by Malla Nunn
Further down the street, the Alsatians stopped to examine a dignified Indian in a pinstripe suit. The scent didn’t hold and the dogs set off again, panting.
‘They’re after the Indian who killed Jolly Marks.’ Emmanuel repeated the constable’s words even though there was no sense in them. Two Indian suspects had mysteriously shrunk to one. The sharp call of police whistles and the thundering of boots on the pavement meant that a fistful of money was being thrown at the apprehension of Jolly’s killer. Someone had loosened the law-enforcement purse strings. This effort was for the arrest of a child killer. It was interracial. It was a propaganda opportunity that could not be squandered.
‘A witness gave the police a description of two dark-haired Indian men who were seen near the crime scene. Now it’s down to one Indian and they’re pretty sure he’s guilty,’ Emmanuel explained. A slew of uniformed police cut across the end of Browns Road. He pointed to them. ‘Look at the number of cops. The Black Maria is to mop up any stray natives flushed out in the search. Dozens of pass violators and a child killer caught in a single afternoon. Whoever is in charge of this operation is going to get a promotion.’
‘You are no longer the prime suspect. The mistake has been rectified,’ Zweigman said. ‘You are free.’
‘Someone let me off the hook and now an innocent Indian man is on it instead.’ Emmanuel shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, bunched them into fists. ‘Neither one of us is guilty.’
And there was still the outstanding matter of the double murders at the Dover apartments. Emmanuel felt certain that his name would still be on those arrest warrants.
‘The man you talked to at the storehouse, he is the one the police are searching for?’ Shabalala said when Emmanuel showed no joy at being released from the hangman’s noose.
‘No. Brother Jonah is white and American.’
‘Then who are the police after with their guns and dogs?’ Zweigman puzzled aloud.
‘I think I know,’ Emmanuel said and moved off the pavement for two black men who were running full pelt for the alley. Their rubber shoes, fashioned from discarded car tyres, hit the pavement with hard slaps. Two light-haired boys, similar enough to be twins, stuck their heads out of a stationary Chrysler and giggled at the chaos of the natives and the police running around in all directions.
On the opposite side of Browns Road, Amal Dutta lurched from door to door in a frantic search for something.
‘Amal.’ Emmanuel hurried across the asphalt and touched the boy’s shoulder. The teenager’s body vibrated with harried breath. ‘Slow down. Stop. What are you looking for?’
‘Giriraj.’ Amal took a great lungful of air. ‘I have to find Giriraj.’
‘Why?’
‘I… I…’ His words petered out and Amal slumped against the wall, his lungs wheezing.
‘Sit.’ Zweigman appeared at Emmanuel’s shoulder and spoke directly to the stricken boy. ‘Sit down on the step and put your head between your knees. Good.’ The doctor squatted in front of Amal and placed both hands on his shoulders. ‘There is enough air for every living thing. Take a deep breath. And another. Good. One at a time.’
Shabalala wove through the crawl of traffic and joined Emmanuel on the footpath. A crowd of Afrikaner and English rail yard workers gathered on the corner of Point Road, all whispers and pointed index fingers. It was clear that, for once, the opposing European sides agreed on something. Emmanuel moved to block their view of Amal. Outraged citizens could so easily turn into a mob and community-minded action into a full-scale riot.
Balmy Durban was no stranger to savage outbreaks of bloodshed. Beer hall riots and inter-tribal fighting claimed dozens of lives. Anti-rent rise protests in the late forties had ended in the frenzied looting of Indian stores and the savaging of shop owners and innocent bystanders. The civil English facade was a hair’s breadth away from chaos. And that was the essence of empire: the unspoken tension between civilised appearance and stark reality.
Emmanuel squatted next to Zweigman. Shabalala stood to protect their backs. The Zulu constable also felt the low tremor of suppressed violence that travelled in the air like an electric charge before a storm. Police guns were the thunder and lightning.
‘Tell me,’ Emmanuel said to Amal.
‘The police are looking for Giriraj.’
‘What for?’
‘Because of the boy we found in the rail yard. Because of him.’ Amal licked his lips, miserable. ‘The policemen want him for that.’
‘For the murder?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you call and give them Giriraj’s name?’
‘No. Never.’
