by Mark Graham
“A very telling item, come.”
Du Toits grimaced at the remark, and they moved on to a soft paper bag containing the blue-and-white bandana.
“We found traces of Elgin’s blood on the bandana, true,” said du Toits. “But not stains. Dried blood.”
“Obtained when Wolfe used it to turn the victim’s face.” “Perhaps. That, by the way, will be in my report.”
“They’ll probably give the bastard a citation,” Mansell replied. “Anything else of note on the bandana?”
“Old bloodstains, a month or more. Blood type, A-negative. Male. Bantu. Any guesses?”
“The same as yours, I suspect.” Mansell picked up a small pillbox. It was tagged with blood type, securing date, officer’s name, and the case number. He asked, “Anything of consequence from the bloodstains inside the locker, Chas?”
“Not much. Proved conclusively to be that of the victim. Also, that he’d been drinking heavily. Blood alcohol level measured two and a half times the legal definition of intoxication.”
“Any indication that Elgin had had sex over the last twelve hours of his life?” Mansell was extemporizing—the chiffon scarf and a dinner companion with long black hair.
Du Toits shook his head. “He went out with a whimper, I’m afraid.”
The scarf itself lay toward the end of the table wrapped loosely in white tissue paper. It was a rose-colored chiffon with delicate embroidery.
“Elegant, isn’t it,” said the chief inspector. “Traces?”
“Only hair,” answered du Toits. “A black woman. A black woman with taste and money, I daresay.”
Mansell stroked the sheer material. “Or,” he said softly, “a companion with both.”
The three coins found at the base of the locker were now inside a soft paper folder buffeted with cotton swabs.
“This will interest you, Inspector,” remarked du Toits humbly. “Two identifiable fingerprints were lifted from these. One being the victim’s. And a second set, the thumb and middle finger, belonging to one Anthony Mabasu. We cross-checked with Printmatrix in Research and the Bureau of Labor. Mabasu’s prints were also lifted from the locker door itself and the wooden bench.”
The bleak expression that swept across the chief inspector’s face said far more than any words he might have used, and Chas du Toits took this as a sign.
He pressed on, saying, “There were no prints to be found around the broken window nor any on the top of the locker, but we did find adhesive tape around the outside of the glass. A match for the tape which you found in the dirt below the window. We found smudge marks on the sticky side of the tape that indicate the intruder wore gloves, vinyl or rubber.”
“Could they be the same gloves as on the nylon rope?”
“Certainly, but it’s impossible to say. Sorry. As for the rest of the print search, we lifted dozens of perfect ones from the scene, and we checked them all with Printmatrix.” Du Toits handed Mansell a thick folder containing the slide negatives of all the prints seized that day. “And, with the exception of three, they would all appear to be accountable.”
“Three? Elgin, Mabasu, and. . . ?”
“Does the name Thomas Horwood mean anything to you?” “Our pot-smoking ticket agent.”
Mansell dispatched two detectives with samples of the nylon rope and photos and a description of the chiffon scarf. Then he went upstairs to his own office to type out a daily report, yesterday’s daily report.
Directly north of the police station on Main Street stood the Port Elizabeth City Hall. The 123-year-old structure was a masterpiece of colonial architecture. On September 11, 1977, three hours before dawn, an arsonist poured turpentine and gasoline through every office window on the first floor, and the ensuing conflagration proceeded to gut the city’s most time-honored relic in less than ninety minutes.
The colonial front, the Victorian belfry, and marble-faced clocks were all wiped out. Only the Japanese bells, themselves forged of solid bronze, survived.
The citizens of Port Elizabeth hardly flinched. The arsonist was captured and quickly sentenced to thirty years in prison. Two weeks after the blaze, plans were laid to rebuild the landmark. The original plans were located in the city archives. International businesses contributed half the necessary funds. Reconstruction began. The English firm that first constructed the clock tower still possessed the original drawings, and they were again retained. Three years and R16 million later, the restoration was completed.
The courtyard fronting City Hall was a large mosaic of marble tiles and cut stone in the design of a mandala. Planter boxes, park benches, and antique gas lamps dotted the square in pleasant symmetry.
