Thunder over the Grass

by Steve Turnbull

  “What can we do to assist you today, Miss Anderson?”

  “I would like to interview the man you arrested for killing his wife.”

  The sergeant gave Ray a sidelong look. “That’s not usual. I would have to get permission.”

  Maliha was desperate to know what Ray had said to him but it had such an effect at this point that perhaps she could press the point. She placed her hands on the desk and leaned across. He drew back further; he definitely gave off the aura of fear. Not useful in the long term but perhaps for a quick success it could be utilised.

  “I’m sure you are a good policeman, Sergeant,” she began, his fear deepened to terror. Oh for heaven’s sake! She smiled. “I would require no more than ten minutes with the man. Just me.” She heard Ray grunt but she did not correct herself.

  “I suppose for ten minutes...”

  She smiled again. “Thank you very much,” she said before he had a chance to change his mind.

  * * *

  Maliha had come to the conclusion that all police cells were the same. Especially when they were all designed and built by the British. Whether it was a lack of imagination or a desire for consistency. Or perhaps there was only one way to build a prison cell. There was a small window in the wall opposite the window.

  Wit Nickells was a muscular man, with thin and tightly cropped hair. His meagre beard was blond. He might have been a strong man before but now he looked broken and stooped.

  He stood when he realised it was a woman entering. There was no look of disdain in his insipid blue eyes; in fact there was no look of any emotion or life at all. Standing was an automatic response.

  The door closed behind her with a solid thud and the scrape of metal as the bolts were drawn.

  “Mr Nickells,” she said. “I am Maliha Anderson.”

  There was not the slightest flicker of recognition from him; it was almost as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

  “I want to ask you some questions.”

  He sat down on his metal frame bed and leaned back against the wall.

  “You are British?”

  “Indian.”

  “They have women police in India?”

  “I am not police.”

  She glanced around but there was nowhere to sit except beside him. She decided to remain standing.

  “Are you a lawyer? I have a lawyer.”

  “No, nor am I with the newspapers.” She sighed, there was a mould she was being forced into that she was entirely uncomfortable with, but in this case there was no option. “I am a private investigator.”

  “I cannot pay for an investigator.”

  “You don’t have to.” Maliha glanced at her watch, the minutes were ticking by. “I am working for someone else but I may be able to help you if you can give me some information.”

  “What makes you think you can help me?”

  “I know you didn’t kill your wife and child.”

  He looked at her properly for the first time. His eyes focused on her face and glanced across her body, making her wish Amita had chosen something a little less modern.

  “How do you know?”

  “Never mind that,” she said, conscious of the time. “Tell me about when you woke up that morning.”

  “I got up and Suzanne was not in the bed. I thought she must be with Pauel.”

  His recitation of events was almost sing-song, as if he had replayed these words a hundred times. He probably had which meant there was nothing of value.

  She interrupted him. “Was the window open?”

  “The window?”

  “Yes, the window, was it open?”

  She could see the stuck mechanisms of his mind breaking free as he recalled. “No, the window was closed.”

  “Is it usually closed?”

  “Yes, often it is closed.”

  “What about that night? Had you or your wife closed the window that night?”

  She could see him working through the memories, then a light seemed to dawn. “No, we had left it open.”

  “Good,” she said. “All right, tell me when you woke, how were you feeling?”

  The discovery had injected life into him. This time he was eager to answer. “My head felt bad. My arms and legs did not want to move. I saw the clock and I was late for my shift.”

  Maliha nodded. “Thank you. Now let’s talk about before that night. Was there anything unusual or did your wife tell you about anything strange happening?”

  He thought for a while. Maliha resisted the temptation to look at her watch, not wanting to interrupt his train of thought.

  Finally he shook his head. “Nothing strange.” There were tears forming in his eyes. “Do you know where my boy is?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Do you think he is alive?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “You think he is dead?”

  She met his eye and nodded. “Yes, it is most likely but he has not been gone too long yet. There is a little hope.”

  Angry shouting penetrated the cell.

  Maliha stepped away from the door. “If you think of anything else you can send for me; they may let me see you again.”

  He nodded and then jerked his head up. “There was a burn on the carpet.”

  The bolts slammed back with violent noise. “Which room and where in the room?”

  The door crashed open revealing a red-faced Chief Detective Karel Vandenhoek. “Get out of there, Miss Anderson.”

  Maliha said nothing but stepped out promptly. Vandenhoek had to reach in to grab the door handle and before he could close it Wit Nickells’ voice floated out. “The bedroom door.”

  vii

  Maliha sat upright in the chair facing the chief detective’s desk. The room was spotless. There was an electric desk lamp and a modern telephone sitting to one side of the clean blotter. She could imagine that the chief detective replaced it every day. Directly in front of her was his wood and brass name plate announcing his name and position. Beyond it, nearer to his chair, was a neat pile of card files. One file lay open on the blotter.