‘Parthiv?’
‘Not him either.’
‘Who then?’
Amal glanced down the length of the street then leaned forwards. ‘Mr Khan.’ He whispered the name like a witch casting a spell. ‘It was Mr Khan. He knew that Parthiv and I were in the rail yard near the boy’s body. He said to Maataa, “If the police know this, they will arrest your sons. They will go to jail and they will hang for that white boy’s murder”.’
The meeting between the Duttas and Khan hadn’t been a peace initiative. It was a promise of disaster for the Dutta family.
‘Khan blackmailed your mother,’ Emmanuel said.
‘No.’ Amal’s smile was cynical. ‘Mr Khan said it was an exchange of information.’
‘Of course,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Tell me about this exchange of information.’
‘Mr Khan said that the police did not have to know about me or Parthiv. He could fix this problem.’
‘But…?’ There was always a ‘but’.
‘The detectives knew that Indian men were in the rail yard. Mr Khan said he had to give the police something to use. Just one name in exchange for our freedom.’
‘Giriraj.’
‘Maataa said no. Parthiv said no. I said no.’ Amal struggled to his feet. Emmanuel and Zweigman stood at either side of him while he fought back tears. ‘Mr Khan told us that Giriraj was a bad man. A thief. A liar. That he stole from us and spent the money on prostitutes.’
Khan’s informers had been working overtime. He probably knew more about Jolly’s murder and the plan to capture Nicolai and Natalya than the detective branch did.
‘Then,’ Amal continued, ‘he picked up the telephone and dialled a number and asked to talk to a . .. a …’
‘Detective Head Constable Robinson.’ Emmanuel supplied a name but Amal shook his head in response.
‘No. It was a British Raj name.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Two surnames joined together,’ Amal said, then continued with the story. ‘Whose name shall I give the police?’ he finished, imitating Khan, then fell into an uneasy silence. The end of the story was being played out on the streets around them.
High-pitched whistles screeched like metal birds and police wheeled as people ran past them. Giriraj came flying around the corner, crossed the tarred road and poured on the speed. The white rail workers raised a shout and a group of them gathered and ran after the Indian man.
‘Giriraj!’ Amal shouted, but the Dutta family bodyguard was deaf to everything but the police whistles and the thunder of footsteps behind him.
Humans found it remarkably easy to turn against each other, Emmanuel thought. If someone was a different colour, had a wandering eye or was left-handed then turning against him became even easier. How elemental and comforting to believe that wrongdoing could be identified by a physical trait. The police and the others were after Giriraj, but all Indian men - fat, thin, tall and dwarfed - were, for the duration of the hunt, courting danger.
Amal took off after Giriraj and Emmanuel raced after him.
‘Giriraj!’ Amal’s plea blew away on the wind.
Traffic crawled then stopped when a squad of uniformed policemen swarmed across the road and veered in the direction Giriraj had fled. Emmanuel glanced over his shoulder. Shabalala and Zweigman were still with him, and behind
them were more rail workers and police. If they stopped they’d be trampled under the momentum of the crowd.
Amal slowed. Emmanuel grabbed his arm and urged him forwards. ‘Keep running,’ he said and dragged the boy along the pavement by force of will.
Ahead was a busy four-way intersection strung with electric tram lines and anchored on the corners by traffic robots. Trucks and cars idled at the red light. An ordinary Monday afternoon. Durban’s image was still intact and bathed in winter light. Giriraj, trailed by pursuers, neared the corner.
The traffic light turned to green. Cars surged into the intersection. Giriraj jumped the lip of the pavement and hit the crosswalk in full flight. A car braked hard and a horn blared. Giriraj skirted the front bumper of a maroon Mercedes and disappeared behind a delivery van. A second vehicle blasted its horn, a long, sustained note of alarm. The electric lines of the tram shook with the force of a sudden deceleration. Brakes screeched. A flock of seagulls shot skyward.
Emmanuel found extra speed and cut in front of Amal. Traffic in the intersection seemed cemented in place. A sweaty man, four back from the lights, craned out of his driver’s window to find the reason for the hold-up. Across the line of ornamented car bonnets, Emmanuel glimpsed a grey-haired woman with a hand held against her mouth; the universal sign of distress that he’d seen countless times at crime scenes and in war zones: a scream held back.
