Present Darkness (25 page)

“I’m Jason Singleton.” He closed the penknife and slipped it into his pants pocket before offering a handshake to each adult, including Shabalala. “Pleased to meet you.”

The children in the orchard dropped from the branches like ripe fruit and tumbled onto the driveway. All four youngsters had wild hair and crusted red eyes, which they rubbed with grubby fists.

“Conjunctivitis,” Zweigman made the diagnosis in a low voice. “Highly contagious but easily treated.”

Jason Singleton pointed to each child in turn. “The little one is Jodea but we call her Jodie, then there’s the twins, Aries and Hector. The last one is Bramwell. Our other sister, Julie, is out someplace I don’t know.”

The Singleton clan shared Cassie’s hair colour and freckled skin but their small, tight mouths fit just right into their pinched faces. Jason remained on the bottom step while his younger siblings circled the visitors and examined their clean fingernails, pressed suits and lace-up shoes.

“You’re from the city,” Jodie, the youngest child said with an equally posh accent. “People from the city are cry-babies like Cassie.”

“These men are police,” Jason corrected the girl. “They’re like soldiers. They don’t cry. Ever.”

“Where are Cassie and your mother?” Emmanuel asked. The children were content to mill around, dirty and barefoot and without adult supervision.

“My mother is baking in the kitchen,” Jason said. “Would you like to speak to her?”

“If we could.”

A small hand belonging to either Aries or Hector, Emmanuel couldn’t tell which, reached out to touch the butt of the Webley revolver holstered to his waist. He brushed aside the crusty fingers and took the steps. Jason opened the door to a wide corridor furnished with antique chairs and discarded shoes. A pile of unopened mail covered the surface of a side table with ornately carved legs.

“Where’s your father?” Emmanuel thought to ask. Delia hadn’t mentioned a husband during her brief rescue trip to Johannesburg and the farm, like the Brewers’ garden, had gone back to its natural state.

“My father is dead,” Jason said on the way through to the rear of the house. “He passed away during the first term of school.”

“What happened?” Emmanuel thought about how a man might die out here: some sort of farming accident, probably: crushed by a tractor, kicked in the head by livestock or cut by the blades of a thresher.

“A hunting accident. He went on a shooting weekend at Lion’s Kill next door and his gun misfired while he was cleaning it. Ma runs the farm now.”

Or tries to. The dead lawn and emaciated crops suggested that Delia had lost control of Clearwater. Emmanuel knew well the day-to-day demands of tending to the land. He didn’t wish a life of crop failure, flood and drought on anyone who didn’t wish it on himself; or herself as in Delia’s case.

“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” Emmanuel said and followed Jason into the kitchen at the back of the homestead. Large windows gave uninterrupted views of a shady porch and an in-ground swimming pool filled with green water. Delia and an elderly maid wearing a brown housecoat and a tatty wig punched down mounds of dough at an oak table. Another maid, also in domestic uniform, poured white sugar into a pot of boiling water to make syrup for the jars of pink guavas lined up on the bench top.

Delia looked up from kneading the pastry. “What is it, boy?”

“Police,” Jason said. “And a doctor.”

“Mrs Singleton.” Emmanuel stepped into the room and into Delia’s direct line of sight. She looked as if she had a million things on her mind and the energy to deal with only one of them at a time. Shabalala and Zweigman remained inside the doorway.

“Oh, it’s you, Detective Cooper,” Delia said and pressed the dough across the floured surface. “The hospital told me that the Police Commissioner wants an autopsy report on Ian and that his body will be ready for pick up in a couple of days. I’m just making sure there’s enough food for when Cassie and I go down to arrange the funeral.”

“It will take more than a few days for the autopsy report,” Emmanuel said. Add Christmas holidays to the usual list of hold-ups and Ian Brewer’s body might be held over until well into the New Year. “Don’t rush on account of the medical examiner’s office. They’ll give you plenty of notice about when it’s time to collect the body.”

