by Malla Nunn
He cut across the grass flat to the building occupied by Shabalala and Lizzie and rapped on the window. The creak of bedsprings was followed by a sleepy groan.
‘Shh …’ Shabalala made the universal sound of comfort and opened the door. He was puffy-eyed, a grey blanket wrapped around his broad shoulders.
‘Visitors,’ Emmanuel said.
‘I will dress.’ Shabalala went back inside and Emmanuel returned to the verge. The headlights flickered through the tall grass that pressed onto the dirt track. In half an hour the car would be at the circle of aloes. Shabalala ran to Emmanuel’s side and gazed into the valley.
‘What is it they seek?’
‘They are here for the Russian.’
‘This man can hardly keep one foot in front of the other. What value does he have? Is he a chief of something?’
‘He was once a chief. The men in the car want to exchange him for one of their own.’
The interior lights in the Zweigman house came on and Natalya’s primal groans travelled out into the night. The thump of footsteps was followed by a murmur of voices.
‘The baby is come,’ Shabalala said. ‘I will fetch my wife. She knows what to do.’
‘Get her,’ Emmanuel said and studied the laborious movement of the car headlights on the narrow track. The tradesman and his partner were travelling into unknown territory. That would slow them but it would not stop them.
Shabalala emerged from the hut with Lizzie, who held a lantern high into the darkness. She skirted the vegetable garden and headed for the main house. The door opened and Lilliana Zweigman hurried her inside.
‘I’ll go,’ Emmanuel said when Shabalala reappeared.
‘I don’t know that there is a way to stop them. But it is worth a try. At least I might be able to slow them down.’
‘Until the young one comes into the world,’ Shabalala said. ‘Maybe that is all the time that is needed.’
‘Yes, maybe.’ Emmanuel blew into his cupped hands. In Durban, winter had a residue of subtropical heat but the mountains were icy, especially at night. ‘I’ll get a coat from the old man’s suitcase and a torch from the storeroom.’
The storeroom door creaked open and Lana Rose stood in dim candlelight. She was fully dressed with a crocheted blanket wrapped around her. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Natalya is about to have her baby and there’s a car coming up from the valley,’ Emmanuel said studying Lana’s face. ‘Any idea who’s in the car and how they got directions to the clinic?’
She looked into his eyes. ‘How would I know that?’
‘Who did you call from Labrant’s Halt?’ he asked and shouldered his way into the storeroom. Two candles burned in the interior. ‘Maybe you passed on directions to the clinic then.’
‘I couldn’t even find this place with a map,’ she said, hands on her hips. ‘Shabalala drove out here, remember?’
That was true.
‘Who did you call?’ he said and continued searching the shelves for a torch. There had to be one here somewhere.
‘The major,’ she said. ‘I had to let him know where the next stop was after Labrant’s.’
Emmanuel found a silver torch and pressed the switch. The beam was bright and narrow. Lana stepped into the light.
‘You don’t trust me,’ she said.
‘I don’t know anything about you.’
‘Did I imagine the night we spent together?’
‘Okay. I don’t know very much about you.’
She shook her head. ‘You are the brightest and the thickest man I’ve ever met. We’ve done more than just fuck, Emmanuel. I don’t hotwire cars and steal from Indian gangsters every day of the week, you know.’
‘No. But you have done those things before,’ he said. ‘And now you’re the girlfriend of a major in the police service. That’s a big jump.’
‘You want to know why?’ Lana stepped closer. ‘My father was a gambler and a thief and not much good at either.’ She spoke clearly and quickly. ‘He used the rope storehouse on Signal Road to hide stuff he lifted from the freight yard. I helped him pack and sell whatever he’d stolen. Sometimes I helped him steal the things myself. Mr Khan bought a lot of it. Khan also hired me to serve drinks at private parties. He likes white girls to work the bar. I let him touch me but I never fucked him because Khan only respects what he can’t have. You know what it takes to get out of that kind of life, don’t you Emmanuel?’
He nodded. Even now, decades later, he was still amazed that he’d escaped Sophiatown and a life interrupted by regular jail time.
‘And the major?’ he said.
‘He pays my bills. When I’ve got enough money I’m going to move to Cape Town where nobody knows me and I’m going to start over again. There. Do I have your trust now?’
He was stopped dead by the deluge of information but he had no doubt that Lana would have it all… down to the very last wish.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You do.’
‘Good. What do I need to know?’
