by Malla Nunn
“The keys are still in the lock.” Dryer peered through the glass. “He must have been planning to come back for it later.”
Christ, Emmanuel thought, it’s a miracle the car is intact. Residents of Sophiatown lived now, in the moment. Leaving the Mercedes for later made no sense.
“Open the boot,” Mason instructed.
Dryer scrambled to obey: the silver Cabriolet keys dangling from his index finger allowed him a brief moment of ownership. He unlocked the boot and lifted the handle. Twigs and dried leaves covered the floor mat. Emmanuel moved closer. A seam of red dust filled the crack between the rubber seal and the metal body of the car. Sophiatown had paved roads and dirt lanes, which split into a labyrinth of paths, most of them packed hard by the traffic of carts and people. White Johannesburg largely enjoyed the benefits of loose gravel and tarred avenues. The red dust in the Mercedes’ boot didn’t belong to either Parkview or the township.
“Something on your mind, Cooper?” Mason asked. He stood in the lane with the stillness of an eagle watching a mouse.
“No sir. Just relieved the anonymous call came in before the tyres and the seats were stripped from the car.”
“A religious man might see the hand of God in it, Detective Sergeant. We now have enough circumstantial evidence to charge Shabalala with the manslaughter of Principal Brewer and with robbery.” Mason shut the boot and wiped dirt from his hands with a handkerchief. “The Commissioner will be pleased.”
“A good result,” Emmanuel agreed. Keeping a low profile was one of today’s goals but the dried mud and grass seeds embedded in the tyre treads so clearly pointed to a drive across country that he couldn’t stay quiet. “Looks like the car went off the tar and into the bush for a while.”
Mason glanced at the evidence. “The rougher the ride, the bigger the thrill. That’s how these tsotsis think. Consequences don’t matter. They just want to feel powerful.”
“True,” Big Ears from undercover backed up the Lieutenant’s theory. “The township grows them wild, and is it any wonder? The men drink, the women whore, and there’s only one shithouse for a hundred people.”
Big Ears might have been describing Emmanuel’s own childhood except that Colonel van Niekerk had also removed all written references to his mother’s murder and his father’s accusations of infidelity and miscegenation. The official record stated, “Mother deceased. Cooper leaves Sophiatown to attend ‘Fountain of Light’ boarding school.”
“When a Zulu gets his blood up, anything can happen,” Eagle Nose added. “That’s the way of it.”
Aaron’s transformation from schoolboy to budding gangster was swift. The press and the public had a clear mental picture of these lawless boys: little more than animals, they acted out of impulse and violent instinct. Every piece of physical evidence from the clogged tyre treads to the cigarette butts would be explained away with a, “You know what these people are like.”
“Split up,” Mason addressed the group. “Cooper, Negus and Dryer collect the usual ‘I didn’t see anything’ statements from the people in the shacks. The rest of the team and I will examine the car.”
What Emmanuel heard was, “Go away and leave me and my boys alone.” He exited the alley under orders. The pile of scrub cleared from around the Mercedes Benz had thinned: scooped up by women for use as kindling and floor sweepers. On impulse, Emmanuel broke off a leafy twig and shoved it into his jacket pocket. Shabalala would identify it at a glance when he arrived in town in a few hours.
“I’ll take the first five street numbers,” he said to Dryer and Negus. “You two take the next ten houses between you.”
They split up and moved out. A crowd of locals had gathered opposite the alley, each craning over the other to catch the police action. The native Constables from the Sophiatown station formed a human chain to keep the pedestrians off the road. Three scruffy boys with distended stomachs threw stones at a yellow tomcat on the next corner.
Emmanuel talked to the ten inhabitants of the building adjoining the alley. From the buckled-over woman wearing men’s boots, to the smooth-skinned boy with a slick of chemically straightened hair, none of the residents had seen or heard anything unusual the night before. The pattern repeated itself: each house populated with deaf, blind and dumb residents, some of whom had trouble recalling their own names.
Emmanuel had lied to the police and to welfare officers with impunity when he’d lived in Sophiatown. The police were just another armed gang. Talking to them upset the local gangs who, in reality, controlled the township streets. They too had weapons: knives, machetes and clubs.
