by Mark Graham
At the door, Mansell hesitated. He turned around slowly and faced her, but Delaney Blackford was already attending to a stack of papers. When she didn’t respond, he opened the screen quietly and walked back to Main Street.
****
Someone parks a small car, probably a compact, beneath a window in the Port Elizabeth train station the night a murder is committed.
The front left tire implants an impression in a recently turned plot of ground. The impression is duplicated by bright young scientists in a forensic laboratory, and the casting is handed to a bright young detective, who is told to find out what kind of car it was, where the car came from, and who was driving it.
The bright young detective turns out to be Joshua Brungle. And chances are extremely good, Joshua figures, that the tire was manufactured right here in Port Elizabeth, or, failing that, up the road in Uitenhage. Unfortunately, the computer tells him that the tire doesn’t fit anything listed in the Tire Design Guide or in Who Built It and Where. The computer also tells the detective that its file hasn’t been updated for seven months.
Joshua began his quest for unanswered questions in the Industrial Park at Firestone of South Africa. Firestone was one of three U. S. rubber manufacturers in the area, and this, Joshua realized, was a tough time for Americans in Port Elizabeth, what with all the talk of disinvestment and sanctions. It was tough because the Americans here were all well fed, complacent folk who had never had it so good in terms of cheap servants, low prices, and good jobs, and giving all that up wasn’t too appealing. It was a dilemma: loyalty to the current rage back home or loyalty to the good life here.
The dilemma was, often as not, reconciled at the expense of the police, and Joshua prepared himself for either indifference or rebuke as he entered the engineering department of Firestone that afternoon. He was expected. In short, he explained to a middle-aged technician with thick glasses and bad breath the complications that had arisen in a current murder investigation.
“Either your computer has the tread on file or else it doesn’t,” the technician answered with a sullen chill. “They’re your rules, not ours. It’s completely unethical if you ask me, but according to your police department’s policy, we are required to share all tread designs with your research department. So be it. You have what we have. Why on earth bother me?”
“Because a man has lost his life at the hands of a murderer, that’s why. Strangled until dead.” Prepared for the response Joshua was; he nearly delighted in it. “And I’ll tell you more, friend. The dead guy was a high-ranking labor official at that. Know what that means? That means we’re calling it a matter of national security. That means that every policeman in the bloody country is sweating his balls off trying to find out who strangled our very important labor official. It means that no white-collar flunky with a degree in condescension is going to stand here and say ‘Why on earth bother me?’ Understand? Now, I want a cross-check on this tread inside your wonderful computer banks within sixty seconds. Either that or I’ll have Pretoria filing a noncompliance order against your wonderful firm by day’s end. Your factory will be closed by nine tomorrow morning. And guess whose name will be at the top of my report, friend?”
The report proved negative. The technician went so far as to cross-check with Firestone’s American and European plants. Same results.
The results proved equally unfulfilling at General Tire and Rubber and at Goodyear’s Uitenhage plant. Joshua’s earlier enthusiasm diminished.
He bought coffee and donuts at the Brickhouse Bakery. An uninspired drizzle muddied the windshield of his GM sedan, and he plodded into the next tier of inquiry, the car manufacturers.
He began at Volkswagen’s Uitenhage plant. The ten-acre site had been the German company’s first chance venture following its country’s demise at the end of World War II. Its construction had been considered an act of desperation then, but Volkswagen now manufactured and assembled four different models at the plant. The dimensions of the Jetta matched those of the vehicle, but the tire pattern did not.
Joshua drove back to the city and the industrial complex enclosed by the V-shaped boundaries of Harrower Road and Settler’s Way. The backbone of the complex, not unlike that of the River Rouge area of Detroit, rested on the shoulders of General Motors South Africa and Ford South Africa.
When Henry Ford invaded Africa sixty-seven years before, Port Elizabeth was a sleepy harbor community entirely dependent on wool. That year, seventy workers assembled fifteen hundred cars. Three years later, GM established an assembly plant that later developed into a full-service engine and auto manufacturing plant. Last year, Ford SA manufactured and assembled ninety-five hundred cars. And, Joshua thought, Port Elizabeth would never again be called “sleepy.”
