The crippled man in the Victorian-era wheelchair was parked at the front of the crumbling flats, same as yesterday.

A straw hat was jammed onto his head to keep the midday sun off. Two mangy kittens burrowed into the blanket tossed over his paralysed legs.

'Anne's father,' Miss Morgensen said when they reached the front door. 'Used to be a railway shunter. Hit by a train. That's all that's left. Anne's mother took off with another man about six months after the accident.'

They climbed to the second floor and Miss Morgensen rapped her knuckles on the door. There was a shuffle of feet inside the flat but no answer. Emmanuel manoeuvred closer to the wall and out of sight.

'Sister Anne?' Miss Morgensen said. 'I won't take more than a minute of your time.'

The door creaked open and a young white woman's angular face appeared in the gap. Her stubby nose was dusted with freckles and her thick brown hair was cropped close to her skull; in the wrong light she could easily be mistaken for a boy. Red cold sores cracked the corners of her mouth. Miss Morgensen's 'holy temple' blessing this morning had not erased the reality of life in the shadow of the port.

A tawny kitten slipped into the corridor and rubbed itself against the missionary's leg. The woman undipped the chain lock and scooped the kitten up in her thin arms. It was hard to tell who needed milk most: Anne or the starving cat.

'Have you got Pa's medicine?' The kitten dug its claws into Anne's shoulder. 'A few more days and he'll be out.'

'The clinic is waiting on supplies,' Miss Morgensen said. 'I'll bring the medicine the moment it's ready.'

'Ja, sure.' The young woman's voice wavered when she caught sight of Emmanuel leaning against the wall. She reached for the door handle.

'He won't hurt you, Sister Anne. I'll be with you the whole time.'

'What's he want?'

'You're not in trouble,' Emmanuel said. 'I just want to talk with you.'

Anne retreated into the flat and Emmanuel trailed close enough to grab her if she made a run for it. Winter light seeped in from the front window. Fingers of rising damp curled strips of green wallpaper from the walls and gave the flat a musty smell. A litter of kittens frolicked in a broken chest drawer and the overflowing contents of the sandbox added an animal odour to the small space. The peeling wallpaper and the grim poverty of this flat at the centre of a dilapidated mansion were one of the reasons for the National Party's rise to power. In and around Durban, there were blacks that lived better than this. To the National Party and their constituents this was untenable. Anne scooped up a second kitten and held it to her chest. Her eyes flickered to the opened window, judging the distance to the street.

'Have a seat, Anne,' Emmanuel said and leaned back against the edge of the windowsill, legs outstretched. Casual body language to signal the fact that he wasn't worried that she would make a break for it because, if she did, he would catch her. Anne slumped onto a tartan couch that had been mended with scraps from a box of random patches. She scratched a kitten behind the ears till its body vibrated.

'Are you a friend of Joe Flowers?'

'Used to be,' she said.

'Have you seen Joe lately?'

'Joe?' Bony fingers curled into the kitten's mangy coat. 'No.'

'You sure about that?'

'Ja, of course.' The kitten leapt to the floor but she pulled it back by the tail and held it down by force. Cat claws dug through her cotton dress and into her skinny thighs.

'You haven't seen him at all? Like across the street or maybe near the Zion Church?'

The captive kitten squirmed free and streaked across the room to the safety of the drawer. Anne turned her attention to its tawny sibling burrowing into the crook of her neck. She massaged it with rough hands and avoided eye contact.

'Last time I seen Joe was before he went to Durban Central, a long time back. I don't know where he is now.'

'What's through there?' Emmanuel indicated a hole in the wall that had once been a doorway.

'That's the bedroom.'

'Can you show me?'

She dragged herself over to the entrance like a deep-sea diver working against the current. 'My pa sleeps in the big bed and I sleep in the corner,' she said.

A double bed and a narrow cot were neatly made up. A tallboy, half wardrobe size, held Anne's and her father's Sunday clothes. A porcelain ballerina with a missing foot pirouetted on a small side table. Emmanuel moved to the window at the back of the room. It was shut but the latch was open. Out the window, rusted iron stairs spiralled down to the common yard. An older Zulu woman hung wet clothes onto a wire line while a small white child drew pictures in the dirt with a stick. Even destitute Europeans could not live without help. A wooden gate, painted an optimistic yellow, opened from the yard to a nightsoil lane.

'You ever use these stairs?' he asked.

'No. Never.'

A tin plate and a mug of the kind normally reserved for servants were laid out on the iron ledge just outside the window. Ants pulled breadcrumbs over the lip.

'Never?' he said.

'Never.'

'Okay, I believe you.'

Anne's head dipped against the kitten's fur to hide a smile. A lie swallowed whole by the police; if Joe came around she'd tell him the flat was safe and that the police detective was a fool. Fine by Emmanuel.

Still, there was something familiar about the room. Not from childhood but from the last few days. Emmanuel stepped closer to Anne and the sensation increased so he stopped and examined her. He'd seen her receive a blessing outside the Zion Church but that wasn't it. There was something that made him feel that he knew her well enough to touch her. He leaned in. The scent of flowers was faint on her neck, a trace of something exotic in the broken-down room. The perfume smelled expensive. Like Lana Rose had worn at van Niekerk's coronation party. Joe had been shopping for his 'sister'.

'Detective Sergeant,' Miss Morgensen said, 'Sister Anne has answered your questions fully and I believe it is time for us to move on.'

'Of course.' Emmanuel returned to the windowsill. He wrote Chateau La Mer's phone number onto a page in his notebook then tore it loose and handed it to Anne. 'If you see Joe, call me, or tell Miss Morgensen and she'll contact me. Will you do that?'

'Jâ. Of course.'

Emmanuel almost laughed at the easy promise. The only working phones in a two-block radius likely belonged to the bookmakers and the public bar keepers.

'We're done here, sister. Peace be with you,' Miss Morgensen said.

'And with you,' Anne said and rushed to the door. She cracked it open to let them out. The purring kitten sunk its claws through the fabric of her dress again and burrowed its wet face against her nape. Red scratch marks appeared on the freckled skin of Anne's neck and shoulder.

She enjoys it, Emmanuel realised: the simple combination of love and pain and need.