“Oh.” Delia’s shoulders softened but her hands never ceased working. “Is that what you’ve come for? To tell me about the autopsy?”

“No, we were hoping to talk to Cassie if she’s around.”

“Where’s your cousin?” Delia asked Jason.

The lad shrugged his freckled shoulders and broke off a pinch of dough to eat. “Probably down at the river. That’s where she goes to have a blubber most days.”

“There’s a running river?” Emmanuel asked. Clearwater Farm actually had clear water and still looked like it was in the middle of a drought.

“The irrigation pump broke three weeks ago.” Delia tucked a strand of red behind her ear and shaped the dough into small buns. “I’ve been meaning to get it fixed but with the children on school holidays, the trip to Jo’burg and the funeral …”

The maids tutted and shook their heads at the madam’s endless worries. Bad luck had flown into the farmhouse roof, built a nest and refused to leave.

“The river is down there.” Jason pointed to a dip in the land visible through the kitchen windows. “I can show you if you like, Detective.”

“If that’s where you think Cassie might be,” Emmanuel said. He’d spent years soldiering through a myriad of human tragedies and then moving on to the ultimate goal; allied victory. Swooping into Delia Singleton’s clearly unravelling life and then leaving almost immediately brought back uncomfortable memories.

“Jesus Christ …”
the Sergeant Major seethed.
“Stop wasting time with feelings, Cooper. Get a fresh statement from Cassie and then get out! You copy?”

“I do.”

“I need to give the little ones a bath and then start making the soup,” Delia said. “Find Julie to get her to help you bring up water from the river.”

Jason took a bucket from the younger maid and said, “Julie’s out bush with her kaffir pals. It will take me the whole afternoon to haul enough water for a bath. The others won’t help. They run off whenever there’s work to be done.”

“You’re the man of the house now.” Delia opened the oven and peered inside with a distracted air. “The others are still children. You have to lead them. Teach them the right way to do things.”

Small chance of that, Emmanuel thought. The younger Singleton children were happy hanging from tree branches and playing in the fields. They’d never give up their freedom for farm work. Shabalala stepped closer to the table and caught the older maid’s attention. She narrowed her dark eyes and regarded the tall Zulu and his white companions with suspicion. Shabalala smiled and gestured to the bucket in Jason’s hand, then held up three fingers to make a silent request for three more. To make a verbal request of a white woman’s servant would be inappropriate.

The maid ducked under the table and produced two more wooden pails with rope handles. She handed them to Shabalala with an expression that said, “I’m not impressed with your suit or your white friends but thanks for helping with the water.”

“Come,” Jason said and skirted the table on the way to the back door. Once outside, they followed a trampled grass path that ran along the edge of the slimy swimming pool. Further along, they passed three elderly black men crouched in the shade of a yellowwood tree. A young woman in traditional dress breastfed an infant a few yards to their right. The small gathering looked to the back door of the farmhouse with stoic expressions.

“My father used to meet people under this tree to discuss their problems,” Jason said. “People from the farm and the native reserve still come here, even though my mother stays in the house and won’t talk to them. They still wait for her. ”

The men called out greetings and the young mother dipped her head to acknowledge the passing of three European males and a tall native who must also be shown deference. Emmanuel suspected that the patience shown by the group would be wasted. Delia was barely hanging on. She had no time for them or their complaints.

They meandered through a cornfield and down to the banks of a clear river embedded with white, marbled boulders. Flowering bulrushes grew thick and wild by the water’s edge. Downstream, a muscular black woman scrubbed laundry on a rock while three naked children splashed in the shallows. No sign of Cassie, though.

“She’s normally right there.” Jason pointed to a smooth rock ledge jutting out into the water: the perfect spot to dangle your toes in the flow. “That’s her favourite place to sit. She cries a lot.”

“She has just lost her father. Perhaps she has good reason for tears,” Zweigman said.

“No, that’s not the reason.” Jason dipped his bucket into the river and filled it to the brim. “She cried from the first day she got here.”

