CHAPTER FOUR

 

Grey Street, wide and overhung by electric tram wires, was in the very heart of Durban's Indian area. Brightly painted vegetarian restaurants jostled for space with spice emporiums and 'Ladies frock and Gentlemen's suit' retailers. A gaggle of black women ambled down the sidewalk with bags of rice balanced on their heads. Shirtless Indian labourers hauled bamboo poles through the windows of the Melody Lounge, temporarily closed for renovations. The air smelled of roasted cardamom seeds and chilli.

Saris & All was a narrow shop that sold 'English Rose' skin-lightening creams, loose tobacco, shoelaces and bulk dried goods under a waterfall of silk and cotton saris that hung from wooden bars bolted to the ceiling. A tall Indian man in a white cotton suit and open-necked shirt approached Emmanuel.

'What may I get you on this fine day, sir?' The shop steward indicated the laden shelves and burlap sacks of dried lentils and rice.

'Parthiv or Amal,' Emmanuel said. 'Are they in?'

'Mr Dutta and Mr Dutta junior. That is who you would like to see?'

'Yes.'

'Please.' The tall man fiddled with the top button of his shirt. 'I cannot help you. It is lunchtime and past that door I cannot go.'

'What door?'

'Behind the purple sari. This is very private. For the Dutta family, no one else.'

Emmanuel swung the shimmering curtain aside and pushed the hidden door open. He stepped onto an outdoor porch sheltered by a woody bougainvillea vine with sparse pink blooms. A row of re-used corn oil tins were planted with seedlings tied to slender bamboo poles.

Amal sat at a table with a book in one hand and a samosa in the other. Silver bowls of curry, pickles and rice were spread out on a table in front of him. He was so absorbed in his book he didn't look up until Emmanuel pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him.

'Detective.' A well-thumbed science text dropped to the floor. Pieces of paper with scribbled formulae scattered. 'Detective Sergeant.'

'It's just Emmanuel.'

'But... how...'

'Relax, Amal. I want to ask you something.'

'Am I in trouble?'

'No.' Emmanuel motioned to the bowls of food. 'Finish your meal.'

Amal collected the book and papers and placed them on the table. He fiddled with the tablecloth, too nervous to eat. Emmanuel nodded at a fried curry puff.

'Mind if I have one?'

'No. Please.'

Emmanuel took the spicy pastry and bit into it. Then he selected a samosa and a scoop of chutney, which he placed on a white plate. He ate that, then served himself some chicken biryani with sliced cucumber and a warm disc of roti. The confrontation with the dragon landlady, Mrs Edith Patterson, had put him off breakfast. He'd eaten nothing since the night before.

'You like Indian food?'

Emmanuel glanced at Amal, who was observing him in the same way a child might observe a sword swallower working in a circus tent.

'I do,' he said. 'You should have some before I finish it all.'

Amal scooped food onto his plate, still wary but beginning to relax. Emmanuel waited until the boy was halfway through a plate of rice and chicken curry.

'When we left the alley last night,' Emmanuel made it sound like a mutual decision that Giriraj cart him away in a sack, 'what did you pick up as you left?'

Amal threw a nervous glance towards the courtyard door, then pushed a grain of rice around the rim of his plate with a spoon. The silence dragged out. Emmanuel leaned forward.

'This conversation is between you and me,' he said. 'I won't tell Parthiv or Maataa or anyone else what we've talked about.'

'True?' Amal looked up.

'True,' Emmanuel repeated. 'That is a promise.'

'I picked up my torch.'

'What else?'

'A small notebook.'

Jolly's notebook.

'There are two strings tied to the spiral. One string has a pencil attached to the end,' Amal said.

'Have you got it?'

'Not here. It's at home in my bedroom.'

'Anything else?'

'No.' Amal shifted uncomfortably and went back to toying with the rice grain. 'I didn't see anything.'

Emmanuel knew his torch had rolled under a rail carriage, which explained how Amal had missed it. What had happened to the penknife was anyone's guess. A police search of the freight yards should have found it. A vital piece of evidence had either disappeared or Amal had lifted it and was now too scared to admit it.

Emmanuel tore a piece of work paper from the science textbook. 'Can I borrow a pen?'

Amal extracted a ballpoint from his pocket and watched Emmanuel draw a rough sketch of the crime scene with the shunting yards and Point Road labelled. Sometimes the long way around was the quickest way to get information.

'This is the alley where the body was found.' He indicated the map. 'The X marks the location of the body. You and Parthiv were standing about here against the wall.'

'I see.'

'Show me where the notebook was.'

Amal frowned, then tapped a finger to a spot. 'It was about here.'

'Are you sure?'

'Jâ, I picked it up when we were going to the car. I thought it might have something to do with Parthiv's business.'

That was a surprise. The notebook had been located between the body and the section of alley that led back to the main road. Jolly must have cut and dumped it on his way towards the freight yard where he was killed. Why get rid of the book? Had he done it on purpose?

'Look at the map again,' Emmanuel said. 'Did you see anything else in the alley that night? Think.'

