by Malla Nunn
Emmanuel swung the door open. Zweigman stepped into the hallway but Shabalala hesitated on the threshold. This was not the kind of house where natives normally entered via the front.
‘In,’ Emmanuel said to the Zulu constable. ‘The kitchen is out the back.’
‘Please,’ Shabalala insisted. Tradition demanded that European policemen enter before native ones, no matter what their rank. ‘You must go first, Sergeant Cooper.’
They entered the house where Zweigman examined a gilt-framed portrait of a sallow white man with thin, cruel lips. An early van Niekerk, no doubt, already calculating his share of South Africa’s resources. A telephone rang in the office and Major van Niekerk’s voice could be heard firing questions in Afrikaans. Lana had disappeared upstairs.
‘I need your help,’ Emmanuel said to Zweigman over coffee in the light-filled kitchen. Shabalala stood at a back window and sipped tea while contemplating the profusion of colours in the garden.
‘Medical?’ Zweigman asked.
‘Yes, but not for me. I’ve two people who need to be examined.’
‘Gunshot? Knife wounds?’
‘What makes you think it’s either of those?’
Zweigman laughed and indicated the opulent house. ‘Who knows what company you keep these days, Detective?’
‘Yebo,’ Shabalala said. ‘Very fine suit, too, Sergeant.’
‘The suit belongs to a French-Mauritian. The house belongs to a police major.’
‘The clothes are irrelevant,’ Zweigman said. ‘It’s your eyes that have changed. I think maybe your life also.’
‘Well, you’re exactly the same.’ Emmanuel was irritated by Zweigman’s ability to ignore the surface scars and push a careless finger into the deeper ones. ‘You obviously have less money but you’re still too clever for your own good.’
‘My curse and yours also.’ Zweigman drained his coffee and soaped and scrubbed up over the porcelain sink. He dried his hands with a towel brought in earlier by one of van Niekerk’s silent army of domestics. ‘Now, please show me to my patients.’
‘This way.’ Emmanuel exited the kitchen and crossed the corridor to the guest bedroom. He knocked gently.
‘Da?’ Natalya appeared in the doorway, sleep tossed and dressed in one of van Niekerk’s Egyptian cotton dressing-gowns. She ignored Emmanuel and sat down at a small table set with a breakfast of tea, boiled eggs and buttered toast soldiers. Nicolai was propped up in bed, pale and damp with sweat.
‘Well,’ Zweigman said in surprise.
‘This is Nicolai Petrov and his wife, Natalya,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Recently arrived from Russia.’
‘Ahh …’ Zweigman digested that information. ‘Any English?’
‘None for the girl except the word “American”. Nicolai knows enough to hold a conversation.’
‘I will see what the problem is.’ The old Jew moved to the bed with the battered medical bag tucked under his arm. ‘I am Dr Daniel Zweigman. You are Nicolai?’
‘Yes.’
“This beautiful woman is your wife?’ Zweigman bowed low to Natalya and was rewarded with a dazzling smile.
The German doctor and the Russian shook hands and some kind of recognition passed between them. They were both men who had once been powerful and had a taste for beautiful young women. And both were far, far from home.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Come through to the front porch when you’re done.’
‘Fifteen minutes, maybe more.’ Zweigman snapped open his medical kit and removed a stethoscope and a glass thermometer.
Emmanuel backed into the corridor and closed the door. For a brief moment he’d caught a glimpse of the old Zweigman, the specialist surgeon with degrees lining the wall of a plush office in Berlin. He trusted him completely, would even trust him with his sister’s life, but it occurred to Emmanuel that he didn’t know the secretive German doctor at all.
Shabalala and Emmanuel sat down on the top stair of van Niekerk’s veranda and looked out across the harbour to the Indian Ocean. To Emmanuel’s eyes, Shabalala had not changed. The murder of his closest friend, Captain Willem Pretorius, eight months ago had not diminished his physical being in a way that could be seen. Maybe that was because Shabalala was a black man in South Africa. His pain had to be contained on the inside.
‘Have you travelled well, Sergeant?’ the Zulu constable asked.
‘I have travelled far,’ Emmanuel said. ‘And things go well with you?’
