Part 34 (1/2)
”The police van,” Emmanuel said. ”I need you to go to the station and collect the police van.”
”But Lieutenant Lapping gave me the day off. He said I didn't have to come in till tomorrow.”
”I'm putting you back on duty.” Emmanuel made it sound like an instant promotion. ”You're the best driver on the force. Better than most of the detectives I work with in Jo'burg.”
”Honest?” The compliment perked the boy up enough to forget about the necklace and the day off.
”Honest.” Emmanuel looked directly at Hansie in order to gauge just how deeply his words were sinking in. ”I want you to go to the police station, get the van, and drive it back here. Can you do that?”
”Ja.”
”If anyone asks you where you're going with the van, tell them you are looking for a stolen...” His city knowledge hit against the reality of country life. What was there to steal in Jacob's Rest?
”Goat,” Shabalala supplied. ”You are looking for a stolen goat.”
”Have you got that?”
”I'm looking for a stolen goat.”
”Go straight to the police station and come straight back here with the van.” Emmanuel repeated the instructions, hoping some of the information stuck in Hansie's muddled brain.
”Yes, Detective Sergeant.”
The boy straightened his uniform and quick marched toward the front door with wind-up-toy precision. Everything-Louis's apprehension, Davida Ellis's safe return and the service of justice-all rested in the hands of eighteen-year-old Constable Hansie Hepple. A feeling of dread a.s.sailed Emmanuel.
A skin-and-bones blond girl, her hands and ap.r.o.n covered in sticky bread dough, appeared. Blue eyes, darker and denser than her brother's, glimmered with a faint internal light.
”That was a pretty necklace,” she said in Afrikaans. ”Hansie cried when he had to take it back, and his sweetheart was angry with him. Ma's gone to the store to get bicarb of soda to settle Hansie's stomach.”
”We have got to find an alternate way out of here. This is no place for men like us to end,” Emmanuel said to Shabalala.
They pushed through the rough country, drawn on by the looming ma.s.s of towering rock and clouds. In an ancient time, long before the white man, the mountain must have had a spiritual significance. Emmanuel felt the pull of it as he struggled to keep tabs on Shabalala's agile navigation through the monotonous blur of branches, thorns and termite mounds.
Fifty-five minutes and one brief break later, they reached the foot of the mountain and encountered a solid rock wall softened here and there by tufts of gra.s.s and stunted trees growing from crevices carved by centuries of wind and rain. As natural formations went, it had a handsome but unfriendly face.
”How do we get up?” Emmanuel leaned back against a sun-warmed boulder that nestled beside the mountainside like a schoolboy's marble. It was good to have a break, to feel the air coming in and out of his lungs without the fiery afterburn caused by lack of oxygen.
”We go around and then up,” Shabalala said, and Emmanuel noted with satisfaction that the Zulu constable had broken a sweat on the cross-country trek.
”Is the goat on the mountain?” Hansie asked after drinking deeply from his water canteen. The boy policeman's face had progressed from white to pink and then finally to a coal-fire red that rivaled a split watermelon for sheer depth of color.
”I hope so,” Emmanuel said, and followed Shabalala around the base of the ma.s.sive rock outcrop. They walked for five minutes until they came to a deep crease in the mountainside. Shabalala pointed to a path that wound upward and disappeared behind a windblown tree with branches bleached like bones.
”Up here.” Shabalala led them onto the skinny dirt lane, slowing now and then to check a clump of gra.s.s or a snapped twig.
”Any sign of them?” Emmanuel asked as he scrambled over loose rocks and exposed roots. Louis and Davida could be a hundred miles in the opposite direction.
”There are three paths to the cave. I can say only that they have not come along this way.”
”Maybe they haven't come here at all.” The fear that had tugged at him since speeding out of town and heading to the mountain was now lodged like a splinter in his gut. He'd made a meal of the sc.r.a.ps thrown to him throughout the investigation and now he was about to find out if all the hunches and conjecture amounted to anything.
Shabalala stopped at the intersection of three paths that joined up into one and examined the ground and the surrounding loose stones.
