Let the Dead Lie (35 page)
'Excuse
me, Major,' Zweigman said. 'What will become of Detective Cooper if he remains
here in Durban?'
'Jail,'
van Niekerk said. 'And then maybe a rope.'
'In
that case it is settled.' Zweigman turned to Emmanuel. 'I extend to you a new
invitation to visit my clinic.'
'I
can't ask that of you,' Emmanuel said.
'You
are not asking. I am offering.'
Shabalala
leaned forwards, but hesitated in the presence of an Afrikaner major.
'Go
on.' Van Niekerk gave permission for the native constable to speak.
'The
traffic will be slow because of the accident with the Indian man,' Shabalala
said. 'We must leave now if we wish to get out of town in time.'
'I
will drive to Labrant's Halt,' Zweigman volunteered. 'If you are still
uncomfortable with visiting my clinic, Detective Cooper, there will be ample
time to make another plan. Agreed?'
'Agreed,'
Emmanuel said.
'Give
me the keys to the Bedford and take this car,' van Niekerk said. 'The truck
will be too slow.'
The
major and Zweigman exchanged keys. They were headed for the Valley of a
Thousand Hills two hours out of the city on a rough macadam road.
'You
okay, Cooper?'
'Fine,
thank you, Major.' He couldn't imagine the Afrikaner blue blood feeling as he
did
now ...
humbled by the sacrifice of others.
'Give
me forty-eight hours to sort this out. I'll send word with Fletcher when it's
safe to move. Can you keep still for that long?'
'Of
course.'
'Good,
because you'll be useless to me and to the Russians in jail.' Van Niekerk
offered his hand. 'Good luck.'
To
both of us.' Emmanuel shook on the wish.
The
major climbed out of the Ford and waited for Zweigman to start the car and
drive away. The getaway slowed to a crawl minutes after leaving.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic inched along Point Road. A policeman directed cars
around the stranded tram. The mortuary van had departed the scene but a
contingent of police brass mingled on the footpath. Giriraj was the
department's catch of the day. A tall colonel with mutton-chop whiskers stood
with his legs apart and his hands on his hips. Emmanuel recognised him from
Jolly's murder scene where he had lent moral support to the uniforms. He was
also the dictionary definition of a
soutpiel.
Edward Soames-Fitzpatrick? The
name seemed to fit.
The
last straggle of onlookers parted and Major van Niekerk walked to the colonel's
side. They talked for a few moments, both men genial and relaxed. Emmanuel's
chest tightened. Van Niekerk knew the
soutpiel
colonel. The Dutch policeman was
his mentor and his protector but Emmanuel was not blind to his faults. He knew
that while Khan and van Niekerk were on opposite sides of the law they shared
one particular trait: self-interest.
Major
van Niekerk would not protect the Russians unless there was something tangible
in it for him.
Labrant's
Halt was a long wooden shed built on the lip of an escarpment and surrounded by
an ocean of dun- coloured hills. An 'Empty' sign hung from the lone petrol
pump. A white Plymouth sedan was parked under a bare jacaranda.
Emmanuel
leaned into the open driver's-side window. Lana, Nicolai and Natalya were in
the car drinking orange fizzy drinks through paper straws. Shabalala and
Zweigman joined the conference.
'Where
to?' Lana asked. Dust from the unsealed road dirtied her cheeks and her hair
was whipped by the wind.
'That
decision is for the detective sergeant to make,' said Zweigman quietly.
Emmanuel
knew the decision was his but the consequences of his actions affected
everyone. Going on the run with the Russian couple was unrealistic. On the back
seat of the Plymouth were a heavily pregnant woman and a sick man in need of
medical supervision. Outside stood a doctor, an experienced police constable and
a fugitive looking for a place to disappear. Major van Niekerk was right.
Zweigman's isolated medical clinic in the hills was the perfect solution.
'I
would like to bring some small thing for your wives, to say thank you.'
Emmanuel addressed Zweigman and Shabalala. 'What do you suggest?'
'Chocolate
biscuits, the ones with the cream centre. Lilliana has a weakness for those.'
'Dried
fruit,' Shabalala said. 'Or the liquorice with the many layers.'
'I'll
see what they have.'
Emmanuel
moved to the screened-in porch that fronted the building. A dozen Zulu men
dressed in a mix of overalls and traditional clothing made from animal hides
and printed cloth milled around the side entrance through which natives were
served. They nodded a polite greeting, which Emmanuel returned before entering
Labrant's Halt. Five months in English Durban and he'd missed
this .. .
the feeling of being in black Africa.
The
shelves inside Labrant's were half stocked but he found the cream-filled
chocolate biscuits and a small bag of liquorice all-sorts, both hopefully less
than a year old. He added rice and sugar and a tin of roasted coffee beans.
Lana
entered the store while he was paying the spindly white man who worked the
shiny till. 'The ladies room?' she asked and a key was slid across the length
of the wood counter. White ladies had access to the relative luxury of a
long-drop toilet attached to the back of the building. Non-whites learned to
dig and squat.
