you into the police box? We've been too busy to ask them in person but I think an hour alone with me will get them to open up, so to speak."

The Security Branch operatives laughed at Piet's provocative turn of phrase and Emmanuel sensed the group's antic.i.p.ation at the possibility of questioning two country maids. Affable and trusting Miss Byrd with her fondness for feather hats. Five minutes in Lieutenant Lapping's company and she'd be broken for good.

"Why are you chasing postal clerks? I thought you had a Communist in the bag, ready to confess. Did something go wrong at the station?"

Piet's dark eyes were dead at the very center. "The first thing you will have to accept, Detective, is that I am smarter than you. I know you took those pages and I will find out how. I will also find out why."

"No confession, then? What a shame. Paul Pretorius was certain it would only take an hour or two for the suspect to open up, so to speak."

Piet smiled and the dark center of his pupils came alive with a bright flash of intent. "I promised d.i.c.kie that he could work on you if the time ever came, but I've changed my mind. I'm going to enjoy seeing you crack myself."

"Like you cracked the suspect at the station?" Emmanuel said. A Security Branch officer he might be, but Lieutenant Lapping had superiors to report to, generals and colonels hungry for a victory against enemies of the state.

Lieutenant Lapping blinked hard, twice, then got to his feet and strode to the doorway. He put his hand out and d.i.c.kie placed a brown paper envelope in it with a look that sent a chill down Emmanuel's back.

What the h.e.l.l did they have? It was good. It had to be. Keep calm, he told himself. You've been through a war. You've seen things that killed other men and you survived. What was there to be scared of?

"You know what's in here?" Piet held the envelope at eye level.

"I don't have a clue." Emmanuel found that he sounded calm despite the sick rolling of his stomach. What the h.e.l.l was in the envelope? Had they somehow gotten a new background report on him in the last fourteen hours?

Piet opened the envelope and extracted two photos, which he held up with schoolmarmish precision. "Tell me, Cooper, have you seen these images before?"

There wasn't time to slip the mask of indifference back into place. He tried to make sense of it, to see all the angles at the same time, but he couldn't get past the stark black-and-white images of Davida Ellis, first with her legs spread-eagled and then stretched out on the bed like a cat waiting to be stroked. His copies were halfway to Jo'burg, safely packed under a layer of pink plastic rollers in Delores Bunton's luggage. Unless...Unless the Security Branch had somehow intercepted his courier.

"So..." Piet ground his cigarette out with the heel of his shoe. "You have seen them before."

"Where did you get them?"

"We found them exactly where you left them. Under your pillow."

Was Piet telling the truth or just trying to catch him out in a lie? He had no idea and that was just the way the Security Branch boys liked it. Until he knew exactly where the photographs came from, he was going to play for time and information.

"What were you doing in my room?" he asked. "You looked through it the other day and didn't find anything."

"Some fresh information came to light." Piet signaled to d.i.c.kie, who took the photos, but remained standing by his partner's side. "Information concerning your personal tastes."

d.i.c.kie made a tutting sound and leered at the images of the woman: "That's two laws broken right there, Cooper. If it was a white woman or a light-skinned one, we might have turned a blind eye, but this...this is serious business."

"Where did you get the information from?" Emmanuel asked. It seemed that both d.i.c.kie and Piet were playing the personal angle. They were tying the photographs to his alleged perversions and not to the homicide investigation. Good. That meant the bundle of photos he'd sent off on the "Intundo Express" bus this morning were safe. The feeling of triumph pa.s.sed quickly. He was still in hot water: caught in possession of banned materials.

"Who told us about the photos, d.i.c.kie?"

"A little bird." d.i.c.kie replied as if the expression were something he'd just made up off the top of his head.

Emmanuel glanced at the photos. If his copies were safely on their way to van Niekerk in Jo'burg, then these images must have come from the safe in the captain's stone hut. It was the only logical explanation, and all the connections he'd made this morning pointed to the thief being the captain's youngest son.

"Was it pretty boy Louis who told you where to find the photos?" Emmanuel kept his eye on d.i.c.kie to see if the name and the description triggered a reaction. What he got wasn't a subtle clenching of the jawline but a teeth-baring snarl.

"How you can even mention his name after what you-"

"d.i.c.kie!" Piet interrupted. "I know this kind of activity upsets you but you must remove your personal feelings from the work. We are miners and it is our job to find the seam of gold in the dirt. You cannot let the dirt bother you."

"Activity"? The word stuck with Emmanuel. What activity would upset d.i.c.kie enough to warrant professional counseling from his superior officer in the middle of questioning? The answer made Emmanuel sit up straight. How deep was the hole the angelic-looking boy had dug for him?

"Louis says I molested him?"

"What exactly are you doing here in the shed, Cooper?"

"Gathering evidence." Emmanuel stemmed the rising panic. The blond boy had set a stunning trap baited with banned images and topped it off with an accusation guaranteed to outrage every red-blooded male in Jacob's Rest.

d.i.c.kie snorted. "A pervert looking for a pervert. That's a good one."

