CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

Clusters of lights burned on the ridge. The black Dodge was parked in the circle of aloes next to the Ford and the Plymouth. Emmanuel and Shabalala slowed and stayed flush against the wall of the main building. Child-birthing cries and grunts came from within the clinic. At least Natalya was still alive.

'We have to get a visual of the buildings,' Emmanuel said. 'Behind the Dodge and then to the aloes.'

On the count of three, Emmanuel and Shabalala scrambled to the car and then to the line of bright succulents. The grass verge in front of the buildings was empty. Trees swayed in the breeze and a metal clicking came from the clinic. A short man in a dark suit stood at the door and tried to turn the handle.

'Where is he?' The question was screamed into the night and a chair crashed through the window of Zweigman's stone house. Wood splintered into the air and the tradesman appeared on the porch. 'Spread out!' he yelled. 'Search every corner of this place. Now. We have to find Petrov!'

A white man tumbled out of the Zweigmans' front door, awkward in a dark suit normally reserved for court appearances when instant respectability helped sentence reduction. 'I already looked. Both houses are empty,' he said. 'Maybe there's someone in the other building.'

'First building,' the tradesman shouted across the vegetable patch. 'Report.'

'It's locked,' the short man on the clinic porch yelled back. 'There's someone inside. Sounds like they're sick.'

'Check the houses again and this time go around the back, too.' The tradesman closed his jacket against the chill. 'I'm going to get into that locked building.'

The men split to either side of the vegetable garden and Emmanuel and Shabalala fell back into the thick brush that grew almost to the back boundary of the clinic. The old fig tree creaked in the wind.

'They can't find Nicolai,' Emmanuel whispered. 'He must have got out.'

'I will go ahead and see if the man is hidden in the bush somewhere,' Shabalala said. 'You must keep still, Sergeant. Listen for the wood dove. When you hear it, come towards the sound.'

'Okay.'

The part-Shangaan constable was an experienced tracker and a hunter. If anyone could find a group of people in the dark, he could. He melted into the night.

Emmanuel rested for a moment and listened. He heard Natalya in labour and Zweigman's gentle voice crooning exhortations. Then another voice joined in.

'Close, my girl.' It was Lizzie, Shabalala's wife. 'Very close now.'

She was in the clinic with Zweigman and directly in the tradesman's path.

A wood dove called and Emmanuel inched forwards, every snapped twig and brush of thorns louder than a shotgun to his ears. Another distinct coo and he made out the murky outline of a group huddled together behind the storeroom. He crawled close to Shabalala.

Nicolai rested against the trunk of a marula tree. He was barefoot and shivered with cold despite the crocheted blanket draped over his flannel pyjamas. Squatting either side of him, like avenging angels, were Lana and Lilliana. They'd armed themselves in the kitchen: Lana held a bread-knife and Lilliana a rolling pin.

'My child,' Nicolai whispered. 'Has my child come?'

'Almost.' Emmanuel gave the crocheted blanket to Lana then unbuttoned the coat taken earlier from the Russians' suitcase and swung it across Nicolai's shoulders.

Shabalala unhooked the long wool scarf from around his own neck and gave it to Lilliana, who wore bed slippers and a quilted dressing-gown fastened by a sash.

'Lizzie?' the constable asked the assembled group when it was clear that his wife was not hiding in the bush.

'She's in the clinic with the doctor. The pale man from the car is headed there,' Emmanuel said.

Shabalala crept forwards but stopped when the short man from the stoep appeared in the space between the storehouse and the clinic. He hesitated at the building's edge, too nervous to advance.

'Hello ... anyone there?' The question was called out in a quavering schoolboy's voice.

'Here,' Lana called back softly. Emmanuel turned to stop her but she was already up and moving to the shed. 'I'm hurt. Help me.'

'Wait, Sergeant,' Shabalala whispered. 'She is bringing him to us.'

