by Malla Nunn
Zweigman leaned forwards. ‘I know this Labrant’s Halt. It is only a few miles from the turn-off to my clinic. Our mail is delivered there.’
‘No.’ Emmanuel pinned van Niekerk with a hard stare. He knew what the major was planning and he could not ask Zweigman and Shabalala for more than they had already given. ‘We have to find another place.’
‘There’s no time. Think about it. The Russians need a doctor and you need a place to keep low. You’ll also have Constable Shabalala to watch your back.’
‘We’ll go back and question Khan together, right now.’
‘And then what? When the time is up you’ll have nowhere to run and you’ll have nowhere to hide. For just this once, let go, Cooper.’
‘Excuse me, Major,’ Zweigman said. ‘What will become of Detective Cooper if he remains here in Durban?’
‘Jail,’ van Niekerk said. ‘And then maybe a rope.’
‘In that case it is settled.’ Zweigman turned to Emmanuel. ‘I extend to you a new invitation to visit my clinic.’
‘I can’t ask that of you,’ Emmanuel said.
‘You are not asking. I am offering.’
Shabalala leaned forwards, but hesitated in the presence of an Afrikaner major.
‘Go on.’ Van Niekerk gave permission for the native constable to speak.
‘The traffic will be slow because of the accident with the Indian man,’ Shabalala said. ‘We must leave now if we wish to get out of town in time.’
‘I will drive to Labrant’s Halt,’ Zweigman volunteered. ‘If you are still uncomfortable with visiting my clinic, Detective Cooper, there will be ample time to make another plan. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ Emmanuel said.
‘Give me the keys to the Bedford and take this car,’ van Niekerk said. ‘The truck will be too slow.’
The major and Zweigman exchanged keys. They were headed for the Valley of a Thousand Hills two hours out of the city on a rough macadam road.
‘You okay, Cooper?’
‘Fine, thank you, Major.’ He couldn’t imagine the Afrikaner blue blood feeling as he did now … humbled by the sacrifice of others.
‘Give me forty-eight hours to sort this out. I’ll send word with Fletcher when it’s safe to move. Can you keep still for that long?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good, because you’ll be useless to me and to the Russians in jail.’ Van Niekerk offered his hand. ‘Good luck.’
To both of us.’ Emmanuel shook on the wish.
The major climbed out of the Ford and waited for Zweigman to start the car and drive away. The getaway slowed to a crawl minutes after leaving. Bumper-to-bumper traffic inched along Point Road. A policeman directed cars around the stranded tram. The mortuary van had departed the scene but a contingent of police brass mingled on the footpath. Giriraj was the department’s catch of the day. A tall colonel with mutton-chop whiskers stood with his legs apart and his hands on his hips. Emmanuel recognised him from Jolly’s murder scene where he had lent moral support to the uniforms. He was also the dictionary definition of a soutpiel. Edward Soames-Fitzpatrick? The name seemed to fit.
The last straggle of onlookers parted and Major van Niekerk walked to the colonel’s side. They talked for a few moments, both men genial and relaxed. Emmanuel’s chest tightened. Van Niekerk knew the soutpiel colonel. The Dutch policeman was his mentor and his protector but Emmanuel was not blind to his faults. He knew that while Khan and van Niekerk were on opposite sides of the law they shared one particular trait: self-interest.
Major van Niekerk would not protect the Russians unless there was something tangible in it for him.
Labrant’s Halt was a long wooden shed built on the lip of an escarpment and surrounded by an ocean of dun-coloured hills. An ‘Empty’ sign hung from the lone petrol pump. A white Plymouth sedan was parked under a bare jacaranda.
Emmanuel leaned into the open driver’s-side window. Lana, Nicolai and Natalya were in the car drinking orange fizzy drinks through paper straws. Shabalala and Zweigman joined the conference.
‘Where to?’ Lana asked. Dust from the unsealed road dirtied her cheeks and her hair was whipped by the wind.
‘That decision is for the detective sergeant to make,’ said Zweigman quietly.
