by Malla Nunn
‘German, English and French labels,’ Lana said. ‘All a couple of years old by the look of things.’
A small cardboard box with ripped edges was jammed against the bottom of the suitcase. Emmanuel removed the lid. A colour image of Natalya in a crisp red army uniform glowered from the heavyweight paper. She had a Nagant rifle slung over her shoulder and rays of sunshine broke the cloud cover and illuminated golden wheat fields. Woman, lover, soldier, farmer and pin-up girl for the revolution. Cyrillic text ran along the bottom.
‘It probably says something like, “A celebration of blood and seed”,’ Lana said with dry humour. ‘Russians dislike subtlety.’
‘The leaflets dropped onto battlefield soldiers were none too subtle, either,’ Emmanuel said.
By the close of the war the images employed by all sides were blatantly pornographic: German women assaulted by Russian men with ungodly phalluses; English girls pleasuring each other because their husbands were dead, sick or maimed; French women prostituting themselves for a Yankee dollar. The leaflets were meant to fire up or disillusion the men. They’d either fight to protect their women or give up to go home to them.
‘What’s your guess for this one?’ Emmanuel handed Lana another photo of Natalya, this time dressed in a colourful peasant costume and holding a basket of unnaturally red apples.
‘Spring Harvest from the Virgin Lands?’ Lana threw back, then added, ‘That girl never picked a piece of fruit in her life.’
‘Only when the camera was rolling.’ Film was the perfect medium for Natalya. It allowed single and prolonged close-ups of her flawless face.
‘You know her?’
‘She’s in the other room. Pregnant and sleeping.’
‘Oh.’
‘With her husband.’
Emmanuel retrieved the last photo. Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin, sat on a brown velvet couch between two attractive women with glossy blonde hair, and slender legs encased in silk stockings. The women had straight white teeth unused to chewing boiled horsemeat or turnip dumplings. Natalya was one of them. A handwritten sentence was scrawled along the bottom of the photo in black ink.
Lana pointed to a word at the end. ‘I recognise that. It says “Iosif”. That was my father’s name.’
Emmanuel studied the signed photo again. A group of five uniformed military men were clustered behind the couch but closer to the door of the palatial room, as if awaiting an audience with the great man. One of the officers had Nicolai’s bulky frame but he was clean-shaven and stood with squared shoulders.
‘That could be her husband,’ Emmanuel said. ‘But he’s too far away from the camera for me to be sure.’
‘One big star, maybe more, on the collar tabs of the jacket.’ Lana leaned closer. ‘The two-tone peaked cap and tunic could be NKVD. The state security service. If the photo was clearer I could tell you more.’
Emmanuel looked at her, in awe and in thrall of her casual knowledge of things military.
‘My father wanted a son but he got me instead,’ she said. ‘I tried hard to make up for that mistake.’
‘What’s your best guess on this man?’ Emmanuel tapped the officer that most resembled Nicolai. He wasn’t sure how important the answer was. He just wanted her to keep talking.
‘A major or higher rank in the state security service. Does that fit the man in the house?’
‘Not really,’ Emmanuel said. But then again, Nicolai had found the strength to haul himself from the deckchair in the house on the Bluff and he’d stayed calm when the bullets flew. It would also explain why the shooter had come after the couple. A senior NKVD officer would be a prime target for the English, the Americans and possibly even a Russian agency keen to reacquire a defector.
‘What’s your connection to them?’ Lana asked and began refolding the heavy coats and scarves into the suitcase.
‘Good question.’ Emmanuel put the box of photographs back into the corner with the Stalin couch shot on top. There was something in Stalin’s dark hair, dark eyes and cold smile that reminded him of Khan. ‘I followed a lead in the Jolly Marks murder that led to the Russians.’
‘Jolly, that’s the boy killed in the freight yard?’
‘Yes. The Russians were probably the last people to see him alive,’ Emmanuel said. ‘But beyond that I don’t see a connection with his murder or the murders in Stamford Hill.’