‘I am older,’ Shabalala said and his statement lingered in the air. Neither of them had escaped the past.
‘You have been many weeks at the clinic?’ Emmanuel asked. Something about the constable’s earlier statement regarding his visit to Zweigman didn’t sit right.
‘My wife Lizzie and I stay with the doctor,’ Shabalala said and Emmanuel understood. The Zulu policeman and his wife were not visiting the medical clinic; they now lived in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, far from Jacob’s Rest and the bush farm where Shabalala had grown into a man.
‘Why did you leave?’
‘I became uneasy.’
‘I see.’
The murder investigation had uncovered secrets that gave Shabalala the knowledge to destroy both lives and reputations in the small town of Jacob’s Rest. Silence was one of the Zulu constable’s strengths but the very fact that a black man carried such information would have been the cause of tension, fear and even hatred.
‘The Pretorius family,’ Emmanuel asked. ‘Did they come after you?’ The Afrikaner clan, rulers of the town of Jacob’s Rest, had the most to lose if the real reason for their father’s murder was ever revealed.
‘No,’ Shabalala said. ‘The brothers keep to themselves and are quiet. Mrs Pretorius, she has moved from the big house and out to the farm of her fourth son. She is not seen much in town.’
A Zulu neighbour in Sophiatown had a saying: ‘Never plant a poisonous tree in your backyard. One day your children might be forced to eat the fruit.’ The Pretorius family and everyone involved in the investigation had, in some way, been poisoned.
‘I’m sorry you had to leave your home,’ Emmanuel said. If he’d walked away from the case and let the Security Branch do as they pleased, things would have been different. Shabalala’s job and life would still be on track.
‘The right thing was done.’ The Zulu constable was staunch. ‘There can be no shame in that.’
The front door swung open and Zweigman shuffled out of the house. He perched between Emmanuel and Shabalala on the brick stairs, the medical bag balanced on his knees.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Emmanuel said.
‘Nicolai is being eaten away from inside. There is a growth in the stomach, which will grow larger with time. I’ve seen it before.’
‘How long?’
‘Impossible to predict,’ Zweigman said. ‘A few days, maybe a few weeks or months. All that can be done is to make him comfortable. I have given him a shot of painkiller.’
‘Can he be cured?’
‘I do not believe so, Detective. There is no way to reverse the disease.’
‘And the woman?’
‘She’s close,’ Zweigman said. ‘When the child comes, I believe that Nicolai will take leave of us. The upcoming birth is perhaps what keeps him alive.’
‘To hold a child in your arms,’ Shabalala said. ‘That is the thing.’
Zweigman rubbed the bridge of his nose where his glasses bit into the skin and said quietly, ‘Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has a quiver full of them; he shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with his enemies at the gate.’
‘Yebo,’ Shabalala agreed. “This is the truth.’
The biblical quote sounded like a lament to Emmanuel. Zweigman and his wife had once had children. Shabalala had once had a best friend. And Emmanuel himself had once had a job with the detective branch and a sister he could talk with openly. All destroyed by the fire of lif
e. The magnetic force that drew the three men back together after eight months had a name; it was not fate or destiny or luck. It was loss.
Nicolai Petrov sat upright in the guest bed with the black and white photographs from the suitcase spread over the covers. The drug had softened the lines of pain around his mouth. Natalya gazed into a mirror and experimented with perfumes and lotions. Emmanuel pulled up a chair opposite Nicolai and sat down.
‘Stills from Natalya’s films?’ he said.
‘Some,’ Nicolai said. ‘She made many more. Dozens. These are the ones she wishes to remember.’
‘Where was this one taken?’ Emmanuel indicated the photograph of Joseph Stalin on the soft brown velvet couch.
‘Moscow,’ Nicolai said. ‘Comrade Stalin was moved to tears when Triumph in Berlin was shown. Natalya played the role of a field nurse.’
‘Stalin was a friend?’
‘The great leader did not have friends. He had enemies and he had those wise enough to fear him.’
‘What camp did you and Natalya fall into?’
