Part 4 (1/2)
3.
THE FRONT OFFICE of the Jacob's Rest police station consisted of one large room with two wooden desks, five chairs, and a metal filing cabinet pushed against the back wall. Gray lines worn into the polished concrete floor made a map of each policeman's daily journey from door to desk to cabinet. A doorway at one side led to the cells and another in the back wall to a separate office. Shabalala was nowhere to be seen. of the Jacob's Rest police station consisted of one large room with two wooden desks, five chairs, and a metal filing cabinet pushed against the back wall. Gray lines worn into the polished concrete floor made a map of each policeman's daily journey from door to desk to cabinet. A doorway at one side led to the cells and another in the back wall to a separate office. Shabalala was nowhere to be seen.
Emmanuel entered the back office. Captain Pretorius's desk was larger and neater than the others and had a black telephone in one corner. He picked up the receiver and dialed district headquarters.
”Congratulations.” Major van Niekerk's cultured voice crackled down the line after the operator's third attempt to connect them.
”What for, sir?”
”Uniting the country. Once the story gets out, the native, English and Afrikaans press will finally have something to agree on-that the Detective Branch is understaffed, ill informed and losing the battle against crime. One detective to cover the murder of a white police officer-the newspapers will have to run extra editions.”
Emmanuel felt a jolt. ”You know about the case, sir?”
”Just got a call from the National Party boys.” The statement was overlaid with a casual indifference that didn't ring true. ”The Security Branch, no less. They think Pretorius's murder may be political.”
”The Security Branch?” Emmanuel tensed. ”How did they get to hear about it so fast?”
”They didn't get the information from me, Cooper. Someone at your end must have tipped them off.”
There was no way Hansie Hepple or Shabalala were hooked up to such heavyweights. The Security Branch wasn't a regional body monitoring rainfall and crop production. They were entrusted with matters of national security and had the power to pull the rug from under anyone-including Major van Niekerk and the whole Detective Branch. Did the Pretorius brothers have those kinds of connections?
”What do they mean by 'political'?” Emmanuel asked.
”The defiance campaign's got them spooked. They think the murder may be the beginning of Communist-style revolt by the natives.”
”How did they come up with that?” The revolution idea would be funny if anyone but the Security Branch had flagged it. ”The defiance campaign protesters prefer burning their ID pa.s.ses and marching to the town hall after curfew. They want the National Party segregation laws repealed. Killing policemen isn't their style.”
”Maybe the Security Branch knows something we don't. Either way, they made sure I knew they were taking an interest in the case and they expect to be informed of any developments as they occur.”
”Is taking an interest as far as it goes?” Even members of the foot section of the police knew ”taking an interest” was code for taking control.
There was a long pause. ”My guess is, if the defiance campaign dies down, they'll step back. If it doesn't, there's no telling what they'll do. We're in different times now, Cooper.”
Emmanuel didn't think the defiance campaign showed any sign of dying down. Prime Minister Malan and the National Party had begun to enact their plan as soon as they'd taken office. The new segregation laws divided people into race groups, told them where they could live and told them where they could work. The Immorality Act went so far as to tell people whom they could sleep with and love. The growth of the defiance campaign meant that the Security Branch, or Special Branch as it was tagged on the street, would walk right into Emmanuel's investigation and call the shots.
”When can you get more men onto the case, sir?”
”Twenty-four hours,” van Niekerk said. ”Everyone here is focused on a body found by the railway line. She's white, thank G.o.d. That means the press will keep running with the story. I'll get a day to pull some men from headquarters and load them onto your case on the quiet.”
Major van Niekerk, the product of a highbred English mother and a rich Dutch father, liked to keep a clear line of sight between himself and his ultimate prize: commissioner of police. His present rank of major wasn't high enough for him. His motto was simple: What's good for me is good for South Africa. Sending out a single detective on a crank call that turned out to be an actual homicide wasn't something he was keen to make public.
”And the Security Branch?” Emmanuel asked.
