The Harbinger

by Mark Graham

  It rains seventy centimeters a year in Port Elizabeth. Rain is an occasion for celebration.

  Nigel Mansell saw the first drops alight on his office window at 6:15. The last rays of sunset tinged the drops an iridescent orange. He switched off the computer and started for the door. The telephone rang.

  No, he thought, turning the door handle. He glanced back. Bloody hell.

  “Mansell,” he answered.

  “Nigel, it’s Richter.”

  “It’s raining, Piet.”

  “Is it?”

  A smile creased Mansell’s face. “You sentimentalist.”

  “We found the rope.”

  “Excellent.” Mansell crossed to the window. “Any purchase records?”

  “Six hundred thousand people in Port Elizabeth. Every store in the city sells rope of some kind, right? But only two stock a nylon-rayon mix like this one. They’re both closed on Sunday, so I had to roust out the managers. Two purchases in the last month.”

  “Joshua and Merry are on their way here. Six-thirty. Meet us.”

  “I’m hungry. I’ll make a quick stop on my way.”

  “Eat later, Piet. I know you better than that.”

  “I’ll bring bobotie.”

  “Will you? All right then, dinner for four.” Mansell hung up. Blackmail, he thought rightfully.

  Rain graced the coast for several minutes, and then the clouds returned to the ocean. Stars filled the sky in their wake. Still, the olfactory delight lingered, and Mansell met Detective Richter on the sidewalk.

  Cape Province bobotie consisted of curried ground beef, sauteed onions, and milk-soaked bread. They used the chief inspector’s desk as a dining table.

  When Joshua entered the room he made a show of the bandages covering Richter’s head. “Impressive, Piet. Are we expecting a decoration for bravery, or were you sleeping when it happened?”

  “And a fine, bloody dream I was having at the time, too. Bastards.” Richter delivered his report between bites. “Like I said, it’s not that the nylon roping is hard to find. Every johnny with a sign over his door sells something like it. It’s the rayon additive. It’s stronger, more flexible, but not an essential if you’re only bundling branches up for the trash.”

  “Or strangling a union official,” added Joshua.

  “Or a cleaning woman.” Raised eyebrows turned in Mansell’s direction. “I just talked with Chas. It’s the same rope. Same manufacture, same component mix.”

  “Conclusive, then?”

  “There’s no way of telling absolutely. Two people killed within hours of each other; same M.O., same weapon, same method.” Mansell set the half-finished meal aside. He touched his breast pocket, felt the pack, and decided against it. “Tell me about the purchase records.”

  “The first buy happened at Sea Port Sports, fifteen days ago. A local commodities dealer named John Mason. He used American Express.”

  “Which commodities?”

  “I thought of that. I reached someone in his office. Mason deals in the ag markets. Soybeans, corn, horseshit. You know,” said Richter. The door opened. Merry entered carrying four coffees. “I talked to Mason an hour ago. He told me he bought the rope for his yacht, poor bastard. He claims he was in Bloemfontein Wednesday through Friday. Sounds legit, but I’ll have a confirmation on Monday. Okay. The second purchase was eight days ago at The Outdoorsman. It’s a sporting goods place in Fairview. It was a cash sale, but the manager made the sale himself, and he thinks he remembers the buyer. Why? Because he was wearing a three-piece suit and said something about spelunking in the Transkei?”

  “Exploring caves,” explained Mansell. Spelunking was an uncommon sport, which, in its purest form, required the skills of mountain climbing, the nerve of free-falling, and a love of dark places and crawling things. During his college days, Mansell and several friends from the University of Natal spent a month one summer exploring caves in Royal Natal National Park. The one outing had satisfied his curiosity. Ian Elgin had also studied at the same university, but nothing in his file suggested an interest in spelunking.

  Mansell wasn’t aware of cave sites worth exploring in the Transkei, and he glanced over at Merry. “Make a call to the Parks Service people in the Transkei,” he said. “Talk to Eli Leavell. He’s an old friend. He’ll know where any suitable caves are located. Chances are good that a license is required or some type of registration. Maybe our man’s still around.”

  Merry scribbled the name on a note pad.

  “And the chiffon scarf?” Mansell directed his question at Detective Richter again.