'Please, help me,' Lana called again and the man moved in her direction, still wary but compelled by the primal need to help a wounded female. He stepped out of the light from the clinic window and into the darkness. Shabalala waited till he reached the edge of the brush then grabbed him around the waist and pulled down hard. The man slammed into the ground and Emmanuel kept him there with a knee to the chest.

'Quiet.' Emmanuel pressed his hand to the man's mouth. 'Take off the sash for your gown, Lilliana. We need it.'

The German woman set the rolling pin down and untied the fabric sash. It took almost a full minute; fast, given that her hands shook with the shell-shocked jitters of a war veteran. Which, Emmanuel realised, was exactly what she was. Despite never having worn a uniform, Lilliana Zweigman, like him, had seen too much of the war.

Emmanuel tore the fabric in half and gagged the man, then tied him to a tree trunk with the second half. He turned on the flashlight. Nicolai was sweating heavily in the frigid air.

'He needs medicine,' Shabalala said.

'The ... medicine ...' Lilliana stuttered,'... in our house. The medicine.'

'The other man is still in there,' Emmanuel said. 'We have to get him out of the way and then concentrate on getting the tradesman. The locked door will keep the others safe for a while.'

'I'll handle the man at the house,' Lana said with chilling confidence and set off along the back perimeter of the clinic buildings like a cat stalking her prey.

Shabalala whistled low. 'Ah ... a man must have the heart of a lion to stop that one.'

A gunshot roused the birds roosting in the trees. There was a brief twitter of discontent before quiet was restored.

'Stay here with Nicolai,' Emmanuel said to Lilliana. 'Don't come out until I say it's safe. If anyone comes back here, hide. Understand?'

The German woman nodded and Emmanuel ran with Shabalala to the corner of the storeroom overlooking the grass verge. The tradesman stood on the clinic stoep. White splinters showed out of a new bullet hole in the wooden door.

'Come out,' the tradesman said. 'Or I'll keep shooting. It's a small building. I'll hit something eventually.'

He shot the door again and the lock shuddered under the impact. Natalya's child-birthing cry turned into a yelp of fear.

'Double around to the drive,' Emmanuel said to Shabalala, who was crouched next to him. 'Set up on the other end of the porch. We'll press the tradesman from both sides.'

Shabalala slipped into the bush and Emmanuel lifted his head higher to get a better view of the stone building. Lantern light spilled out from the front windows, bright enough to see by.

The clinic door opened and Zweigman stepped onto the stoep. The shattered wood panel closed behind him. A lock turned. The German doctor raised his hands in the air. Emmanuel kept below the level of the porch and inched closer.

'Move,' the tradesman said to Zweigman. 'I want the Russian colonel.'

'He is not here. Only his wife is inside.'

'Hand her over.' The tradesman's voice was hard. 'I want her out here, now.'

'You cannot have her,' Zweigman said. 'She is in labour and cannot be moved.'

'I'll be the judge of that.'

'No,' Zweigman said. 'I will be the judge of that. This is my clinic and she is my patient.'

Emmanuel peered over the veranda edge. The tradesman had the gun barrel pressed to Zweigman's forehead but the doctor stood still.

'Get out of the way or I will kill you.'

'So be it,' Zweigman said. 'But I will not move.'

Yesterday afternoon, in the rope storehouse, the tradesman had said the 'boss' didn't want any more civilian casualties. The stubborn old Jew was about to make himself the exception to the rule.

'Fucking kike ...' The tradesman grabbed Zweigman by the lapels and lifted him into the air.

Emmanuel surged up the steps, taking them two at a time, and knocked the tradesman sideways. Their bodies slammed into the clinic wall and the gun clattered to the stoep. Emmanuel pinned the pale man against the stone wall. They grappled.

'Get the gun!' Emmanuel shouted to Zweigman. 'Get the gun.'

Zweigman retrieved the gun and lifted it to hip height. Thank god. Emmanuel did not know how much longer he could keep the tradesman pinned. The German threw the revolver off the stoep and into the garden.

'Christ above,' Emmanuel muttered. Fear of guns was fine in theory but Zweigman's phobia had lost them the advantage. He tightened his hold on the tradesman's arms but felt no slackness in the muscle, no sign of weakening. The fight would last a while longer. Where the hell was Shabalala?

