Let the Dead Lie (26 page)
'Not
as long as we have the Russians.' Van Niekerk sprang to his feet and pulled a
casement window open. Cool night air rushed into the room and he leaned out and
yelled, 'Barnaby, come here quick.'
The
black nightwatchman ran onto the wide veranda and crouched down.
'Yebo, Inkosi.'
'Lock
the gates,' van Niekerk said. 'Don't let anyone in unless I give the okay. You
understand? No one.'
'I
will do it.' Barnaby took off across the lawns and seconds later the shudder of
the huge gates scraping over gravel could be heard.
The
major retrieved the silver chain and unlocked a dark wood sideboard with the
largest of the keys. Handguns, single- and double-barrelled shotguns and two
wood-and-steel crossbows were stored on specially designed racks.
'Personal
security concerns?' Emmanuel asked dryly.
'I
hunt.' Van Niekerk selected a pearl-handled Colt and a leather hip holster from
the munitions buffet. He holstered the weapon before locking the cabinet, which
had originally been designed to hold heirloom china. 'That
soutpiel
has no idea who he is dealing with.'
'We
have the Russians, we have guns and we have high walls,' Emmanuel said. 'But
there's no point in us digging in. We need names and faces if we're going to
get out of this. We need to know who we're up against.'
'Let's
start with the obvious suspects.' The major opened a black book, found an entry
and dialled. It took a while for the person at the other end to pick up.
'Howzit,
Tonk?' The conversation continued in Afrikaans, the language of Emmanuel's
childhood and of his secrets and fears. He rarely spoke it now. Durban offered
few opportunities to practise the Taal and Emmanuel did not miss it, despite
the fact that certain words and phrases came first in Afrikaans and had to be
translated back into English in his head. The Dutch language belonged to his
father and that was enough to sour the use of it for all time.
Van
Niekerk hung up the phone.
'It
wasn't the Security Branch,' he said. 'They have nothing till next Friday and
that's a raid on a union organiser's house in Cato Manor. Could the men at
Hélène's have been regular police?'
'I
don't think so. Detective Head Constable Robinson and Detective Constable
Fletcher were staked out in front of Jolly Marks's home this afternoon. They
stuck by the rules for my release. The men outside Hélène's house weren't
playing that game.'
'Someone
with rank and information is pointing the way.' Van Niekerk shuffled the books
around and reordered them, mentally scanning the contents for information. 'A
policeman. I'm sure of it.'
'A
professional.' Emmanuel told the major about the black Dodge from the shooting
on the Bluff and the calculated nature of the attack. 'The man in the Dodge must
have known the location of Hélène Gerard's house before the incident on the
Bluff because there's no way we were tailed back there.'
'That's
not possible ... I was the only one with that information, Cooper.'
'Maybe
not.' Emmanuel sat up straight. 'The tradesman from the interrogation room. He
bailed out a half block from the station. He could have followed us to
Hélène's. It was a simple tag-and-release operation: let a suspect walk free
and see where he goes. Detectives use the same technique. Only this time it was
used on us.'
Van
Niekerk ran his finger over the list of names in the Point surveillance
notebook. The lamplight was bright enough to pick up the glimmer of pleasure in
his eyes.
'I'm
going to call some of my contacts and try to get the albino's real name,' he
said. 'You talk to the Russians and find out who they are and what they're
doing in Durban. We still need to figure out who killed Jolly Marks and the two
women. Have you got anything?'
'One
more suspect - an American street preacher with no surname or address. Haven't
seen him since earlier this afternoon. He might have gone to ground.'
'Find
him. We need a head to slip in the noose for those murders,' the major said
coolly.
Three
knocks rattled the office door.
'Come,'
van Niekerk said and Lana dashed into the room dressed in the white silk
dressing-gown she'd worn earlier. The neckline billowed open and a slender hand
plucked the lapels closed.
'It's
the old man,' she said. 'He's soaked with sweat and his face is like ash. We
need a doctor.'