At Ford’s Neave plant, Joshua received his first break.
The engineer was black. His accent told Joshua that he was a Xhosa.
“You’re surprised,” the engineer said as the computer digested a copy of the mysterious tire tread.
“At this point in the day I’m looking for a surprise, but you’re not it.” Black men in white collars were patently rare in South Africa. A dangerous trend, Joshua thought sarcastically. White-collar jobs called for educational parity. Another dangerous trend. The Americans amused themselves by flaunting dangerous trends. “A company man, are you?”
“Maternally and paternally. Trained and educated.” The printout appeared. The engineer shrugged.
“Nothing,” said Joshua.
“It’s Japanese.”
“Show me.” Joshua gestured at the reams of paper.
“It’s not in here. That was my feeling from the beginning. The treadlines are typically more parallel, a bit shallower, a bit more give.” Joshua looked at him as if to say, “So?” The engineer added, “The Japanese market here is in rentals. The age of the tire confirms that. Less than seven thousand kilometers’ worth of wear. Rentals are typically sold to the public later, by the rental company at auction.”
Joshua approved of the man’s thinking. He said, “Guess again.”
“A Honda Civic. Maybe a Toyota Tercel.”
Joshua worked the list through in his head as he drove. The airport, the harbor, the bus stations, and the train stations all rented cars. In South Africa, gas stations were licensed to deal in rentals as well. And then there were the individual agencies themselves. A long list, he thought.
Four kilometers ahead, the Campanile jabbed at the sky like a needle in the eye of a sleeping tiger. Joshua drove toward it.
****
We have a witness who will swear that you were smoking pot outside the station that night. We also have sperm samples that place you at the scene of a murder the same night.”
This holding cell contained no chairs, no table, and no day-old newspapers, just bright light and cold concrete. Thomas Horwood, the white ticket agent on duty the night Ian Elgin died, stood in the far corner, legs spread, arms crossed, face recalcitrant.
Nigel Mansell kept a cool distance. In this light, his pale eyes were gimlet lasers. He held up a copy of Anthony Mabasu’s statement.
“I’ll have your ass behind bars in five minutes, Thomas. I’ll have your job in an hour,” Mansell said, his voice rising. “I have a warrant to search your apartment, and I have a man standing by with orders to do just that. You’ve been using the ladies’ lounge to hump your girl friend, Connie. You used it Friday morning. And guess what, tough guy? That makes you our number one suspect in the murder of Mr. Ian Elgin.”
Mansell strode across the room. He banged on the cell door. Joshua materialized.
“Detective,” snapped Mansell. “You’ll do me the honor of booking this man on one count first-degree murder, and one count possession of illegal drugs.”
Joshua powered through the doorway. He charged headlong at Thomas Horwood. “With pleasure, sir,” he hissed.
Horwood broke down. He cowered in the corner, covering himself. “Wait. Please wait,” he muttered. “They
’ll fire me, sure as hell. They’ll fire me.”
Mansell held Joshua back by the shoulder. “Is it time for a statement, Thomas?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.” He was whimpering, near tears. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Get on your feet and quit your bloody whining,” Joshua spat. Mansell led the detective out of the room. “Good show,” he whispered. “Theatrical sort, aren’t you?”
“Missed my calling.”
For all that, the results proved inconclusive.
Thomas Horwood admitted being a pothead. He owned up to his nightly excursions outside the station for a joint or two. He confessed to the occasional use of cocaine, even admitted selling coke to station employees once or twice. Yes, he said, he was making it with Connie Hillock, the black ticket agent. And yes, they had used the ladies’ sleep room Friday, just after midnight. Connie had worked it all out with Sylvia, the cleaning woman.
“Sylvia wasn’t around that night,” he said. “But we took our chances.”
Horwood’s temporary bout with timidity passed quickly. He didn’t remember seeing Anthony Mabasu that night. He couldn’t recall seeing anything unusual in the alleyway along the south side of the depot, certainly not an automobile parked in the dirt, and certainly no one climbing through the lounge window.