‘Natalya was one of Iosif’s favourite actresses,’ Nicolai said and began to collect the photos. Emmanuel noticed the Russian man’s strong arms and shoulders for the first time. In his prime he would have towered above the crowd.
‘What was your relationship with him?’
‘I was an errand boy.’ Nicolai shrugged. ‘When Comrade Stalin died, everything that he loved was thrown out in the garbage. Natalya’s work was part of the old regime … the corrupt regime. My work was no longer recognised. We left while we had the chance. It seemed the wise thing.’
Errand boy. It was an interesting turn of phrase coming from a man who was built like a Borodino class battlecruiser and whose hands looked like they could snap a spine.
‘What kind of errands?’ Emmanuel said.
‘I did what I was ordered to do.’
The Nuremberg defence worked just as well for members of the Russian security service as it did for the Nazis. An errand run on Stalin’s order would surely have ended in blood.
‘You worked for the NKVD?’
‘Yes. I was a colonel.’
Well, that explained the interest in the couple. The Americans, the English and even the Russians would consider the capture of a colonel in the NKVD a coup. South Africa’s home-grown version of the NKVD, the Security Branch, would also be desperate for a taste of the action.
‘Why Durban?’ Emmanuel asked. The unmarked passports and the winter clothes suggested that South Africa was not the Russian couple’s final destination.
‘A last resort,’ Nicolai said. ‘We went first to England but things did not work out for the best.’
‘Tell me.’
Nicolai shifted against the tower of pillows and peered at Emmanuel with the sharp gaze of an experienced interrogator. ‘You are with state security?’
‘No, the detective branch. I’m just wondering why men with guns are after you and Natalya.’
‘Men that you have twice saved us from.’ The grizzled Russian leaned forward and Emmanuel caught a glimpse of the old Nicolai; brutal and strong. ‘Why did you do this?’
Emmanuel didn’t move back or blink. He recalled the statement Shabalala had made on the front porch and repeated the essence of it. ‘Helping you was the right thing.’
‘A dreamer …’ Nicolai mumbled and packed all the photographs away in the cardboard box. He jammed the lid into place and rested both massive hands on the top in an apparent effort to keep the past from spilling out.
‘We defected to England,’ he said after a lengthy pause. ‘I took a file with me. The names of people the NKVD suspected of being British spies.’
‘To trade for your safety.’
‘Yes. The first two months were perfect. We were given a safe house and passports in exchange for the file. I was questioned many times by MI5 and the sessions were recorded. I told them everything I knew. Then … a British agent was arrested in Stalingrad and my old masters offered to trade him back.’
‘For you?’
Nicolai’s smile was tight. ‘Yes. The British had the file and many hours of recordings taken during questioning. They didn’t need me any more. I was only of value in a trade.’
‘You know this for a fact?’
Nicolai chuckled. ‘I brought other things out of Russia. I paid one diamond bracelet and two Black Sea pearls for details of the exchange. Natalya and I got out the night before they planned to come for us.’
‘You’re still valuable to them,’ Emmanuel said. ‘That’s why they’ve come after you. The trade is still on.’
‘Yes.’ Nicolai was matter-of-fact. ‘I have hunted men myself and I know that the hunt does not stop until the target is trapped or dead.’
That meant the tradesman would keep up the pursuit but Emmanuel’s focus was elsewhere. Three civilians with small and ordinary lives were gone: their light extinguished forever. International intrigue was for the spooks that moved red dots across a map of the world and determined the fate of governments. The job of detective, on the other hand, was simple. A detective spoke for the dead. A detective sought justice for the boy lying in the blood and dirt, for the Zulu maid who’d never owned a new dress, for the sour Englishwoman with purple hair wound over plastic rollers. Their murders were his business. Solving their murders was also the only way he could avoid the gallows.
‘You found your way from the docks all the way to that house in the woods.’ Emmanuel turned the conversation back to the last few days. ‘How did you do that?’
‘That was nothing. Getting Natalya to love me … that was the challenge.’ Nicolai smiled at his self-absorbed wife, proud of her beauty and her youth. Stalin’s henchman, hero of the people, captured not by a Panzer tank division but by a blonde with eyes the colour of arctic water. Zweigman’s diagnosis of the situation was correct. Without Natalya, Nicolai would probably have given up long ago. ‘I could not let them take us to a gulag. My darling wife would not have survived.’
