African Sky

by Tony Park

  The wide tree-lined stately streets of downtown Bulawayo narrowed to dusty dirt hemmed in by older, rundown masonry buildings, which, as the car lurched on, its wheels dipping in and out of potholes, turned to structures of tin, then asbestos sheet and then a mishmash of every building material available in the colony.

  Even at this late hour there was light. Weak yellow beams from blackened paraffin lamps slicing out through cracks in shanty walls. And music. How incongruous, Pip thought, that a place that reeked of decay and human waste, and must look even worse in daylight, seemed to pulse with a chirpy, lively brand of music. Or was it so surprising? Was the lot of the people who lived here so bad that music was their only happiness? She hadn’t ever given much thought to the plight of the blacks who worked on her farm. They always seemed genuinely happy to see her when they greeted her in the morning, when she had a mombe slaughtered for a special occasion, when they herded the milk cows past the house to the dairy. Who were the Africans who lived in the township of Mzilikazi? What were their lives like inside those crumbling asbestos homes with their bare earthen floors?

  Unconsciously she started tapping her foot on the firewall of the police car, picking up the lilting rhythm of the penny whistle and the guitar. It reminded her a little of American jazz, or swing, perhaps a mix of both. Kwela, she had a feeling it was called. Township music. Black music. She had picked up enough Ndebele to know the word meant ‘to lift’ or ‘to raise’. Maybe it raised their hopes, their hearts. Whatever its name, this was not the sort of music Charlie, her husband, would ever play at the farm on the gramophone – he preferred classical pieces. His choices reminded her of funerals. Pip strummed her fingers on the side of the police car’s door, out of sight of Hayes. She liked the rhythm and decided she would seek out some jazz records on her next shopping trip in town. She’d been reading the local newspaper, the Bulawayo Chronicle, during the night shift, and it was full of news about the fighting in Italy, and the Italian government’s surrender. However, the Germans and Japs were still very much in the war, so there was no risk of Charlie coming home any time soon. She’d have plenty of time to destroy the records before his return.

  Hayes stared across at her and even in the gloomy car she could see his disapproval. She stopped tapping her foot and strumming her fingers. She had a job to do.

  People ducked down alleyways and closed doors at the sight of the police vehicle as it cruised along. It was getting less and less like the white part of town the deeper they pushed into Mzilikazi. The township was named after the warrior king of the local Matabele people, who had been defeated by the whites after an uprising at the end of the last century, but there was nothing proud or regal about where the blacks lived now.

  Ahead she saw a crowd of fifty to a hundred people, mostly males, all Africans, thronging the entrance to a narrow alleyway.

  This’ll be the spot,’ Hayes said. ‘Bloody Kaffirs can’t resist congregating at the scene of a crime. One of them will have done it, Lovejoy mark my words. Take note of their faces. Get the names of the ones closest to the body, the ones gawking at her.’

  She swallowed the saliva that had suddenly filled her mouth, and wiped moist palms on her uniform skirt. Hayes had told her nothing of the victim. Now, at least, Pip knew the dead person was a woman. She wondered about the circumstances. The music was louder now, so they were probably near a shebeen. The bar was trading illegally, if it was open this late. He stopped the car.

  Hayes smiled. ‘Come on, Lovejoy. Let’s get it done. Try not to faint on me. Remember, right or wrong, you’re a member of the British South Africa Police, so try to act like one.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’ She stepped out of the car, into a puddle. It hadn’t rained for months. She shivered and recoiled at the smell of raw alcohol, vomit, cooking-fire smoke. She looked straight ahead and strode after Hayes. There were African women hovering on the fringe of the cluster of men. Garish floral-printed frocks. Empty eyes. She knew prostitutes were as much a part of a shebeen as the dark native beer, but she’d never seen one; at least, not that she knew of.

  ‘Step aside,’ Hayes ordered, and used his shoulder to push between two young African men in suits who blocked the footpath.

