CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

The front yard of the dilapidated house was a solid block of cement over which a collection of plaster-cast animals stalked. Three snarling wolves encircled a spotted deer with huge brown eyes, and a knee-high brown bear grappled with an elk; northern-hemisphere animals of prey arranged on a barren slab that resembled the unforgiving snowfields of winter. The owner of the house was a European, Emmanuel figured. A man with fond memories of the hunt and kill.

The house's windows were shut but a faint glow was discernible from under the curtain's edge - maybe a lantern low on oil. The absence of power lines confirmed the lack of electricity. If things went wrong there'd be nowhere to make an emergency phone call and nowhere to hide except the green expanse encircling the house. The parked DeSoto, with Exodus still at the wheel, was the only point of escape.

Emmanuel knocked on the front door and it swung inwards. A sharp metallic sound broke the silence, then stopped. Someone or something was moving around inside.

'Police,' he said. 'I'm coming in.'

An open window at the back of the room let in enough daylight to illuminate rows of shelves buckling under the weight of rusting harpoons, fishing hooks and spools of anchor chain. A yellowing shark foetus floated in a specimen jar and next to it, a pyramid of bleached bones. The hollow eye sockets of a human skull stared out from the graveyard pile. A prickle of warning raised the hairs on the back of Emmanuel's neck.

'Police,' he said a little louder.

No answer.

A polished leather suitcase leaned against a wall and the flame of the oil lamp suspended from the ceiling beam flickered weakly. A bowl of pickled eggs and brown onions was set up on a small table with a fork still stuck into the food. A crate of empty vodka bottles was jammed against the back door. Emmanuel crouched down to examine the unfinished meal. The onion on the end of the fork was bitten in half. Someone had left the house in a hurry or had retreated to another room.

The flame of the oil lamp flared bright and then expired on a curl of grey smoke. Suddenly a length of silver chain swung across Emmanuel's view and tightened against his throat. He leaned back and jammed his right hand between the hard line of the choke chain and his neck, which still bore the boot marks left by yesterday's encounter with the police. The world seemed intent on cutting off his air supply.

A quick jerk on the silver chain and it loosened. The person on the other end gasped for breath, their strength already depleted. Emmanuel exerted a steady pull on the chain, certain now of his superior strength. Work at the Victory had not been a waste. A hand appeared on the edge of his peripheral vision and then a rounded stomach bumped against his shoulderblades. Fat and weak. Not the ideal build for a strangler. The chain gave way altogether and fell to the floor. A dog began to bark in the backyard.

Emmanuel swivelled a half circle, caught a skinny arm in his grasp and twisted hard. His assailant lost balance and tipped backwards. The body slammed into Emmanuel's chest and momentum swung against him. He crashed onto the wooden floor and the weight of his attacker's body pinned him down forcing the air from his lungs.

A fine curtain of hair covered his face and blocked out the room. He twisted to the left so the body was in front of him, held close in a parody of a satisfied lovers' pose. His hands touched rounded hips and the swell of a stomach, taut and curved as a globe. A tremor of movement and the distinct kick of life pulsed under his palm. Emmanuel sat up, stunned.

His attacker was heavily pregnant, with white-blonde hair and curiously sloping eyes of Prussian blue. From her position on the floor, she swung a fist but Emmanuel caught her wrist and pinned it against her side.

She struggled against his hold and spat out words in Russian. Emmanuel didn't need a translator to understand: if curses worked he'd be blind and infertile by nightfall. He let the woman expend her energy till she was exhausted and gasping for breath.

'Stop,' he said quietly. 'Stop.'

'Da.'

Emmanuel stood and pulled the woman off the floor. She pressed a hand to the small of her back and straightened up. Her black shirt tightened against her full breasts and stretched across the swell of her pregnant belly.

The girl tugged at his sleeve and pointed to a darkened side room. Emmanuel shook his head. There was no chance he would walk into an unlit space with the person who'd just tried to strangle him.

'English?' he said. 'Do you speak English?'

'Nyet.' She jabbed a finger into his chest and demanded, 'American? American?'

'No,' he said. 'South African.'

'American? Da?'

'No. Nyet. Not American.'