”I'll handle them.” Van Niekerk made it sound easy, but it was going to be more like taking a knife from a Gypsy. ”Meanwhile, you've got a chance to treat this like an ordinary murder, not a test case for the soundness of the new racial segregation laws. Consider yourself-”
Static swallowed up the rest of the sentence and left an industrial hiss breathing down the line.
”Major?”
The singsong beep, beep, beep beep, beep, beep signaled a disconnected line. Emmanuel hung up. Lucky? Was that the major's last word? Consider yourself lucky? signaled a disconnected line. Emmanuel hung up. Lucky? Was that the major's last word? Consider yourself lucky?
Emmanuel tipped the contents of the captain's drawer onto the desktop and began sorting through it. Booking forms, paper clips, pencils, and rubber bands got placed to one side. That left a small box of ammunition and a week-old newspaper. The box revealed rows of gold bullets. The newspaper stories he'd read last Wednesday. No luck there.
”Detective Sergeant?”
Shabalala stood in the doorway, a steaming mug of tea in hand. For such a large man, he moved with alarming quiet. He'd stripped down to his unders.h.i.+rt, and his trousers were damp from where he'd washed the material in an attempt to clean it. The black location, five miles to the north of town, was too far to ride his bicycle for the sake of a change of clothes.
”Thank you, Constable.” Emmanuel took the tea, aware of the crisp lines of the s.h.i.+rt he'd changed into half an hour earlier. The Protea Guesthouse, the boardinghouse where he'd thrown down his bag, then washed and changed, was in the heart of town, surrounded by other white-owned homes. Shabalala would have to wait for nighttime to wash the smell of the dead captain from his skin.
”Where's your desk?” The front office, like the one at district headquarters, was reserved for European policemen.
”In here.” Shabalala stepped back and allowed him entry through the side door to a room that included two jail cells and a narrow s.p.a.ce with a desk and chair. A row of hooks above the desk held the keys to the cells and a whip made of rhino hide called a shambok, the deadly South African version of an English bobby's truncheon. A window looked out to the backyard, and underneath it sat a small table with a box of rooibos tea, a teapot, and some mismatched porcelain mugs. Tin plates, mugs and spoons for the native policeman rested on a separate shelf.
”What's out there?”
Shabalala swung the back door open and politely motioned him out first. Emmanuel picked the black man's tea up off the table and handed the tin mug to him. The police station yard was a dusty patch of land. A huge avocado tree dominated the far end and cast a skirt of shade around its trunk. Closer in, a small fire glowed in a circle of stones. Shabalala's coat and jacket, wiped down from filthy to dirty by a wet cloth, hung over some chairs crowded around the outdoor hearth. A small sniff of the air and it was possible to imagine the smell of the police station's Friday-night braai and fresh jugs of beer.
”Did you know the captain a long time?” Emmanuel's tea was milky and sweet, the way he guessed Pretorius must have liked it.
The black man s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably. ”Since before.”
Emmanuel switched to Zulu. ”You grew up together?”
”Yebo.”
Silence breathed between them as they stood drinking tea. Emmanuel noted the tension in Shabalala's neck and shoulders. There was something on the black man's mind. He let Shabalala make the first move.
”The captain...” Shabalala stared across the yard. ”He was not like the other Dutchmen...”
Emmanuel made a sound of understanding but didn't say anything. He was afraid of breaking the fragile bond he felt between himself and the native constable.
”He was...”
Emmanuel waited. Nothing came. Shabalala's face wore the curious blank look he'd noticed at the crime scene. It was as if the Zulu-Shangaan man had flicked a switch somewhere deep inside himself and unplugged the power. The connection was broken. Whatever Shabalala had on his mind, he'd decided to keep it there under lock and key.
Emmanuel, however, needed to know why the Security Branch was sniffing around this homicide.
”What clubs did the captain belong to?” he asked Shabalala.
”He went always to the Dutch people's church on Sunday, and also the Sports Club where he and his sons played games.”
If the captain had been a member of a secret Boer organization like the Broederbond, Shabalala would be the last to know. He had to find a simpler way to track down the Security Branch connection.
”Is there another phone in town besides the one here at the station?”