He edged past the delivery van. Heads were craned out of the windows of a tram. Two women on the sidewalk clutched each other’s arms. A uniformed driver with his hat askew and his face red stood in the doorway of the tram. He was shaking.
‘He ran … he ran straight in front of me. I couldn’t stop …’
Emmanuel cleared a path through a small circle of onlookers. Giriraj lay on the asphalt, his limbs arranged at the impossible angles affected only by the dead. The oiled surface of his bald head was riddled with cuts and a leather sandal had been thrown onto the opposite sidewalk. Emmanuel kneeled to check for a pulse. Zweigman joined him on the road and Emmanuel pulled back and let the doctor take charge. He suspected that they both knew the result of the examination. A mortuary van, not an ambulance, would attend the scene.
‘Giriraj …’ Amal broke through the circle of onlookers. ‘Giriraj.’
Emmanuel stood up and tried to block Amal’s approach. The boy scooted to the right and dropped to his knees beside the once mighty body of Giriraj, now crumpled and vacant.
‘Help him,’ Amal pleaded of the white-haired doctor. ‘Please.’
‘He is beyond help and beyond hurt,’ Zweigman said. ‘I am sorry. He is gone.’
The tram driver turned away and the ticket conductor patted his back with a rough hand in the way of a man unused to displays of emotion. ‘I didn’t see him …’ The driver’s voice was a coarse whisper. ‘He ran out of nowhere. There wasn’t enough time to stop.’
‘I know.’ The conductor sat his work companion on the footpath. ‘Plenty of witnesses saw what happened. You won’t get the blame.’
The pursuit teams, the rail yard workers and the police arrived in separate waves of blue and olive drab. A bulky sergeant, sweat-stained and fragrant, began moving the crowd off while the rest of the squad set up a human cordon around Giriraj’s body.
‘Step back,’ the sergeant barked. ‘This is a crime scene. Everyone back four steps.’
Emmanuel motioned Zweigman away from the body, then leaned down and spoke close to Amal’s ear. ‘Time to leave,’ he said. ‘Now.’
‘I’ll wait.’ Amal was dry-eyed. ‘I’ll wait for the ambulance to come.’
Emmanuel checked the crowd. The stunned tram passengers and the disappointed rail workers struggled for a better view. Constable Shabalala stood head and shoulders above the gathering. Any minute now elements of the crowd would shift focus from the dead man to Amal. They would want to know who he was, this young man kneeling by the side of a child killer.
One of the uniforms stuck on crowd control called out, ‘Did we get the right one, Sarge?’
‘The witness is on her way,’ the sergeant bellowed. ‘She’ll do a formal identification here on the spot.’
A whistle blew and the throng split. The tram passengers craned their heads towards the new movement. Detective Head Constable Robinson and Detective Constable Fletcher pressed through the crowd with the witness tucked safely between them.
Emmanuel crouched and took hold of Amal’s wrist. ‘If I have to break your wrist to save your life, I will. Now move.
Quickly.’ He tugged the boy to his feet. They stood almost face to face with Fletcher and Robinson.
‘Her?’ Amal gasped in recognition and Emmanuel wheeled them both sixty degrees so the witness saw their backs.
Zweigman glimpsed the fear in Amal’s face and felt the urgency of the ex-detective’s movements. ‘This boy is going to be sick,’ he shouted. ‘Make way. Please. Make way.’
The crowd and the police gave them plenty of room. A path opened and then closed like a zipper as bodies hemmed in behind them. Soon, all three were part of the great human tide. Emmanuel shouldered through the spectators and cut across to Shabalala. The Zulu constable was the perfect barrier to shelter behind. Zweigman joined Shabalala to form a line of cover. If the detectives looked in their direction they would see an old man and a tall native brought into the city to help his master with the heavy chores.
The detectives led the witness over to Giriraj’s body and Robinson held on to her slender arm. She was unsteady on her feet and swayed with the breeze.
‘Is that really the same woman?’ Amal whispered in disbelief.
‘Yes,’ Emmanuel said. ‘She’s cleaned up.’
