by Malla Nunn
‘She’s fixing a stew for Joe,’ Susannah said. ‘He’s got a big head, like Punch and Judy.’
‘Joe? Are you sure?’
She reached into the folds of the rag quilt and withdrew a coin. ‘Joe gave me a penny when he came through the backyard. He said I must buy sweets with it.’
‘Was Anne waiting for him?’
‘Ja. She let him into her window and then she asked my ma for some onions.’ Susannah pulled a second coin from the dirty bundle. ‘Anne gave me this one. If any of the police come I must run and tell her quick.’
‘I’m a policeman. Why didn’t you run and tell her?’
‘Baby will wake up if I move. When baby’s asleep I’ll go tell.’
Running Joe down would not be easy. He was big and fast and he knew the neighbourhood. Catching him by surprise was the trick.
A commander uses the weapons at hand, soldier, the Scottish sergeant major said. The girl is old enough to do the job. Send her into the field.
Susannah hummed a lullaby and Emmanuel rubbed the back of his neck where the neat razor cut of his hair met the skin. He still took orders from a voice in his head eight years after being demobbed from the army. Tonight, that seemed to make a kind of sense.
‘How high can you count to, Susannah?’
‘One hundred and forty-three. Jolly taught me.’
That would give him enough time to make it into the backyard via the gate that led to the back lane. It might work.
‘Will baby be asleep by the time you count to one hundred and forty-three, do you think?’
‘Maybe,’ Susannah said. ‘She has bad dreams that come in through the windows. Maybe she’ll drop off at one hundred and ten. That’s her favourite number.’
‘When baby’s asleep will you knock on Anne’s door and tell her the police are out the front?’
‘Ja.’
‘Good,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Remember the police are out the front. Not the back or the side. At the front.’
That should push Flowers through the fire-escape window and into the yard. The yellow door he’d seen from Anne’s and her father’s bedroom led to a disused back lane. Joe would likely exit through there.
‘Shh …’ Susannah whispered. ‘Her eyes are closing.’
‘Tell Anne and go back inside,’ he said. The port at night was no playground. ‘Okay?’
The girl nodded and Emmanuel sprinted to the corner. He checked over his shoulder. Susannah was on her feet, gently rocking the sleeping doll in her arms like a tiny Madonna. Shoulder-wide alleys that ran between the buildings offered the quickest way to the back. Emmanuel squeezed into the first one and worked around crumbling drainpipes and piles of rusty cans thrown out from kitchen windows on the upper floors. He prayed Susannah was slow up the stairs or he was going to miss Joe Flowers altogether.
The narrow back lane ran parallel to the road with the rear of the blocks of flats on either side of it. A yellow square marked the gate that led into the yard of Jolly Marks’s former home. Emmanuel moved in. Footsteps clanged on the fire escape. He and Joe were going to arrive at the gate at roughly the same time.
Attack is the best form of defence, soldier, the sergeant major growled. Lay him flat.
The yellow gate creaked open and Emmanuel crashed into it with his shoulder. The wood swung inwards and met Joe coming out. The prison escapee fell back, winded, and
Emmanuel held him down on the dirty concrete slab under the washing lines. A window opened and a man in a grubby undershirt leaned out, a hand-rolled cigarette pinched into the corner of his mouth.
‘What the hell is going on? I’ll get the police onto the two of you. Now piss off.’
‘I am the police,’ Emmanuel said and the man withdrew and shut the window behind him. The metal scrape of curtains closing sounded across the yard as the inhabitants of the slum dwelling shut the trouble out of their lives.
‘Got any weapons on you?’ Emmanuel patted Joe down. ‘A knife or maybe a gun.’
‘Nothing,’ Joe gasped.
Emmanuel checked his suit pockets and dug out a packet of loose tobacco, rolling papers and a stub for admission to A Woman’s Face, an MGM movie on continuous show at the Oxford Cinema from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. The cinema tearooms were the perfect hiding place for criminals and recalcitrant schoolboys. And the ticket included a cup of hot tea and a biscuit at intermission.
‘Tell me about Jolly Marks,’ Emmanuel said.