‘One of the bar regulars is a railway policeman. He said an Indian gang that supplies children for the white slave trade killed the boy. Two scouts in fancy clothes panicked when the boy tried to run away.’
That old fiction. No matter which way the English or the Dutch community turned, they were bedevilled by the insidious nature of darker people. Lawns left to die in the heat by insolent house boys; beloved domestic pets deliberately overfed by careless housemaids; and, lurking in the shadows of every European town, the terrifying and ever present spectre of dark-skinned men with an insatiable taste for white women.
‘Indians didn’t kill Jolly,’ Emmanuel said. The ‘who didn’t do it’ list was the strongest aspect of the case so far. ‘It wasn’t the Russians, either.’ The only person who could be connected to all three murders was, in fact, Emmanuel himself. He was the strongest suspect with good reason. Motive was immaterial because the Durban detective branch had evidence.
‘Excusez-moi.’ Hélène Gerard stepped onto the porch with a pot of coffee and a plate of chocolate biscuits on a tray. She’d sobered up and smelled of lavender. Her hair was pinned back and her smile had been freshly painted onto her face. ‘I thought you might like something to eat.’
‘Thank you,’ Emmanuel said and ignored Lana’s stare. He had no idea why Hélène Gerard was so desperately helpful. Only the major knew the answer to that question.
‘How do you take your coffee, Mr Cooper?’ Hélène poured dark liquid into a cup and her knuckles appeared white against the pot’s moulded plastic handle. A fraction more pressure and the handle would snap into a dozen pieces. ,
‘White. Two sugars.’
The Frenchwoman’s smile quivered and every breath seemed to be a conscious decision to draw oxygen. Just holding the line. Against what, Emmanuel did not know.
‘And you, mademoiselle?’ Hélène asked Lana.
‘White. One sugar. Thanks.’
The metal spout of the coffee pot clanked against the edge of the cup. Hélène steadied and finished the task without spilling liquid onto the saucer. Her smile held.
‘It’s late,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Don’t stay up for us. We can manage.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Hélène retreated to the door then hesitated. ‘There’s nothing else I can help you with? Please just ask.’
‘Everything is fine,’ Emmanuel said. ‘You’ve taken very good care of us. I appreciate it.’
‘It’s been my pleasure.’
Hélène slipped back into the house and closed the double doors behind her, ever the thoughtful hostess. Emmanuel stirred sugar and milk into the coffee cup. He waited and he listened. Hélène was spying from behind the door. He knew it as surely as he knew that she’d read over his identity cards while he slept.
‘She really likes you,’ Lana said. ‘Or she’s scared of you. I can’t tell which.’
Emmanuel moved across to the porch doors. Footsteps creaked on the pine floors of the interior corridor.
‘She’s scared, but not of me,’ Emmanuel said and automatically checked the garden and the driveway for the source of Hélène’s fears. A frog croaked near the marble lady fountain but nothing moved. ‘Finish your coffee and I’ll run you back to van Niekerk’s.’
‘Did you find what you needed?’
‘No.’ That was par for the course. Every new piece of evidence brought confusion, not clarity. ‘I still don’t know who killed the Marks boy. Don’t know why, either.’
&
nbsp; And that was what the deal stipulated: find Jolly Marks’s killer.
‘So you’re still in trouble?’ Lana undipped the straw bag, took out the Walther and slid it across the table.
‘For now. Thanks for your help anyway.’
‘What little it was worth.’ She looped the handbag over her wrist and frowned. ‘It’s funny. I really thought I could read more Russian script than that.’
Or maybe waiting for Major van Niekerk to stumble home drunk and horny held no appeal, Emmanuel thought. The information about the NKVD officer might prove useful once Nicolai resurfaced from sleep.
Emmanuel secured the gun and made for the Buick. He had nothing to give van Niekerk. The major would have nothing to give the sinister man from the interrogation room. Emmanuel fished out the car keys but didn’t insert them. The ornamental fountain splashed in the garden but there was another sound coming from the mouth of the driveway. He held his hand up to indicate silence. A clipped murraya hedge, shoulder high and jungle thick, shielded the house from traffic and Emmanuel crouched low and moved quickly along its inner edge. Lana closed the gap between them. He considered sending her back to the house but if there was someone out in the dark then double the hands meant half the work.