'There was something.'

'Go on.'

Amal swallowed hard then whispered, 'A small knife was near the boy's hand. I... I was too scared to pick it up.'

'It's the job of the police to collect evidence,' Emmanuel said. 'You did the right thing by leaving it.'

'And the notebook, is it yours, Detective?'

'Yes. It is,' Emmanuel lied. 'Can we go and get it?'

'If you drop me off at the school library after.'

'I can do that.'

The door leading to the courtyard swung inwards and Parthiv appeared. His brow shot up to his hairline at the sight of Emmanuel and his little brother side by side.

'You talk to him?' Parthiv went straight for Amal.

'No.' Amal scooted back in his chair. 'I said nothing.'

'Hold on.' Emmanuel addressed the older Dutta male calmly. 'I dropped a notebook in the freight yards last night and Amal has it. That's all.'

'You dead meat.' Parthiv moved in with a raised hand. 'What did you tell him?'

'Nothing.' The boy ducked away. 'I didn't tell.'

Parthiv swooped and Emmanuel laid a firm hand on the padded shoulders of Parthiv's blue silk suit. 'Step back and leave him alone,' he said. Like all policemen who'd worked the regular foot section of the force, he hated domestics. 'Amal didn't say anything.'

'You think I'm stupid? If you're not a policeman then you're a spy, isn't it? For Mr Khan.'

'Don't know who Mr Khan is.'

The veins on Parthiv's neck stood out. 'You're Mr Khan's man, isn't it?'

'Calm down and listen,' Emmanuel said. The Indian man's reaction was out of proportion to the apparent threat. Something else was going on. 'I don't work for Mr Khan, have never even heard his name before now.'

'You're a liar. First you say you are a police, then, sorry, not a police. Then you say I will never see you again but now you are here in my family place squeezing Amal for information to tell Mr Khan.'

'That's not why I'm here,' Emmanuel said. 'I came to find my notebook.'

'You think you can walk in and out of this place like it is yours? I must just take that disrespect?' Parthiv fumbled in a jacket pocket and extracted a bone-handled switchblade that flicked open with a click.

'Put the knife down,' Emmanuel said. 'Or I will make you put it down.'

Parthiv lunged forward with the silver edge exposed. Emmanuel sidestepped the blade and slapped Parthiv's forearm. The knife hit the concrete floor, clattered as it spun across the courtyard and came to rest against the side of a corn-oil can.

Emmanuel grabbed Parthiv's arm. 'Amal didn't tell me anything, but I think you might have something to tell me. What do you say?'

'No dice.'

He pinned Parthiv's arm behind his back and pushed up until he was sure the pain had reached the shoulder socket.

'Wait,' Amal cried out. 'I’ll tell.'

Emmanuel took a quick look at the boy and tried to ignore the shocked expression on his face. Over lunch they were almost friends. Now he was a violent stranger hurting his brother.

'No,' Emmanuel said. 'Your big brother will tell me what happened on the docks last night.'

'We were looking for a woman.' Parthiv tried to tug free. 'I already told you.'

'What else?'

'We . . .'

'The quicker you tell me, the quicker your arm will start to heal.'

Without his detective's ID, this altercation was a common assault. There was no way to dress up what was happening as a citizen's arrest. A judge would determine that his prior knowledge of the law only made his actions more reprehensible. Emmanuel could see the headline in the Natal Mercury. 'Ex-detective beats Indian in sari shop'.

'We collected a package,' Parthiv confessed. 'From a steward on one of the passenger ships.'

'What was in it?'

Parthiv stopped talking. Emmanuel shoved his elbow higher.

'Hashish!' The Indian man's shoulders sagged. 'You smoke it.'

'I know what hashish is,' Emmanuel said and let go. He stepped away from the puddle of silk that was Parthiv, collected the knife, pressed the switch to unlock it and folded the blade back into the ivory handle. Grinning skulls were carved into the sides. It was the kind of weapon an unpopular twelve year old might buy to impress classmates.

'You like knives, Parthiv?'

'Jâ, sure. If they nice like that one.' The Indian man rubbed his arm to get the circulation flowing and concentrated on the cracks in the concrete floor. His gangster pride was dented.

'Do you have any other blades?' Emmanuel asked. He remembered the sharpened butcher's knives in Giriraj's kyaha, the empty third hook.

'You only need one to do the job,' Parthiv said.

'Really? And what's the job of a knife?'

'To frighten people.'

'Did you have this knife on you last night?'

Parthiv blinked rapidly, his humiliation pushed aside by fear. The connection between a switchblade and a sliced open child was obvious.

'No,' he said. 'I didn't touch that boy.'

Emmanuel pressed the raised switch on the handle and the blade snapped out again. His own distorted reflection played across the silver metal surface. The skulls grinned. The knife looked almost unused; there wasn't a scratch on the steel or a speck of dried blood in the grooves of the handle. Emmanuel closed it.

'Was Jolly Marks a customer of yours?' he said. Maybe Jolly distributed more than food and drinks to the night women and their customers.

