Let the Dead Lie (34 page)

Amal
hesitated then approached the stair. His mother shuffled over to make room. He
sat beside her and all three kept the silence. Parthiv passed the cigarette
back to his mother. She drew on it deeply and passed it to Amal. The baby of
the Dutta family inhaled and coughed when the smoke hit his lungs. Tears ran
down his face. Maataa did not laugh and Parthiv did not call him a weakling.
They sat and finished the cigarette.

Amal
was going to be all right, Emmanuel thought. And Parthiv had been handed a
real-life lesson in what it took to be a hard man. He would never walk with
quite the same swagger or lecture Amal on the fine points of criminality quite
so often. The Dutta family might even emerge stronger from this defeat.

'What
now?' Zweigman asked when the Bedford truck came into view. The street bustled
with human traffic pouring away from the accident scene.

'We're
going to have a talk with Khan,' Emmanuel said.

"This
man will talk?' Shabalala sounded doubtful.

'We'll
find a way,' Emmanuel said.

He
caught sight of Robinson and Fletcher across the street. They were still
talking to the prostitute. She'd stopped crying and her body was rigid with
tension. Khan's bodyguard leaned against the wall of a coffee shop two
buildings further up and looked on.

'I
told you.' The prostitute's voice was shrill and her fingers twisted the gold
chain that hung around her neck. 'He said he'd find me and cut me.'

The
expression on both detectives' faces was a mixture of boredom and contempt.
Being a policeman meant talking to liars every day of the week. Good ones. The
whore was terrible at it.

Emmanuel
checked his watch. Less than three hours was left before van Niekerk's deal
expired. Still, he was impressed by Fletcher's and Robinson's perseverance.
They knew something was wrong and they weren't ready to walk away. The truth
mattered to them.

'Let's
go to Khan's office.' Emmanuel turned back to Zweigman and Shabalala. 'His
bodyguard is across the street there keeping an eye on the witness. That's one
less obstacle to deal with.'

The
Alsatian dogs could be heard around a corner. The Point was crawling with armed
policemen as the mop-up of natives continued. They moved closer to the row of
two- storey terraces where the Bedford was parked. Driveways split off the main
road and led to warehouses. A Rolls- Royce Silver Wraith was parked in the
loading dock of Abel Mellon - Dry Goods Wholesaler.

Emmanuel
walked past the car and stopped when they were across the driveway and shielded
by the walls of the next building. 'That's Khan's car in the loading dock,' he
said to Zweigman and Shabalala. 'I think he's in it.'

'With
all the police?' Shabalala said. 'That man is without fear.'

Emmanuel
thought about it for a moment. It was an odd place for a well-known Indian
gangster to park his Rolls.

Even
Bergis Morgensen was able to identify Khan's car. A more cautious man would
have stayed away.

'Maybe
Khan has nothing to be afraid of,' Emmanuel said and took the stolen notebook
from his pocket. He opened it to the letter 'A'. 'What did Amal say about the
policeman Khan threatened to call?'

'He
had a British Raj name,' Zweigman said.

'With
two surnames,' Shabalala added.

Emmanuel
scanned the entries, which were sparse and written in a sloping hand. Anderson.
Advani. Absolem. He moved on through the Bs and Cs without finding a
double-barrelled surname. The last name in the C listings, scribbled hastily in
pencil, caught his attention and he read it aloud: 'Detective Sergeant Emmanuel
Cooper'.

Had
Khan known who he was all along or was the entry more recent? He kept flicking
through the alphabet. Time was winding down. Smith. Saunders.
Sidhu...

'Here.'
Shabalala pointed to an entry written along the vertical length of the page
margin. Emmanuel turned the book sideways to read the name scribbled in black
ink.

'Edward
Soames-Fitzpatrick.' He smiled. 'Now that's a British Raj name.'

'What
is that?' Shabalala pointed to a squiggle of letters that had been added to the
front of the name, almost as an afterthought. The writing was smudged and
almost illegible. Emmanuel tried and failed to make sense of the scrawl.

