CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

There would be no safe dreams for Hélène Gerard. Emmanuel's fingers curled around the silver handle of her bedroom door as Lana pushed herself up against the wall and tried to breathe quietly. Earlier, her calm had disturbed him but now Emmanuel was glad of it. He needed an experienced woman who broke the rules and got away with it, not an innocent.

'Flick the light switch when I say "now".'

The light from the hall revealed a cavernous room. Curtains covered a bank of windows that opened to the veranda. The carpet muffled their footsteps and Emmanuel reached the side of the bed in silence. A dark mound under the blankets indicated a sleeping form. He reached forward, eyes adjusting to the dim light, and cupped a hand over a mouth.

'Now,' he said and the overhead bulb shone bright. The body in the bed surged forward and Emmanuel pressed down hard. Beard stubble pricked his palms. Hélène Gerard's frantic voice came from the opposite side of the mattress.

'Don't hurt him. Please.'

A man in striped cotton pyjamas jerked and spluttered under the covers, his green eyes alive with panic. Two silver-framed photos tumbled from the side table and bounced on the carpet.

'Please.' Hélène scrambled across the king-sized bed on all fours, her flimsy nightgown bunched around her thighs. 'Let him go.'

Emmanuel lifted his hand and pulled back in shock; an involuntary movement that he immediately regretted. The man's face was scarred and infected black lumps spread across his left cheekbone and over the bridge of his nose before disappearing into his hairline.

'Vincent Gerard?'

'Yes,' the man whispered. He was dark-skinned, dark- haired and had once been handsome. Beyond his facial disfigurement he retained a faint glimmer of the fashionable French-Mauritian partial to hand-tailored silk suits. Something terrible had transpired and now Vincent was a recluse in his own house.

'It was the skin-lightening cream,' Hélène said. 'We wanted to make sure Vincent got European papers when he was examined by the Race Classification Board but the treatment backfired. The cream damaged his skin and then the rash broke out. We were married before the new laws came in and now . . .'

Mauritians, once automatically considered 'Europeans', had to be reclassified with the rest of the population and placed in a race group. Some retained their white status but a great many others had been downgraded. A dark- skinned Mauritian and his blonde wife had no future together.

'Major van Niekerk ate at our restaurant once a week . . . before Vincent's accident forced us to close,' Hélène said. 'He promised he'd sign a letter to say Vincent is white and that he suffers from a rare skin condition that can't be cured.'

The solemn word of an Afrikaner policeman given to the Race Classification Board practically guaranteed Vincent his 'white' papers. No wonder Hélène smiled till it hurt. Her marriage depended on it.

'What does the major get in return, Hélène?'

'I had to take care of you. Not tell anyone you were here. Call him with any news.'

'Did you tell him about her?' He jerked his thumb in Lana's direction. She was halfway into the room, drawn by the mention of van Niekerk's name.

'No. I did try to call just after you came but there was no answer.'

Major van Niekerk was eating sherry-infused trifle at the coronation party in Durban North or he could be right outside Chateau La Mer. What was the real reason for signing Emmanuel's release papers?

'We have to move.' Lana was anxious. 'Now.'

'What's going on?' Vincent Gerard said. 'Is the major backing out of our deal?'

'No.'

Emmanuel opened the top drawer of the armoire and rifled through the delicates and found four pairs of silk stockings. There was no way to do what had to be done gently. He pulled Hélène from the bed.

'You're hurting me.' She twisted away but Emmanuel kept hold of her arm. Hélène's fear had to be real or the raiding party would take their frustrations out on her and her house's beautifully ordered interior. He pushed her down into a chair and pinned her arms behind her back. He did not look at her. If he did, he'd have to say, 'I'm sorry. Forgive me.' A small hurt now to avoid real pain later. That was the trade-off.

Vincent Gerard growled and sprang forward with his fists clenched. Emmanuel pushed the Mauritian hard on the chest to stop him and Vincent flew back. His head cracked on the edge of a bedside table and he crumpled to the carpet.

'Vincent!' Hélène tried to get up from the chair but Lana held her down by the shoulders. Blood leaked from a small cut just below Vincent's hairline.

Emmanuel remembered too clearly many long hours spent grilling suspects in stark interview rooms where proceedings ended with a confession that stated, 'It was an accident. I didn't mean to hurt anyone.' After a year in the detective branch, he could write the confessions himself. He might yet get that chance.

'God damn it.. .' He scrambled to Vincent's side.

He'd come into the room to shield Hélène from the possibility of real damage, not be the cause of it.