'Doctor.' The lock to the clinic door clicked open and Lizzie peered out. 'Doctor, hurry. It is time.'

Zweigman hesitated, torn between two crises.

'The baby is almost here,' Lizzie said and the German disappeared into the stone building. The shattered door closed and the lock clicked.

'Back down,' the tradesman said when he failed to break Emmanuel's hold. 'I work for Major van Niekerk. He sent me here.'

'I don't believe you.'

'You're an idiot, Cooper.' The tradesman's breath smelled of cool mints. 'This clinic is in the boondocks. How do you think I found it at night? I was given detailed instructions by the major himself. He wanted the Russians extracted with no civilian casualties.'

'He could have done that when the Russians were under his roof in Durban,' Emmanuel said, but a poisonous seed had been planted. Van Niekerk was the only one who knew for sure where he and the Russian couple were hidden. Lana had even called to confirm their final destination.

'The Berea house was too public. Van Niekerk wanted to keep his name out of this. He gave you and the Russians up to my boss in exchange for a promotion.'

Emmanuel's grip slackened. He'd seen the major talking to the soutpiel colonel on Point Road. Were they arranging the deal then? The tradesman sensed the doubt in Emmanuel. He threw his head forward and delivered a full-force headbutt, a Liverpool kiss that knocked Emmanuel off balance. He staggered back.

'You just don't know when to stay down, Cooper.'

The tradesman moved to deliver a king hit but his fist was caught by Shabalala's giant hand and crushed. The Zulu constable forced the pale white man face down onto the stoep. After a few moments of groaning and flailing, the tradesman collapsed exhausted.

'You are hurt, Sergeant?' Shabalala asked.

'Just my pride,' Emmanuel said and patted the tradesman down for weapons. He was clean.

'Where's the other gun?' he asked.

The tradesman laughed and Emmanuel checked the main house. A gun could be trained on Lana right now. He quickly walked to the stairs.

'Keep that one down,' he said to Shabalala. 'I'll check on Lana at the Zweigmans' house.'

'You're in big trouble, kaffir,' the tradesman said. 'Hope you like prison food.'

Shabalala settled his weight onto the tradesman's back and smiled. 'This one will not move,' he said.

The rolling silhouettes of mountains were now visible in the breaking dawn. Night lifted and early birds began their chorus. The murmur of the river came from deep in the valley. Nicolai rounded the corner of the stoep, moving slowly. A tall man stood at his shoulder. A jab to the back pushed Nicolai forward. The third gun was accounted for.

'Colonel Edward Soames-Fitzpatrick,' Emmanuel said and enjoyed the surprised look on the tall man's face. 'The commander in chief.'

'Detective Sergeant Cooper.' The colonel squared his shoulders. 'Move aside.'

'On whose authority?'

'The South African police.'

"The police aren't interested in Nicolai. He's committed no crimes in South Africa.'

'This is a national security matter.'

Bullshit. With a silver spoon.

'Where's the Security Branch?' Emmanuel kept an easy tone. 'They're in charge of national security.'

A baby's cry came from inside the clinic, weak at first and then much stronger.

'My baby,' Nicolai said. 'I want to see my child.'

The colonel pushed the gun barrel hard into the Russian's back. 'Let Dennis off the floor and we'll leave peacefully, Cooper. If you don't, someone will get hurt.'

Dennis? Dennis was a guy who went to the pub on Friday nights then staggered home to listen to a BBC radio serial with a cup of hot Bovril. The newborn wailed again and Emmanuel focused on Nicolai, who was still a valuable asset.

'Walk to me, Nicolai,' Emmanuel said. 'The colonel needs you alive. I promise he's not going to shoot.'

Nicolai hesitated, torn between fear of death and the desire to hold his newborn child. He took a halting step and then another towards the clinic. Fitzpatrick moved to the side and aimed the gun at Emmanuel.

'You're right. I'm not going to kill the Russian. He's too valuable. You and the kaffir are another matter.'