  “Most of the ladies’ boutiques are closed on Sundays, but we called on as many owners as we could get ahold of. All for naught, so far. One says Cape Town, one says Johannesburg, one says New York. We also drew a blank at the department stores.” Richter tossed an empty cup into the wastebasket and shrugged. “I’m at it again first thing in the morning.”

  Searching for a prop, Mansell touched cold coffee to his lips. With a grimace, he pulled it away and settled gratefully for a cigarette. He said, “I talked with Anthony Mabasu again this afternoon. Security’s made a mess of him.”

  “And I heard we’re filing charges?” Merry said. It sounded more like a question than he’d intended, but Mansell understood. “If we don’t, he stays.”

  “Then I’ll be at the Hall first thing in the morning.”

  “Good.” Mansell reviewed the interview with Hurst and the evidence being prepared by the prosecutor’s office.

  “They may have a case,” said Joshua.

  Merry protested. “On a leaky bagful of circumstantial evidence?” “The motives are there, like it or not.”

  “Motives? You don’t kill someone because a copy of his signature is on your dismissal notice. There were five other names on it, too, and they’re all still alive. Mabasu had it coming, and he knows it.”

  “He appealed the dismissal,” countered Joshua. “And with some vigor, according to union sources.”

  “Everyone appeals their dismissals. Everyone gets turned down.”

  “I hate to agree with Hymie Wolfe, Merry,” Piet Richter said, “but infidelity pushes as many bad buttons as anything.”

  “Infidelity with who?” asked Merry. “Mabasu suspected infidelity, but lots of men think their wives are screwing around with somebody. He’s never mentioned a name to anyone, not his co-workers, not his neighbors, not to anyone we’ve talked to.”

  “True,” argued Joshua. “But now the third member of the troika is dead. Does Pathology have an ETD yet, Nigel?”

  “Seventy-two hours ago.”

  “Then it fits. Mabasu could’ve easily taken a bus or car, or hell, even hitchhiked to Ciskei on Thursday, offed his wife, and still been back to his job Friday morning in plenty of time to set up Elgin, right? And the watch and ring. How do you refute that? That’s not circumstantial, Merry.”

  “Yeah, and that bothers the hell out of me.” Merry massaged his eyes, yawning. “Why would Mabasu leave his prints all over the locker room, make a spectacle of himself by reporting the body, and yet still take the time to wipe the prints off the ring and watch before hiding them in his own house?”

  “A plant,” said Richter. “Yeah, I like it.”

  “A plant?” Joshua retorted. “By who?”

  “Forensic checked the crawl space,” Mansell said. “Besides those of three neighborhood kids, the only fingerprints they discovered belonged to the Security officers who found the goods.”

  “If Security planted the watch and ring, where in the hell did they get them in the first place? Unless . . . unless they set Elgin up themselves.” Joshua stared through a cloud of smoke at Mansell. “Tell me that’s not possible.”

  Mansell cracked a window. A ghetto blaster passed below them on the sidewalk playing a gospel tune by Ladysmith Black Mambazo. “Merry, how about our schizoid from the train station? Martin Engels?”

  “A brick wall. But I think he’s capable of murder. He’s wit
h Spencer in the shrink ward for the moment.”

  Mansell nodded, glancing at Joshua. “And the rent-a-car?”

  “Fifteen different agencies rented a hundred and twelve Hondas over the last thirty days,” Joshua told him. “We’re concentrating on the last week to begin with. Okay. Of those twenty-eight renters, two are from Port Elizabeth. Both are still on the road. One we contacted in Cape Town; the other is camping in Kruger National. Sixteen of the rentals were made to South Africans living outside the city; nine have been accounted for. The remaining ten were leased to foreign visitors. Three of those have been returned, and we’re working on the other seven.”

  “Were any of the returns paid for in cash?”

  Joshua shuffled through his files. “Here it is. Credit cards were used for all twenty-eight deposits. Of the twelve returns, three were paid in cash.”

  “Concentrate on those first, I think,” Mansell said. “A car back on the lot, cleaned and vacuumed, is a lot safer than a car on the road.”