Mansell studied the witness’s return to confidence through a haze of cigarette smoke. Horwood paced evenly, using his hands as he talked. “I was stoned, Inspector, sure, but not stupid. That I would’ve remembered, don’t you think? I use the alley because it’s usually deserted. If there’s someone hanging around, I go someplace else. My own car, the parking lot, the docks. Someplace. I mean, I look around when I go out there.”
“Still, you say you missed seeing Anthony Mabasu?”
“I screwed up, didn’t I? Hey, it’s a boring job. Inspector, you’ve got to believe me. You’ve got to.”
“You screwed up all right, Thomas.” Mansell glanced at the footnote written in red ink at the bottom of Horwood’s file. A ticket agent with seven thousand rand in the bank. Hardly. “You really did.”
Later, Mansell walked down Main Street thinking about Sylvia Mabasu and a chiffon scarf. It was 2:15 in the afternoon. He heard a radio shouting about increased terrorism in Namibia. A baby-blue sky had thrown off the threat of continued rain. Mansell was disappointed.
The street bustled with people. Peddlers, shoppers, tourists, business people. On the street, Mansell thought, everyone mingled. Walls created the walls. The open fish and vegetable market had no restrictions. A sign outside Holly’s Ice Cream Parlor read WHITES ONLY-NET BLANKES. The laundromat offered two entrances: NET BLANKES and NET SWARTES-NET KLEURLINGE. A restaurant called The Dove—lobsters, spirits, and dancing: WHITES RACE GROUP ONLY.
Mansell bought sardines and hard rolls from a Xhosa woman with enormous eyes and a three-month-old baby on her back.
****
Cecil Leistner had reserved a suite on the tenth floor of the Broad-street International Hotel in Johannesburg for his conversation with Lucas Ravele, the president of the Federation of Mineworkers Union. The hotel catered to all race groups and was thus free of any prominent government types. Privacy was one consideration, the amenities were another.
The two men sat in a steam room well into their second Boodles and tonic.
They discussed the recent soccer riot in Kimberley and the Conservatives’ new hard line on the Group Areas issue. They debated over the recent visit, a week before, by the American secretary of state and further sanctions being considered by half of Europe.
Finally, Leistner broached the subject. “I’ve been meaning to call you, Lucas. About Ian Elgin. I know you two were close. I’m sorry. What a god-awful way to die.”
“For a moment I’d almost forgotten,” answered the thirty-six-year-old union potentate. “A waste of a good man. Has there been any progress?”
“Some, yes.” Leistner finished his drink and stood up. “Shall we cool off?”
Private shower stalls led, in turn, to a four-man whirlpool on the balcony overlooking the golf course. Leistner submersed himself. Ravele replenished their drinks and sat in a lounge chair with a towel draped over his shoulders.
“Contract talks with the Chamber have reached an impasse, I’m told,” Leistner said at last.
“An impasse? Hardly.”
“Still, Ian will be difficult to replace, I imagine.”
“No one will deny that, Minister,” Ravele said uncomfortably, a drink nestled between his legs. “Ian negotiated straight from the hip, and we will continue the posture. We have little choice.”
Cecil Leistner pulled his waterlogged frame to the edge of the pool. He filled the bowl of his pipe and carefully put a match to the tobacco.
“I must tell you, Lucas, that Ian’s death was far more untimely than you might guess. I must also tell you that Ian had far more aggressive plans in mind for the FMU than he had yet disclosed to you. In less than three weeks, in fact, the FMU’s entire membership will be a part of the largest workers’ strike this country has ever known.”
“Strike? What strike? I don’t know what in the name of God you’re talking—”
“You will,” replied the minister of justice. The oration that followed lasted forty minutes. Throughout it, Leistner employed the tactics of attack and retreat. He would mention the undertaking on the East Rand, stress the magnitude of its scope, but withdraw before naming the mines involved. He would hint at the existence of East Fields without revealing its location. He would concentrate on the necessity of labor’s role and its rewards without delving into the pitfalls. Wide-eyed and speechless, Lucas Ravele listened. Had such a notion come from anyone of lesser stature than Leistner, he would have stormed out of the place. That it came from Leistner at all made it more confounding still.