Sweat trickled between Emmanuel's shoulderblades. A gun barrel aimed mid-chest was a problem but of more concern was Lilliana Zweigman, who crept across the grass with the wooden rolling pin held above her head. She had taken off her slippers to move more quietly but her whole body shook. Stop, slip away and stay safe, Emmanuel begged silently. Lilliana had survived a long and miserable war. She could not die in the soft light of an African dawn.

'Look -' The tradesman tried to shout a warning but Shabalala gagged him with a hand and kept his pale head pinned to the stone floor of the veranda. Nicolai walked slowly towards the stairs and his stumbling feet covered Lilliana's advance.

'Let my man up,' the colonel said. 'Or I will shoot the kaffir.'

Swing wide, swing hard and inflict maximum damage. Emmanuel's instructions were loud in his head but remained unspoken. Instead he stepped back and kept the colonel's focus on the porch.

'There's no need to hurt anyone,' he said. 'Lower the gun. You'll get what you came for. Just put down the gun.'

Lilliana whipped the pin through the air. The impact was bone crunching. A shot thundered from the firearm and lodged in the wall of the storeroom as Fitzpatrick toppled into the dewy grass. Emmanuel jumped the steps and stamped on the colonel's hand till his grip on the gun weakened.

'Go,' he said to Nicolai. 'Go and see your child.'

'Da. Yes.' The Russian man climbed the stairs, drawn on by the newborn's insistent wail. He hit his palm against the door. 'Natalya. Natalya?'

Zweigman opened the clinic door for Nicolai and checked for wounded on the stoep and in the garden. He saw his wife in the pre-dawn light, an avenging domestic goddess with a rolling pin in her hand and an unconscious man at her feet.

'Lilliana.' Zweigman closed the gap between them fast. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes.'

Emmanuel pocketed the colonel's gun: a Browning Hi-Power that could easily have put both Lilliana and Shabalala in the grave. He flipped the prone figure over and slapped him hard on the cheek.

'Please.' Zweigman kneeled beside the dazed man and completed a quick examination. 'An egg-sized contusion and a hairline skull fracture. He will make a full recovery.'

'Good,' Emmanuel said. 'I need him alive and talking.'

'In a short while, when the disorientation clears up,' Zweigman said and got to his feet. He moved to Lilliana's side. 'Oh, liebchen, did you do that?'

She nodded.

The doctor took his wife in his arms and held her. 'I am so proud of you.'

Lilliana's strange hiccuping laughter turned to sobs that shook her body. A woman's cries normally chilled Emmanuel. Yet now, only a few feet away from Lilliana's heartbreak, he felt no need to run. He would have given his life to bring his own mother back but the past could not be bargained with or changed. He had spent hours, weeks and years picking apart his memory of that night in Johannesburg to find the moment when the twelve-year-old Emmanuel could have stopped her death. No one's life should be held ransom to the past while the world kept spinning. Lilliana was in pain but alive and here to see another day.

The colonel swore and Emmanuel checked his condition. Sweaty and thin-lipped but with a spot of crimson on the cheeks.

'Shabalala,' Emmanuel called. 'Bring that one to the doctor's house and we'll secure both of them.'

'Yebo.' Shabalala hauled the tradesman to his feet and led him down the stairs and across the plateau to the Zweigmans' stone dwelling. Lana appeared at the corner of the kitchen garden with the last remnant of the colonel's ragtag army in tow: a nervous youth with greased hair and heavy jowls who'd been left to search the Zweigman house.

'Are you hurt, Emmanuel?' Lana said. 'I heard shots.'

'I'm fine. Who's he?'

'This is Stewart.' The young man mumbled hello. 'He owes Mr Khan twenty pounds, which he was told he could work off if he gave him a hand tonight. He says he didn't know about the guns or the Russians.'

'Mr Khan told us it was a parcel pick-up,' Stewart said. 'It was supposed to be easy.'

Emmanuel hit the colonel between the shoulderblades. 'A national security matter and you recruit boys with gambling debts.'