Nigel Mansell left the police station without finishing his report. He used the side entrance, took a left along Main, and strolled one block to the courtyard. Around the periphery of the street, native peddlers were setting up carts filled with hand-woven baskets, fresh vegetables and fruit, hand-spun cloth, and carved figurines. A Xhosa boy played the flute on a park bench, his hat on the ground before him. Appreciating his fortitude as much as his talent, Mansell tossed a rand note in the hat.
At the far end of the square, Merriman Gosani and Joshua Brungle lounged on a bench beneath a small acacia.
“Nice place for a rendezvous,” Joshua called out. “What’s the occasion?”
“He’s buying us breakfast,” Merry interjected.
Mansell looked in Merry’s direction and a grimace gave way to something akin to a smile. There was a saying in South Africa: “Keep the Kaffir in his place and the coolie out of the country.” Years back, Mansell had made a mockery of the adage by promoting Merry from a uniformed beat cop to detective. In official circles, the elevation had been hailed as far-reaching. Two commendations, for extraordinary conduct, were received with less enthusiasm. In a private memo, Captain Terreblanche had referred to them as “perhaps a gilding of the lily.” Mansell remembered the pleasure he had taken from putting a match to that memo.
“Wolffe’s making his presence felt around the office. You’ll have to see him about breakfast,” he said, taking a seat. He closed his eyes to the heat of the morning sun. “What did Mabasu’s work mates have for us, Joshua? Anything spicy?”
“He’s having marital problems. His wife’s been screwing around. At least Mabasu’s convinced she’s been screwing around. And he went so far as to stake out the sleep room in the ladies’ lounge a couple of times.”
“An amusing way to spend your lunch hour,” quipped Merry.
“He’s been driving his buddies up the wall about it. They also said that Mabasu has a short fuse, but that he’s never mentioned being laid off at the docks. He’s a hard worker. In general, a nice guy. Not the killer type according to these guys. He did mention to one of them that his lady had gone off to visit her sister. Her idea, not his, and he wasn’t pleased about it. And they all said that Mabasu owns a blue-and-white scarf.”
“It’s his bandana,” Mansell said. He handed out copies of the forensic report. They spent thirty minutes reviewing. Then he said, “Merry, anything significant yet from Research?”
“Elgin knew a lot of people in Johannesburg and Durban. A lot of them didn’t think much of him. Both districts have started full-blown backup investigations. Cape Town, as well.”
“Good.”
“We’ve collared sixteen possibles here in town: eight convicted felons with union ties, six agitators that Security’s been watching, and two recent parolees with union-related offenses. It’s not much. We’re checking their stories now. I’m expecting reports from Jo’burg, Durban, and the Cape this afternoon. I’ll follow up then.”
“Something’s bothering you.” A bag of donuts next to the big detective lay undisturbed. “What?”
“Sylvia Mabasu. We haven’t been able to locate her.” Mansell cocked his head. “Anthony Mabasu’s wife?”
“She boarded a Sea Lanes bus at six-twenty, Thursday, the morning of the third. Her sister lives in Butterwort
h, in the Transkei. It’s four hundred and ten kilometers one way. The bus arrived in Butterworth at seven-ten that night. Sylvia Mabasu wasn’t on it.”
“Settler’s Way runs right through Butterworth. How many stops does the bus make along the way?”
“Nine,” answered Merry. “And the bus route never leaves the highway. Her sister was waiting at the bus station. I checked an hour ago. Still no sign of her.”
“Did you inform the Transkei police?”
“I had to, Nigel. They’re working at it from their end.” “All right. Check with the bus driver—”
“I talked to him myself. Asshole. Said it’s not his responsibility to keep track. Said he didn’t notice that her goddamn luggage was still on board. “
Joshua stood up, pacing suddenly. “Passengers?” he asked.
“There’s not a passenger list. But I’ve got fifteen names.”
It felt disturbingly ominous. Still, Mansell found himself theorizing. “We know she and Mabasu were in the middle of it. It’s possible she needed time alone, and—”
“What? Without her luggage?” Merry cut in. “Her sister has a goddamn telephone. She wouldn’t call?”