A whistle sounded once and then again. The crowd had doubled in size by the time Emmanuel reached the lane. Ragged children squatted in front of the adults, their size allowing them the best view. An arthritic woman, balancing on two canes, sold bags of greasy fat cakes to the spectators.
Dryer leaned against the Mercedes’ bumper, grinning like an idiot. Mason, Negus and the undercover operations twins bunched in a semi-circle, gazing at an object cupped in Mason’s palm. Light refracting off the corrugated iron walls gave the alley a red hue.
“What have you got?” Emmanuel asked.
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
“Come see.” Mason held a lapel pin between pale fingers. “We found it under the driver’s seat.”
A closer look revealed the pin to be a gold-plated badge with the word “Prefect” engraved under the Saint Bart’s school motto, “One in Christ”. Dryer pushed off the bumper, casting a shadow.
“It belongs to Shabalala.” The Afrikaner detective’s fleshy face shone with sweat. “He must have lost it when he was driving the car last night.”
“Are we sure it’s his?”
“Shabalala is a prefect. He’s also the only Saint Bart’s boy without an alibi,” Mason said. “Cassie had it right. He was after the Mercedes.”
Emmanuel reached out and gripped the badge. Metal bit into his skin. An anonymous tip-off, an intact car hidden in an alley and then this treasure, dropped like manna from police heaven, together forged an unbroken chain of events leading to Aaron Shabalala’s conviction. The last time he’d encountered this level of twenty-four carat gold bullshit was when an officer fresh from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst promised a quick victory on Sword Beach during the D-Day landing.
“You’re disappointed.” Mason palmed the school pin and slipped it into an inner pocket for safekeeping. The Lieutenant’s face glowed in the rusty light.
“Just stunned by our good fortune,” Emmanuel said. “I can’t recall a case coming together so fast.”
“Lucky, hey?” Dryer accepted a cigarette and a match from Negus. The undercover guys also lit up, producing a fug of celebratory smoke. “My holiday cabin in Kosi Bay is paid up in advance. No refunds. The wife thought she’d have to drive the children there all by herself.”
“I’m for Kruger Park,” Big Ears said. “Me, my son and two cases of Castle lager.”
The comment roused laughter from the smokers. A love of holidays glued them together. In a week’s time, the name Aaron Shabalala would fade away into the long list of other black boys they had arrested and imprisoned.
Emmanuel held his temper. The car search had been a set-up from the outset. He schooled his expression to hide the fury that demanded a voice. Mason’s disregard for the most basic tenets of the law was reprehensible. This was not the just world that he’d fought for during the war.
“Cooper has doubts,” Mason said.
“What?” Dryer was incredulous: visions of the cosy cabin and the fresh-grilled fish were slipping away. “The daughter’s statement, the stolen car and now the school badge! It’s all on the table, man. Case closed!”
“Amen,” the undercover cops said in unison. They turned to Emmanuel.
Emmanuel looked on their grim expressions and their tight shoulders.
“I’m not disputing the facts,” he said. Mason had evidence. He had suspicions.
The evidence, though corrupted, won.
“Good. You drive, Cooper.” A reptilian smile tugged the corners of Mason’s mouth. “We’ll follow you to Marshall Square.” The silver keys to the Benz arched through the air and Emmanuel caught them on the fly.
“Yes, sir.” He now despised Mason with a purity that verged on the religious.
9.
Gesondheid.” Dryer poured whisky from a bottle wrapped in a paper bag into a coffee mug. “The police commissioner called to congratulate Mason on closing the Brewer case.”
Emmanuel accepted the drink, aware of the contented atmosphere in the room.
“Salute.” He clinked mugs with Dryer. The whisky burned a trail from his mouth to his empty stomach where it bloomed warm and started to spread out. He placed the mug on the side of his desk and wrote the first five lines of the report on the discovery of the stolen Mercedes. Dryer drifted away, drawn by the group of detectives smoking near the windows. Ceiling fans whirred in the afternoon heat, moving the air without cooling it.