His answer didn't satisfy her and she cursed him to his face. Clearly his nationality was a bitter disappointment. It wasn't the first time. The women of France and Germany had known from experience that American servicemen's ration packs were fatter than those of their English or Canadian counterparts.

The dog continued to bark outside. Emmanuel went to the window. A slope-backed German Shepherd ran the length of a low fence line that separated the patchy yard from the lush row of monkey apple trees and flowering creepers. He checked the perimeter and the feeling of being watched returned. The dog's restless patrol continued.

He couldn't find anything out of the ordinary and turned back to the woman, who had finally fallen silent. She pointed to the side room.

'You first,' Emmanuel said and wrapped the silver chain around his hand. Risk nothing, gain nothing. He fell into step behind the woman. The dog barked and snarled again.

The room was narrow and built along a bank of windows that faced the backyard. Heavy curtains kept out daylight. The pregnant woman stood in the middle of the floor.

Emmanuel tugged a curtain open and sunlight poured in, bright white after the darkness. He blinked hard and turned around. A great ox of a man with a bristly beard and watery green eyes sat in a deckchair. The tropical light glinted off the silver barrel of an automatic pistol in his hand. A Walther PPK.

'Fuck,' Emmanuel said. He raised both hands in surrender. Europe was filled with the graves of soldiers who'd tried to outrun the firepower of this particular German-manufactured sidearm.

The woman squatted next to the deckchair and whispered harshly into the man's ear. The word 'American' was repeated again and again amid the torrent of Russian, a little sharper with each use. The hand holding the pistol was white-knuckled and shaking.

Emmanuel kept still and observed. The bearded man was wide-shouldered and wide-necked, the deckchair barely able to hold his girth. Standing with the Walther in his hand he would be in complete control of the situation. So why was he still sitting?

The woman continued whispering and the man drew in a sudden, sharp breath. His jaw clenched and his fingers twitched around the metal grip of the Walther before it clattered to the floor.

Emmanuel and the woman lunged for the gun simultaneously. He blocked her advance with a shoulder and sent her flying back. There'd be time later to feel guilty about tackling a pregnant woman, but for now the Walther was his and that felt good. Emmanuel approached the man, who had hauled his bulk from the deckchair. Two attempts to put him out of action, both failed. The Russian couple weren't professionals.

'Sit,' he said. 'Now.'

The man collapsed into the canvas and drew a ragged breath. The pain seemed to have passed and colour had returned to his face. He glared at his own hands, disgusted by their inability to hang onto the gun.

'English?' Emmanuel said.

'A little.'

'Good. What's your name?'

'Nicolai Petrov.'

'Who is she?' Emmanuel pointed to the woman, who was sulking in the wake of her failure to secure the gun.

'Natalya Petrova.' The man breathed out the name then said with a hint of pride, 'Wife.'

'She's your wife?' There would have been a thirty-year age gap between Nicolai Petrov and the petulant blonde.

'Yes. Mine.'

Natalya chewed her fingernails, bored by the two older men talking in a language she didn't understand. Emmanuel suspected that unless the conversation, in any language, was about Natalya, she wasn't listening.

'This is your house?' he asked.

'It belongs to my cousin, Kolya.' Nicolai made the name sound like a disease. 'He has gone to work at the whaling station. We are visiting here from Russia.'

So, a married couple on a family visit. The attempted strangling and the ambush with the Walther still had to be explained, however.

'Why are you trying to kill me?' Emmanuel said. 'First with the chain and then with this gun.'

Nicolai shrugged. 'Kill or be killed.'

'I didn't come to harm you.' Emmanuel crouched by the burly man's chair but kept the sidearm close to the ground. 'I came here to find out about the boy who gave you the mermaid drawing. It was three nights ago. Do you remember him?'

Nicolai frowned and then shook his head after failing to translate the question from English to Russian.

'How long have you been in Durban?' Emmanuel went back to basics. One question and then one answer at a time, until the link with Jolly Marks was made.

'Here?' The Russian indicated the sunroom.

'Yes. How long?'

'Three days.'