Oh yes, she would have. Emmanuel had met a few Natalyas during the war. The beautiful and blessed females destined to sleep in feather beds and eat fresh bread no matter if the Communists, the Fascists or the Allies were in charge.
‘Tell me what happened when you came ashore at the passenger quay,’ Emmanuel said.
‘We had only an address so we went to the yard with the wagons to see if there was a train to catch. Railway lines going all ways. Natalya and I, lost and in the dark. Scared also. Natalya thought there was a man who followed us from the ship.’
‘How did you find your way to the house?’
‘A boy helped us.’
‘Tell me about the boy.’
‘Ten years maybe. Skinny with dirty clothes.’
‘Was this boy alone or with someone?’
‘Alone. He tried to run from us, and then he saw that Natalya was pregnant. I showed him the address for my cousin’s house. That is when he made the picture, with the message “please help”, which we gave to the black man with the car.’
‘There was no one with the boy … no one near him?’
‘He was alone,’ Nicolai stated.
Emmanuel edged forward in his seat. ‘What did he do after he gave you the drawing?’
‘He disappeared into the shadows.’
Unbelievable. The Russian couple knew less than the English prostitute. Another dead end. Emmanuel worked his way backwards through Nicolai’s recollections, like an alchemist searching for gold in the dross.
‘Can Natalya describe the man who followed you from the ship?’
Nicolai shrugged, his energy drained.
‘Ask her,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Did she see him?’
The conversation between Nicolai and Natalya was brief. Natalya scooped cold cream from a jar and rubbed it into her face while talking.
‘White …’ Nicolai translated. ‘Black suit.. .’
This was where it would all end, Emmanuel was sure. A white man in a black
suit.
‘Dark hair,’ Nicolai continued. ‘To the shoulders. Like a wild Cossack.’
Emmanuel swung around to face Natalya. He touched his shoulders to indicate the length of hair and the Russian beauty nodded. Fingers together, he drew an imaginary widow’s peak onto his forehead.
Natalya rolled her eyes at his pantomime and said, ‘Da.’
Yes.
Brother Jonah had been near Jolly when he died. He had attended a late-night meeting in a scrapyard where the term ‘Ivan’, a slang term for a Russian, was used. He talked like a soldier on a mission. And, if Miss Morgensen was to be believed, he was also an associate of Afzal Khan.
Emmanuel left Nicolai to his memories and went in search of van Niekerk and a fresh set of clothes. He had less than nine hours to find the preacher.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘What news, Cooper?’ Major van Niekerk sat at the head of a long table in the shade of the porch. The remains of an early morning tea of raisin cake and jam scones lay on a china platter edged in gold leaf. Zweigman and Shabalala sat side by side with a view of the pool and gardens. They looked at Emmanuel with anxious smiles and he wondered what the major had said to them.
‘Speak freely.’ Van Niekerk scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘They know everything.’
‘Christ above …’ Emmanuel leaned against the side of the table. Why would the major pull Zweigman and Shabalala deeper into this mess right at the point when they should be on their way home?
‘You’re facing three counts of murder,’ Zweigman said. ‘If the murderer is not found by this afternoon you will be arrested and placed in jail. Correct?’
‘That’s my problem, not yours.’ Zweigman and Shabalala had saved him once already; a debt he still owed. He didn’t want them in danger again. ‘I’m grateful for your help but you have to go home now. I can’t involve you in my troubles again.’
‘You did not kill these people,’ Shabalala said. ‘The man who did these things must be the one to answer for the crimes. That is how it must be.’
‘And that is how it will be.’ Emmanuel pulled up a chair and sat across from the doctor and the constable. He knew from combat that the bond forged between men and women who fought side by side was the hardest to break. What the three of them had experienced in Jacob’s Rest was the peacetime equivalent. Almost like a family, they were tied together by blood. ‘You are my friends, not my men,’ he said, trying to ignore the struggle inside himself. He wanted Zweigman and Shabalala gone and he wanted them by his side.