“We’ll find her. Merry, if you have to take a car up to the Transkei, go ahead and do so,” said the chief inspector. “Joshua, see what you can find out about that tire tread, will you? And let’s bring in our uncooperative ticket agent first thing. Maybe a suspected murder charge will cool his obstinate mood a bit. I’ll talk to him myself.”
When the two detectives had gone, Mansell absorbed a full minute of sunshine. A purple-and-white bunting landed in the tree above him. He listened to a brief chorus, and then the bird set off again. Jennifer’s face intruded behind closed eyelids, and Mansell stood up. His stomach ached. He plucked a chocolate donut from the forgotten bag, hoping the pain was hunger.
His footsteps led him across the railroad tracks in the direction of the waterfront and, conceivably, the last person to see Ian Elgin alive.
****
At 5:56 in the morning, as the cargo ship ARVA II approached the great port of New York and New Jersey, Captain Amil Aidoo ordered his machinist to cut power to a single aft engine. Near the Ambrose Light, at the tip of the Ambrose Channel, Aidoo relinquished command of his vessel to the harbor pilot.
Thirty-five minutes later, the 620-ton freighter, her bow raking and her bridge caked with rust, slipped through the passive waters of the Upper Bay into the calm of the Bay Ridge Channel. At the Bay Ridge Terminal a half mile further on, ARVA docked behind a 1,000-ton vessel called the Falcon Express.
Colonel Karl Brinker waited alongside. Hung over, he cradled hot coffee in two hands. Sunglasses shielded bloodshot eyes from the harsh glare of sunrise. Behind him, two loaded semis remained in quarantine at the inspection station.
Following the harbor pilot’s departure, Dom Andrada and a female customs agent climbed the gangplank to ARVA Ifs cluttered main deck. Over the protests of Captain Aidoo, the freighter’s papers, though indisputably in order, were confiscated. Dom Andrada explained the nature of the delay to Aidoo, and the sailor’s face dropped.
This was not the kind of news Aidoo had expected. Indeed, he knew the entire picture. And yes, he was even willing to make the dangerous rendezvous at sea, later. He was paid to know, well paid, but enough to face the quarantine of his ship? That was not part of the bargain.
“Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinkin’, mate,” Dom Andrada said, seeing a look of insurrection overtaking the sailor’s coal-black face. “Forget it. Leave port now, my friend, and you might as well hang a sign out that says ‘Guilty as Charged.’ Yeah? Listen. Do this instead. Give your crew a half day’s leave. Make an issue out of it. We’ll know more by noon, I’ll guarantee it, okay? I’ll even make a call or two. Listen, there’s breakfast in the shed. You’re welcome to it.”
So calls were made, and breakfast was eaten, but still the morning passed begrudgingly. Finally, at 11:45, a federal agent arrived in a beige Chevy with two customs agents at his side. Karl Brinker had succumbed to brandy again, and his hand was nearly steady when the fed passed him a manila envelope containing his papers.
“We checked with the Liberian Foreign Ministry, Mr. Brinker.” The agent sounded put out. Blood drained from Brinker’s face. “I’d suggest you keep better track of your paperwork. It’s going to cost you.
“Yeah, I . . .”
“And?” urged Dom Andrada.
“And they have authorized transfer of your cargo to Grand Cess,” answered the agent. “It’s a little pisshead port along the south shore, I guess.”
Brinker covered his nausea with a fit of laughter. He tried to speak, but Captain Aidoo intervened, saying, “Aye, a pisshead of a port it is, sir, but with the grace of above and a steady breeze at our backs I think we’ll manage. Sorry for your inconvenience. Truly sorry.”
Dom Andrada poured wine into plastic cups. He showered the woman customs agent with a smile. “Sorry we are, but as we say in Portugal, a glass of sweet wine mends all.”
Outgoing pilotage was scheduled for 3:30 that afternoon. The rusted holds of ARVA II lay open and waiting.