‘The men in the car are coming for the Russians. I’m going to try to stop them. Stay with Nicolai and keep an eye on Lilliana. She panics easily.’
‘Okay.’ They moved in tandem across the grass to the stoep of the main house and Lana went inside.
Shabalala wrestled the Russians’ suitcase onto the stairs. The intervals between Natalya’s groans had shortened and the sound of them had deepened.
‘Beautiful.’ Zweigman’s voice was calm amid the vocal work of childbirth. ‘You are doing beautifully, my dear. We will move to the clinic and by morning there will be a baby.’
Shabalala opened the case and threw Emmanuel a thick wool coat with a fur collar. A pair of leather gloves followed.
‘We must move,’ he said, selecting a long scarf, which he double-looped around his neck and then tucked into the lapels of his police-issue winter jacket. ‘Ready, Sergeant Cooper?’ For a fleeting second the operation felt real. The detective branch ID and Shabalala by his side. That was where the fantasy ended.
‘There are things to be done here at the clinic. Important work,’ Emmanuel said. Despite the very real props, this was not an official investigation in which a native constable was obliged to follow the orders of a ranking officer. ‘You don’t have to come with me.’
‘It is women’s business and doctor’s business.’ The Zulu constable removed a home-made slingshot from his pocket and stretched the rubber band till it snapped back with a twang. ‘We must go. Our business is elsewhere.’
‘Yebo,’ Emmanuel said and they set off at a run towards the circle of mountain aloes. Flashlight played over the stone walls of the clinic and the circle of dirt that led to the approach road. They would move downwards to meet the car.
‘Carry on,’ Shabalala said and stopped to collect a handful of pebbles, which he dropped into his coat pocket - ammunition for the slingshot. Emmanuel waited. They set off again and ran hard to put the lights of the Zweigmans’ house behind them. The thump of their feet on the dirt track was the only sound.
Small circles of light from the stone houses grew dim and were soon eaten by the darkness. The clinic disappeared into the bushland. Emmanuel slowed and swung the beam of the flashlight along the sides of the road, on the hunt for an obstacle to place in the tradesman’s way. A fiery-necked nightjar swooped low over the ground and caught a white moth in its beak before ascending into an acacia tree.
The throttle of the car engine grew louder.
‘There.’ Emmanuel steadied the beam on a broken tree branch with spreading limbs. ‘We’ll block the road with that.’
They heaved and pulled. The branch was unwieldy and clung to the underbrush. Headlights appeared through the grass.
‘Together.’ Shabalala counted in Zulu: ‘Kanye, kabili, kathathu …’
Muscles strained and lungs burned with the effort required to break the tree limb free of its bush mooring. Wood creaked and the branch shot forwards into the road. Emmanuel stum
bled but Shabalala grabbed him by the coat sleeve. The lights rounded a bend.
‘Quick,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Hide.’
They cleared the road and crouched in the long grass. A car appeared on the straight. Twin shafts illuminated the tree branch, which lay to the left of centre. Not so much of an obstacle as an annoyance. It would not stop the tradesman for long.
‘We have to get them out of the car. Distract them.’ Emmanuel glanced around for ideas and came up empty.
Shabalala pulled the slingshot from his pocket and said calmly, ‘This I can do.’
The black Dodge slowed to a stop and the tradesman got out of the passenger side door. The breeze tugged at straw-coloured hair and whipped it across his bloodless face.
‘Cold out here,’ he said to the driver then pointed to the tree branch. ‘This is the reason I hate the fucking country. Go slow. I’ll guide you around.’ He stepped forward and tried to push the branch out of the way. His hand shot into the air and he jumped back with a yelp. ‘Shit!’ He examined the red indentation on his skin. ‘Something just hit me.’
Seconds later the windscreen of the Dodge crackled under a rain of stones and the silver grille pinged like a giant xylophone. The tradesman skipped and twirled under the barrage; a drunk performing for loose change in a bush bar. Emmanuel smiled at the impromptu tap dance. The half albino was not calling the tune this time.
‘Get down!’ the driver yelled from the safety of the Dodge. ‘Get down.’
The tradesman threw himself to the ground and crawled behind the tree branch for cover.
‘One stone left,’ Shabalala whispered.
‘Wait till he stands up,’ Emmanuel said. After that, the plan ran out of steam.
‘I’m coming after you, Cooper,’ the prone figure yelled. ‘You’d better be bulletproof.’
‘Wait,’ Emmanuel said. ‘Wait.’
