A Beautiful Place to Die Part 38

"Detective Cooper?" Zweigman sounded like he'd run a mile in wooden shoes.

"Is it Granny Mariah?"

"No, she is recovering. Davida?"

"Recovering also."

"And the boy?"

"In custody," Emmanuel said. "We'll be transporting him to Mooihoek in a few hours."

"Good." Zweigman dropped his voice to a whisper. "Do not come near the town and be careful on the roads also."

"What's happened?"

"The brothers searched my house and Anton's. Nothing serious. Torn books, overturned furniture. Amateur theatrics..." The old Jew was unfazed by the thuggish actions of the Pretorius boys. No doubt he'd seen several libraries' worth of books burned on n.a.z.i bonfires and watched a continent bombed to rubble. He didn't scare easily.

"They are still searching for you," Zweigman added.

Emmanuel listened carefully. There was no possibility of returning to town, not after what had happened to Louis on the mountain.

"What did you mean about the roads?" he asked. If he couldn't get to Mooihoek this evening he needed to make alternate plans. On the King farm he was a sitting duck for the Pretorius brothers and the Security Branch.

"The Security Branch has sent four teams of men out to set up roadblocks leading to and from the town."

"Why?"

"This I do not know. Tiny was ordered to take his finest liquor to the police station and it was he who pa.s.sed this news to me."

"Any idea where the roadblocks are? Or what they're looking for?"

"No idea."

Emmanuel paused to consider his position. If the roadblocks were set up between King's farm and Mooihoek, then he was trapped until daybreak.

"Doc," he said after a pause. "What's the best way to store a dead body overnight?"

Emmanuel sat down opposite Winston at the kitchen table and studied him for a moment. The rest of the family were in the sitting room under Hansie's guard. Winston appeared composed. Zweigman's phone call had given him time to collect his thoughts.

"Let's talk about Captain Pretorius," Emmanuel began. He kept his tone friendly and relaxed.

"I only met him a few times," Winston said.

"Funny, the way history repeats itself. Your mother must have been about Davida's age when she took up with your father. Maybe a little younger."

"I've never done the maths," Winston said.

"I think you have. You know better than most people the kind of life Davida was headed for."

"My mother's been very comfortable."

"One child taken away and dressed up to pa.s.s as white, the other traded for a piece of land. That's 'comfortable'?"

Winston got up abruptly and walked to the stove, where he warmed his hands despite the heat in the kitchen.

"I made a mistake," he said. "I realize that now."

"Explain that to me, Winston."

"I should have gone after my father instead."

Emmanuel asked slowly and deliberately: "Did you kill Captain Pretorius at Watchman's Ford last Wednesday night?"

Winston looked him in the eye. "He took Davida's chances away when she had so few to begin with. That was unforgivable."

"Did you kill him, Winston?"

"I was in Lorenzo Marques on Wednesday night. I bought supplies for the Saint Lucia Lodge. I have five witnesses who will testify to that in court."

"Only five? Surely your father can afford more."

"He can. But five will do."

"I'm curious. Captain Pretorius was pulled into the water," Emmanuel said. "Why?"

"Maybe the killer didn't want to leave him on the sand with his fly open and reeking of s.e.x. Maybe the killer felt sorry for him in the end."

"You have some regrets, then, about shooting Captain Pretorius last Wednesday night?"

A hardness showed itself beneath the surface of Winston's face. Surviving as a fake in the white man's world had taught him how to protect himself and his family at all costs. He smiled but said nothing.

Emmanuel wondered what kind of world Winston King lived in. His whole life was a lie. Even his fair skin and blue eyes were a lie. It didn't help that he lived in a time when the term "immorality" was applied to interracial s.e.x and not to the raft of laws that took away the freedom of so many people.

"What about Davida?" Emmanuel asked. "Do you have any idea what will happen to her?"

"She didn't kill Pretorius. She has no case to answer."

Emmanuel wanted to slap Winston across the face. He showed no remorse for Captain Pretorius's murder and no understanding of how his actions would affect his darker-skinned sister.

"Davida gets to walk into the sunset? Is that what you think?" Emmanuel said. "All thanks to you?"

"She'll go to Western Cape University and she'll get to live her own life. Surely that's worth something?"

"Davida's a key witness in the murder of a white policeman. She'll be put through the wringer. In court. In the newspapers. The dirt will stick to her for the rest of her life. Do you really think she'll go to university?"

"I didn't think that far ahead," Winston muttered. "I didn't think about it."

"You didn't have to," Emmanuel said. "You're a white man. Remember?"

Emmanuel sat down next to Shabalala and considered the health of the case. Sick but not fatal. He had a written statement from Davida for the docket and a five-sentence lie from Winston claiming to be in Lorenzo Marques buying supplies on the night Captain Pretorius was murdered. No confession, but enough to haul Winston in for formal questioning in the near future. That was the end of the good news.

"A couple of miles along the main road?" Emmanuel repeated the information the Zulu constable had given him, hoping he'd gotten some part of it wrong. The men from the Security Branch were smack between them and Mooihoek.