Emmanuel waited till Dryer had lit a smoke and then picked up the desk phone and dialled.
“Johan Britz legal services,” a female voice answered. “How can I help?”
“Anna. It’s Sergeant Cooper. I need to speak to Britz first thing, please.”
“Anything for you, Emmanuel.” Anna, the English secretary, punched the call through on the internal intercom of the tiny office located up three flights of stairs of a shabby building in the city centre.
“Cooper.” The Afrikaner lawyer picked up on the second ring, his subtly accented voice at odds with his reputation as a man who never shied away from a fight, especially with the police. Beaten by vindictive cops, threatened by violent husbands and shunned by the legal fraternity, Britz was the only lawyer in Johannesburg with a full-time bodyguard outside his office and his home. “What have you got yourself into this time?”
Emmanuel pulled the incomplete incident report closer and scribbled words into the margin. He switched to Afrikaans, Johan Britz’s first language and his own. “I’m calling for some friends. Their son’s being charged with three counts of assault, one of manslaughter, vandalism and theft.”
“Is that all?” Britz said a dry tone. “You think the boy might be innocent of one or all of the charges?”
“I’m not sure.” Emmanuel was honest. “His alibi is full of holes and we found his prefect’s badge in a car stolen from the crime scene.”
“Bad start,” Britz breathed down the line. “Was the search executed according to protocol?”
“I can’t prove it wasn’t.”
“Who’s in charge of the investigation?”
“I’ll spell it out.” Mason’s name in English or Afrikaans would be easily recognisable. The Dutch alphabet made it harder to decipher. He cupped his palm around the mouthpiece and gave each letter quickly.
“Lieutenant Walter Mason,” Britz confirmed after a long pause, during which the scratching of a pen on paper was audible. “That’s two pieces of bad news, Cooper. I’ve never encountered this Mason myself but he comes with a reputation.”
“Anything to do with fire?”
“And brimstone. The guy is trouble. And now he’s found Jesus, right? It’s a hell of a case to hand me just before Christmas, my friend.”
“I know.”
“Are you calling from Marshall Square, right now?”
“Ja.” It was a risk to call Britz from the station, but Emmanuel needed to move fast to protect Aaron while Shabalala was travelling to Jo’burg.
“Get off the phone right now, Cooper. I’ll call at the station house later this afternoon. In the meantime, keep out of Mason’s way and stay the fok out of trouble.” Britz hung up.
“I’ll try,” Emmanuel said into the static on the end of the line. Britz’s advice came too late. He was in an illegal relationship with a mixed-race girl, had a secret family and was at odds with a superior officer over a potential dirty investigation: he was already in trouble.
“You speak Afrikaans like a Dutchman.” The sound of Lieutenant Mason’s voice traced an icy finger down the length of Emmanuel’s spine. “I bet you talk Zulu like a native, too.”
“White kaffirs,” Emmanuel said. “We speak a bit of everything.”
“Handy for police work.” Mason, jacket hitched behind the butt of his Webley service revolver, moved deeper into the room. “Marshall Square will be poorer for your loss.”
“Am I’m going somewhere?”
“You’re going home, Cooper. Or to wherever it is that you’ve booked your holidays.” The bright fire in Mason’s eyes held no warmth. “I bet you’re heading to Mozambique. It’s a good spot for a single man. You can choose from any amount of activities, some of them not available here in South Africa.”
Mason was fishing. He had to be; alluding to the multi-racial, skin diving available in the Portuguese colony was simply a crude way to force a reaction.
“Who’s going to Mozambique?” Dryer appeared at the tail end of the conversation, a whisky mug gripped in his fist. “Is that where you’re heading for Christmas, Lieutenant?”
“No. The dry heat of the veldt suits me better. I was suggesting a tropical beach Christmas to Cooper.”
“He’ll never get a booking this late in the month. It’s school holidays.” Dryer rested his rump on the edge of the desk. “Besides, he’s staying here in Jo’burg.”
“Sergeant Cooper is free to go wherever he likes for the Christmas break, Dryer. He’s on short-term transfer to the Marshal Square Detective branch. We locals will finish up the Brewer investigation. It’s all paperwork from now on in.”