“The house is on a corner block,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll check this part of the street. You check the other. Don’t look over the hedge. Ever. Find a gap. If there’s no gap, make one quietly. Understand?’
Lana nodded.
‘Back on the porch in three minutes.’
Lana crossed the garden, fleet as a bird’s shadow. She crept along the hedge, her hands and eyes working in harmony to find an opening in the greenery. Her easy competence was disturbing. She had skulked and spied in absolute silence before. Enough times to make it appear natural.
Emmanuel avoided the driveway and moved parallel to the street, searching for chinks of light among the leaves and vines. He found none and carefully broke through the foliage one branch at a time to make a tunnel. The view did not improve.
Two black Chevrolets were parked either side of the chateau’s driveway in the ambush position. A slim male in a dark suit buttoned his fly and then got into the passenger seat of the closest vehicle. Pissing while on stake-out was a logistical nightmare. Twin points of red light glowed in the unlit interior of the second car. A quick smoke before a raid always calmed the nerves.
Down the street, half a block away at most, a big black Dodge sat under a streetlight. There were plenty of Dodge motorcars in the city of Durban but the chrome-rimmed headlights and the dent in the front grille made this one an exact match for the car at the side of the road on the Bluff. A silhouette reclined in the driver’s seat.
Adrenaline shot a message to every nerve ending in Emmanuel’s body: run hard, run fast. Do not look back. With speed he could make it through the darkened garden, over the fence and into the night. Then all he had to do was run and never stop, run and never sleep.
You will not retreat, soldier. The sergeant major was calm. You will not raise a white flag. There’s fifteen hours left on your deal with van Niekerk and letting these fuckers roll you was not part of that deal. They’ll take what they want from the house and leave you holding the bag for the murders. That’s god’s honest truth and you know it.
Yes, he knew it.
Give them the slip, the sergeant major said. Give them nothing till you’ve had a chance to clear your name.
Emmanuel checked the time: 1.30 a.m. They’d come in an hour or so when they were sure everyone at La Mer was sleeping. Timing was everything. The ability to drag suspects from their beds still numb and confused by sleep was power itself; a simple action that said, ‘We own the night. We own your dreams. We own you.’
Six months of fading into invisibility and tasting what it was to be non-white. Well, not tonight. Fifteen hours were left on the van Niekerk clock and he was going to use every one of them. The man in the Dodge and his friends would have to wait.
‘How many cars?’ he asked Lana, who stood on the veranda biting her thumbnail.
‘One car at the end of the street,’ she said. ‘There’s a man behind the wheel.’
‘All the exits from the house are blocked.’ Emmanuel looked down the unbroken lines of the hedge and the side fence. ‘They have us trapped.’
‘Do you know who they are?’
‘I don’t know names but I know who they are. I know what they are.’
‘Police?’ Lana’s tone was hopeful. Major van Niekerk’s name would provide a quick way out of any trouble from them.
‘No,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Security Branch.’
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
‘What are they doing here?’ Lana said quietly.
“They’re waiting. They’re going to raid the house.’
‘Why would they do that?’ Her skin paled in the mellow porch light. Major van Niekerk would never keep a girlfriend who’d been caught in the Security Branch net. There would be too much to lose.
‘They’re looking for something or someone,’ he said. ‘My guess is it’s the Russians.’
‘So they’ll arrest the Russians and leave?’
‘No way to know what will happen,’ Emmanuel said. ‘They might arrest one of us or all of us.’
Lana stared across the garden. ‘When do you think they’ll come?’
‘Between two and four. Best time for night raids.’
‘That gives us …’
‘Half an hour. An hour if we’re lucky.’
‘What’s the plan?’
‘We find a way out and we take it,’ Emmanuel said. ‘You, me and the Russians.’