”They are here,” he said.
A moment of relief washed over Emmanuel and then he moved quickly up the path, his exhausted muscles fed by adrenaline. Louis had a good three-hour lead on them, and G.o.d knows what had happened to Davida Ellis in that time.
The gra.s.s trail ended at a wide, flat rock ledge that jutted out over the steep fall of the mountainside and offered a breathtaking view of untamed country running to all points of the compa.s.s. A martial eagle, white chest feathers flas.h.i.+ng starkly against the pale sky, circled on a warm air current in front of them. Far below on the plain, a watering hole sparkled in the late-afternoon sunlight. It was as Shabalala said, a place to stir the heart.
”There.” The Zulu constable pointed across the ledge to the dark mouth of the cave hollowed into the rock face.
”Detective Sergeant-”
”Shh...” Emmanuel silenced Hansie. ”Wait behind this bush and guard the path. If anyone comes, call out to me. Understand?”
”Ja. Call out.”
”Good.” Emmanuel unclipped the holster at his hip, the first time he'd done so since arriving in Jacob's Rest, and pulled out his .38 Standard Webley revolver. With Shabalala at his side, he ran low and fast across the rock ledge with his ears straining for the sound of voices or the click of a rifle bolt sliding back. An eerie silence followed them into the cave.
Emmanuel did a visual sweep of the interior. The cave was a scooped-out oval, large enough for a Voortrekker Scout troop to hold an all-night sing-along inside. Diffused afternoon light illuminated an unsettling domestic scene. A thin bedroll made up of a sheet and gray blanket was laid out in the middle of the s.p.a.ce and next to it was a lantern and a bucket of water. A container of rusks, strips of dried beef, and two enamel plates and cups lay on a flat stone. An open Bible, a box of candles, and a coil of rope were placed on an empty rucksack that served as an altar. Emmanuel holstered his weapon.
”Where are they?” he said. The cave was set up as a living place, a place to sleep and eat and do who knows what with the Bible and the rope. The teenager had every intention of spending the night and possibly longer holed up in his private chapel.
”I will see.” Shabalala checked the tracks on the floor and stepped out of the cave to investigate further. He returned quickly.
”They have gone along the narrow way to a place with a waterfall. It is spring. The water will be flowing.”
”Can we follow?”
”It is narrow. There is s.p.a.ce for only one person to walk at a time. I can take you.”
”Let's go,” Emmanuel said. ”I don't want to take the chance of finding a second corpse in the water.”
Emmanuel swung in behind his colleague and they approached the mouth of the pathway, which disappeared like the tail of a snake into the mountainside. A low, sweet voice singing an Afrikaans hymn stopped them at the entrance. A few swift steps and he and Shabalala were crouched behind a spiked bush with the teenaged constable, who was hot cheeked and fl.u.s.tered.
”What is it?” Hansie asked.
”Whoever steps out from that pathway, you are not to make a sound,” Emmanuel said. ”Understand? Not even a whisper.”
Davida Ellis stumbled onto the flat rock ledge in her bare feet with her arms wrapped protectively around her midriff. She was soaking wet and her pale green dress clung to her brown skin. Drops of water splashed onto the rock surface and formed a small puddle at her feet. She s.h.i.+vered despite the mild spring heat.
Louis Pretorius appeared, stripped naked to the waist with a rifle slung across his shoulder like a native scout. He continued singing and dried his face and hair with a handkerchief, which he returned to the pocket of his damp jeans. The words of the Afrikaans hymn circled high into the clouds, as if on a fast track to the Almighty. Louis had the face and the voice of an angel.
He finished his song and laid his hand lightly on Davida's shoulder. She flinched but he didn't seem to notice her reaction to his touch. He spoke close to her ear. ”'I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean.' Ezekiel 36:25. It feels good to be cleansed and made new, doesn't it?”
His hand moved to her neck, his fingers brus.h.i.+ng the delicate ridges of her trachea. ”G.o.d hears better if we speak out loud and raise our voices to Him.”
Emmanuel made ready to sprint across the rock ledge if the boy's fingers encircled Davida's throat.