'I didn't recruit anybody,' the colonel said. 'Dennis was in charge of that.'

'Oh, I understand.' Emmanuel pushed the colonel in the direction of the main house. 'You're not responsible for this fuck-up. The men under your command are the problem.'

'What about them?' Lana indicated the Zweigmans, still locked together.

'They'll be all right,' Emmanuel said. In truth he couldn't remember seeing the couple so close.

The doctor turned to his wife. 'Come,' he said. 'Let us go and meet the baby. He has white hair and big lungs.'

So, Nicolai has a son, Emmanuel thought and he prodded the colonel into the big house. Jolly Marks and Mbali, the Zulu maid, had been someone's son and daughter. Their deaths and that of the landlady had to be accounted for.

'Sit,' Emmanuel said to the colonel when they entered the small kitchen where Shabalala already had the tradesman handcuffed to a chair. The wood-fire stove crackled. Lana filled a kettle and placed it on a burner while Stewart, the hapless gambler, slouched in the adjoining room and pretended to read one of Zweigman's medical tomes. Emmanuel pushed Fitzpatrick into a chair and secured his hands with ties taken from the curtains. The colonel sat with a stiff back and a stiff upper lip.

'Check the Dodge, Shabalala,' Emmanuel said. 'See if there are any more weapons hidden.'

'Yebo.' The constable went out the side door and cut towards the black car. A rooster crowed and a golden light brushed the treetops.

'I can't wait to see van Niekerk,' the tradesman said. 'I'm going to tell him how you fucked up tonight and then I'm going to tell him you fucked his girlfriend. You'll be lucky to keep your teeth.'

Lana tensed but set up a row of teacups on a sideboard. Her escape route to Cape Town, funded in part by van Niekerk's generous financial contribution to her everyday expenses, was now in doubt.

'Why would the major believe a word you say?' Emmanuel asked.

'Because I saw you with my own eyes. Van Niekerk won't be happy paying for something that's being handed out for free. If you uncuff me now, he'll never have to know.'

'You followed me to Lana's flat and then to the Dover the next morning,' Emmanuel said. The man leaning against the wall of the hardware store with the newspaper hadn't been a civilian waiting for a bus. 'But first you had to tail me from the bar to Lana's apartment. Why follow me at all?'

'Van Niekerk's orders. He doesn't trust you.'

'No, that's not it.' Emmanuel was certain. For all his faults, the Dutch major had always shown absolute trust and faith in him. The tradesman had tailed him long before van Niekerk was involved in the investigation. 'You were in the freight yard on the night of Jolly's murder. That's how you knew to follow me. You were there. And you probably had Brother Jonah on lookout as well.'

The tradesman's eyes were cold. 'You're a drowning man, Cooper.'

Shabalala entered the kitchen with the same dented toolbox the tradesman had brought with him to the interrogation room. He rested it on the tabletop.

'No guns,' the Zulu constable said. 'Just this.'

The metal box, for all its plainness, exerted a strange power over the occupants of the kitchen. No one moved. Then Lana stepped back, anticipating an unpleasant surprise.

Emmanuel undipped the box and opened the lid. The scent of chocolate and vanilla-flavoured tobacco wafted out of it. He removed three hand-rolled cigarettes.

'A gift from Mr Khan,' he said. 'He helped you recruit your little army. An unstable preacher and a group of unlucky gamblers who don't know one end of a gun from the other.'

Next, Emmanuel pulled out a rusty penknife. The white paint from the handle flaked off in his hands.

'Jolly Marks's knife, taken from the crime scene. You heard my name and my old police rank on the night of the first murder. You've been chasing me ever since. Waiting for me to find the Russians.'

'Why would I remove a piece of incriminating evidence from the scene?' the tradesman said. 'That makes even less sense than your other theories.'

Emmanuel considered the child's weapon for a moment. Keeping it made sense if you discounted common sense and went deeper.