"Yebo. A car and two men are at the roadblock, waiting."

"Any chance of getting by them?"

"Across many farms and through many fences, but not at night. Not in the dark."

The police van was now parked in the circular driveway in front of King's homestead. Van Niekerk didn't have the power to call off a Security Branch roadblock, and Emmanuel wasn't inclined to let the major know about the mess he was in.

"They won't let us through without searching the vehicle," Emmanuel said. "We'll have to spend the night here and check the roads at dawn."

"What shall we do with him? The young one?"

"King's icehouse out beyond the back stoep. Zweigman said that's the best place for him."

"Home," Shabalala said. "That is the only place for him."

"Not much of a home after the lies his father told."

"To live in this country a man, he must be a liar. You tell the truth"-Shabalala clapped his hands together to make a hard sound-"they break you."

20.

HE FELL THROUGH the sky, and his body twisted and arched in the air like a leaf on the wind. He smelled wild sage gra.s.s and heard the sweet, high voice of Louis Pretorius singing an Afrikaans hymn. A tree branch snapped and he continued to drop at incredible speed toward the hard crust of the earth. He called out for help and felt a gust of cold wind tear across his face as he plummeted without stopping. the sky, and his body twisted and arched in the air like a leaf on the wind. He smelled wild sage gra.s.s and heard the sweet, high voice of Louis Pretorius singing an Afrikaans hymn. A tree branch snapped and he continued to drop at incredible speed toward the hard crust of the earth. He called out for help and felt a gust of cold wind tear across his face as he plummeted without stopping.

Emmanuel sat up gasping for breath in the darkness. He felt around him; his fingers brushed a blanket and the hard edges of a wrought-iron bedstead. He had no idea where he was. No memory of lying down in a wide bed with soft sheets in a room that smelled of fresh thatch and mud.

To the right of the bed he found a box of matches and, in the weak light cast by the flame, found an unused candle with a fresh wick. He lit the candle and tried slowing his breath to normal. The naive tribal designs painted onto the bare concrete floor helped place him. He knew where he was. A just completed guest bedroom attached to the back of Elliot King's homestead.

The quiet rustle of the reed mat at the foot of the bed alerted him to her presence and he held up the candle to cast light farther into the room. She sat on the floor with her chin on her drawn-up knees like a pensive child.

"Did your father send you?" he asked. "Or your brother?"

"Were you dreaming about the mountain?" She shuffled forward and placed her elbows on the mattress. He was sweat stained and shaky, but she showed no fear of him.

"Yes." Emmanuel saw no point in lying and it was a relief to tell the truth to someone who had been there. "I was."

"Was he in the dream?"

"Just his voice. Singing," Emmanuel said. "I fell off the side of the mountain and went down like a stone. You?"

"He was washing me under the waterfall and when I looked down, the skin on my arms was torn to ribbons. I saw the white of my bones through the flesh."

"He's gone. The dreams will stop but it might take a while," Emmanuel said. After the ordeal on the mountain, he knew he represented a safe haven from all the terrible things Louis had done to her in the name of purity. All victims of war and violence felt a bond with those who save them. The bond was fragile, however, and should not be encouraged. Now was the time to tell her to disconnect. Life would resume and they would be strangers to each other again. That was as it should be.

She moved closer and Emmanuel didn't stop her.

"Do you think I'm a bad person?" she asked.

"Why would I think that?"

"Because of the captain and what I did with him."

"You had good reasons for everything you did," he said, and realized, with a sense of discomfort, that this was the first personal conversation he'd held with a nonwhite person since his return from Europe. Interviews, witness statements, formal and informal questioning: he came into contact with every race group in the course of his work but this was different. She was talking with him. One human being to another. Her skin shone velvet brown in the candlelight.

"Do you think G.o.d knows everything?"

"If there is a G.o.d, he'll understand the position you were put in. That's as close to philosophy as I come in the middle of the night."

"Hmmm..."

The sound was low and thoughtful. She tasted the idea of an understanding G.o.d. She reached out and touched the scar on his shoulder. He glimpsed sanctuary in her eyes and felt the warmth of her skin and her breath. Easy now, Emmanuel told himself. This is a police operation: a murder investigation in which she figures centrally. This was no time to give in like a vice cop at the end of the shift.

"You're hurt," she said.

The sleeve of her nightdress fell back to her elbow and he touched the long red scars along her arm.

"So are you."

She leaned forward and kissed him. Her mouth felt lush and warm and yielded to his. Her tongue tasted him. She climbed onto the bed and slid herself between his legs, then rested her hands on his knees as the kiss continued, an endless dance.

He pulled back. Not far enough to convince himself or her of his intention to disengage.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"I want to be in charge this time." Her hands slid over his thighs to his wrists, which she held in place with a firm grip. "Will you let me be in charge, Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper?"

She gave him power and asked for it back in the same breath. It was exciting and shaming: that raw appeal to his rank.

"Yes," he said.