'May
I?' Zweigman said and politely took the book. 'I have long experience reading
my own handwriting.' The doctor pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose
and peered at the letters like a gypsy reading tea leaves. 'Col,' he said.
'C-O-L.'

'Colonel
Edward Soames-Fitzpatrick,' Emmanuel said. Yes, that matched what van Niekerk
had said about the voice on the phone: an officious little shit who thought a
Dutch policeman and an ex-detective could be used and then dumped. A
soutpiel.
Emmanuel closed the phone book, thought again, thumbed to the letter V but did
not find van Niekerk's name.

'Let's
go get this bastard,' he said.

'With
what weapons?' Shabalala asked.

Coming
to battle without guns had been the ruin of the mighty Zulu army.

'This
book.'

Emmanuel,
Shabalala and Zweigman approached the parked Rolls-Royce almost shoulder to
shoulder. The rear window of the luxury car was open and smoke drifted out from
the interior. Khan was home. Two black employees of Abel Mellon Dry Goods sat
on the loading dock enjoying a cup of tea and a bag of fried fat cakes. They watched
the odd trio for a moment and then went back inside the building.

Emmanuel
slammed the phone book against the passenger window of the Rolls. 'Is this
yours, Khan?' he asked. 'My friends wanted to take the book to the police
station but I convinced them to talk to you first.'

A
lock clicked. The silver door opened. Emmanuel stepped aside and waited for the
cloud of smoke to clear. Chocolate wrappers littered the carpeted floor of the
limousine and the scent of cannabis bud was strong. Khan's eyes were bloodshot
and hooded.

'You're
supposed to be gone and gone,' he said.

'Not
yet.' Emmanuel peered into the Rolls. The Indian gangster was alone. He must
have started smoking the moment he knew Giriraj was dead.

'Move
over,' Emmanuel said.

Khan
paused and then scooted across the leather seat. Emmanuel climbed in but kept
the door open to the fresh air, and to Shabalala and Zweigman, who watched the
main street for the arrival of the detective branch.

'You
threw Giriraj to the dogs,' Emmanuel said. 'What was that worth to you?'

Khan's
eyes darkened. 'In this country,' he said, 'a man like me has to make his own
luck. Where's the reward for being good if you are non-white? I will never be
able to live in the Berea or sit on a bench on the Esplanade.'

'The
government made you into a criminal?' Emmanuel didn't believe that for a
moment. Fascist dictatorship or ballot-box-stuffing democracy, men like Khan
fed off human weakness for personal gain. 'What exactly did you get for
Giriraj?'

Khan
lit up another hand-rolled cigarette and leaned back into the leather. 'Giriraj
was worth two trading licences in Zululand and one here on Marine Parade.'

Non-whites
were granted a limited number of licences to set up businesses or to trade in
areas of the country that were officially closed to them.

'A
good deal,' Emmanuel said dryly. 'Who did you give Giriraj up to -
Soames-Fitzpatrick?'

Khan
smiled and drew on his smoke. 'If you live past this afternoon, Cooper, I'll
hire you. Muscle men I can buy by the pound. Men with brains are another
matter.'

'Tell
me about the colonel.' Emmanuel checked his watch. Two and a half hours to go
before the detective branch issued the warrants. If he didn't get answers soon,
he'd be employed in the prison laundry or farmed out to a widget factory at ten
pence an hour till the execution date . . . that's if the tradesman didn't get
to him first.

'I
never met this Fitzpatrick,' Khan said. 'But he called me to ask for help. It's
like I said: smart men are hard to find.'

'You
hired men for him . . . men like Brother Jonah?'

'Very
good.' Khan removed a piece of loose tobacco from the tip of his tongue and
flicked it to the carpet. 'Now I understand why Lana Rose is fucking you. She
has a weakness for clever policemen.' The Indian man's smile was filthy. 'Tell
me, do you and the Dutch major take turns? Or do you have her at the same
time?'