  Pip slowed and watched the way the two men reacted to Hayes. The first touched his head, ducked to one side and began an apology that Hayes ignored. The second’s eyes lingered resentfully on the policeman’s broad back. The man was well-dressed, better than most in the crowd, in a dark blue suit, a wide tie of a matching hue, a white shirt and a black fedora. He picked his teeth with a toothpick. Pip felt the man had a learned or innate dislike of the police; that he knew his rights and resented the simple, yet arrogant act of being physically brushed aside, like an annoying branch of a tree on a walk in the bush. He looked like a spiv to her.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Pip asked him, her voice little more than a croak at first. His eye line was about a foot above hers when he turned. The man smirked. She took a breath and bellowed: ‘I said, what’s your bloody name, man!’

  He took a step back, the smile gone from his face as he removed the toothpick. ‘Innocent. Innocent Nkomo, madam.’

  ‘How long have you been here, Innocent?’ Pip asked more softly craning her head back and fishing in her tunic pocket for her notebook and pencil.

  ‘For one hour, madam. Since they find her.’

  The penny whistle played on in another building down a street littered with broken beer bottles. An old man sat with his back against a tin wall. A dog sniffed him. Life carried on, even at a murder scene. ‘What were you doing in the neighbourhood?’

  ‘Drinking, madam. And dancing,’ he said. She couldn’t smell beer on his breath, though, and he seemed perfectly lucid. The whites of his eyes were clear and bright, not the hazy yellow that reflected a heavy night on the native beer. She wondered if he’d been up to something he didn’t want her to know about.

  ‘Was the victim in the pub, where you were drinking and dancing?’

  The African smiled again and shook his head. ‘She was not from around here.’

  ‘Lovejoy!’ Hayes barked.

  Pip was annoyed that the man had smirked at her while she was interviewing him, and wondered what she had said to cause him to do so. ‘Don’t leave. I’ll be back soon. I’ve got your name, Nkomo,’ she said with as much menace as she could muster. Pip elbowed her way through the crowd of thirty or forty onlookers. Most were men, but here and there a woman with heavy make-up in a bright dress also barred her way. At only a shade over five foot three, she was aware that most of the Africans on the street towered over her.

  ‘Here, Sarge, er, Sergeant,’ she said to Hayes’ back.

  The policeman turned and, as he did so, his sombre face was lit up by a blast of white light. ‘The forensic photographer’s here already, getting some shots of the body in situ. Take a look. She’s about your age.’

  Pip manoeuvred around Hayes’ bulky body. She knew a few African women of her age, but none of them, not the young mothers on the farm, or the few shopgirls she encountered in town, would be out at night in an area like this.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Pip hissed, then drew her hand to her mouth. ‘She’s . . .’

  ‘White. Surprised, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Um . . .’

  ‘Nothing surprises me after twenty-seven years in this job,’ Hayes said. ‘Control yourself, woman. Get a bloody grip. Well, go on, examine the body before the bloody coroner comes and carts her away’.

  Pip was shocked. The woman was about her age, maybe a year or two older, and most definitely Caucasian. A sheet covered most of her prone body – the police photographer had left her face visible, though, to take his last close-up shot. Pip swallowed hard. There was a smell about the body she found hard to place. Maybe faeces. The girl’s skin was a strange purplish colour, but there didn’t appear to be any decomposition.

  ‘Check her fingers, her joints, for signs of rigor mortis,’ Hayes said.

  She look
ed up, praying it was one of his tasteless jokes, but he stood impassively above her, arms folded. She took hold of the end of the white sheet and slowly drew it back. She caught her breath. ‘She’s virtually naked.’

  Hayes bent forward at the waist, more interested now. ‘Let me see.’

  A shiver passed down Pip’s back as she felt his breath on her neck. Creep. She did as ordered and lowered the sheet further.

  Pip caught the smell again. She turned her face away, closed her eyes and almost gagged as she swallowed the rising bile. I will not lose control in front of him, she thought. I can do this. She opened her eyes and coughed to clear her throat.

  ‘Get those bloody people back and out of sight!’ Hayes bellowed at a young African policeman. The officer spread his arms wide and forced the onlookers back a few paces. ‘Shield the view with your body, Lovejoy. We don’t want these bloody perverts starting a riot so’s they can get a look at a dead murungu,’ he added, using the common African term for a white person.