'Jolly who?' Parthiv said.

'The boy in the alley. Was he meeting you to buy hashish?'

'No ways.' The Indian man shook his head. 'I ain't stupid.'

'Why did you lie about knowing him last night?'

Parthiv's Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed and he blinked rapidly. Emmanuel was all too familiar with this facial dance, had seen it performed a hundred times before. It was the desperate search for a new lie to cover an old one. This was one part of being a detective sergeant that he did not miss. Everyone lied. Some were better at it than others. Parthiv was an amateur.

'Just tell me,' Emmanuel said. 'Then we can all go home.'

'I don't know him. I have seen him. Around the docks and the like: running around to make deliveries. That's the truth. It doesn't pay for an Indian to get friendly with a white boy so I never asked him to fetch me anything.'

That was the plain truth. If Parthiv was on the docks to pick up hashish, he'd never risk a conversation with a European boy. It would have just elicited more attention. Emmanuel moved on.

'What did you do after you picked up the package?'

'Took it back to the car and hid it in the glove box.'

'Then what?'

'It's like I said. I took Amal to find a woman.'

'Where was Giriraj?'

'At the car.'

'No he wasn't,' Emmanuel pointed out. 'He was in the alley with the two of you.'

Parthiv pulled on an earlobe. 'I said to stay and keep guard. Plenty crooks on the docks.'

'Did you tell him to keep a lookout for you?'

'No. I told him to keep eyes out for police. Police take your stuff, you can't steal it back; it's gone and gone.'

Emmanuel slipped the knife into his jacket pocket. Giriraj's strength and speed were impressive. He hadn't heard him lurking in the alley; wouldn't have looked behind him if the brothers hadn't tipped him off with a look over his shoulder.

Why was Giriraj in the alley instead of at the car, and how did he get the scratches Emmanuel had seen on his arm last night?

Best to concentrate on one thing at a time and take small steps along a path that he would abandon come sunrise tomorrow.

'The notebook,' he said to Amal, who was pressed against the wall. 'Let's get it.'

The boy peeled himself away and they turned to the exit. Maataa stood in the doorway, an unlit clove cigarette in one hand and a box of matches in the other. Emmanuel nodded to her. She'd witnessed the whole scene with Parthiv, he was sure. Seen it and done nothing.

He let her make the first move. He was sure that if Maataa came at him with a knife, she'd find a major artery and the courtyard would be spray-painted a nice shade of 'blood from a reclassified white man'.

Maataa lit her cigarette and threw the matches onto the floor. She walked over to a corn oil can that contained a fruiting aubergine and pulled a bamboo stick loose from the soil. Another puff of her cigarette and she swished the stick through the air to test its soundness.

'Giriraj!' she called. 'Giriraj!'

Amal pressed to the wall again and slid down to a crouching position, smaller targets being harder to hit. Parthiv searched, in vain, for a magical way to break through the walls and escape.

With a rustle of sari silk from the partition, Giriraj appeared in the courtyard. A tap on the floor with the bamboo stick told him where to stand.

'Down,' Maataa said.

Parthiv and Giriraj kneeled side by side with blank faces. Maataa laid the bamboo stick lightly on Parthiv's shoulder and then on Giriraj's shoulder, as if knighting them into a secret society.

The bamboo gained height and whistled through the air before smacking against Parthiv's and Giriraj's shoulders and legs. And then all over. Emmanuel inched forwards then thought better of it. Not his fight. Both men absorbed the blows, their bodies like stiff toy soldiers arranged on the battle line.

Emmanuel crouched next to Amal and whispered, 'What's going on?'

'They are being punished.'

'I can see that. What for?'

"The package. They were not supposed to pick it up.'

'Did the package belong to someone else?'

'No, but Mr Khan, he controls the amount of packages coming into Durban. He does not like others to bring in more packages than him.'

'Who's Mr Khan?' Emmanuel asked. The whack of the bamboo cane hitting flesh was distracting. Parthiv had accused him of being a spy for Khan moments before.

'A Muslim,' Amal whispered. 'He is in business.'

'What business?' Emmanuel asked, but he already knew. It would be a legitimate enterprise - a dress shop or garage - backed up by prostitution, hashish smuggling and anything else that made money.

'Taxis and restaurants and ah . . . many other things.'

'Is your mother in the same business?'

'No. Sometimes she lends money, and when the people don't pay, then Parthiv and Giriraj collect it. That is all. Mr Khan is big. My mother is small.'

Clearly Parthiv wanted more of Durban's criminal action and his mother was not happy about that. Maataa stopped and flicked ash from her clove cigarette. She pointed the bamboo stick towards Emmanuel and Amal. They stood up.

'You will tell Mr Khan they have been disciplined, yes?'

'I'll tell him,' Emmanuel said. Another lie, but there seemed to be no other answer.

'Go,' Maataa ordered.

Emmanuel and Amal were out of the courtyard in less than five seconds. Emmanuel had the keys in the ignition of the Buick in under a minute.