That put the couple in Durban at the time of Jolly's murder. Emmanuel tucked the Walther into the waistband of his trousers and pulled Jolly's notebook free. The steel handcuffs in his jacket pocket rattled and Nicolai sat forwards. The Russian recognised the sound the way an orchestra conductor might recognise a note from a favourite instrument.

'Please.' Nicolai fumbled with the buttons of his heavy wool coat and pulled a diamond and ruby ring from the lining. He held it out in the palm of his hand. 'Please,' he said. 'Take and go away.'

Emmanuel ignored the bribe and removed the documents that stuck out from the breast pocket of the Russian man's winter garment. Two American passports in the names of Nicholas and Natalie Wren were unmarked by immigration stamps for South Africa or any other country. A healthy Nicolai, sturdy and handsome, smiled from the black and white photo glued to the identification page. Natalya had managed a pout.

'Real diamonds and real rubies,' the Russian said. 'I give you for the passports.'

'Don't worry.' Emmanuel replaced the documents. 'I'm not going to take them or the jewellery.'

Natalya hovered next to the deckchair, her focus on the ruby and diamond-studded ring. She held her hands out for the jewellery the way a spoilt child might demand sweets.

'Not a chance,' Emmanuel said, pushing the goods back into Nicolai's coat. He flipped Jolly's notebook to the mermaid illustration and held it up for Nicolai to examine. Natalya poked him on the shoulder and Emmanuel shrugged her off.

'I'm not giving you the ring,' he said.

She poked him again, harder.

He turned and faced her so she got the full visual effect of his annoyed expression. 'Nyet. Don't ask me again.'

Natalya clutched his hand and dragged him over to the window, where she drummed her knuckles against the glass. She stopped and there was silence. Emmanuel pulled her away from the window. The quiet stretched out.

'Shh...' He motioned for her to keep still and checked the backyard through a crack in the heavy curtains. The German Shepherd's body lay slack against the wire fence. Its pink tongue dangled from its mouth. Yellow leaves blew across the empty yard and lifted into the air.

Emmanuel shoved the notebook into a jacket pocket and backed up two steps. Whoever had killed the dog was still out there somewhere. Exodus and the car were at the front. He moved to the deckchair and leaned in close to Nicolai.

'Can you move?' he said.

'No. I not leave here. They kill me.'

'Someone's already killed the dog,' Emmanuel said. 'We have to leave this place. Now.'

The emotion in Nicolai's pale green eyes was pure and animal. Emmanuel had seen it in the faces of soldiers in battle and knew that others had seen it in him, too. It was the fear of death.

'Go, Natalya.' The Russian man pushed himself out of the deckchair. 'I will follow.'

The sound of kicking at the back entrance echoed through the house. Natalya opened the front door and ran with lumbering grace between the ridiculous ceramic statues. Nicolai followed with a limping stride that rocked his wide shoulders from side to side.

'Movet' Emmanuel urged them on from the rear. They passed a statue of a yellow-eyed wolf cub by the gate. A few feet more and they made it to the parked DeSoto. Exodus spun around at the sound of the passenger door opening and watched the burly man dripping with sweat slide across the leather.

'Start the car,' Emmanuel said. 'Now.'

The engine turned over. Natalya was no longer at the passenger door. She was running back towards the house, blonde hair flying in the breeze. Emmanuel went after her.

'What is going on?' Exodus called out from the car window.

'Keep the motor running!' Emmanuel shouted and sprinted towards the shabby building. Natalya was inside, dragging the polished leather suitcase across the floor. The wood panels of the back door splintered against the crate of empty bottles pushed against it.

'Jesus Christ!' Emmanuel snatched the suitcase. He wasn't going to die for a handful of old photographs and Grandma's brooch. Inevitably people ran into danger for their memories.

'Run, Natalya.'

She took off and Emmanuel followed. The case was heavy and halved his speed. The back door gave way and the crate of empty vodka bottles toppled over with a smash. Boots crunched the shards of broken glass littering the kitchen floor. There was a heavy thud, the impact of flesh meeting a hard surface, and then a groan.

Emmanuel gained ground. Nobody followed. Exodus had turned the car to face the dirt road. The leather suitcase thumped into the back of the DeSoto next to Natalya and Nicolai.