The tradesman stood, Colt revolver in hand. Shabalala’s last shot hit him square between the eyes. He reeled back and fell against the hood of the Dodge. The car engine died and the driver’s door opened. The tradesman came upright by force of will. Lazarus with a six-gun.
‘Now I’ve got something for you.’
The Colt was aimed directly at the patch of grass where Emmanuel and Shabalala crouched. A bullet shredded leaves from the shrubs to their right. Far too close for comfort.
The tradesman walked forwards and squeezed out a bullet for every step. He undid his coat buttons. Two gun handles poked out from his trouser waistband.
‘Get out of the car.’ The order was given calmly. ‘Bring the torches.’
‘Run!’ Emmanuel said to Shabalala.
The land sloped down to the river. Emmanuel and Shabalala tore through the night and met tree branches and thornbushes along the way. It was too risky to use the torch. They ran and tumbled on the decline like children in a game of blind man’s bluff. The sound of footsteps kept pace with them and a flashlight beam pierced the undergrowth. The tradesman was fast and determined. And he was armed. Bullets pinged into tree trunks.
‘There is a river in front of us,’ Shabalala said. ‘We must cross it before the very white one comes.’
‘Yebo. Yebo.’ Emmanuel pushed harder and ignored the arrow of fire piercing his side. He had a stitch. Work at the Victory had built strength but no sustained endurance. They had to split up soon or he would drag Shabalala down.
Moonlight made a silver ribbon of the river and cast an eerie glow onto the far bank. The water was knee deep and glacial. Emmanuel’s muscles cramped but he kept up with Shabalala, who did not flag. They broke onto the opposite shore and plunged into the marula trees.
Four minutes of hard upward slog and Emmanuel stopped to suck in air. The pain in his side was burning.
‘We have to split up,’ he told Shabalala. ‘Fork out on the hill. We’ll have a better chance of losing them if we do that.’
The moon was a pale disc in the sky. The tradesman and his partner were out of the car and probably disoriented. So was he. The plan had worked too well.
‘We’ll meet back at the clinic,’ he said.
Shabalala was a police constable, not a nursemaid for an out-of-shape detective. Somehow he’d find the way back to Zweigman’s stone house.
‘Hurry,’ he said when the Zulu man didn’t move. ‘I’ll be fine soon as I catch my breath. Go now.’
Shabalala hesitated then slipped into the shadows of an acacia thicket. The crunch of footsteps receded. From the darkness came the faint words, ‘Stay well, Detective.’
‘Go well, Constable.’ Emmanuel returned the farewell and kept low among the native forest. A splash sounded from the river. Running headlong into the bush was one option. Ambush was another. He listened to the tradesman’s fumbling approach then he moved slowly down the slope and closed the distance between him and his pursuer.
Hissed breath went past to the right. Emmanuel wheeled and found himself behind the dark outline of a man. A twig snapped underfoot. The tradesman swung around and Emmanuel surged forwards with fists clenched. He landed two punches to the midriff and heard the satisfying crunch of a body going down to the ground.
He straddled the prone mass and flicked on the silver torch. A young white man with lumpy skin and a chipped front tooth gasped for breath amid the decaying leaves. He wore a loose black suit. A decoy. Emmanuel patted him down for weapons but found none. The tradesman had sent this boy out into the bush while he went on to the clinic to secure the Russian couple.
‘Where’s your gun?’ Emmanuel asked, holding the boy down.
‘Back there,’ he said. ‘In the river. I dropped it by accident.’
‘How many in the Dodge?’ Emmanuel pulled the terrified boy upright.
‘Three.’
‘Do they have guns?’
‘Only the one with the fair hair. He has a few. Three maybe.’
The Colt was sure to be near empty but the other weapons would be loaded. That amounted to a bullet for every inhabitant of the clinic plus spares.
‘Detective Sergeant…’
‘Shabalala,’ Emmanuel called out. ‘Over here.’
The Zulu constable crashed through the bush. ‘The car, it has gone to the clinic.’
They both knew what that meant and broke into a downhill run towards the river. This time there would be no stopping for breath. The acned decoy tried to match their speed but soon dropped off and collapsed on the dirt track. He’d be lucky to find his way out of the bush before morning.
‘Three men are in the car.’ Emmanuel ignored the bonfire scorching his lungs. ‘Three guns.’
‘Two guns,’ Shabalala said. ‘The pale one fired six shots at us from the road.’
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. Childbirthing 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 bu
ilding,’ 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?’
