Part 5 (1/2)
”Pa, look. Look, see,” a boy of about ten called out from the veranda as the spinning top wobbled down the stairs and rolled onto the gra.s.s. The children followed in a rush of high-pitched squeals.
Henrick grabbed a tiny girl and threw her into the air. The other children crowded around, begging for a turn. Emmanuel wondered where the youngest brother was hiding himself.
”Where's Louis?”
”In the shed,” Henrick said. ”He's been in there all day working on that b.l.o.o.d.y bike.”
”Ja.” Erich ruffled the hair of a child in front of him. ”Go see if you can get him out, Hansie. Ma will need his help soon.”
Hansie turned to the far end of the garden where a small shed stood flush against the back fence. Behind the corrugated iron structure, flat-topped trees threw their s.h.a.ggy branches up against wide-open sky.
”I'll come with you.” Emmanuel broke from the family group and fell into step with Hansie. A man's shed was a good place to start feeling out the man himself. Something about the captain had marked him out for a violent death, and something about his death had caught the attention of the Security Branch. No time like the present to try to find out why.
Hansie knocked on the shed door. ”Louis. It's me.”
”Come.” The door swung open and Louis, a boy of about nineteen, stepped back to allow them entry. With a featherweight's build, the captain's youngest son was more finely drawn than the photo in the house suggested. If the other brothers were rock, Louis was paper.
”Louis, this here is the policeman from Jo'burg.” Hansie performed the introductions in a rush, embarra.s.sed about taking an adult role in front of his teenage friend.
”Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper,” Emmanuel said, and shook Louis's hand. There was strength in the boy's grip that belied the softness of his appearance.
”Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper.” Louis repeated the t.i.tle as if memorizing it, then saw the grease stains on Emmanuel's hand. ”I'm sorry, Detective. I've made a mess of you.”
”It's nothing.” Emmanuel wiped his hands clean with his handkerchief and Louis moved back toward a pile of engine parts laid out on an old rug. The restored body of a black Indian motorcycle rested up on blocks close to the rear door.
Louis kneeled down and continued cleaning pieces of metal with a rag. His whole body shook with the effort he expended. ”I've been cleaning parts all day and I forgot...”
”What's this?” Hansie squatted down next to his friend. ”I thought you finished the engine already.”
Louis shook his head. ”Have to wait on a part to come from Jo'burg. Do you know much about engines, Detective?”
”Not much,” Emmanuel answered truthfully. The right-hand side of the shed was the hunting area. A pair of giant kudu horns hung above a gun rack holding three sighted rifles. Below the guns was a beautiful Zulu a.s.sagai, a warrior's spear, complete with lion hide bindings. Under the spear was a wooden desk with two drawers. To the left side of the shed engine parts and tools surrounded the Indian motorcycle. Diagrams and calculations were stuck to the wall under a manufacturer's ill.u.s.tration of the dismantled motorbike in its prime. The organization of the shed indicated a clear and methodical mind. The back door was propped open with a brick to let in the afternoon breeze and it wasn't hard to imagine the captain happily at work here.
”You know a lot about engines.” Emmanuel stepped over the spare parts and headed for the hunting desk.
”Oh, no,” Louis said, ”Pa is the one who knows all about fixing things.”
There was an awkward silence, then the loud clank of metal on metal made by Louis sorting through a pile of spanners with shaking hands.
”You can finish the bike, hey, Louis.” Hansie pumped enthusiasm into his voice. ”Get that coloured mechanic to help and you'll have it going in no time.”
”Maybe,” Louis said quietly, then began sorting the cleaned screws and bolts into neat piles on the floor. Emmanuel watched the compulsive behavior for a moment, then moved deeper into the shed. Grief made people act in strange ways; it could rip them open or close them right down.
A check of the guns found them clean and unused. Inside the desk, Emmanuel found newspaper articles on rural pursuits like the art of biltong making and the proper care of hunting knives. He kneeled down and peered into the empty drawer cavity.
”Looking for dirty magazines, Detective?” Louis asked.
Emmanuel caught the hard edge of the boy's stare.
”You want to show me where he hid the magazines, Louis?” he asked casually, aware it was a clumsy attempt to catch the boy out, but worth a try.
Louis flushed pink and began sorting through the spanner box again. ”No, because there aren't any. My pa was very clean that way. If you knew him you'd understand.”
”That's right.” Hansie took up the fight on Louis's behalf and threw Emmanuel a look of disgust.
”I wasn't the one who mentioned dirty magazines,” he pointed out. Did the captain have a secret stash somewhere? Or was Louis worried about a dog-eared magazine hidden somewhere in his own bedroom?
Two maids and a garden boy hurried past the back entrance to the shed without slowing pace or looking in. The three figures disappeared into the darkening veldt.
”What's this?” Emmanuel pointed to the gra.s.s pathway the servants had taken.
”A kaffir path. The kaffirs use them to get around,” Hansie said. ”They run all through the town and join up near the location. It's quicker than using the main roads.”
”People don't mind?”
”No. n.o.body uses the paths in town after eight-thirty. There's big trouble if a kaffir is caught walking along here between then and sunrise.”
”You ever use them?”
”They're kaffir paths. For kaffirs.” Hansie had the dumbstruck look of an idiot asked to explain the facts of life to an imbecile. ”Coloureds use them sometimes, but we never do.”
”Then how do you know they're not used at night?” Emmanuel stepped out of the shed and onto the path.
”The captain,” Hansie replied. ”He ran along these paths three or four times a week. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes at night. Shabalala took care of the paths near the location.”
Emmanuel moved deeper into the veldt as a second group of house servants, determined to clear the white part of town before curfew, jogged by singing. Emmanuel knew the song: ”Shosholoza, shosholoza...Kulezontaba...”
The song translated roughly to ”Move faster, you are meandering on those mountains. The train is from South Africa.” The sound of the word ”shosholoza” was like the hiss of a steam train itself.
The servants' rhythmic chant drifted back and he felt the African night warm on his skin and hair. The voices of the servants grew softer and he turned toward the captain's house.
”How often did you and Lieutenant Uys patrol?”
”We patrolled when the captain asked,” Hansie said. ”Once we went out every night for a week, then not again for a long time. It wasn't a regular-type thing.”
”Random,” Emmanuel said, aware of the simple genius underpinning the captain's system. Zweigman was aware of the close scrutiny of the patrols and didn't like it. How much did the captain see and hear as he crisscrossed the town at constant but irregular intervals? Had he uncovered a secret someone was willing to kill to protect?
Emmanuel reentered the shed where Louis packed the last of his tools into a red metal box. The boy appeared engrossed in his task, but there was a tightness in his shoulders that suggested an alert and mindful presence.
”Hey, Louis.” The shed door swung open and Henrick stepped in. ”Get yourself cleaned up, it's time for supper and Ma needs you.”
”Ja.” Louis ducked out past his elder brother and made his way quickly toward the house. He scuttled up the stairs and across the veranda like a crab racing for safety on a rock ledge.
”Ma will see you now, Detective,” Henrick said. ”She's not doing so well, so make it quick.”
”Of course,” Emmanuel said. Henrick's boss-man act was starting to get on his nerves.
Lamplight flickered over a group of young women in mourning clothes who were gathered around a small blond woman in an oversize armchair. Her pale face, lined with grief, was all cheekbones and wide mouth. It was still possible to see vestiges of the young beauty who had married a hulking policeman and produced five sons to swell the ranks of the Voortrekker Scouts and the Dutch Reformed Church.