CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Hélène Gerard sat in the shade of the veranda and cradled a full glass of red wine. She wore a bright orange cocktail dress with a full skirt but no shoes. As the DeSoto pulled into the drive she stood and approached the stairs, smile at the ready.

'Detective Cooper, welcome back.' She waved towards the odd assortment of passengers in the fancy car. 'I see you've brought some friends with you. Will they be staying?' The tip of Hélène's nose was red and the skin around her eyes was puffed and swollen; the result of an afternoon of heavy drinking interspersed with tears. Her brightly coloured dress and bare feet - resort wear for carefree days - had not chased the Sunday blues away.

'We'll be staying for a while,' Emmanuel said and opened the passenger door. He offered Natalya a hand but she ignored it and struggled out of the DeSoto. She massaged the small of her back and swore in Russian; a modern-day Eve, cursed with the nurturing of male seed and the bearing of children.

'This is Natalya,' Emmanuel said. 'She doesn't speak English but she might like a meal and a bath.'

'Yes, of course.' Hélène navigated the stairs from the porch to the drive slowly, hands gripping the railing for balance. 'I'll make sure she has everything she needs, Detective Cooper.'

'Thanks.'

Emmanuel watched the drunken Frenchwoman and the pregnant Russian climb the stairs to La Mer like invalid companions on an excursion.

Hélène hesitated at the front door. 'You'll tell the major?' she said.

'Of course.'

One day soon, Emmanuel figured, the mystery of the sad French-Mauritian and her absent husband was going to be solved.

'Thank you, Detective.' Hélène mimed the actions for washing hair and eating while she led Natalya into the house.

Emmanuel leaned into the passenger compartment of the DeSoto and found Nicolai slumped against the leather. The whites of his eyes showed between half-closed lids and a faint beat pulsed at the base of his neck.

'Nicolai.' Emmanuel slid into the car and tapped a bristled cheek. 'Nicolai. Are you awake?'

'Tired. I sleep, yes?'

'Not yet,' Emmanuel said. 'Soon.'

The big man struggled to sit up but did not have the strength to shift his large frame off the seat. Blue smudges darkened the skin under his eyes.

'Lie back,' Emmanuel said and the Russian collapsed into the folds of his winter coat. The painkillers might have had barbiturates in them. It hardly mattered. Pills or not, Nicolai was too weak to help the investigation for a few more hours. The run of bad luck continued.

'Give me a hand,' Emmanuel said to Exodus. 'We have to get him into bed. I'll take his shoulders. You take his legs.'

Exodus left the sanctuary of the DeSoto reluctantly. Mixing in white people's business was part of the job, but this situation was more complicated than dropping a man off at a hush-hush multiracial brothel or setting up a private poker game.

Emmanuel pushed Nicolai across the seat and, together with Exodus, manoeuvred the Russian up the stairs and into La Mer. The interior of the house was dark and cool. A kettle whistled in the kitchen. They carted Nicolai to Emmanuel's room and put him into the provincial-style bed, where his solid body made a trench in the goose-down quilt.

'I must go,' Exodus said and backed out of the room quickly. He kept his gaze to the pine floorboards so that it was clear to Emmanuel and to anyone else that while he had been in the house he had not seen anything.

'Do you have any friends or relatives outside of Durban?' Emmanuel asked when the Basotho man had shuffled out onto the veranda.

'My father's brother is in Port Elizabeth.'

'Stay with him for a few days.'

The police would stop searching for the Flying Dutchman the minute van Niekerk's forty-eight-hour deal expired.

'I will go straight away.' Exodus ran down the front stairs and unlocked the DeSoto's giant boot. He stowed the handsome fedora in a round hatbox and then pulled out the workman's overalls, which he slipped over his green suit and buttoned to the throat. The transformation from a worldly black man into a common servant had the quality of a magic trick. Then he lifted the carpet on the boot floor and removed a piece of folded paper, an exercise book and a pen.

'What's that for?' Emmanuel asked.

'A travel pass and a permission slip from the baas to say it is okay to drive his car to Port Elizabeth.'

'What baas?'

'You.' Exodus brought the pen and the notebook to Emmanuel and handed them over.

Port Elizabeth was seventy miles down the coast but natives were not free to travel from one town to another without official consent from the government and their employer. A black man in a nice car was an invitation to the police to conduct a stop and search.

'What must I write?' Emmanuel said.

Exodus dictated. ' "This boy works for me. He is a good boy and a good driver. He is going to Port Elizabeth to do work for me. Please let him pass." Sign your name at the bottom.'

Emmanuel wrote the note word for word. He felt an embarrassment that had lain almost dormant since childhood. Nine years old, working part-time at the local garage, he was given the job of signing the weekend leave slips for the four Sotho petrol pump attendants: grown men with wives and children and grey hair sprinkled among the black, allowed to go home on the authority of a white child still in short pants.

'Much thanks.' Exodus shoved the note into the work overalls and got into the car. He started the engine and reversed out of La Mer's driveway, an adult man armed with written permission to travel over land once owned by his own people.

Emmanuel was no closer to knowing who had killed Jolly Marks or Mrs Patterson and Mbali the maid. The list of suspects wasn't even a list, it was just a pair of names: Joe Flowers and Brother Jonah. Without the help of the detective branch and the foot police, identifying the driver of the black Dodge would be nearly impossible.

Emmanuel stretched the tension out of his neck and stared down at the sparkling white town below him. The pretty houses and colourful flowerbeds were ordered and peaceful. He knew from experience that looks were often deceiving.