Emmanuel knew the decision was his but the consequences of his actions affected everyone. Going on the run with the Russian couple was unrealistic. On the back seat of the Plymouth were a heavily pregnant woman and a sick man in need of medical supervision. Outside stood a doctor, an experienced police constable and a fugitive looking for a place to disappear. Major van Niekerk was right. Zweigman’s isolated medical clinic in the hills was the perfect solution.
‘I would like to bring some small thing for your wives, to say thank you.’ Emmanuel addressed Zweigman and Shabalala. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘Chocolate biscuits, the ones with the cream centre. Lilliana has a weakness for those.’
‘Dried fruit,’ Shabalala said. ‘Or the liquorice with the many layers.’
‘I’ll see what they have.’
Emmanuel moved to the screened-in porch that fronted the building. A dozen Zulu men dressed in a mix of overalls and traditional clothing made from animal hides and printed cloth milled around the side entrance through which natives were served. They nodded a polite greeting, which Emmanuel returned before entering Labrant’s Halt. Five months in English Durban and he’d missed this .. . the feeling of being in black Africa.
The shelves inside Labrant’s were half stocked but he found the cream-filled chocolate biscuits and a small bag of liquorice all-sorts, both hopefully less than a year old. He added rice and sugar and a tin of roasted coffee beans.
Lana entered the store while he was paying the spindly white man who worked the shiny till. ‘The ladies room?’ she asked and a key was slid across the length of the wood counter. White ladies had access to the relative luxury of a long-drop toilet attached to the back of the building. Non-whites learned to dig and squat.
‘Out in a minute,’ Lana said, disappearing among the dusty shelving. Emmanuel carried the sweets out to the Ford, feeling guilty at the insignificant price paid for his safety.
‘How are the Russians doing?’ he asked when Zweigman returned to the sedan with his medical bag beneath his arm.
‘They are holding up well but Natalya has begun to have contractions. I think we will have a baby by morning.’ Zweigman smiled and dug a handful of coins from his jacket. ‘I will buy a small bottle to celebrate the occasion.’
‘I’ll get it,’ Emmanuel said and swung back to Labrant’s before Zweigman could object. Through the mesh wire he glimpsed Lana sliding a pound note to the owner. The store telephone was on the counter and angled out towards her. She’d called someone.
Emmanuel hesitated in the doorway. He wanted her … that was understandable given the night they had spent together. Did he trust her? That was a different matter altogether.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tiny birds darted like careless arrows across the rutted dirt track. Bleached winter grass grew tall beneath the marula trees. The Ford crested a hill and dropped down to a deep valley. The tenuous track came to a fork by the edge of a shallow river and Zweigman manoeuvred left and along the stony bank. Constable Shabalala had taken the wheel of the Plymouth for the rough drive into the hills and now steered the car in behind the dusty Ford.
The narrow road wound steadily upwards and ended at a circle of compacted dirt ringed with bright mountain aloes. A low stone house with a thatched roof sheltered under the limbs of an ancient fig tree. Weeds grew between cracks in the walls and lizards scurried across the heated surface. Three dwellings, each smaller than the next, clung to a wide, flat plateau that faced onto a deep valley A winter vegetable garden with cabbages, pumpkins and spinach ran parallel to the buildings, which were built in a semicircle. Chickens scratched in the dirt. The rusted arms of a windmill remained indifferent to the breeze.
Emma
nuel was surprised by the dilapidated sprawl. This patch of hillside was hard country. Poor country. The old Jew appeared to have even less money than when he’d been a shopkeeper in Jacob’s Rest.
‘The clinic.’ Zweigman climbed out of the Ford. ‘Come, Detective, I will give you the grand tour.’
The dry tone indicated that the doctor had read his thoughts and found them amusing. Emmanuel reached for the Walther, ready to unclip it and store it in the glove box. Lilliana Zweigman was fragile and Daniel Zweigman refused to own or hold a firearm, possibly a reaction to living through six years of war. Carrying a loaded weapon into their house would be wrong.
The hip holster was empty. The eager foot policeman had taken the gun in the loading dock of Abel Mellon Dry Goods and Fletcher had not returned it.
‘Come,’ Zweigman said.