  “It is not clear to me what I should charge you with, Miss Anderson.”

  “That is entirely up to you, Chief Detective.”

  He made a noise in his throat that sounded like a growl.

  “I have been checking up on you.”

  “Oh, yes?” She allowed herself a private smile.

  “I contacted the British Consulate. It seems they have a file on you.”

  She said nothing. The consulate would not reveal any of the more interesting events she had been connected with. She studied the open file; it was the report on the Nickells case.

  “I went to the consulate and read it.”

  No response was required so she gave none.

  “It seems you are regularly interfering in police business.”

  A knot of anger ignited in her stomach. Interfering? “You mean I have solved a number of cases. I imagine Inspector Forsyth was quite congratulatory.”

  It was Vandenhoek’s turn to be silent. He took his seat opposite her. She could see the suppressed fury in him. There was going to be no easy way of dealing with this. Staying meek would only validate his outmoded concepts.

  “You told me that there was nothing to investigate in relation to the missing children,” she said. “And yet you have a man in your cells whose child is missing.”

  Vandenhoek laughed derisively. “Nickells killed his wife and boy. He’s just a murderer, Miss Anderson.”

  “Where’s the child’s body?”

  “He must have thrown it in the river, or burnt it, or just left it in the open for the animals.”

  Maliha kept her voice calm despite her anger. “Why didn’t he do the same to his wife, Chief Detective Vandenhoek?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know why a crazy man does crazy things; I just have to stop him.”

  “And the fact that the events of Nickells’ child’s disapp
earance are exactly the same as those for the disappearing black children means nothing to you?”

  “What happens to the blacks is of no concern to me,” he said though his voice was less certain. Perhaps there was a decent policeman in there somewhere.

  “There are at least five instances where a black child, under the age of six, has disappeared from their camp. In every case the family woke up feeling ill, with headaches and muscular discomfort. The same thing that Nickells described to me.”

  “But there were no deaths,” he protested.

  Maliha noted that despite his claims he was familiar enough about the other missing children to know there were no deaths. She thought it best not to comment. “Because Suzanne Nickells got up at just the wrong moment to see to her son, or perhaps she could not sleep. She interrupted whoever came to take the child and they killed her.”

  Vandenhoek stared at her.

  “Tell me, Chief Detective, what will you do when the next white child is stolen from their home? Will you arrest the parents for that as well?”

  He stood up and went to the door. “Goodbye, Miss Anderson.”

  She followed him and he pulled open the door for her. She stopped directly in front of him, giving him nowhere to look but at her.

  “How many children will have to go missing before you realise something very bad is happening in your city?”

  * * *

  Amita and Jennings were seated in the reception area of the police station. They both stood as Maliha entered from the corridor with the chief detective looming behind her.

  Vandenhoek stopped beside the sergeant’s desk, now occupied by a different man, while Maliha kept walking. Amita and Jennings fell in behind her as she headed for the exit.

  She did not turn as she pushed her way out into the midday sunshine. She held out her hand and Amita gave her the parasol. Maliha released the catch and pushed the mechanism to open it. She headed down the street with Amita striding behind her and Ray scurrying after.

  “Well?” said Ray as they turned a corner heading north through a business district. Almost every brass plaque on the wall announced the name of a company dealing in gold or diamonds with the occasional accountant and bank.

  There was a vast amount of money in the Transvaal and all of it going into the pockets of foreign companies. Maliha could understand the frustration of the original inhabitants, particularly the blacks who were not even allowed to own land.

  “It seems the chief detective had not considered the possibility that the missing children of the blacks could possibly be connected to the missing white child.”

  “You put ’im straight.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That’s when he asked me to leave.”

  “Afrikaans Government Hush up Missing Children,” said Ray then shook his head. “Nah, not good enough. South Africa Police Kill Children. Better.”

  “Not true though.”

  “If they’re not following up then they’re killing children, ain’t they?”

  Maliha took a left turn, Amita followed but Ray stopped on the corner.

  “Where you going?” he shouted. “The hotel’s back this way.”

  Maliha ignored him and kept going. Ray chased after them. “Hotel’s the other way.”

  “If I was going to the hotel that would be helpful, Mr Jennings,” said Maliha. “We are, however, going to Wit Nickells’ house.”

  “The police will have been all over it.”

  “Yes, they will probably have obscured any possible useful clues but perhaps we may find something since they assumed it was Mr Nickells from the outset.”

  She strode forward along streets that transformed from business to middle class residential, then lower middle class and finally cramped brick houses for the working classes. She took the turns at street corners confidently.

  “How come you know where you’re going?”

  “I read the address from the file on Vandenhoek’s desk.”

  “This place is a maze—I thought you’d never been here before?”

  “I looked at the map.”

  She could feel Ray staring at her. “Right,” there was a pause then “but—”

  “Time to shut up, Ray,” cut in Amita. Maliha held in her surprise.

  “Yeah, all right, Meeta.”