'Out
in a minute,' Lana said, disappearing among the dusty shelving. Emmanuel
carried the sweets out to the Ford, feeling guilty at the insignificant price
paid for his safety.
'How
are the Russians doing?' he asked when Zweigman returned to the sedan with his
medical bag beneath his arm.
'They
are holding up well but Natalya has begun to have contractions. I think we will
have a baby by morning.' Zweigman smiled and dug a handful of coins from his jacket.
'I will buy a small bottle to celebrate the occasion.'
'I'll
get it,' Emmanuel said and swung back to Labrant's before Zweigman could
object. Through the mesh wire he glimpsed Lana sliding a pound note to the
owner. The store telephone was on the counter and angled out towards her. She'd
called someone.
Emmanuel
hesitated in the doorway. He wanted
her ...
that was understandable given the
night they had spent together. Did he trust her? That was a different matter
altogether.
T
iny
birds darted like careless arrows across the rutted dirt track. Bleached winter
grass grew tall beneath the marula trees. The Ford crested a hill and dropped
down to a deep valley. The tenuous track came to a fork by the edge of a
shallow river and Zweigman manoeuvred left and along the stony bank. Constable
Shabalala had taken the wheel of the Plymouth for the rough drive into the hills
and now steered the car in behind the dusty Ford.
The narrow road
wound steadily upwards and ended at a circle of compacted dirt ringed with
bright mountain aloes. A low stone house with a thatched roof sheltered under
the limbs of an ancient fig tree. Weeds grew between cracks in the walls and
lizards scurried across the heated surface. Three dwellings, each smaller than
the next, clung to a wide, flat plateau that faced onto a deep valley A winter
vegetable garden with cabbages, pumpkins and spinach ran parallel to the
buildings, which were built in a semi-circle. Chickens scratched in the dirt.
The rusted arms of a windmill remained indifferent to the breeze.
Emmanuel
was surprised by the dilapidated sprawl. This patch of hillside was hard
country. Poor country. The old Jew appeared to have even less money than when
he'd been a shopkeeper in Jacob's Rest.
'The
clinic.' Zweigman climbed out of the Ford. 'Come, Detective, I will give you
the grand tour.'
The
dry tone indicated that the doctor had read his thoughts and found them
amusing. Emmanuel reached for the Walther, ready to unclip it and store it in
the glove box. Lilliana Zweigman was fragile and Daniel Zweigman refused to own
or hold a firearm, possibly a reaction to living through six years of war.
Carrying a loaded weapon into their house would be wrong.
The
hip holster was empty. The eager foot policeman had taken the gun in the
loading dock of Abel Mellon Dry Goods and Fletcher had not returned it.
'Come,'
Zweigman said.
Emmanuel
grabbed the brown paper grocery bag and waited for the Plymouth to pull
alongside before getting out. Shabalala helped the Russians from the back seat
and kept an arm under Nicolai's elbow to help support his weight. A dirt path
snaked across a grass verge in front of the houses. Zweigman paused at the edge
of the garden and pointed to the first and largest of the stone buildings.
'This
is the clinic,' he said. 'When we have enough funds it will be expanded out
towards the back. Two, maybe three, rooms more.'
They
walked on. The winter vegetable patch grew up to the left. A small shed took
the space between the clinic and the next stone house, which had a wide veranda
and a view of the hills.
'That
is our home,' Zweigman said, pointing to the last building, not much larger
than the shed but with flowered curtains at the two small windows. 'That is the
Shabalala house.'
Emmanuel
wondered how they would all fit. The parcel of land was large, with expansive
views, but the buildings were small. A hen scratched through leaf litter under
a tree and Natalya made a comment in Russian that sounded as if she'd swallowed
a mouthful of vinegar. Emmanuel glanced at Lana for an explanation.
'The
country atmosphere is not to her liking,' Lana said.
They
continued towards the doctor's snug stone home. Nicolai leaned heavily against
Shabalala, each step an effort. The rough ride into the hills had taken its
toll.
Lilliana
Zweigman and Lizzie, Shabalala's wife, stood on the veranda of the middle house
and watched the procession of uninvited guests traipse towards them. Something
in the way they stood, framed by the beams of the veranda, the last light
reflected in their eyes, suggested they had both been beautiful in their youth.
'Ladies.'
Zweigman had pulled ahead a few paces. 'We have guests. Let me introduce you
and we can all have some tea.' The doctor supplied a smile for each
introduction but the charm had worn thin when he came at last to Emmanuel. 'You
both know Detective Cooper, of course,' he said.
His
wife's fingers twisted the top button of her jacket till the thread almost
snapped and her breath could be heard rasping in the country quiet. Zweigman
climbed the front stairs and touched her arm gently. Her panic subsided but did
not disappear.
'How
could we forget the detective sergeant?' Lizzie said and an awkward silence
followed her wry comment.
Emmanuel
understood the women's fears. His murder investigation in Jacob's Rest had
landed them all here on this lonely plateau far from home. If he'd left buried
secrets buried and turned away from the truth, their lives would have continued
on familiar paths. They had all paid a heavy price for his inability to walk
away.
'Hello,
Lilliana.