Emmanuel grabbed the brown paper grocery bag and waited for the Plymouth to pull alongside before getting out. Shabalala helped the Russians from the back seat and kept an arm under Nicolai’s elbow to help support his weight. A dirt path snaked across a grass verge in front of the houses. Zweigman paused at the edge of the garden and pointed to the first and largest of the stone buildings.
‘This is the clinic,’ he said. ‘When we have enough funds it will be expanded out towards the back. Two, maybe three, rooms more.’
They walked on. The winter vegetable patch grew up to the left. A small shed took the space between the clinic and the next stone house, which had a wide veranda and a view of the hills.
‘That is our home,’ Zweigman said, pointing to the last building, not much larger than the shed but with flowered curtains at the two small windows. ‘That is the Shabalala house.’
Emmanuel wondered how they would all fit. The parcel of land was large, with expansive views, but the buildings were small. A hen scratched through leaf litter under a tree and Natalya made a comment in Russian that sounded as if she’d swallowed a mouthful of vinegar. Emmanuel glanced at Lana for an explanation.
‘The country atmosphere is not to her liking,’ Lana said.
They continued towards the doctor’s snug stone home. Nicolai leaned heavily against Shabalala, each step an effort. The rough ride into the hills had taken its toll.
Lilliana Zweigman and Lizzie, Shabalala’s wife, stood on the veranda of the middle house and watched the procession of uninvited guests traipse towards them. Something in the way they stood, framed by the beams of the veranda, the last light reflected in their eyes, suggested they had both been beautiful in their youth.
‘Ladies.’ Zweigman had pulled ahead a few paces. ‘We have guests. Let me introduce you and we can all have some tea.’ The doctor supplied a smile for each introduction but the charm had worn thin when he came at last to Emmanuel. ‘You both know Detective Cooper, of course,’ he said.
His wife’s fingers twisted the top button of her jacket till the thread almost snapped and her breath could be heard rasping in the country quiet. Zweigman climbed the front stairs and touched her arm gently. Her panic subsided but did not disappear.
‘How could we forget the detective sergeant?’ Lizzie said and an awkward silence followed her wry comment.
Emmanuel understood the women’s fears. His murder investigation in Jacob’s Rest had landed them all here on this lonely plateau far from home. If he’d left buried secrets buried and turned away from the truth, their lives would have continued on familiar paths. They had all paid a heavy price for his inability to walk away.
‘Hello, Lilliana. Unjani, Lizzie.’ Emmanuel followed Zweigman up the stairs and presented the bag of groceries. He felt like the fourth horseman of the apocalypse who came bearing biscuits and liquorice to divert attention from the danger and destruction that followed in his wake.
‘Why here?’ Emmanuel asked Shabalala when the fire in the rough stone circle was ablaze and the wood crackled and hissed. ‘He’s a qualified surgeon. Why not Cape Town or even Durban?’
Shabalala rested on his haunches with his forearms balanced on his knees and threw a stick into the fire. A red sun hung over the crest of hills. Emmanuel sank down next to the Zulu constable and waited. Good manners prevented Shabalala from offering a personal opinion without first giving the answer proper consideration.
‘I think he is paying,’ Shabalala said. ‘For something he did, or did not do, in his home country, during the war.’
A scatter of loose stones on the garden path preceded Zweigman’s appearance at the fireside. He dragged a dried tree branch behind him and his face dripped sweat. His shirtsleeves were rolled to above his elbows and his pants’ legs up to his knees. ‘Fuel,’ he said, propping the branch against the stack of logs and kindling already collected from the bush. The temperature will drop soon and we will need the fire.’
The women and Nicolai were in the middle house and it was by unspoken agreement that the able-bodied men had settled down outside till bedtime. Sleeping arrangements were made: Shabalala and his wife in their house, Nicolai and Natalya in with the Zweigmans, while Lana was squeezed into the storage hut and Emmanuel was billeted on the clinic floor. He’d slept in colder and rougher places.
The sun dipped lower and the shadows lengthened across the ground. Night in the tropics came quickly and the light would go out like a blown candle. The evening star was already faint on the horizon.
‘Mr Shabalala,’ Lizzie’s voice called into the gathering darkness. ‘I need a man to help me. Are you that man or shall I get another?’