'There was a private in my platoon,' he said. 'A quiet lad from Liverpool, ordinary. Or that's what I thought until another soldier found a necklace made from human teeth hidden in his rucksack. The private claimed it was a harmless souvenir but he enjoyed looking at the necklace the same way a dog enjoys digging up old bones to chew on. You kept the penknife for the same reason.'

'You're sick, Cooper,' the tradesman said.

Emmanuel foraged under layers of newspaper stuffed into the box to keep the contents snug and touched a handle. He withdrew a scalpel with dried blood splattered over the edges of the silver blade. Very much a grown-up's weapon.

'No theories or conjecture,' he said. 'I'll leave that to the judge and the jury.'

The colonel sat bolt upright at the mention of a trial. 'The mission was to find the Russians and secure them. He's the one who lost them in the freight yard and then killed the boy for his notebook. That went against my direct orders. I said no civilian casualties.'

'Mrs Patterson and her maid, Mbali?' Emmanuel pressed for more information.

'Same thing,' the colonel said. 'Get the notebook and get out. That was the plan. He turned the whole exercise into a bloodbath, in direct contravention of my orders.'

'You are responsible for your men, Colonel.'

'I'm not in charge,' Fitzpatrick said. 'MI5 wanted the Russians but they didn't want to ask the National Party for help . . . not with Malan in London talking about a republic run by Afrikaners. They decided to take an informal approach. They recommended Dennis and assigned me to get the job done.'

Informal approach? The job? The British security agency had used the colonel to do their dirty work. If the mission succeeded, the glory was theirs; if it failed, they could deny any knowledge and leave Fitzpatrick to hang.

'Three people died,' Emmanuel said.

'Against my direct orders.'

If the colonel mentioned his 'orders' one more time Emmanuel would have to kill him. There was more to leadership than barking commands down a phone line.

'Stop talking, Fitzpatrick.' The pale-skinned killer was unnaturally calm in the face of the colonel's attempt to dump full responsibility for the failed mission into his lap. 'Make excuses up the chain of command, not down. The word of an ex-detective, a kaffir and a barmaid? Save your breath.'

The tradesman was right, Emmanuel knew. Unless Major van Niekerk backed him, the allegations of three murders and an international conspiracy to capture a member of Stalin's inner circle would not stand. Jolly Marks's death was already neatly pinned on Giriraj, and even with the scalpel there was no real evidence to link the double homicide at the Dover to the tradesman. The contents of the metal box would look like nothing more than a desperate attempt by a reclassified ex-detective to clear his name.

'You've got nothing, Cooper,' the tradesman said. 'The only way out of this mess is to free Fitzpatrick and me and step away The colonel will do what he can to clear your name of the double murder charge. That's the only way you'll escape the rope.'

'I'm tempted,' Emmanuel said. 'But I can't get past the fact that you killed three innocent people. That just doesn't feel right.'

'You don't have the power or the connections to do a thing about it.' The tradesman's eyes lit with pleasure. 'Admit defeat and you might get a chance to live out your days among the kaffirs and the Jews.'

Do it! the Scottish sergeant major roared out of the darkness. Do it, soldier!

Emmanuel rounded the table and slammed the tradesman's forehead into the wood surface. The metal box slid over the lip and crashed to the floor.

'That was for Jolly Marks,' Emmanuel said. 'And this is for Mrs Patterson and Mbali, her maid.' He slammed the fair head down twice more and heard bones crunch. Good. Blood dotted the wood tabletop and trickled from the tradesman's nose. Even better. The tradesman moaned in pain.

'Sergeant.' Shabalala laid a light hand on Emmanuel's shoulder. 'Detective Sergeant...'

'Don't worry,' Emmanuel said. 'I'm done.'

'No. Listen.'

There was the slam of doors and footsteps on the circular drive and in the garden.

Lana ran to the window and peered out. 'More cars. There are two men on the clinic porch. One of them looks like the major. There might be others.'

'Stay here and keep an eye on the colonel and his friend.' Emmanuel gave the Browning Hi-Power to Lana. He knew she could handle a gun. 'Do not untie them. No matter what happens. Shabalala and I will go out.'