'Go, go, go.' Emmanuel clambered into the front seat and slammed the passenger door closed. The car accelerated and the tyres kicked up dirt. Bushes scratched against the doors and the passenger side mirror exploded. Chrome and glass flew into the air. Natalya screamed. A second bullet went wide and hit the feathery tops of a flowering reed bed.

Emmanuel peered through the dust cloud trailing them. There was a flash of white skin and a dark suit. It was impossible to make any kind of identification. Natalya was doubled over with her hands jammed over her ears but Nicolai held himself upright, cool under fire.

'Come on. Come on, girl.' Exodus shifted the gears and stamped on the accelerator till the DeSoto's six-cylinder engine roared. The car fishtailed onto the main road doing fifty. A big black Dodge with a dent in the front grille was pulled over to the side with its bonnet open. There were no driver or annoyed passengers near the vehicle. No one had walked the dirt road to ask for help.

'That's his car,' Emmanuel said. 'He parked it up here and worked his way around to the back of the house.'

'And who is he?' The gunshots had stripped Exodus of his charm and exposed the man himself: angry enough to chew iron nails.

'I don't know,' Emmanuel said.

The fake mechanical breakdown, the silent disposal of the dog and the rear boundary attack were the marks of a professional. That word, 'professional', had come up at the scene of Jolly's murder. Neither Brother Jonah nor Joe Flowers seemed to fit that description. The pale-skinned tradesman, however, fitted it perfectly. That suspicion didn't make the situation any clearer. There was no logical reason for the tradesman to tail him. One good thing had come from the ambush: he wasn't paranoid. He was being followed. That was a small consolation.

'Should have known,' Exodus muttered and overtook a rambling family sedan on a blind corner. 'You look like trouble. But I think, no, he is okay this one. He has the nice clothes and he has the money. Big, big mistake.'

The sedan blasted its horn but Exodus didn't ease up. He stayed bent over the wheel with the throttle jammed to the floor. Vegetation flew past the windows in a smudge of green.

'Try to get us to town alive,' Emmanuel said.

'My side mirror is gone,' Exodus said. 'Now we are running like dogs. Why is this, Mr Emmanuel?'

Emmanuel couldn't offer an explanation.

They turned into the settlement of Fynnlands and the speedometer dropped to sixty. There was no sign of the black Dodge but it was too early to be relieved: they had to get off the Bluff and disappear into the backstreets of Durban. The DeSoto rumbled over the bridge and cruised past the mangrove swamps, then plunged between the red-brick warehouses and factories along Edwin Swales Drive.

'We have to get off the main road,' Emmanuel said. Taking the major link back to the town centre would be too easy a trail for the shooter to follow.

'You're going back to the passenger wharf.' Exodus was adamant. 'What you and your friends do after that is your own business.'

'Think,' Emmanuel said. 'How did the driver of the black Dodge find us? Did he just take a lucky guess or did he follow us from the passenger wharf?'

'Masende!' Exodus used the Zulu word for 'testicles' and hit the steering wheel with his fist.

'Exactly,' Emmanuel said.

The Basotho driver turned left and headed for the suburban streets of Congella. Three pretty white girls in flowered cotton shifts and scuffed shoes played hopscotch on the pavement. They watched the DeSoto's progress with curiosity. Later, if the driver of the Dodge stopped and asked the girls if they'd seen a nice car with silver trim, they'd say, 'The one with the kaffir and the white man sitting next to each other? That one?'

'Sunday-driver slow,' Emmanuel said. 'We don't want to attract attention.'

'Then you must get in the back seat like a proper baas. These white people, they don't like a black man to drive for himself. We must only walk or ride bicycles.'

They dropped to thirty miles per hour and cruised through the sleepy Sunday streets. Cloud shadows drifted across the red-tiled roofs and darkened the slender fronds of the royal palm trees on the roadside.

'Who gave you the mermaid picture that I showed you at the passenger quay?' Emmanuel said. It would be just his luck to have rescued a Russian couple with no connection to Jolly Marks.

'The big man. He and the girl, they came together with the picture and the address for the house in the bush.'