Unjani,
Lizzie.' Emmanuel followed Zweigman up the stairs and presented the bag of
groceries. He felt like the fourth horseman of the apocalypse who came bearing
biscuits and liquorice to divert attention from the danger and destruction
that followed in his wake.
'Why
here?' Emmanuel asked Shabalala when the fire in the rough stone circle was
ablaze and the wood crackled and hissed. 'He's a qualified surgeon. Why not
Cape Town or even Durban?'
Shabalala
rested on his haunches with his forearms balanced on his knees and threw a
stick into the fire. A red sun hung over the crest of hills. Emmanuel sank down
next to the Zulu constable and waited. Good manners prevented Shabalala from
offering a personal opinion without first giving the answer proper
consideration.
'I
think he is paying,' Shabalala said. 'For something he did, or did not do, in
his home country, during the war.'
A
scatter of loose stones on the garden path preceded Zweigman's appearance at
the fireside. He dragged a dried tree branch behind him and his face dripped
sweat. His shirtsleeves were rolled to above his elbows and his pants' legs up
to his knees. 'Fuel,' he said, propping the branch against the stack of logs
and kindling already collected from the bush. The temperature will drop soon
and we will need the fire.'
The
women and Nicolai were in the middle house and it was by unspoken agreement
that the able-bodied men had settled down outside till bedtime. Sleeping
arrangements were made: Shabalala and his wife in their house, Nicolai and
Natalya in with the Zweigmans, while Lana was squeezed into the storage hut and
Emmanuel was billeted on the clinic floor. He'd slept in colder and rougher
places.
The
sun dipped lower and the shadows lengthened across the ground. Night in the
tropics came quickly and the light would go out like a blown candle. The
evening star was already faint on the horizon.
'Mr
Shabalala,' Lizzie's voice called into the gathering darkness. 'I need a man to
help me. Are you that man or shall I get another?'
The
constable moved towards the middle house with a smile and a shake of his head.
Zulu tradition called for women to be meek and obedient, but his wife was her
own person.
Emmanuel
glanced at the clinic buildings. They were strikingly similar to the
stone-and-thatch house that Davida stood outside in his dreams. Even the hills
etched against the sky echoed the landscape in his mind.
'Do
you hear from Davida?' he asked when Zweigman sat down. The doctor and his wife
had been like surrogate parents to the coloured girl. 'Is she safe?'
'She
is well,' the German man replied and threw small twigs into the centre of the
flames where the fire was white hot.
'And
happy?' A foolish question, he knew, but it didn't stop him from wanting proof
of the impossible: a happy ending for at least one of the victims of the
Security Branch's violent intervention.
'She
is not unhappy,' came the enigmatic reply.
The
red disc of the sun disappeared and darkness swallowed the hillside. Not
unhappy. There was a kernel of hope in that bare statement. To be injured but
not destroyed was a small triumph.
'I'm
sorry to involve you in this business with Nicolai and Natalya,' Emmanuel said.
'Especially after Jacob's Rest. We'll be gone in forty-eight hours and you'll
be safe.'
'The
only safe place is the grave,' Zweigman said. 'That was one of my grandfather's
favourite expressions. He was a peasant with dirty fingernails and stained
teeth, so naturally I didn't believe anything he said. I was a medical student
destined for great things. I knew everything.'
The
fire blazed in the stone circle and Emmanuel held his hands out to the heat.
Zweigman rarely spoke of the past. Details of his life in Berlin before and
during the war were still a mystery.
'After
the Security Branch beating,' Emmanuel said, 'you promised that you'd tell me
how you came to be serving behind the counter of a general store in South
Africa.'
Zweigman
frowned. In Jacob's Rest, the detective had been beaten with professional
thoroughness that resulted in broken bones and black bruises that mushroomed
across his skin. Most patients with injuries so severe recalled only the pain.
'You
remember?'
'Every
word,' Emmanuel said.
The
doctor brought his hands up to the flames and examined his chipped fingernails
and the rough skin encrusted with dirt. He smiled into the firelight.
'You
should have seen me fifteen years ago, Detective. I was quite the specimen. A
surgeon at
Charite Universitdtsmedizen
with private consulting rooms
furnished to the best of taste. Everything was always the best. The tailored
suits, the wine in the cellar and the pretty girls I kept company with, even
after I was married. That was Dr Daniel Zweigman. Not the most clever Jew in
Berlin but one of them.' The silence that followed was heavy with
self-recrimination. 'When rumours of war began, Lilliana came to me. She had a
cousin in New York who was willing to take us in, find us an apartment and
jobs. I said no. Members of the National Socialist party came to me for
treatment. I was Zweigman the healer, Zweigman the first choice for families of
quality. I was safe. My wife and three children were immune from the madness.
Then it was too late to escape.'
The
night settled on them, black and heavy. The Zweigmans were childless now and
thousands of miles from Berlin.
'Lilliana
and I survived the camps but our children did not. That's what broke Lilliana
in the end: being alive when there was nothing left to live for.' The doctor
turned to Emmanuel. 'Nicolai and Natalya can stay here as long as necessary. It
is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.'