Lana jerked a thumb towards the house. ‘What about your Frenchwoman?’
‘I doubt they’re coming for her.’
There was no way to stop the raid. All he could do was limit the damage done to Hélène and get out quickly.
He motioned to the hedge that separated Chateau La Mer from its back neighbours. ‘Our exit point will be across the yard and into the street behind. We’ll break through the hedge if we have to.’
Emmanuel split to the left and Lana to the right. They worked their way towards the middle of the hedge, looking for a break in the tropical vegetation. The servant’s kyaha, like the one behind the Duttas’ house, was built almost flush against the back boundary of the property. Servants needed to be close but not close enough to see through the bedroom curtains.
Emmanuel checked the lonely portal into the room. No lights. No movement. The kyaha was empty. A place the size of La Mer should have at least one on-grounds maid. Hélène had invisible help and an invisible husband.
The space between the back wall of the kyaha and the hedge was pitch black and narrow. Emmanuel squeezed in and fumbled towards the inky light that showed at the other end of the shack’s boundary. His hands tangled in the foliage then touched air and space.
‘What is it?’ Lana moved through the dark easily and rested a shoulder against the wall.
‘A hole,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Feels wide enough to crawl into.’
‘The maid’s secret passage,’ Lana guessed. ‘She probably used it to visit her boyfriend after lights out.’
Emmanuel crawled through the tunnel, which opened to a wide yard illuminated by a lantern that burned in the window of a mud-brick room a few feet to the right. White spider orchids in round-bellied pots lined a path to the back door of the main house. Lana emerged beside him and together they crouched low and breathed in the stillness of the night.
Emmanuel rose slowly. An empty driveway ran along the left side of the house. ‘That leads to the street. We’ll find a car out there.’ There was no need to say more. Lana knew what ‘find’ meant.
‘Let’s get the Russians,’ she said and they retreated towards the tunnel.
The screech of rusted metal against concrete shredded the silence. A nuggety black man flew from the doorway of the mud-brick room and ran straight for the back hedge. A wood knobker
rie, a native club, was raised high in the air.
‘Stop,’ Emmanuel said in Zulu. ‘Stop where you are.’
The man slowed but kept coming. Fear drove him. Fear and, Emmanuel guessed, the certain knowledge that if he failed to protect the delicate white orchids and the silver cutlery in the big house then his work pass would evaporate. Without this job, he’d get sent back to a native location in the sticks and be given an arid patch of dirt from which to scratch a living.
‘Stop and listen.’ Emmanuel spoke quietly in Zulu. ‘We are not here to steal. We are not here to harm you or those whom you work for …’ The hard clicks and tongue-twisting consonants of the Zulu language had a rhythm and a melody that was unique and to speak it, even here in the dark, unarmed, with a knobkerrie poised above his head, gave Emmanuel pleasure. The last conversation he’d had in Zulu was with Constable Samuel Shabalala, a man blessed with a simple eloquence that went to the heart of the matter and never danced around it.
‘Does he understand?’ Lana moved to Emmanuel’s side, curious.
The wooden club dropped from the Zulu man’s hand and he shuffled backwards. White women were more precious than the gold dug from the mines of Johannesburg. If a native raised even a finger to one of them, the white man’s law came down like a fist.
‘Salani kahle,’ the black man said and returned to the small mud-brick building. ‘Stay well, nkosi.’
‘Hamba kahle.’ Emmanuel returned the man’s traditional farewell. ‘Go well.’
The corrugated-iron sheet, cut down to fit the doorway, scraped closed and the lamplight inside the servant’s room died. The orchid petals shone like distant stars in the darkened yard.
‘What did you say to him?’ Lana asked.
‘I told him it is safer to dream than to be awake.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There would be no safe dreams for Hélène Gerard. Emmanuel’s fingers curled around the silver handle of her bedroom door as Lana pushed herself up against the wall and tried to breathe quietly. Earlier, her calm had disturbed him but now Emmanuel was glad of it. He needed an experienced woman who broke the rules and got away with it, not an innocent.