****
At eleven in the morning, on a day better spent beside a warm fire or wrapped in a blanket with a warm female, Jan Koster traveled in his own private plane to the Mozambique capital of Maputo. The port city was the flip side of Johannesburg, sultry and feverish. A battered taxi shuttled Koster the twenty-two kilometers from the airport to the University of Baia de Maputo. The old English campus, abandoned eleven years before in favor of a modernized facility in the city, was now being rented by the East German consulate for fifty thousand dollars a year. At the railroad crossing opposite the old stadium, Koster paid the cabby in American money and walked the last kilometer to the campus.
Housed behind the heavy wrought-iron gates that guarded its sprawling forty-five acres were twenty thousand Cuban-trained black men. How they had settled upon that final figure, Koster was never completely certain. Twenty thousand seemed too many in his opinion, too few for Leistner’s tastes.
His reasons for selecting Maputo as their base of operations were less vague. South Africans, being a suspicious people, tolerated their neighbors without the slightest thought of trusting them. Surveillance was a constant. Mozambique was an exception. Its relations with South Africa were governed by an accord of noninterference and cooperation. An uninspired way of saying, Koster thought, that the two hostiles had found it more productive to leave each other alone. This was the overriding reason for the choice. The other was distance; the targets lay to the west a scant four hundred kilometers. The campus, discovered three years before by Colonel Rolf Lamouline, the mercenary in charge of military operations at East Fields, was an unexpected bonus.
Lamouline’s office was on the first floor of what had once been the administration building. The building was crafted from thick blocks of granite. The office was an odd mixture of Victorian wallpaper, metal furniture, land maps, and African memorabilia. Koster drew up when he saw the two photos on the wall behind Lamouline’s desk.
“Take a look,” the colonel said, chuckling. “Gifts from my ANC brothers.”
The first was a barroom scene. A toast. Eight black men hoisting tall beer mugs in tribute to a friend. The friend was a bearded man and in his hands was a flimsy document upon which indecipherable writing could be detected. The photo was entitled “The Charter, 1912.”
“The bearded one’s Dupree, they tell me,” Lamouline said. “Solomon Dupree, the founding father of our notorious African National Congress. According to legend, Dupree’s brainstorm took root one blustery evening while he and several colleagues, lawyers of considerable optimism, I guess, were drinking rum and beer in the back room of a Cape Town speakeasy called the Blue Shebeen. Dupree, they say, scribbled their charter on the back of a paper napkin and they each signed the thing in black printer’s ink.
“I wonder,” Lamouline added, “if Mr. Dupree knew his
organization would form the backbone of our charming band of desperadoes.”
“I imagine there are quite a number of things about his organization that Mr. Dupree would have trouble recognizing in this day and age, Colonel.”
“Like the fact that his pet project has become an arm of Soviet political strategy in South Africa? And I don’t remember a thing in his charter about sabotaging police stations or government offices or power plants, do you?”
“But then I doubt Mr. Dupree knew much about mass arrests or detentions or bannings either. And if memory serves me, Colonel, in 1912 the Bolsheviks were too busy patronizing Lenin and Kerensky to care much about South Africa, and still a few years away from power,” Koster replied, looking now at the other photo. This, a black-and-white print of poor quality, showed a round, dour face peering from behind the bars of a prison cell. “Mandela?”
“Yes. I’m supposed to be inspired.”
“But you’re not, right? This is all just for the money?”
“Don’t be putting words into my mouth, now,” answered the colonel, gesturing to one of the maps. “Why don’t we talk business? Politics and patriotism make me nervous.”
A plan for mobilization was finalized within the hour. It would be set in motion the following evening at ten o’clock when fifteen hundred men would depart the Baia de Maputo grounds. Each night thereafter, for fourteen nights, like groups would follow. Each man would carry with him official travel documents, passports, and temporary work permits for a site on the East Rand called East Fields Mining Corporation. The documents could not be challenged; Cecil Leistner had seen to that. The migration would not arouse suspicion; one-quarter of South Africa’s labor pool came from outside the country, and migrant workers in the Transvaal were as common as cattle in the kraals.
****
Justice Minister Cecil Leistner sat across from the South African prime minister in a cozy drawing room on the third floor of the Union Building drinking tea and smoking Brazilian tobacco.