The proprietor of the Night Owl was a big-bellied man with shortened forearms and a dark beard streaked with grey. His place was two rungs down from a cafe and a half step up from a missionary soup kitchen. A string of naked bulbs lit the chipboard tables and chairs scattered under the awning in front of the business. Two tired Greek flags curled at either side of a browning pot plant placed on the middle table.

The big man took the orders and worked the grill; his dwarf-like forearms strained to reach the onions and fried eggs on the back hotplate. The name 'Nestor' was embroidered onto the pocket of his sweat-stained shirt. A small sign, hastily painted in jungle green and nailed under the orders window, read 'Whites Only'.

'That's for the sailors,' Nestor explained gruffly. 'Otherwise they get into trouble and then we get into trouble.'

Emmanuel pressed straight in. 'The kid Jolly Marks, did he get his food from here last night?'

Nestor weighed up Emmanuel with a look. Decided he was a policeman or near enough to one to be given a quick exit.

'Ask around the back. In the non-white section. That's where we take his orders.' He slid rubbery eggs into a puddle of grease.

Emmanuel went to the back and found a rough square of cracked cement that faced onto a small orders window. No awning, no tables or chairs. A single bulb dangled from a frayed wire suspended across the cement pad. Two black men in overalls sat on upturned fruit crates and played checkers on a hand-drawn piece of cardboard. Durban was a visibly English town and few natives were granted employment passes to live within the urban area.

'Number twenty-seven,' the short-order cook called out. 'Bunny chow 'n' chips. Coca-Cola.'

A crinkly-headed youth in repatched pants and a loose brown shirt picked up the meal and leaned against the wall to eat. Emmanuel approached the orders hatch. The man behind the window had features borrowed from every nationality to have dropped anchor in the Natal Bay: Asian eyes flecked green and brown, soft Zulu lips, a long thin nose dusted with freckles and woolly brown hair. Mixed race, no doubt about it.

'Ja?' The narrow eyes were hard.

'Jolly Marks get his orders from here last night?' Emmanuel said.

'Who you? A policeman?'

'No. Just curious.'

'Well, you and your curiosity can fuck off.'

The short-order cook called out two boerewors rolls with onion and tomato sauce. Emmanuel pressed Jolly's notebook against the glass.

'Recognise this?'

'Nope.'

'Take a good look,' Emmanuel said. 'It belonged to Jolly Marks. He was here last night. What time?'

'I told you,' the man said. 'I've never seen that book before.'

He was defiant. Even with a detective's ID slammed against the window, Emmanuel knew the man would not talk. Silence was the only weapon he had against authority.

Emmanuel returned to the front of the Night Owl intent on questioning Nestor about the time of Jolly's last order. A police car was parked at the kerb, engine idling while the uniforms ate sausage and onion rolls. Maybe another time. He peeled to the left and bumped into a wiry man setting up a wooden crate on the sidewalk. A stack of religious tracts illustrated with a lurid drawing of a scantily dressed woman engulfed in towers of flame fluttered to the pavement.

'Do I know you, brother?' the evangelist from the dock asked. 'Have we met before on the Lord's highway?'

'Don't think so,' Emmanuel said and kept moving. The roll of car wheels sounded. He glanced over his shoulder to confirm what he already knew. The patrol car was driving towards him. A flashlight aimed out of the passenger window sprayed bright light into doorways and down side streets.

The entrance to the Harpoon Bar, a watering hole for dockworkers and merchant seamen, was right on the corner. Emmanuel fought the urge to sprint for the doorway. Jolly's notebook was still in his pocket. He'd have a hard time explaining that to the police.

The bar entrance was just a few feet away. The front fender of the police car drew almost level with him now. Emmanuel dropped slowly to his knee and retied his shoelace. The beam of the torch moved across the pavement and flickered into a doorway two yards ahead. The patrol car was on a door-to-door street search for something or someone.

Emmanuel heard the accelerator push the cruiser further down the street and away into the night. Relief sucked the moisture from his mouth. He needed a drink. Maybe three or four.