"Go back and stand with the others," Piet instructed his partner with a flex of his knotted shoulder muscles. "I'm too tired to question Sergeant Cooper and instruct you in the finer points of the work."

"But-"

Piet gave d.i.c.kie a look that sent him lumbering back to his corner, from where he glared at Emmanuel as if it were his fault that he'd been dismissed from the action.

"Well, which one is it?" Emmanuel asked. "Do I enjoy looking at dark girls or chasing white boys?"

"They're not mutually exclusive. You could have used the photographs to stimulate the interest of a boy who would otherwise find you unattractive. You get my drift?"

"Why the h.e.l.l would I choose to show an Afrikaner boy photographs of a coloured woman in order to arouse him? What kind of sense does that make?"

"Maybe those are the only photographs you could get hold of."

"We're policemen. Either one of us could get pictures of a white girl doing everything except f.u.c.king a gorilla. The cops and the criminals always have the best stuff, you know that."

"You're right." Piet patted his s.h.i.+rt pocket and extracted a squashed cigarette pack. "But that doesn't take Louis Pretorius's complaint away. A jury won't think about the finer points, like the race of the woman in the photos. The fact that it's a coloured woman will only get you more prison time."

Why had Louis exposed himself so openly? He must have known that planting the photos would finger him as the person who'd stolen the evidence from the stone hut and yet he'd done it anyway.

"Did Louis swear out a formal complaint against me in writing?" Emmanuel asked. How serious was Louis about keeping him hemmed down and out of action?

"Yes."

"Show it to me," Emmanuel said. The Security Branch men were in the middle of breaking the biggest case of their careers. Where did they find the time to pen a formal report on the matter of an English pervert attempting to corrupt an Afrikaner country boy? Small potatoes compared to getting a confession from a Communist Party member tied to the premeditated murder of a police captain married to Frikkie van Brandenburg's daughter.

"You don't get to ask us for anything," Piet said.

"Arrest me and charge me," Emmanuel said clearly, to make sure there was no confusion. He didn't believe they had more than Louis's verbal complaint, and that wasn't enough to hold a fellow white policeman behind bars. Right at this moment he had better things to do than provide a break for the exhausted Security Branch officers.

"You know what I think?" Piet said. "I think the file you stole had the dirt on you and your pal van Niekerk, on your mutual affection and your shared interest in boys. Penny to a pound, that's the reason he tipped you off about it."

"Why don't you call district headquarters and get them to tell you exactly what was in the file, or is it a bad time to admit you lost the pages? No confession and no file. Your superiors will be pleased to hear that."

There was movement at the door and d.i.c.kie shuffled aside to let the moonfaced policeman in the badly cut suit into the shed.

"Ja?" Piet gave the newcomer permission to speak.

"It's been an hour, Lieutenant. You said to find you and alert you of the time."

Piet checked his watch with a weary shake of his head. Where had the minutes gone? "You are free to leave, Cooper, but before you go, I should warn you about something."

Emmanuel waited for the threat. He wasn't about to play second fiddle in Piet's grand orchestration of events by asking him to specify the nature of the warning.

"Louis came to the station and complained to his brother about your...attentions. You're lucky we were there to stop Paul Pretorius and the rest from coming after you straightaway. I can't make any promises regarding your safety because we have more important things to attend to at the moment."

The Security Branch officers regained some of their spark. They were letting him go because he was a minor impediment to the smooth running of their investigation. An hour to shake the tree for the information about the missing file contents and Louis's allegations was all they'd allowed while Moonface kept watch on the real prize back at the police cells. G.o.d knows what position they'd left the young man from Fort Bennington College in while they took a quick break: strung up by his thumbs or suffocating in a wet post office canvas bag?

"Has it ever occurred to you," Emmanuel said, "that the man at the station hasn't confessed to the murder because he isn't the killer?"

Piet turned on him. "The kaffir was at the river at the same time and the same place as Captain Pretorius. We have the right man and by nightfall we'll have a signed confession. What have you got, Cooper? Some sad pictures of a coloured wh.o.r.e and a whole family of Afrikaner men ready to skin you alive. You were only on the case because Major van Niekerk was desperate for a piece of the action, and now it is time for you to f.u.c.k off and let us get on with our jobs. You are way out of your depth. Understand?"

"Perfectly," Emmanuel said. How would he end the day: beaten and kicked to s.h.i.+t by the Pretorius brothers or with the killer behind bars? A betting man would lay two to one on a beating. The only unknown factors were the time and the severity of the punishment.

The shed emptied. The wide stretch of the veldt spread all the way to the horizon. How was he going to find one boy in all that s.p.a.ce?