'Thursday night?'

'Yes.'

'What time?'

'Maybe just before midnight. I was outside the Seafarers Club. Three pounds to drive to the Bluff.' Exodus laughed without humour. 'The money was too, too good. Now I see why.'

'They had a suitcase,' Emmanuel said. 'That should have told you something strange was going on.'

'The girl is ripe and the man was in a big hurry.' A long pause followed and then a rush into speech. 'I thought maybe the man wanted to stay at the house so he could have fun before the baby came.'

'I see.'

A simple explanation for the trip had not even occurred to Exodus. That was what working outside the confines of polite society did: it blunted the idea of normal and sometimes destroyed it. Emmanuel wondered if he'd pushed his ex-wife Angela too far and asked her for things that were common in the world of soldiers and police detectives but unacceptable in a 'decent' marriage.

'Chasing the money Always chasing the money.' Exodus was rueful. 'That is where I'm at fault, Mr Emmanuel.'

'Did you see Jolly Marks that night?' His failure as a husband was fodder for a late-night drinking session sometime in the future.

The DeSoto's speedometer needle dropped to fifteen and two coloured boys on bicycles flew by. Exodus's dark hands gripped the wheel hard and his knuckles turned white under the pressure.

'A bad thing has happened to that boy,' he said and sucked air into his mouth like a rugby player who'd just been tackled and had the wind knocked out of his lungs. 'That is why you are asking these questions.'

'Jolly was killed in the freight yard on Thursday night somewhere between 11 p.m. and one in the morning.' Emmanuel guessed at the times. The details of the coroner's report would never be made available to him.

'Ayyyee...' Exodus made a sound that combined both helplessness and despair. It was a uniquely South African expression of grief. 'Who would do this thing?'

The man was visibly shaken and Emmanuel's gut feeling about him solidified. Exodus was an ambitious black man who loved money, American cars and nice clothes, but he was no killer.

'Could one of your clients with unusual tastes be involved?'

Exodus shook his head. 'I do not touch that kind of business. The backroom fights, yes. The card games, yes. The man who wishes to lie with a man or a woman of any colour, this I also do. Blood and children together I do not do.'

Emmanuel circled back to the first question. 'Did you see Jolly that night?'

'No.' Exodus answered without hesitation. 'Business, it was slow until this man came with the piece of paper with the address. I took the money and drove to the house. No problems.'

'And after?'

'I went home to my mother's sister's house in Cato Manor. On Friday morning I drove three girls to a party at a sugar mill outside Stanger.'

'A two-day party?' Emmanuel said. This was a chance for Exodus to get the events of the last few days straight. Only a watertight chronology would satisfy the detective branch if they tracked down the Flying Dutchman.

'The men were having a party but the girls, they were working. You understand?'

'Yeah, I understand.'

This backed up what Khan had said about Exodus being out of town until Sunday. The Indian criminal knew what he was talking about. Emmanuel filed the fact away for future reference.

A hard metal click came from the rear seat and Emmanuel swivelled around to check on the Russians. Natalya had opened the lid of the suitcase and removed a hip flask and a small gold box. She picked four red tablets from the box and fed them to Nicolai.

'What are those?' Emmanuel said.

'Pain.' Nicolai took a gulp from the flask that Natalya pressed to his lips and swallowed the pills.

Emmanuel leaned into the passenger compartment, determined to extract some information from the Russian man before the drugs took effect. 'Who's trying to hurt you, Nicolai?'

'Many people.'

'Why?'

'Because I am Nicolai Andrei Petrov.'

'What does that mean?'

'I was not supposed to leave.' The Russian leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. 'Now they will find me and make me go back.'

'Who are they?' Emmanuel said but got no response.

Natalya stroked her husband's wiry beard and laid her head on his shoulder. The couple rested in the way that soldiers rest after the fight. Emmanuel backed off. Many nights in the winter fields of Europe he had longed for the comfort of sleep himself. When they arrived at Chateau La Mer he'd let Nicolai and Natalya have an hour of dreams. He couldn't afford to give them any more time than that.

'Where must I go to?' Exodus said.

'Willowvale Road in Glenwood,' he said.