They slipped through the side door and struck out for the winter vegetable patch. Muted voices could be heard from the direction of the clinic. A man approached with the collar of his lightweight coat turned up against the dawn chill.

'Fletcher?'

'The major wants you.' The detective constable was ashen-faced and looked five inches shorter than he had yesterday afternoon. 'He's waiting over at the other house with the doctor.'

Emmanuel and Shabalala moved fast and found van Niekerk leaning against the veranda post of the clinic while Zweigman blocked the door. The newborn's cries had calmed.

'If you're the cavalry,' Emmanuel said to the Dutch major, 'you're late.'

'The plan was to get here an hour ago, right on the tail of the colonel,' van Niekerk said and cast Constable Fletcher a sour look. 'We took a wrong turn off the main road and ended up in a Zulu kraal. The chief was none too happy. He thought we'd come to relocate him and his family to a native reserve.'

'You gave the colonel directions to this place, didn't you, Major?'

'Yes.' There was no shame or guilt in the admission. 'It was the easiest way to flush out all the players and concentrate them in one place.'

'A lot of things look easy from a desk,' Emmanuel said.

'Okay,' van Niekerk said, 'I deserve that, but this is not how it was meant to turn out. The plan was to get here before any damage was done.'

'He's lying,' Zweigman said. 'He wants Nicolai, just like the other men.'

The major lit up a cigarette and puffed. 'Let me explain the facts of life to you all. Nicolai and his wife have caught the attention of the British secret service, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Russian NKVD. There is no way for Colonel Nicolai Petrov to slip quietly into the night and disappear. Much as you'd like it to be so.'

'We're just supposed to hand him over?' Emmanuel said. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A handful of men scattered across the grass verge and infiltrated the stone buildings. The door to the storeroom was kicked in and the interior searched. The gagged man was dragged out of the woods and pushed across the verge to a parked car. A startled bushbuck flew through the vegetable patch and out to the drive. Amateur hour was over and the professionals had arrived. This expeditionary force could do what they wished and yet they stayed well away from the clinic.

'I'd prefer that Nicolai came of his own free will,' van Niekerk said. 'His wife and child can stay. That's the deal. Nicolai only.'

The door to the main house swung open and the colonel and the tradesman were bundled out and marched across the plateau by three armed men with blackened faces. Stewart, the down-on-his-luck gambler, trailed behind. The last member of the colonel's army, the decoy ditched at the river by Emmanuel and Shabalala, was still out there somewhere.

'Will they be punished?' Zweigman asked.

'Not through the courts.' The major smiled. 'Nothing about this operation will ever appear in print or in official records.'

Emmanuel checked the positions of the commando raiders. They were gathered along the perimeter of the clinic grounds ready for a second surge. Their blackened faces showed no emotion. He didn't know what organisation they belonged to. Not that it mattered. There was nothing to stop them smashing into the clinic and securing Nicolai by force. With the operation officially blacked out they were free to get the job done and damn the consequences. Emmanuel had seen what men were capable of when the leash of law and order was cut. A few graves hidden in the endless run of hills would never be found.

A heavy silence descended. Neither Zweigman, Shabalala nor Emmanuel could voluntarily place the sick Russian into the hands of an uncertain fate.

The clinic door opened and Nicolai appeared. He marked the men waiting on the perimeter and calmly buttoned his wool jacket.

'My son's name is Dimitri,' he said to Emmanuel. 'Please make sure that he and Natalya are safe. I cannot stay here and bring harm to you good gentlemen or to my wife. I have done things . . . This day was always going to come. Spasiba.'

He walked across the porch and down the stairs. Major van Niekerk escorted him to a line of blue sedans parked in the drive. He opened the back door of one of them, Nicolai got in and the door closed with a thunk. Emmanuel moved forward but Zweigman grabbed the sleeve of his jacket.

'Let him go. Nicolai's time is almost at an end. The safety of his wife and son is worth the sacrifice.'

'Yebo,' Shabalala agreed.