The constable moved towards the middle house with a smile and a shake of his head. Zulu tradition called for women to be meek and obedient, but his wife was her own person.
Emmanuel glanced at the clinic buildings. They were strikingly similar to the stone-and-thatch house that Davida stood outside in his dreams. Even the hills etched against the sky echoed the landscape in his mind.
‘Do you hear from Davida?’ he asked when Zweigman sat down. The doctor and his wife had been like surrogate parents to the coloured girl. ‘Is she safe?’
‘She is well,’ the German man replied and threw small twigs into the centre of the flames where the fire was white hot.
‘And happy?’ A foolish question, he knew, but it didn’t stop him from wanting proof of the impossible: a happy ending for at least one of the victims of the Security Branch’s violent intervention.
‘She is not unhappy,’ came the enigmatic reply.
The red disc of the sun disappeared and darkness swallowed the hillside. Not unhappy. There was a kernel of hope in that bare statement. To be injured but not destroyed was a small triumph.
‘I’m sorry to involve you in this business with Nicolai and Natalya,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Especially after Jacob’s Rest. We’ll be gone in forty-eight hours and you’ll be safe.’
‘The only safe place is the grave,’ Zweigman said. ‘That was one of my grandfather’s favourite expressions. He was a peasant with dirty fingernails and stained teeth, so naturally I didn’t believe anything he said. I was a medical student destined for great things. I knew everything.’
The fire blazed in the stone circle and Emmanuel held his hands out to the heat. Zweigman rarely spoke of the past. Details of his life in Berlin before and during the war were still a mystery.
‘After the Security Branch beating,’ Emmanuel said, ‘you promised that you’d tell me how you came to be serving behind the counter of a general store in South Africa.’
Zweigman frowned. In Jacob’s Rest, the detective had been beaten with professional thoroughness that resulted in broken bones and black bruises that mushroomed across his skin. Most patients with injuries so severe recalled only the pain.
‘You remember?’
‘Every word,’ Emmanuel said.
The doctor brought his hands up to the flames and examined his chipped fingernails and the rough skin encrusted with dirt. He smiled into the firelight.
‘You should have seen me fifteen years ago, Detective. I was quite the specimen. A surgeon at Char
ite Universitdtsmedizen with private consulting rooms furnished to the best of taste. Everything was always the best. The tailored suits, the wine in the cellar and the pretty girls I kept company with, even after I was married. That was Dr Daniel Zweigman. Not the most clever Jew in Berlin but one of them.’ The silence that followed was heavy with self-recrimination. ‘When rumours of war began, Lilliana came to me. She had a cousin in New York who was willing to take us in, find us an apartment and jobs. I said no. Members of the National Socialist party came to me for treatment. I was Zweigman the healer, Zweigman the first choice for families of quality. I was safe. My wife and three children were immune from the madness. Then it was too late to escape.’
The night settled on them, black and heavy. The Zweigmans were childless now and thousands of miles from Berlin.
‘Lilliana and I survived the camps but our children did not. That’s what broke Lilliana in the end: being alive when there was nothing left to live for.’ The doctor turned to Emmanuel. ‘Nicolai and Natalya can stay here as long as necessary. It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Emmanuel slid from under the spread of blankets. The mountain air had a bite and he dressed quickly. Both sleep and dreams eluded him. Outside the night was a soft velvet curtain drawn over the land. A lonely moon hung in the sky amid an explosion of diamond-bright stars. The cold breeze carried the scent of dirt and river stones up from the depths of the valley. He could hear distant water running over rocks. He walked to the edge of the grass plateau and stared into the abyss.
Weak lights flickered on the crest of a hill. On the wind came the sound of an automobile engine labouring up a rise. Twin lights grew stronger. Headlights. Emmanuel checked the sky for signs of dawn but it was still too early. The lights descended into the valley and came to a stop at the junction. The car hesitated before turning left along the river. Emmanuel guessed it was the tradesman and his unseen accomplice from the rope storehouse. He felt their presence in his blood. They were headed for the clinic. Nicolai was right when he’d said that this hunt would continue until the prey was trapped or dead.