The call, a series of short whistles followed by a soft coo, was nothing Emmanuel had ever heard before. He stepped onto the kaffir path, and the birdcall repeated with a loud insistence that caught and held his attention for a second time. A thick tangle of green scrub stirred and Shabalala materialized from the underbrush like a phantom. The Zulu constable stood to his full height and waved toward the bush with an insistence that seemed to say "run like h.e.l.l," so Emmanuel did. He ran across gra.s.s and dirt, followed now by the sound of male voices in the captain's garden. He was level with the wild hedge when Shabalala grabbed him and threw him down to the ground.

Emmanuel tasted dust and felt his shoulder spasm with pain as he was held down on the ground by the Zulu's powerful hands.

"Shhh..." Shabalala put his finger to his lips and pointed in the direction of the captain's shed.

Emmanuel peered through the slender gap Shabalala had made in the bush cover. The Pretorius brothers were in the empty shed, searching for the English detective who'd tried to corrupt their baby brother. Henrick and Paul were the first ones out onto the kaffir path, rifles slung across their backs in a show of armed strength.

"f.u.c.k." Paul spoke the word with venom, his frustration evident in the hard set of his shoulders.

"He can't have gone far." Henrick was calmer. "Take Johannes and go round the hospital and the coloured houses. Erich and I will go this direction past the shops. We'll meet up behind Kloppers."

"What if he's not on the kaffir path? What if he's gone bush?"

"Englishmen from the city don't go bush." Henrick was dismissive. "He'll be in town, hiding somewhere like a rat."

Johannes, the quiet foot soldier of the Pretorius corps, stepped out of the shed with his hands sunk deep into his pockets. "The motorbike. It's gone but I don't see how. Louis is still waiting for the part to come from Jo'burg."

"We're not looking for the f.u.c.king motorbike." Paul turned his frustrations onto his brother. "We're trying to find that detective."

"Well, he's not in the shed." Erich joined the musclebound trio. "He must have heard us coming and taken off into the veldt."

"If he's out there he won't last long," Henrick said. "First we'll check the kaffir path and then The Protea Guesthouse. If we don't find him, we'll have a sit-down and decide which houses to search."

The brothers split up and moved along the gra.s.s path in opposite directions. Only Johannes appeared uncertain as to the purpose of their mission. He gave the empty shed one last puzzled glance before following Paul in a quick march toward the Grace of G.o.d Hospital.

The hunting party began their first sweep of the town. The Pretorius boys had taken the law into their own hands and no one was going to stop them.

"How am I going to find Louis and dodge his brothers at the same time?" Emmanuel wondered aloud. The smallness of the town made it impossible to escape the Pretorius family, and the unbroken stretch of veldt made it unlikely that the boy could be found without an army of searchers.

"We will find him," Shabalala said.

Emmanuel turned to the Zulu policeman; Shabalala needed to know exactly how deep the water was before he stepped into it. "Louis has told his brothers that I interfered with him. It is not true, but the brothers believe him, and if you are caught with me, they will punish you also."

"Look." The black man shrugged off the warning and pointed to a shallow dip carved into the ground and camouflaged by the thick brush. Inside the hollow was a can wrapped in oilskin cloth. He pulled out the package and handed it over for inspection. Emmanuel unwrapped the can and sniffed at the still-damp oilskin wrapping.

"Petrol," he said. "Louis's?"

"I think the young one kept it here to fill his motorbike. The can is empty."

"Mathandunina is planning to travel," Emmanuel said. The international border was just a few miles away. If Louis slipped across to Mozambique it would take months to track him, and that was if the Mozambican police decided to cooperate. "Can you point the direction Louis is headed in?"

"I can find where the young one has gone," Shabalala said without arrogance. "I will go to the shed and follow the tracks. You must follow me out here on the veldt. It is not good for you to be on the path."

"Agreed," Emmanuel said, and the Zulu constable walked to the deserted shed and stood for a while, examining the prints in the sand. He turned in the direction of the Grace of G.o.d Hospital and set off at a measured pace. Louis hadn't taken off across the veldt in a haze of petrol fumes and churned gra.s.s like an impulsive teenager blowing off steam. He had stuck close to the outer edge of the town for some reason. And, Emmanuel figured, there had to be one: everything Louis had done so far was planned and thought out. The boy was slippery enough to fool his own father about the motorbike-an impressive task when you considered just how secretive and two-faced the captain had been. Like father, like son.

Emmanuel picked up his pace to catch up with Shabalala, who followed the trail to the edge of the Sports Club playing fields. They crossed from the white side of Jacob's Rest to the rows of coloured houses and then the paths that led north to the black location. Where the h.e.l.l was Louis headed?

The buildings of the hospital came into view. Emmanuel and Shabalala sidled past the morgue and the nonwhite's wing. It was the same stretch of the kaffir path where the captain had parked when he came to pick up Davida Ellis for their last outdoor frolic-and where Donny Rooke had had the bad luck to be at the same time.

The distinctive line of gum trees that marked Granny Mariah's property was visible up ahead and to the left. A memory stirred and Emmanuel moved faster. He had good reason to know this place as well. It was here, within sight of that back fence, that he'd encountered the watchful human presence breathing in the darkness.