‘Don’t know him.’
Emmanuel knocked Joe’s box head against the concrete. It thumped like a watermelon tumbling off a fruit cart.
‘Jolly was a member of the Zion Church. He lived across the hall from one of your special sisters. You knew him. Don’t lie to me.’
‘Oh… him.’
‘Ja. Him.’
‘Haven’t seen him. Honest.’
Emmanuel thumped Joe’s head again. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Back then.’ Joe groaned. ‘Before I went to Durban Central.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘Ja. Why are you asking me about that kid? He wasn’t right in the head that one. Him and his sister both.’
‘Stay away from his sister.’ Emmanuel pressed Joe’s muscular body into the concrete till air wheezed from his lungs. ‘Stay away from the girl or I will hunt you down. Do you understand?’
‘Can’t breathe …’ Joe gasped and Emmanuel eased off. With the sergeant major riding shotgun, inflicting harm would be easy, even enjoyable. That was what he had to guard against: the deliberate step into darkness.
‘You get off my Joe.’ The fire-escape stairs rattled and Anne leaned her bony elbows onto the railing. ‘He came out of Durban Central to take care of his ma. She’s sick.’
‘You don’t look like his mother,’ Emmanuel said.
‘And you look like you enjoy having Joe under you like that. I knowed you was funny when I seen that fancy suit.’
‘Shut up and go back inside, Anne.’
‘He’s my man,’ she said. ‘I stay with him.’
Such bravado in defence of a thieving pimp. The gift of the perfume had done its job.
‘Suit yourself,’ Emmanuel said. ‘If you come down here you’ll be interfering with police business and then you and Joe can cosy up in the back of a van - all the way to the cells.’
Anne remained silent. For a moment, she was the tough heroine of an imaginary film but without the benefit of good lighting and make-up.
Emmanuel returned to Joe. ‘Where have you been since leaving Durban Central? Hanging around the docks at night?’
‘No ways,’ Joe said. ‘There’s police everywhere. I’ve been with my ma.’
‘Don’t forget shopping. That’s nice stuff you got for her. A gas stove, sugar, apples. Where did those things come from?’
‘I found them.’
Bullshit, the sergeant major spat. Put the pain on and this fucker will talk. Open him up.
‘You found them?’ Emmanuel worked his knee into the small of Joe’s back. ‘Tell me where.’
‘Okay. Okay. I got a friend; he works on the port railway. He got them for me. Off the back of a freight car.’
‘For free? That’s a good friend.’
‘I exchange things.’
‘What things?’
‘Things. Things my friend wants.’
‘Like what?’
Joe motioned in Anne’s direction and Emmanuel decreased the pressure. The bony girl was too young to understand the difference between being used and being loved. Maybe her whole life would follow that pattern: poor, underfed and uneducated, always in search of a man to fill the empty spaces inside her.
The smell of burnt onions and meat drifted out of an open window.
‘You better take care of that stew,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Unless you want to burn the place down.’
Anne jumped up and climbed back through the window. A woman should stand by her man but life kept happening.
Dirty di
shes had to be washed, the laundry folded and the cats fed. The window closed.
Emmanuel lifted Joe, settled him against the fence and looked into his broad face. ‘Was Jolly Marks part of your exchange scheme?’
‘No. No ways. Never.’
‘I told you not to lie.’
‘I ain’t lying. That kid was strange. The whole family is strange. Not my cup of tea.’
‘Where were you on Thursday night? That was your first night out.’
‘With my ma. I went to see her, first thing.’ Joe’s throat muscles constricted and a tear rolled from the corner of his eye. ‘The clinic hasn’t got medicine and she’s not doing so goodâ’
‘Stop,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Stop.’ There was no space in his head for a sentimental criminal who exchanged his girlfriend’s body for apples and sugar and boxes of candles. ‘It was your first night out,’ he said. ‘Shut in prison for months. You expect me to believe that you didn’t come straight down to the harbour to look for some fun?’
‘I would have,’ Joe admitted. ‘But I didn’t have money.’
‘You don’t need money. Your sisters earn it for you.’