“Any idea where she could have gone?” Emmanuel asked. Flat country spread out under blue sky. The Singleton farm likely stretched for miles with the horizon shifting ever further away with each step into the inhospitable veldt.

“She’ll be back before long,” Jason said and wrestled the heavy bucket onto his shoulder like a native porter carting goods from a supply train. “She hates the country so she can’t have gone too far.”

In what direction? A sensible city-bred teenager would stay close to shelter and a source of water. Emmanuel shaded his eyes and searched through the heat haze on the plains. He did not feel especially confident of Cassie’s level-headedness.

Shabalala set the buckets down and walked across the sand to the flat rock. He crouched and scanned the riverbank. “A girl wearing sandals left from this place many hours ago.”

“When did you see Cassie last?” Emmanuel asked her cousin who swayed with the effort of keeping the overflowing water bucket balanced on his shoulder.

“Breakfast,” Jason said. “She ate half her porridge and left in a hurry.”

“Go and find her,” Zweigman urged. A city girl wandering the bush alone for hours rang a warning for all three of them. “I will use the time to rinse the infection from the children’s eyes. Milk and honey will clear it up.”

The doctor picked up the empty buckets and stooped by the water’s edge, his energies shifting to the inhabitants of Clearwater homestead in need of his care.

“One hour.” Emmanuel agreed: he and Shabalala would track Cassie across the veldt and Zweigman would tend the children. “If she stayed close to water we might be away longer than that.”

He nodded to Shabalala who tilted his hat in farewell and walked along the riverbank with quick strides. He crouched again by the rock and examined the sand and twigs nearby. Zweigman and Jason retraced the grass path to the homestead, their steps slowed to compensate for the weight of their buckets.

“The boy is right. His cousin came here many times to sit at this place. This morning she stayed and then moved in that direction.” The Zulu detective pointed along the crooked spine of the river to a point beyond where the washerwoman lathered soap onto a scrubbing brush.

“At least she’s got sense enough to stick close to water,” Emmanuel said and fell into step with Shabalala. Silver light refracted off the farmhouse roof. If Cassie were lost, that wink of civilisation could act as a beacon, drawing her homeward.

“Have you seen the young white missus?” Emmanuel stopped to ask the washerwoman who scrubbed away at worn cotton sheets. A hint as to Cassie’s state of mind would be helpful. The woman looked up, glad for the break.

“The sad one was here when I came with my first load,
ma baas
. I greeted her but she turned her face away from me. When the children came to play in the water she got up and ran away; quick, quick, past the bulrushes and then on till I could not see her any more.”

“My thanks.” Emmanuel caught up with Shabalala on a bend in the river. Cassie had taken off long before they’d arrived at Clearwater with their questions. What reason did she have for running?

“The girl moved fast and then rested here against the tree trunk.” The Zulu detective indicated a hollow in the sand and tracked the soft scoops left in the riverbank by Cassie’s sandals. A few minutes later they came to another dip in the sand where the teenager had again sat down to rest.

“She runs and stops. Runs and stops, yet there is nothing chasing her,” Shabalala said when they’d tracked her long enough to establish a pattern. On the opposite bank a tall boy drove a herd of cattle down to the river. The sun blazed hot. Shabalala and Emmanuel removed their ties and jackets, rolled up their sleeves and wet their heads and faces with handfuls of cool water. They moved on.

Ten minutes later they came to a trampled patch of grass stained with drops of dried brown liquid. Shabalala rubbed the substance between thumb and forefinger to confirm what they both already knew.

“Blood. Only a small amount and just dry …”

Emmanuel stepped back to get a clearer view of the area. A hard object crunched underfoot. He kneeled down and lifted a black-handled steak knife from the grass. Rust-brown liquid stained the serrated blade. White noise roared in his ears. Cassie held the key to open Aaron’s jail cell. Unless she retracted her statement, Lieutenant Mason’s tainted evidence would make it to trial. Her life was precious, yet she’d decided to throw it away. He turned a quick circle, searching for a body, and realised that the roaring sound in his head had an external source.