The prostitute from the rail yard had come dressed in a dark brown frock that buttoned to the throat and fell well below the knee. The loose garment covered the details of her body. Her face was free of make-up, her hair pulled back into a neat bun. A plain gold chain was her only adornment. Compared with the sparkling night-time wear she favoured, this was practically sackcloth and ashes. Still, there was something about her that didn’t sit right. Despite all her efforts to appear respectable, an aura of sexual availability clung to her. Emmanuel couldn’t figure out why. The prostitute held a hankie to her nose like a Victorian heroine in a penny dreadful novella, and he saw bright colour glint from the white cotton. She’d forgotten to remove the flecks of devil-red polish from her long nails.
Detective Head Constable Robinson drew in a breath and let it out slowly while the witness completed her pantomime display of shock and grief. He appeared uneasy, despite being on the brink of solving the brutal murder of a white child.
‘This him?’ Robinson asked.
‘Jâ,’ the woman said. ‘That’s the Indian. He followed Jolly Marks.’
The crowd murmured in response. The prostitute continued to stare at Giriraj’s body, mesmerised. A memory flickered across her face and she stepped back, lost in thought.
‘And . ..’ Robinson prompted after the silence had dragged out long enough.
‘He … he had a knife in his hand,’ she said.
A few women tut-tutted while their husbands rued the fact that the Indian was already dead and would not be dragged through the courts and then killed by the proper means - a rope and scaffold.
Amal grabbed hold of Emmanuel’s jacket sleeve and whispered, ‘That’s a lie. Giriraj never carried any weapons.’
‘I know,’ Emmanuel said. ‘But there’s nothing to be done about it now. If she fingers you as one of the Indian men in the yard that night, the detectives will turn you inside out.’
‘But this is wrong,’ Amal hissed. ‘This is all a lie.’
‘Getting arrested won’t make it right,’ Emmanuel said.
He studied Fletcher’s and Robinson’s tensed shoulders and blank expressions. They sensed something was rotten too, but faced with a difficult case and a likely suspect who could no longer defend himself they let the scene play out.
‘You sure i
t’s him?’ Fletcher scratched his neck and peered down at the collapsed heap of flesh. ‘You told the crime scene guys that it was two of them: black-haired and in suits. This one is bald with sandals.’
The prostitute licked dry lips. ‘I was scared,’ she mumbled. ‘He’d seen me. He said he’d cut me if I told the truth.’
‘What kind of knife was it?’ Robinson kneeled on the tarred road and patted Giriraj’s body down with brisk hands. He reached into a pocket and withdrew a small lump wrapped in white muslin. The prostitute leaned forward, a horse to a sugar cube.
‘Hashish. No weapons.’ Robinson threw the white wrapped nub to his partner and spoke to the star witness. ‘Did you get a good look at the knife?’
‘What?’ The woman fiddled with the gold chain around her neck, her hungry gaze on the lump in Fletcher’s palm.
‘The knife,’ Robinson repeated. ‘What did it look like?’
‘Sharp,’ she said. ‘I was scared. He said he’d cut me.’
Tricky situation, Emmanuel acknowledged. A spellbound crowd, a dead man and a distressed woman. No matter what Fletcher and Robinson thought of the witness’s evidence, they were in no position to question it. A scared white woman trumped a dead Indian with a lump of African Black in his pocket any day. They had to play it safe and keep the witness and the crowd on side.
Robinson smiled. ‘But you’re not scared any more. You found your courage and decided to tell us the truth. Is that right?’
‘Ja, that’s right.’ She spilled tears and the detective stood up and laid a hand on her shoulder. The crowd responded instinctively to the weeping woman. They projected the image of their own mothers, sisters or aunties onto her, no matter the reality.
Emmanuel wondered what the tears were for: the loss of Giriraj’s tender alleyway ministrations or the cessation of the regular smoke delivery? Probably both. Giriraj had provided the streetwalker with pleasure and comfort in a life that had little of either.
‘Very brave of you,’ Robinson said, ‘to come forward and identify Jolly Marks’s killer.’
‘I had to,’ the woman sobbed. ‘I had to …’
Stripped of make-up and washed with tears, the prostitute radiated a strange purity. Truth seemed to shine from her. Emmanuel figured that was because she was finally telling the truth. The decision to come forward and identify Giriraj was not hers. She had to. There was no choice involved.