‘Jâ, but all the good earners are gone. All that’s left is her upstairs and she has to look after her pa most of the time.’
‘Did you see Jolly Marks that night?’
‘Why do you keep asking me about him?’
‘Jolly Marks was murdered the night you escaped from Durban Central. His body was dumped in the freight yard. What do you know about that?’
Joe tried to scramble to the gate but Emmanuel pushed him down. The light leaking from the windows of the flats was sufficient to illuminate Joe’s jug face. Unadulterated fear and disbelief glittered in his hazel eyes.
‘You going to hang a murder on me?’ Joe said. ‘Of a kid? No way.’
‘I asked you if you saw Jolly that night. You still haven’t answered yes or no.’
‘No. No. No. I never saw him and I never spoke to him. Beat me if you want but I ain’t going to sign a paper that says I killed a kid. I’ve done plenty wrong, but murder? No way.’
‘Have you ever been to the Dover apartments on Linze Road in Stamford Hill?’
‘Why would I go there?’
‘Answer the question.’
‘How the hell would I get there?’
‘You drove,’ Emmanuel said. ‘In the big black Dodge with the silver trim.’
‘What?’ Joe’s forehead crumpled into deep furrows. ‘I don’t know what you’ve got me lined up for but I’m not signing. You and your friends can bounce me around the cells all night. All day even. I’m not going to clear a murder off your books just because you can’t find who really did it.’
To load an unsolved crime onto a suspect already in custody, one with a list of previous convictions, was the oldest trick in the unofficial policing manual. The National Government’s rollout of regular ‘crime drives’ demanded that the police make visible progress towards a safer, cleaner, whiter world.
The sergeant major said, What friends? He said ‘you and your friends’…
Twin shadows elongated across the back fence: one was broad-shouldered with a hand resting against the clip of his service revolver; the other, slim and unobtrusive.
‘Take it easy, Joe,’ a male voice said. ‘We won’t let him pin those murders on you. We already know who did them, don’t we, Cooper?’
Christ above, the sergeant major said. These fuckers must have had an eye on the building and seen you come in. Don’t let them give you any shit.
‘Detective Head Constable Robinson and Detective Constable Fletcher.’ Emmanuel got to his feet. ‘I thought you’d be in town arresting flashers and patriotic drunks. You could beef up your arrest numbers by rounding up a couple of natives who slipped into town without their passbooks.’
‘Joe Flowers’s apprehension will cover us for a month or two,’ Fletcher said. ‘Your arrest is going to make us golden till the end of the year.’
‘My arrest?’ The van Niekerk deal had twenty hours to run. He should be in the clear.
‘When the time comes,’ Robinson said, ‘the major and his friend won’t be able to protect you. They’ll cut you loose and we’ll be ready and waiting. You’ll swing for those murders.’
‘Up you get, Joe.’ Fletcher undipped a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt. ‘Time to go back to Central.’
Joe sprang to his feet and made a run for the gate. Fletcher caught him by the shirt collar and jerked him backwards like a fish on the end of a line.
‘My ma.’ Joe tried to twist free. ‘I got to take care of my ma. She’s sickly.’
‘Should have thought about that before you stabbed those chaps in the pub.’ Fletcher twisted Joe’s arms and snapped the cuffs on. ‘Your ma can come see you on visitors’ day.’
‘The black Dodge,’ Emmanuel spoke to Joe. ‘Tell me where you got it from.’
‘What am I going to do with a car? I got no licence. Iâ’
‘Shut your mouth, Flowers.’ Fletcher shook Joe with bone-rattling force. ‘This man is our prisoner, Cooper. You are not entitled to question him.’
Robinson grabbed Joe by the shoulder and spun him towards the flats. ‘Stay here, Fletcher. You should have a talk with Mr Cooper.’
Emmanuel calculated the distance to the exit. Too far to sprint. Same for the fire-escape stairs. He was squeezed between the heavyweight detective and the building. No help there.
‘My ma …’ Joe called out a last request. ‘You tell Miss Morgensen from the Zion to take care of my ma. You hear me?’
‘I’ll tell her,’ Emmanuel said.