'Not
good,' van Niekerk muttered and reached for the first of the leatherbound books
on the desktop. 'My medical contacts are all in Jo'burg. I've got one name on
the Durban list but he'll be drunk till noon.'
Emmanuel
took that information in. Without Nicolai, the men behind the clandestine
operation would melt away but the three murder charges would stick. A hole had
been torn into the breast pocket of Vincent Gerard's silk jacket and a paper
edge poked out. Emmanuel pulled out the stained postcard and read the scrawled
invitation again.
'I
know a man,' he said.
NINETEEN
The dawn sky was
the colour of a fresh bruise. Electric streetlights turned off in the city as
the citizens of Durban rolled out of bed and into Monday morning. Emmanuel stood
alone in the green blur of van Niekerk's garden. There was much to be thankful
for. A phone call had confirmed that Vincent and Hélène Gerard were shaken but
unharmed. Nicolai was still alive and the major was working through his stack
of black books in an attempt to pin down the identity of the tradesman. Still,
he was uneasy. Dragging Daniel Zweigman from his medical clinic in the Valley
of a Thousand Hills was selfish. The old Jew had saved his life once and it had
put him in danger. To ask for help a second time was greedy
The heavy gates
swung open and a dusty Bedford truck and a black Packard rumbled into the
driveway. Emmanuel crossed the lawn and arrived at the front stairs moments
after the truck's engine cut. A small man with white volcano hair in full
eruption clambered out the driver's door clutching a battered doctor's kit.
Wire-rimmed glasses perched at the end of an aquiline nose. It was Zweigman in
all his glory.
'Dr
Zweigman,' Emmanuel said.
'Detective
Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper.' The German's voice retained its characteristic
dryness. 'Perhaps it will also snow today.'
They
observed each other in silence. Emmanuel resisted the urge to brush the creases
from the jacket and trousers of his battered silk suit. A cut cheek and
discoloured neck muscles told their own story. Zweigman pushed his smudged
glasses up with an index finger and Emmanuel saw that his hands, fine
instruments of healing, were now calloused and rough. Lean times had found them
both.
Zweigman
smiled. 'To be alive is the victory, Detective.'
'Good
to see you,' Emmanuel said and meant it. The dishevelled German had put him
back together after the Security Branch beating and made sure that only a few
scars remained. 'Sorry to drag you from the clinic on short notice.'
'It
is no matter,' Zweigman said. 'The clinic is only open three days a week until
more funds can be found for a nurse and more medicine. Your timing could not be
better. Now, I have a surprise for you. Around here.'
Emmanuel
edged along the front of the Bedford's paint-flecked hood, still steaming with
heat from the rough drive. A towering black man with broad shoulders rounded
the bumper from the passenger side. He wore blue work pants and a long-sleeved
cotton shirt under a khaki jacket.
'Shabalala,'
Emmanuel said.
'Sawubona.'
The
Zulu constable from Jacob's Rest and his right-hand man on the controversial
investigation into the murder of an Afrikaner police captain was directly in
front of him and larger than life.
'Yebo. Sawubona,
Sergeant Cooper.' Shabalala said,
returning the greeting and they shook hands.
'What
are you doing here, man?' Emmanuel said. Hundreds of miles of dirt and tarred
roads separated the tiny outpost of Jacob's Rest in the Transvaal and the port
city of Durban.
'I
have come from the clinic,' Shabalala said. 'My wife, Lizzie, and I are staying
with the doctor.'
It
would have taken Shabalala and his wife two days of hard travel on ailing
public buses with cornbread and boiled eggs wrapped in cloth for sustenance on
the journey. Emmanuel pushed away the feeling of shame. The Valley of a
Thousand Hills was an easy two-hour drive from Stamford Hill. Only now,
desperate, had he contacted the man who'd saved his life.
'Come.'
Emmanuel invited them both into van Niekerk's house. 'We'll get a coffee and
I'll fill you in.'