“My transfer ends on Tuesday,” Emmanuel said, more to cover up the fact that he’d momentarily forgotten that the sprawling mass of Johannesburg was not his town any more. He was a Durban detective playing house in Jo’burg with Davida and Rebekah. He didn’t want that game to end.
“That’s your last day. I talked to your commander, Colonel van Niekerk, and we both agreed you’ve earned the extra three days leave. We might not have found the Brewers’ car without your help.” Gratification flashed across the Lieutenant’s face, bright and sharp as a knife blade. “Your holidays begin immediately.”
“Aghh …” Dryer made an anguished sound. “Lucky you, Cooper.”
Emmanuel smiled and accepted his apparent good fortune. Mason’s manipulations simultaneously enraged and impressed him. The Lieutenant was ruthless. Mason had managed to make him seem a hero and dismiss him from the case at the same time.
“I’ll finish my report and pack up.”
Emmanuel sat and wrote. Mason was well on the way to framing Aaron Shabalala for a murder he likely didn’t commit. The Lieutenant’s abuse of police power flicked a switch inside Emmanuel and he felt a familiar rage begin to grow.
“A pleasure working with you, Dryer. You too, Negus.” He made the rounds of the room after finishing the incident report, shaking hands, mouthing the right words. The biggest pile of horseshit he saved for last.
“It’s been an honour serving with you, Lieutenant. Have a good Christmas.”
“Safe trip back to Durban.” Mason’s handshake was a deliberate, iron grip. “Give my regards to Colonel van Niekerk.”
Emmanuel left the European detective’s room with his jacket buttoned up and his temper pushed down. He imagined Mason with a broken nose and a bloodied suit; his ribs cracked by a steel-toed boot. Adrenaline pumped through him just as it had on the night his mother lay stabbed and bleeding on the floor of their Sophiatown shack. Clutching his sister’s hand tightly, he had run barefoot and scared through the dirt maze of the township calling for help, which came too late. He’d gone to war to bury that terrified, angry boy. Mason had resurrected him, though. Well, to hell with that, he thought. I’m going back in.
“Calm the fuck down, soldier.” The voice of Emmanuel’s old Sergeant Major emerged from a long hibernation inside his head. A concrete bunker of a Scotsman, quick-temper
ed and foul-mouthed, conflict was his natural state of being. “If you go back into that room you will beat the skin off that bastard or worse.”
He took a deep breath and adjusted to the presence of the phantom Sergeant Major. The Scotsman lived deep in a psychological trench in Emmanuel’s mind and despite it being months since his last appearance, remained impervious to anything but a heavy dose of morphine.
“Listen to me, boyo. If Mason survives the beating he’ll have you up on charges and in the brig before you can say ‘Fuck you, sir.’ If he dies, you’ll spend the rest of your sorry life sharing a cell with undisciplined scum, some of whom you helped put there. Either way you lose, Cooper. You’re no good to Shabalala in jail. If a police review board digs up your little secrets and charges you with immoral activity, you’ll not hold Davida or your little girl again for Christ knows how long.”
The Scotsman was right, but the urge to do harm remained.
“Get out of this station, soldier. Right this minute. That’s an order.”
Emmanuel walked the length of a corridor decorated with framed pictures of the queen and Prime Minister Malan. White noise filled his head with the roar of a distant ocean. He took the stairs, shouldered through a throng of foot police gathered in the foyer and broke out into the light of a bright, hot afternoon. City noise washed around him: car engines and horns, the clatter of trams and the shuffle of Saturday shoppers streaming along the sidewalks.
“Mason never did trust you, lad.”
“He didn’t shut me out either,” Emmanuel said. “I was in the Brewers’ bedroom. I interviewed Cassie and Aaron. Something changed after Mason got that phone call during the Shabalala interview.”
“Mason needed a detective with brains last night. This afternoon, he needs ‘yes, sir.’ He needs men who’ll back up that bullshit car search without question and then piss off on holidays. You don’t qualify.”
“Then why take me on the search for the Mercedes?” He knew the answer but needed to hear it said out loud.