'Vincent!' Hélène cried. 'Is he alive?'

A heartbeat drummed against Emmanuel's fingertips. Thank god. A moan escaped Vincent's lips and relief unclenched the muscles in Emmanuel's face. He lifted Vincent onto the bed. When he came to, the trouble would start all over again. The Mauritian wasn't going to sit quietly while his wife was tied to a chair and gagged.

Emmanuel retrieved a stocking from the floor. The French-Mauritian couple smiled from the deck of a sailboat in one of the silver-framed photos lying on the carpet. No matter how he approached the situation, Hélène and Vincent would not emerge unharmed.

'I'm going to tie you up,' he said brusquely. 'That's the only way to show the men who are going to raid the house that you had nothing to do with me. Do you understand?'

'What?' Hélène said. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'Six men, maybe more, are going to smash their way into the house soon.' Emmanuel secured Hélène's legs to the chair. 'We have to make sure they don't blame you for what's happened.'

'I'll tell them.' The Mauritian woman struggled when

Lana pinned her wrists together and tied them. 'I'll tell them.'

'In a perfect world that would be enough,' Emmanuel said. 'But this isn't a perfect world.' He made sure the stocking didn't bite but double-knotted the material to ensure that it held fast.

'No . . .' Hélène said and Emmanuel gagged her. He and Lana worked quickly and in silence, careful not to make eye contact.

'Should we tie him to the other chair?' Lana asked.

'We can't leave a dark-skinned Mauritian in a white woman's bedroom. The police will beat him. You know how these things go. The fact they're married might make things worse.'

'I know.' Lana tucked an escaped strand of hair behind her ear. 'What should we do?'

Emmanuel checked his watch. They'd lose precious minutes dealing with Vincent but that's the way it would have to be. He'd done enough harm tonight.

'The empty kyaha,' he said. A dark-skinned man hidden away in the servant's quarters was a common feature of the South African landscape. Vincent could be just another garden boy for the baas and the missus.

'Of course.' Lana understood the logic. 'He'll be invisible.'

Emmanuel hoisted Vincent over his shoulder in a fireman's hold. Hélène rocked her chair back and forth and strained against the ties that bound her.

'He's safer out there than in here with you,' Emmanuel said. 'Do you really want a group of white police to find Vincent in your bed?'

She shook her head.

'Get the doors,' Emmanuel said to Lana.

They moved quickly through the house and out into the lush garden. Lana ran ahead and opened the tiny servant's room. The interior was dark and musty. A single camp bed with a sisal mattress bumped up against a small table and a chair. Emmanuel slid Vincent onto the narrow cot and lit the paraffin lantern that was placed on the floor. He turned the wick low. There were no sheets on the mattress and no curtains on the window. That didn't matter. The police would assume that Hélène Gerard was a stingy missus. Some of the Security Branch officers might even applaud her for it.

A pair of blue work overalls was draped over a tool bucket and the tip of a wool cap poked out from among the rusting forks and trowels. Emmanuel grabbed the dirty overalls and forced them over the fine cotton pyjamas with white piping along the collar.

'My fault...' Vincent mumbled. 'It's my fault.'

Emmanuel buttoned the overalls to the neck and ignored the Mauritian, who wouldn't make much sense for a while. He jammed the wool cap onto Vincent's head and pulled it down low.

'Here.' Lana spread a thin blanket over Vincent's body. 'That'll do the trick.'

'I was selfish.' Vincent clutched Emmanuel's sleeve. 'I shouldn't have married her. Play with fire and you're going to get burned. Even ten years back.'

Emmanuel wanted to pull away but didn't.

'I loved her.' The voice was slurred with emotion. 'Down to the bone. All the way. Why's that bad?'

'It's not,' Emmanuel said. 'But the men who will come to this room don't want to hear that. You understand?'

'Shh.' Vincent put his finger to his mouth. 'Big secret. Like when we first stepped out together. Don't tell no one.'

'That's right,' Emmanuel said. 'Big secret.'

'Oui.' Vincent curled into the foetal position and his scarred face relaxed. 'She still loves me. Like this . ..'

Emmanuel waited till Vincent's eyes closed. Then he killed the lamp flame and left the room. The garden was beautiful in the moonlight. If he had a match he'd burn it to ash. Even in childhood there had been this contradictory impulse. Gazing out of the boarding school windows to the green summer veldt and a ridge of mountains glowing in the dusk, he had felt it: a rage at the careless beauty of South Africa and a desire to tear it to shreds with his bare hands.