The dim interior of the Harpoon Bar reeked of smoke and beer. Three dark-skinned merchant seamen murmured to each other at a corner table. The Separate Amenities Act, which designated places like this into either European or non-European facilities, was being ignored. Some places were beyond classification.

Emmanuel sat down at the bar and his heart rate slowed. A spotlight search twice in one night meant the uniforms were on the lookout for someone in particular. He wouldn't want to be an Indian man out in this part of town tonight.

The younger of the barmaids approached and leaned an elbow on the counter. She was dark-haired with pale skin and dark almond-shaped eyes. A scooped neckline revealed the top swell of her breasts. Emmanuel remembered her from the last time he had been to the Harpoon with another shipbreaker, an ex-corporal of the 3 Commando Brigade.

'Thirsty?' she said.

Emmanuel cleared his throat. 'Double whisky, thanks.'

He slid a pound note onto the wooden surface. The scene with Giriraj and the prostitute had him stirred up. The scare with the police cruiser had set the adrenaline pumping and his body was awake. Memories of Davida's mouth on his had reignited a desire to touch and to feel, to lose himself in the tangle of a lover. A tumbler of whisky appeared close to his hand.

'Anything else?'

He risked an upward glance and a moment of eye contact sent a jolt to every nerve ending. Heat burned his neck. With a penny from every man who wanted her, she could own the bar and a big slice of the waterfront.

'I'm fine.' He heard the lie in his voice and thought she did too.

'If you say so.'

Two slack-jawed sailors seated at the bar watched her collect used glasses and stack them onto a tray. The men looked as if they'd turned up at the dock to find their ship headed out to sea without them.

Emmanuel noticed a black and white photograph of a whaler nailed to the wall above a row of gin bottles. It was a long way yet before he turned into a bar-side pervert. But the languid movements of the barmaid's body and the dark fall of her hair were hard to ignore.

He swallowed his drink. Whisky flooded through his arms and legs as if through the branches in the tree of life, and his mind focused. The decision to follow leads in Jolly's murder was foolish, and this attempt to recreate his past life was more than that: it was dangerous. Walking near the crime scene with Jolly's notebook in his pocket was bloody-minded stupidity and an invitation to dance the hangman's jig.

The words 'please help' were not a personal plea from the dead boy. He had to let the kid go.

'Major,' said the barmaid.

Emmanuel sat up at the use of his old army title and recognised his mistake instantly The major was a silver- haired man with broken blood vessels in his cheeks. It was a classic drinker's face with every bottle accounted for.

'The usual,' the major said.

The dark-haired barmaid flashed a look at Emmanuel and caught his eye. Electric currents sent his heart into near-arrest. He checked the level of alcohol in the tumbler. Half full. The eye contact held a moment too long was not a fantasy.

He finished the whisky in one hit and considered the alternative. A beautiful woman, the centre of every man's attention, had expressed an unspoken desire for physical connection.

'More?'

'Same again.' Emmanuel said. Another hit and he would go back to the single cot with its neat hospital corners and folded-down blanket. The bed of a soldier or a priest.

The full whisky tumbler slid back into view.

'On the house,' the pretty barmaid said and moved down the counter, filling a line of shot glasses along the way.

'What's the occasion?' Emmanuel asked the older barmaid, who wore cat's-eye glasses and a sour expression. She was pushing fifty and it appeared that every one of those years had been hard fought and hard won.

'It's Lana's last night. She's moving up. Got a job at a posh ladies' boutique on West Street working as a house model.' The barmaid's smile was nasty. 'Let's hope they don't give her the combination to the safe.'

She moved away, and left Emmanuel to tussle with the enigmatic comment. Stealing was a common criminal activity and if he had to pick the dark-haired barmaid's area of operation, he'd pick fraud. A smile opened a lot of doors and even more wallets. Not that the older woman's word was a solid foundation on which to base anything. She'd made no effort to hide her malice.

Emmanuel drained his whisky and pushed back the barstool. Lana collected the empty tumbler.

'Do you have a car?' she said.

'Yes.'

'I need a lift. Can you take me?'

She'd never been turned down, Emmanuel imagined. Never had a man say no. Who was he to change the course of history?

'My car's around the corner,' he said.