  ****

  At sundown seven flatbed trucks rumbled along a narrow road among the rolling hills of the East Rand. At a midway point between Delmas and Welgedacht, they approached a chain link enclosure brightly illuminated by four spotlights. A sign, hung on the outside of the gate, read, EAST FIELDS MINING CORPORATION. The caravan rolled to a stop outside the fence. An armed guard pushed the gate aside.

  Hurriedly, grim passengers dressed as migrant workers disembarked. They gathered at the foot of a circular guardhouse. Papers were scrutinized, faces matched with photos. One by one, the workers trudged past the gate, down a winding road, to a well-lit compound and rebuilt barracks furnished with multiple bedding, enlarged kitchens, and immense food stores.

  From atop a platform next to Central Access, Jan Koster and Colonel Rolf Lamouline watched this harried lot, 240 in all, the first of East Fields’s new tenants. A thousand others, workers gathering at train and bus stations in Springs, Benori, Brakpan, Witbank, and Kempton Park, were expected before the night was past.

  “Independence, Colonel.” Koster gestured at the new arrivals. “A commodity often hazardous and short-lived.”

  “Independence?” Lamouline shrugged. “The Bantu have battled colonialism, tyranny, and tribalism with spear and spilled blood for centuries, young man. In the end, he gains a parcel of land for farming, and after a season the parcel is overgrown with weeds. In battle, he wins a precious stretch of road, and the road is soon pitted and unpassable. His revolt brings him a cement factory in Nigeria, and he underpays his workers. In Kenya, a crane breaks down and rusts out because he doesn’t have the spare parts to fix it nor the wherewithal to buy them. A locomotive in Angola, an essential for hauling oranges and wheat to market, sits abandoned at a railroad siding because no one can fix the goddamn hydraulic brakes. A bakery in Zaire, a gift you might say from departing whites, flounders because there’s no flour for bread. . . . Independence? I don’t know.”

  ****

  Mrs. Delaney Blackford’s file indicated that her grandmother, on her father’s side, was of Zulu ancestry. Her grandfather was Dutch, her mother English. She, therefore, lived in a coloured community called Gelvandale.

  The suburb of Parkside portrayed the elite side of Gelvandale’s varied living conditions. The streets were freshly paved, the grass nearly green, the gardens well tended. Installation of streetlamps was planned for the following spring.

  The house on Trevenna Avenue was a stuccoed two-story enclosed by yellowwoods, apricot trees, and a lavender hedge. The night was cool and dry, touched by the scent of freshly tilled soil and burning cedar. Mansell noticed two lights burning, one behind the opaque glass of the bathroom and one behind drawn curtains in the front room. He tapped lightly on the door. In one hand he held a bottle of chilled champagne, keys in the other.

  The door opened. Delaney wore a cotton shift exposing tan shoulders and slender legs. She held a walking stick out in front of her and the door close.

  “Good evening. It’s Nigel Mansell,” he said. “I know it’s late.” She didn’t move. “Harassing Parkside tonight, Inspector?” “Just your side of the street tonight.”

  “How kind of you. We were feeling left out.”

  “I should have called first,” Mansell said. Delaney’s black hair fell in waves upon her shoulders and back, less tended than before, more appealing even so. “This could be considered a social call. I’ve heard you fancy champagne.”

  She tossed her head back, laughing. “Is that what my file says? I didn’t realize it was so detailed.”

  “Actually, your secretary was kind enough to pass a subtle hint,”

  he replied. “Do you always make your hired help work on Sundays?” Delaney leaned against the threshold. A hint of relaxation. “I don’t like policemen,” she said.

  “I’m only a policeman part of the time.”

  “Policemen, Chief Homicide Inspector Mansell, are policemen every minute of every day. You have a cot in your office and stale sandwiches on your desk. Your friends are all cops. You all hang out at the same bar on Main Street, and you talk shop until the wee hours of the morning. Right?”

  A glib riposte eluded Mansell. He smiled, a bleak smile he realized, knowing she was right, at least in part. But he didn’t want to think about the decaying corpse of Sylvia Mabasu, or the battered figure of her incarcerated husband, and he couldn’t face the prospect of his own home. He held up the champagne. “Invite me in.”