The minister concluded by saying, “And the FMU has been a part of it all along, Lucas.”
“My union—”
“It was never your union,” said Leistner, closing the circle. “But it can be. It can be.”
“You’re saying that Ian sanctioned this . . . this . . .”
“He did far more than sanction it, Lucas. His influence and leadership were vital to it. For now, in Jo’burg and Pretoria, your presence will suffice in Ian’s stead. But in Port Elizabeth I face certain . . . shall we say ‘inconveniences.’ “ Leistner toweled his forehead. He relit his pipe. “The situation in the Cape Province is festering. You know that, of course. In fact, the prime minister is considering imposing an unrestricted state of emergency quite soon now, nationwide. A bit of information, Lucas, that is just between us, please.”
“Of course,” Ravele replied. Shock waves swept the union official into a corner of confusion and indefinable intoxication.
“And a state of emergency can only serve to enhance, in the eyes of the world, the validity of the actions I have just proposed to you. Can you see that?”
“I can see that all hell will break loose if it does happen,” Ravele answered. Growing understanding eclipsed the shock of a moment ago. “And you want me to replace Elgin down in Port Elizabeth with one of your own, don’t you?”
“Temporarily, yes. Someone who can stand in well with both the FMU and the Affiliated Union people.”
“That’s a tall order, Minister. Though there is someone. She’s well known in P.E. already, and particularly loyal, I might add. You may know her. Her name is Delaney Blackford.”
The pendulum of surprise swung rapidly in Cecil Leistner’s direction. Delaney? My God, he thought. Is it possible Ravele knows about that?
“I’m sure Mrs. Blackford would be ideal,” he said evenly. “But I did have a candidate in mind, actually.” Leistner set a final screw. “Call it a favor that will come back to you manifold when the situation becomes clearer to you.”
“Most enticing, Minister. When and who?”
Contemplating the arrival of ARVA II, Leistner replied, “The first of the week if
that’s not rushing things too much.”
“And for how long would you anticipate?”
“A month, I would think. Six weeks maximum,” Leistner answered, knowing the man would be dead within two. “His name is de Villiers. Steven de Villiers. He’s a lawyer from my department. I’ll have a dossier sent to your office this afternoon.”
****
Inside the Republic of Ciskei, the gentle hills seem blue from a distance. The rain smells of fresh fruit. Palm trees, orchids, grass huts, and emaciated cattle live side by side, an unnegotiated peace. The Ciskeians, Xhosas and Pondos mostly, prefer the bus to cars and their own feet to those of horses. Highway N2, or Settler’s Way, passes through the heart of Ciskei on its journey along the coast.
Peddie was a small town, six or seven hundred permanent residents, but a major transportation crossroads for freight trains as well as buses. It was located at a midway point between the South African cities of Grahamstown and King William’s Town.
Detective Merriman Gosani placed his phone call from the local police station, a single-story framed structure with tar-paper walls and a canvas roof. A plastic cuckoo clock, a Hong Kong product nailed to an exposed stud, read 4:30. The temperature was ten degrees cooler here than in Port Elizabeth.
Nigel Mansell was halfway out the station-house door when the desk sergeant hailed him. He took the call at the front desk.
“I have a passenger here who swears she saw Sylvia Mabasu get off the bus at the Peddie station,” Merry told him. “She’s an elderly lady. An invalid on her way to East London. She told me she likes to watch people.”
“Ah. One of those.”
“I think she’s legitimate.” Merry always took his superior literally. “Good,” Mansell replied. “Go ahead.”
“And she says she’s almost positive the Mabasu woman didn’t return before the bus departed. Okay. It gets interesting here. The lady thinks she saw Sylvia Mabasu get into the front seat of a car driven by a white male. But the woman’s back was turned toward her, she says, and the car was across the bus-station parking lot.”