  ‘Her hands are tied, Sarge.’ Pip wiped a bead of perspiration from her upper lip. She was glad she was kneeling, as she was sure her legs would have failed her if she stood.

  Let’s have a look. What’s that, silk?’

  ‘Stocking, by the look of it. Her wrists have been bound with it. Her face looks familiar to me,’ Pip said.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Not sure, Sarge. Hard to say when she’s all dolled up like this.’ Pip noted the heavy make-up, the ruby lipstick. ‘It’s almost like, well, like she was trying to look like a tart.’

  ‘Watch your language, Lovejoy, and keep your voice down, for God’s sake. Don’t speak ill of the dead, either.’

  Pip looked at him. Sweat was beading his forehead and he only glanced at the body for a second or two at a time. She noticed the way he stared at the woman’s ample breasts and then averted his gaze, his cheeks reddened. She wondered if he had investigated many murders. As well as taking on women to fill the roles of men serving in the war, the BSAP had also promoted some male officers well beyond their capability to cover shortfalls in the senior ranks.

  ‘We should check to see if she has been . . . if she has been assaulted . . . in a sexual way. See to it, Lovejoy.’

  ‘You were told to get that bloody crowd back, man!’ Pip shouted to the same constable Hayes had badgered. Unchecked, the young officer had allowed the crowd to close in on them again. ‘Now, damn it!’

  Perhaps surprised by the anger in the small woman’s voice, the constable redoubled his efforts and, aided by a second officer, the onlookers were forced back to the corner of a burned-out shop. Pip had seen the charred remains of the hovel and wondered if it wouldn’t be better for every house in the township to be made of life-saving asbestos. There probably wasn’t even running water to fight a fire in this place.

  Pip lifted the sheet. The woman wore no brassiere or pants, but had on a pair of stockings and a suspender belt. Pip took a breath to steady herself and looked closer at the body. Her pubic hair had been shaved off. Odd, thought Pip. There were dark bruises on her inner thighs, small blotches, like fingerprints. ‘This really should be done by a doctor, don’t you think, Sarge?’

  Hayes coughed. ‘Well, what about it? Do you think she was . . . abused?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you class as abuse? She’s tied up and she’s dead in a laneway behind a shebeen.’

  ‘Don’t give me lip, Lovejoy. You’re of the fair sex, but you’re still only an auxiliary constable. I can see the bleeding obvious, can’t I?’

  ‘Sorry, Sarge,’ Pip said, without feeling. She shuddered as she took the dead girl’s cold right hand in hers and tried moving one of her fingers. The fingernail was painted a garish red. ‘Her fingers are a bit stiff, but still pliable. The joints haven’t seized up yet. I think that means she’s been dead for between two and four hours. I remember reading that muscles reach their stiffest between six and twelve. What do you think?’

  ‘Hmm, sounds about right to me.’

  Pip realised that neither of them had much of a clue about murder investigations. The woman was on her back. Pip eased a hand under her and gently rolled her halfway over. ‘Bruising around her neck too.’

  ‘Bloody Kaffirs.’

  ‘You’re sure an African did this?’ Pip asked.

  ‘Look at the neighbourhood. Don’t see too many whites around here at any hour of the day.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Sarge. But surely it’s too obvious a place to leave a body. Why would an African killer dump her here in a laneway where she was bound to be discovered so quickly? Looks to me like someone was trying to make a statement, or maybe the murderer wanted it to look like an African did the deed.’

  Hayes shook his head. ‘Mark my words, it’s the black peril. There’s no controlling the African once the drink gets to him.’

  Pip held her tongue. The black peril was the common name given to the whites’ fear of black men sexually assaulting their women but, from what she knew, cases of this nature were actually very rare. However, there were laws against African men consorting with European women, even if it were consensual. In Pip’s opinion the government would be better off enforcing the laws of assault against white men who hurt their wives, a crime not spoken of in the ordered society in which she lived.