'Good,'
Zweigman said. 'Our official escort was not forthcoming with information.'
'He
was probably under orders not to say anything,' Emmanuel explained as he
climbed the stairs to the porch. The driver, one of van Niekerk's men from the
coronation party, probably didn't know very much anyway. The major was a master
at keeping his own counsel.
Emmanuel
swung the door open. Zweigman stepped into the hallway but Shabalala hesitated
on the threshold. This was not the kind of house where natives normally entered
via the front.
'In,'
Emmanuel said to the Zulu constable. 'The kitchen is out the back.'
'Please,'
Shabalala insisted. Tradition demanded that European policemen enter before
native ones, no matter what their rank. 'You must go first, Sergeant Cooper.'
They
entered the house where Zweigman examined a gilt-framed portrait of a sallow
white man with thin, cruel lips. An early van Niekerk, no doubt, already
calculating his share of South Africa's resources. A telephone rang in the office
and Major van Niekerk's voice could be heard firing questions in Afrikaans.
Lana had disappeared upstairs.
'I
need your help,' Emmanuel said to Zweigman over coffee in the light-filled
kitchen. Shabalala stood at a back window and sipped tea while contemplating
the profusion of colours in the garden.
'Medical?'
Zweigman asked.
'Yes,
but not for me. I've two people who need to be examined.'
'Gunshot?
Knife wounds?'
'What
makes you think it's either of those?'
Zweigman
laughed and indicated the opulent house. 'Who knows what company you keep these
days, Detective?'
'Yebo,'
Shabalala said. 'Very fine suit,
too, Sergeant.'
'The
suit belongs to a French-Mauritian. The house belongs to a police major.'
'The
clothes are irrelevant,' Zweigman said. 'It's your eyes that have changed. I
think maybe your life also.'
'Well,
you're exactly the same.' Emmanuel was irritated by Zweigman's ability to
ignore the surface scars and push a careless finger into the deeper ones. 'You
obviously have less money but you're still too clever for your own good.'
'My
curse and yours also.' Zweigman drained his coffee and soaped and scrubbed up
over the porcelain sink. He dried his hands with a towel brought in earlier by
one of van Niekerk's silent army of domestics. 'Now, please show me to my
patients.'
'This
way.' Emmanuel exited the kitchen and crossed the corridor to the guest
bedroom. He knocked gently.
'Da?'
Natalya appeared in the doorway,
sleep tossed and dressed in one of van Niekerk's Egyptian cotton dressing-gowns.
She ignored Emmanuel and sat down at a small table set with a breakfast of tea,
boiled eggs and buttered toast soldiers. Nicolai was propped up in bed, pale
and damp with sweat.
'Well,'
Zweigman said in surprise.
'This
is Nicolai Petrov and his wife, Natalya,' Emmanuel said. 'Recently arrived from
Russia.'
'Ahh
. . .' Zweigman digested that information. 'Any English?'
'None
for the girl except the word "American". Nicolai knows enough to hold
a conversation.'
'I
will see what the problem is.' The old Jew moved to the bed with the battered
medical bag tucked under his arm. 'I am Dr Daniel Zweigman. You are Nicolai?'
'Yes.'
"This
beautiful woman is your wife?' Zweigman bowed low to Natalya and was rewarded
with a dazzling smile.
The
German doctor and the Russian shook hands and some kind of recognition passed
between them. They were both men who had once been powerful and had a taste for
beautiful young women. And both were far, far from home.
'I'll
leave you to it,' Emmanuel said. 'Come through to the front porch when you're
done.'
'Fifteen
minutes, maybe more.' Zweigman snapped open his medical kit and removed a
stethoscope and a glass thermometer.
Emmanuel
backed into the corridor and closed the door. For a brief moment he'd caught a
glimpse of the old Zweigman, the specialist surgeon with degrees lining the
wall of a plush office in Berlin. He trusted him completely, would even trust
him with his sister's life, but it occurred to Emmanuel that he didn't know the
secretive German doctor at all.