  Chapter 5

  i

  In some ways Valentine was grateful that he had got a message. He really had not wanted to traipse around the seedy side of Johannesburg with two children. Even if they had seen a lot worse than he had. As it was, there was an unsigned message to meet with a Captain Blake this afternoon. He was running a little late.

  The electric lights in the pub were so dirty with yellow cigarette residue that they cast a dim but livid hue through the place. It would not have taken much to clean them up, but the clumps of men hunched around tables in the dim light would probably have taken their business elsewhere if more light had been shone on it.

  He crossed the sticky floor to the bar and ordered a beer.

  “Lookin’ for Captain Blake,” he said to the barman as he pulled the pint. The man finished the pint and let the final brown drops land in the glass sending ripples back and forth through the thin foam.

  “Tuppence, mate.”

  Valentine dug the coin out of his pocket and added a florin.

  “If you know this captain...?”

  “Take a seat, sailor. You never know what the afternoon might bring.”

  Valentine was on his second pint when Izak stuck his face through the door and was promptly chased away but not before he and Valentine had exchanged glances.

  Other men came and went. Some sailors, some not. The groups of men shifted, combining, separating, some went out together, others waited and joined newly formed collections.

  Valentine had rejected the attentions of a third prostitute—younger than Izak—when a man came and sat at his table depositing a third pint in front of Valentine. “Very kind, mate,” said Valentine.

  “Captain Blake.”

  Valentine straightened himself in the chair. “Sorry, Captain.”

  “Relax, sailor,” the man leaned back in his seat and sipped his pint. He studied Valentine in the dim light. For his part Valentine chose to look awkward and did not meet the man’s gaze. He clutched the pint with both hands as if it were a lifeline.

  “What are your skills, Mr...?”

  “Dyer. Jonathan Dyer. Able Seaman, cargo, Captain.”

  The captain nodded. “And what’s your problem with getting work at the air-dock, Able Seaman Dyer?”

  This was the first test. Valentine needed something that was a valid excuse for him not being able to use the legal routes but would not make him an unattractive choice.

  “I borrowed some supplies, Captain.”

  “Borrowed?”

  “There was an over-supply of cargo. No one would miss it, so I arranged to sell it.”

  The captain smiled. “I see, so it was all a mistake really?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Until they checked your tally against the records and found that yours was where the mistake lay.”

  Valentine looked away and lifted his pint to his lips.

  The captain pulled a leather-covered cigar case from an inner pocket and extracted one. He bit off the end. Valentine fumbled for matches and lit one for the man.

  Captain Blake settled back and sucked in the pungent smoke. He breathed out. “What ship?”

  “RMS Macedonia, captain.”

  He nodded. “Ever steal anything from the passengers?”

  Valentine shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “All right, Dyer. I may have something for you. I’ll be in touch.”

  The captain remained seated which meant the words were a dismissal. Valentine got to his feet and gave a half bow. “Thank you, Captain.”

  The man waved him away.

  Valentine blinked in the sunshine as he stepped out into
the open air. Izak headed towards him but turned away at the shake of Valentine’s head. After checking his directions Valentine headed away from the pub. There was a man on the corner selling the latest edition of the Johannesburg Chronicle. He bought a copy and headed towards the air-dock. The perimeter fence was in sight when he went into a liquor shop and bought a bottle of their cheapest whiskey for a shilling.

  He went to the crew hostel, got his key, then headed up the three flights to his room. Once inside he messed up the bed as if he had been sleeping in it then sprinkled a few drops of the booze on the sheets. He roughed up the newspaper and dropped it on the floor, then went out to the WC on the landing and poured half the bottle of whiskey down the bowl.

  The case with his belongings sat in the bottom of the wardrobe; behind it, in the corner, was his supposed letter of dismissal. After what Maliha had done to protect the company’s interests in the past, there was little they would not do to assist.

  Finally he lay back on the bed, still wearing his boots. The bed was not very comfortable; the mattress padding had worn thin and the springs protruded in places. It was exactly the sort of bed that belonged in the type of room that disgraced Able Seaman Jonathan Dyer would use, until his money ran out and he ended up on the streets.

  He closed his eyes and dozed.

  If he had judged the situation correctly, Captain Blake would be using his contacts to check whether Valentine’s story was true. There would not be much: the name of a sailor kicked off the ship without much fuss because the shipping line did not want any bad publicity.

  They would search his room and find the letter. They would see a man who had turned to drink even though it would mean his money ran out faster. A desperate and broken man.

  The only question was whether it would be enough to convince them.

  And then what?

  He and Maliha would be separated once more. They might never see one another again.

  ii

  Ray did not utter another word until they reached the house of Wit Nickells. The house was a detached two-up two-down of brick with the completely expected corrugated iron roof.

  “They don’t have much imagination when it comes to roofs, do they?” said Ray.

  “It’s cheap and easy to use,” said Maliha. She headed for the front door.