Emmanuel
grabbed Khan by the throat and exerted a steady pressure against his larynx.
'Even stupid police are a step up from a gangster who makes a young girl pay off
a family debt on his desktop and then trades a human life for money.'

Shabalala
thumped on the roof of the Rolls and Emmanuel let go of Khan who drew in a
ragged breath and slumped back in his seat. Emmanuel looked into the alley.

'They
have come for you,' Shabalala said.

Emmanuel
got out of the Rolls. Detective Constable Fletcher and a young foot policeman
he did not recognise were walking towards the car with hands to their gun
holsters. The loading bay door was locked and the wall behind the car was over
seven feet high. There was nowhere to go.

Emmanuel
raised his hands and approached Fletcher. He wanted to put some distance
between himself and the two men who'd followed him into danger. This was his
problem. The burden of the two murders at the Dover could not be shared.

'You're
early,' he said.

'Shut
up, Cooper.'

Fletcher
grabbed Emmanuel's arms and pinned them to his back. Steel handcuffs bit into
his wrists. The constable undipped the Walther from its holster and stared at
the shiny silverwork like a child who'd won the lucky dip. Fletcher pushed
Emmanuel roughly towards the main road.

'You're
in the shit,' he said. 'There's no getting out of it this time.'

'Where
are you taking him?' Zweigman asked and was ignored by the detective constable
and the young policeman.

A
black Ford was parked at the kerb with the engine chugging. Fletcher opened the
door and pushed Emmanuel into the back seat. The door slammed shut.

'Thank
Christ.' Major van Niekerk was in the driver's seat and his face was tense and
hard. He was in neat civilian clothing and freshly shaved.

The
door opened again. Zweigman and Shabalala stood on the sidewalk with Fletcher,
who now had the Walther held loosely in his hand while the constable who stood
in the background sulked over the loss of the pretty gun.

'In
the back,' the major said. 'Now.'

Zweigman
and Shabalala clambered into the Ford without question and waited for an
explanation. Emmanuel sat squashed against the window and regained his calm.
The major looked over his shoulder.

'You
need to get out of Durban, Cooper,' he said. 'The warrant for your arrest will
be issued in a couple of hours and it will take me longer than that to find out
who's actually running the mission to secure the Russians. I've got a name but
I'm not a hundred per cent sure it's the right one.'

'Colonel
Edward Soames-Fitzpatrick,' Emmanuel said. 'He hired Afzal Khan to help him.'

'Fuck.
I thought it was someone else. How's Khan involved?'

'He
just helped frame a man named Giriraj for Jolly's murder and threw him to a mob
on the Point. Poor bastard got hit by a tram before they could arrest him. The
charge will stick. Khan also bought a witness. That's one of the murders
cleared from the board.'

'Leaving
the other two for you.' Van Niekerk checked the side mirror and the pavement
for movement. 'This is a mop-up operation, Cooper. With the three murders
cleared all that's left is to bring in the Russians. I'll handle Khan in person
but you have to disappear till things are set straight.'

'Where
to? Your house was my fallback position.'

'A
place called Labrant's Halt. It's a way station in the Valley of a Thousand
Hills. Lana and the Russians are already on the way. They'll wait for you
there.'

Zweigman
leaned forwards. 'I know this Labrant's Halt. It is only a few miles from the
turn-off to my clinic. Our mail is delivered there.'

'No.'
Emmanuel pinned van Niekerk with a hard stare. He knew what the major was
planning and he could not ask Zweigman and Shabalala for more than they had
already given. 'We have to find another place.'

'There's
no time. Think about it. The Russians need a doctor and you need a place to
keep low. You'll also have Constable Shabalala to watch your back.'

'We'll
go back and question Khan together, right now.'

'And
then what? When the time is up you'll have nowhere to run and you'll have
nowhere to hide. For just this once, let go, Cooper.'