  She pushed aside the screen, and Mansell stepped inside. He paused while Delaney engaged the lock. An oval table, oak with a beveled glass top, dominated the front room. A porcelain vase with a crackled glaze and Japanese brushwork adorned the center of the table. There were no flowers in it, and none were needed, Mansell decided. The table rested upon a rug woven of blues and lavenders. Palms grew in matching planters on either end of a long couch.

  “So how’s your taste in champagne?” she asked, relieving him of the bottle.

  “There’s an old saying, Armenian I think. ‘Champagne is like vodka; never be impressed by the price.’ “

  Delaney glanced over her shoulder. Mansell followed her into the kitchen. A cut-glass lamp hung over a butcher-block table. African violets crowded inside a bay window behind the counter. The champagne erupted. The cork assaulted the ceiling. Champagne spilled over her hand into the sink, and they both laughed.

  “That’s half the fun,” Delaney said.

  They carried glasses and the bottle back to the living room. Mansell shed his sports coat. He chose a rattan chair with flat, broad arms. Delaney sat on the floor, reclining against the couch, her walking stick by her side.

  Mansell noticed it. The shaft was oak, the head a polished oval of solid brass. “Nice,” he said.

  “I’m a collector. Necessity and desire.”

  “I’d like to see it sometime. The collection, I mean.” The champagne was dry and smooth. Mansell disliked it less than he’d expected.

  Delaney touched hers with a fingertip and changed the subject. “How’s the investigation? I thought for sure I’d be a suspect.”

  “Are you disappointed? I could arrange something dramatic. A dawn raid. Helicopters. Bullhorns.” Mansell hesitated. He noticed a change: reluctance, sorrow.

  “The funeral’s tomorrow in Johannesburg,” she said.

  “Yes, I know.” Mansell touched his breast pocket, and then retreated. “The Security Branch arrested a suspect. No charges have been filed yet, though.”

  “Who’s the suspect? Would I know him?”

  “I can’t say. We’re under an information blanket. I don’t think you’d know him. No.”

  “Meaning he’s black,” she replied. “Will it be in the papers?”

  “Elgin’s position with the union has led someone very high up in Pretoria to deem the situation an internal security matter. Translated, that means someone’s playing politics.”

  Delaney thought of the minister automatically. She glanced in Mansell’s direct
ion, but found him gazing, instead, at the stereo set against the opposite wall.

  He said, “What kind of music do you listen to?”

  Relieved, she followed his eyes. “Classical, jazz, rock. I’m very diversified,” she answered. “Are you hinting that this really is a social visit?”

  “Surprise me.”

  Delaney chose a jazz guitarist named Jonathan Butler.

  “The most obvious question,” she said, curling up on the floor again, “is, why a policeman? But don’t tell me. It runs in the family.”

  Mansell felt the quick release of laughter, and Delaney joined him. He was amazed by the life in her smile. Equally amazed at how instantly it was contained.

  “The Major was a cop in East London. Retired,” said Mansell. “Now he’s a full-time gardener. He says it’s only half as exciting, but twice as productive. Secretly, I think he was hoping for a lawyer or a judge. But Mom used to say that lawyers are generally overrated, and judges are lawyers who even bore other lawyers. Please, no offense intended.”

  Delaney extended an empty glass. Mansell poured. She said, “Mom’s right. It’s a boorish lot, but that leaves the field wide open. My father was the Oscar Wilde of our family. He’d always tell me that the incompetents of the world breed opportunity for the competent. He and my mother run a hardware store on the Cape. Retail’s just the opposite. Everyone thinks it’s easy.”

  “So that explains all the For Rent signs in the shopping centers these days.”

  “And I don’t like to fail. I chose the easy way out.” Delaney glanced at his glass, half full and loitering. “I have whiskey and gin. We may as well both enjoy our drinks.”

  “Whiskey. I’ll pour.” She directed him into a sitting room that had once been a library. The liquor cabinet was next to a spinet piano. Photos, all of the same dark-haired child with saucer eyes and an unabashed smile, lined the piano. The wall behind the piano was filled with kindergarten artwork: a finger painting of the ocean, a cut-and-paste Halloween pumpkin, a collage of dragons and dinosaurs.