  ‘We’ll talk to some of the bystanders. Find out if they saw anything unusual in the last few hours,’ Hayes said.

  Pip laid the woman back down in her original position and drew the sheet back up to her chin. She looked at the face again. The woman’s hair was blonde, but cut short, in a bob. It was a fashion more suited to the twenties than the forties. Pip, like most women her age, had let her hair grow, although it was tied up in a bun now under the back of her police-issue hat. The hairstyle did remind her of something, though. ‘I do think I’ve seen her somewhere before.’

  ‘She could have been a film star with a face and a . . . well, a face like that,’ Hayes said.

  It was true, the girl had a beautiful face, even in death, and a body to match. ‘It is like she’s famous, like I’ve seen her in a magazine or . . . Wait, that’s it. I’ve seen her in the newspaper, in the Chronicle!’

  ‘So, who is she? She’s obviously not carrying identification.’

  ‘She’s in the air force. She packs parachutes for the trainee pilots. She actually jumps out of aeroplanes to show how they work. She’s stationed at the air base at Kumalo.’

  Ah, yes. Well done, Lovejoy. I read the same story. It’s “Flying Felicity” we’ve got dead here in this shit hole.’

  Pip and Hayes stood up from their uncomfortable metal chairs in the guardroom as the squadron leader walked in. She’d been staring up at a dozen photographs on the wall opposite her. Young, smiling men in air force khaki sitting and standing in front of military aircraft, shoulder to shoulder. She wondered where all the newly graduated pilots were now, and how many of them were still alive.

  ‘Welcome to Number Twenty-One Service Flying Training School, Kumalo. I’m Squadron Leader Paul Bryant.’ He shook hands with Hayes and nodded to Pip.

  ‘Thank you for taking the time to meet with us, Squadron Leader,’ Pip said. Rumpled was the word which first came to mind when she looked at him. His cap looked like someone had sat on it, and the wisps of hair that protruded out from under it needed trimming. The flight sergeant who had met them at the gate had so much starch in his uniform that Pip reckoned the fabric would snap if he bent over too far, but the squadron leader’s uniform clearly hadn’t seen an iron for a couple of days. Nevertheless, she thought the casual way he presented himself conveyed an air of relaxed, understated authority, as if he didn’t need spit and polish to prove he was a military man. She didn’t know what the medal ribbons below the embroidered pilot’s wings on his chest were for, but she guessed by their number that he had already seen active service in the war, perhaps distinguishing himself in some way.

  Hayes cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps we could talk in
private somewhere, Squadron Leader. Your office? What we have to discuss is quite a sensitive matter.’

  ‘Of course, follow me,’ Bryant said.

  Pip stepped out her stride to keep pace with the men, and moved up beside Bryant as they walked along the footpath. They passed new-looking red-brick buildings with tin roofs, offices and barracks surrounded by manicured lawns edged with white-painted rocks. She wondered if news of the purpose of their visit would have preceded them. Bryant had avoided asking them any questions so far and his brisk, formal civility seemed contrived, as if he were nervously waiting for them to drop the bombshell about Felicity Langham.

  ‘You’re Australian,’ she said to him.

  ‘Not much gets past you coppers, does it? There are quite a few of us over here, instructors and trainees. There are also British, Canadians, South Africans, local Rhodesians, of course, and a smattering of trainees from other far-flung parts of the British Empire. We’ve even got a few Greeks from the Royal Hellenic Air Force.’

  ‘I’ve met a few pilots and trainees in town, but never been onto one of the bases,’ Pip said, eager to put the man at ease before they got down to business. Bulawayo was teeming with men in uniform these days.

  ‘Well, I’ll give you the gen – the information – on the Empire Air Training Scheme while we walk.’ A twin-engine aircraft passed low overhead, on a final approach to landing. ‘That’s an Airspeed Oxford. The blokes learning to fly those will go on to bombers. The single-engine kites – aircraft – you’ll see around here are American-designed AT-6 Harvards. The pilots on those will fly fighters, if they survive their training.’

  ‘Survive?’ Hayes interjected.