The car containing Nicolai pulled away from the circle of aloes and disappeared into the wild winter grass. Van Niekerk strode back to the clinic with two commandos on either side of him.

'Cooper,' he called. 'Come over.'

Emmanuel met van Niekerk halfway. Sunshine filtered through the tree branches but no diffusion of light could soften the brute lines of the men's blackened faces. Lieutenant Piet Lapping and Sergeant Dickie Heyns of the Security Branch. The metallic taste of blood came to Emmanuel's mouth at the sight of pockmarked Piet Lapping, experienced interrogator and sadist for the state.

'Well?' the major prompted the Security Branch Officer.

Lapping reached into his jacket pocket and took out an envelope, which he threw at Emmanuel like a hunter slinging a stone. 'You've got more lives than a fucking cat, Cooper,' he said before turning back to the parked cars. 'One day you're going to run out.'

The envelope hit Emmanuel's chest and he caught it before it dropped to the ground. It was a plain manila rectangle, unmarked and unstamped, yet he recognised the weight and feel of it. He double-checked the contents: a sympathy card to the mother of the young communist found hanged in his jail cell. A single red rose embossed with the message 'In your time of sorrow' was printed on the front. This was the card he had delivered to a shack in Pentecost Township six months ago and the reason he'd left the detective branch.

'Thanks for getting this back,' Emmanuel said and pocketed the envelope. 'What did you get out of this, Major?'

'A promotion to colonel and the goodwill of the head of the Security Branch.' Van Niekerk smiled. 'The reward for services rendered to the state.'

'And the murder warrants for Mrs Patterson and Mbali?'

'Withdrawn.'

Lana appeared at the corner of the winter garden with a cup of hot tea in her hand. Cherry-red lipstick was perfectly applied to her mouth but her dishevelled hair seemed to suggest that she'd just got out of bed and was ready to be talked back between the sheets if the right man asked her.

'Ready to leave in ten minutes?' van Niekerk said and sipped the tea Lana gave him.

'Of course, Kallie.' She kissed the major on the cheek and then disappeared into the garden. The Cape Town escape plan was back on track.

Emmanuel handed over the detective branch ID and the race-identification card. The fine for carrying false documents was the equivalent of six months' wages. Non-payment meant prison time. It was back to swinging a sledgehammer at the Victory Shipyards.

'Keep them,' van Niekerk said.

'What for?'

'Simone Betancourt. You can keep the papers because of her.'

'I don't understand,' Emmanuel said.

Simone Betancourt was the first murder he'd ever worked, tagging alongside Inspector Luc Moreau, a veteran detective on a mission to avenge the dead. A three-day plunge into the smoky nightclubs and gambling dens of post-war Paris had led to a cheap cornerside hustler named Johnny Big Boy Belmondo. Johnny was handsome and big where it counted but light on brains. He'd killed and robbed the washerwoman on the million-to-one chance that the sparkling stones in her hairpin were real. An effort to pawn the jewellery revealed the diamonds to be worthless cut glass. A life lost to stupidity and greed. The files were placed in a cardboard box and stored in a dank room. Case closed.

Emmanuel was surprised van Niekerk remembered the case. He'd mentioned it once over drinks when the midnight-to-dawn squad were comparing notes on their 'first'.

'Five days of R&R in springtime Paris and you could not let the dead lie. That's a burden for a soldier but perfect for a police detective.' Van Niekerk sipped the hot tea. 'Unlike you, I would have walked past. Unlike you, I would have stayed locked in the hotel room with my girl.'

'I didn't mention a girl.'

'With you there's always a girl,' van Niekerk said.

Emmanuel left that time bomb ticking. If the major knew about his night with Lana, then a duel at sunrise was an option.

'The detective branch is recruiting native talent,' van Niekerk said. 'Shabalala would never rise above the rank of detective constable, but the pay is better than in the foot police and he'd get to do more than shut down shebeens and arrest cow thieves.'

'Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper and Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala. Is that the payoff for letting Nicolai go without a fight?'

'Yes,' van Niekerk said. 'It is. Do you accept?'