Robinson pushed Joe through the back door of the flats and paused to give Fletcher the ‘go ahead’ nod.
‘Shh …’ The sound came from a corner of the yard. Jolly’s little sister Susannah and her china-faced baby doll huddled in the semi-gloom. Her dark outline rocked back and forth in an attempt to find a rhythm that would bring both her and the blue-eyed baby peace. Emmanuel turned towards the girl and Fletcher’s fist came in a blur. His head snapped back with the force of the blow and his body briefly experienced the sensation of flight. He gained altitude and flew back to meet the hard wood palings of the fence. The pressure in his head receded. This was real pain; hot and sharp and to the bone. He slumped to the ground and the back door to the flats swung shut behind Joe Flowers and Robinson. Robinson condoned violence but he didn’t want to be a witness to it. By leaving Fletcher to inflict the pain, he thought he stood above the dirty work.
‘Joe’s ma wasn’t always a sick old lady. She was a brothel keeper back in the old days.’ Fletcher strolled over to the row of overflowing garbage cans. ‘She made a fortune during the war with all the military boys sailing in and out of Durban. She gave discounts for first-timers and suddenly the whole British fleet were virgins.’ He pulled a lid free. ‘She lost it all to a con man who said he was an Irish baron. He promised her a castle and a title and a fountain of Guinness beer bubbling in the garden.’ Fletcher’s banter suggested they were two friends who’d bumped into each other accidentally in a darkened yard that smelled of rotten fish.
‘Sad story,’ Emmanuel said. Every criminal had one.
He struggled to a sitting position. Fletcher whipped the tin lid through the air and smashed it against the back fence. The wood shuddered and flexed. Emmanuel got to his feet. The next swing was coming at his head.
‘Very sad.’ Fletcher hit the lid against the steel post of the washing line and the metal screamed. ‘The noise is so Detective Head Constable Robinson thinks I beat the crap out of you. The only reason I used the pole instead of your face is because Major van Niekerk said to keep hands off.’
Hands off? the sergeant major said. That’s a joke. He hit you like a sledgehammer.
‘Very kind of you.’ Emmanuel wiped blood from his cheek. ‘I obviously misjudged you, Fletcher. Bet you like the ballet as well.’
‘No, that’s the major you’re thinkin
g about. He’s got season tickets to the playhouse. Shakespeare and all that. I like the horseraces and the fights. You?’
‘I like the fights, too,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Saw Joe Louis box an exhibition match in Europe during the war. Are we friends now, Fletcher?’
‘We’re friends till the major tells me different.’
‘You let an Afrikaner tell you who to be pals with?’ It was a low shot to be sure but worth taking. The skin on his cheek was cut and beginning to swell.
Fletcher shrugged. ‘It’s better to have powerful friends than powerful enemies. Doesn’t matter if they’re English or Afrikaner.’
Despite appearances, Fletcher was not thick. He’d worked out that van Niekerk’s coat-tails were worth hanging on to.
‘And when the major says to take the gloves off?’
‘I’m going to make sure you land arse first onto the street.’
‘You can try,’ Emmanuel said.
Fletcher’s grasp far outweighed his reach. The major had other police detectives who could drive and punch a bag on the payroll. Fletcher had no idea he was expendable.
‘I’ll give your regards to van Niekerk,’ Fletcher said and patted Emmanuel on the cheek with a calloused palm.
Tell him if he touches you again you will break his fucking arm, the sergeant major breathed.
‘What did you say?’ Fletcher’s hand dropped.
‘Touch me again and I’ll break your fucking arm.’
‘Huh.’ Fletcher laughed. ‘You couldn’t break my little finger but you’d still try, wouldn’t you, Cooper? I got to admire that in a man.’
‘Pointless bravery?’ The dented angles of Fletcher’s face showed that he believed broken ribs and cut lips were a badge of manhood.
‘Bravery is never pointless,’ Fletcher said. ‘A man’s got to stand up and be a man or else take up knitting.’
Emmanuel knew plenty of men who’d joined the army with heroic visions and then found out the biblical truth of the battlefield: that all flesh is as grass to be cut down to wither away
