Present Darkness (64 page)

“To the right, across the headlights and then down the ridge to the river.” Emmanuel fixed the sequence of events in mind, imagined the fall of each step onto hard ground and then the change in texture to fine sand.

“
Yebo
, Sergeant. Ready?”

Alice stepped closer and licked her dry lips. “If you get to the homestead …” she addressed the space between the detective’s shoulders, unused to asking for favours from the police. “Could you check the little room? They might have brought in a new girl. I saw a car drive to the house this afternoon. She might have been in the car. She might be trapped in the cell. She might never get out.”

“We will.” Emmanuel had his own reasons for checking the Lion’s Kill farmhouse. He turned to Julie and said, “See Dr Zweigman and Alice home to Clearwater. When the car leaves, take them across the river and over to the native reserve as quick as you can.”

Julie nodded. Emmanuel split to the right of the group with Shabalala, both preferring to skip the goodbyes and the good-luck farewells. Their survival depended on the most basic physical elements: speed and stamina.

“Run fast,” Julie said. “And keep running.”

27.

Light from the high beams hit the back of Emmanuel’s retina, momentarily blinding him. Shabalala ran a half stride ahead, loose limbed, graceful. Emmanuel stayed glued to the Zulu detective’s shoulder, heard the muffled cry of male voices and the sound of a car engine turning over. Bait taken; now to avoid being landed and gutted like a fish.

They hit the downward slope to the river and dropped from sight. Shabalala poured on the speed, aiming for a slender path winding up through the grass. The sand bank had no shelter on either side, no safety from enemies on higher ground. The bump of car wheels on the ridge confirmed the chase had begun, just as they had anticipated.

They scrambled up the path and hit the flatlands at a sprint. The car came from their left, headlights burning bright, its engine running in top gear. In thirty seconds the car’s silver fender would collect their legs and knock them clear into the thorn bushes. Fear pushed Emmanuel hard. He drew level with Shabalala. The car closed in. They simultaneously bolted slightly to their left and the car’s silver fender whipped past them, collecting the tail of their jackets and fanning a breeze.

“Close. Too close, boyo.”

A flat stretch of land dotted with acacia trees lay before them. It might as well be a four-lane highway. Car wheels spun in the dirt, kicking up stones. Emmanuel and Shabalala had no option but to keep running, just like Julie said. A stand of trees, two deep and two hundred yards off, beckoned. They set off with the car’s headlights licking the darkness, seeking them out. The sound of the engine cranked up as the car closed the distance to impact.

“Split!” Emmanuel said. “Now!”

Shabalala peeled to the right and Emmanuel went left. A space opened between them, wide enough for the car to drive between. Brakes slammed. The driver threw the gears into reverse and swung the wheel hard in Emmanuel’s direction. Emmanuel ran flat out. Knives stabbed at his side, the pain hot and sharp. The trees came into range. He tripped and he pitched forward onto his knees. So close were the trees that he was able to make out individual leaves and the sharp ends of thorns.

“Fuck … this is like dying on the last day of the war.”

A hand snaked out and dragged him bodily into the woods. Car brakes slammed. Emmanuel pushed onto all fours and scrambled into the trees. He found a kneeling position. Shabalala crouched low in the gloom and sucked in lungfuls of air through his open mouth.

“We must draw them further away from the river,” Shabalala said. “The girl’s leg is bad. It will take time for the doctor to walk her across to the reserve. He is not strong enough to carry her.”

“More running?” The pain had dulled to needles pricking Emmanuel’s lungs, which made breathing difficult.

“To the big rocks.” The Zulu detective pointed through the trees to a mass of dark shapes looming from the dry veldt. “The car cannot follow us into such high ground.”

The rock outcrop looked to be miles away with no safe place to stop and draw breath. Meanwhile, the car circled the trees like a shark, waiting for them to break cover.

“First, I need to grow fresh lungs.” Emmanuel’s breath came in short, noisy gasps. “Give me a year.”

“You can run the distance easily,” Shabalala said. “When you find the rhythm of your body the strength will flow.”

“Are you seriously talking to a white man about finding rhythm?” The idea was funny, even in the circumstances.

“Tonight,” Shabalala said. “You and I are the same. We go together as one.”

Nice theory but a bad idea. Lagging behind would put them both in danger. What if they didn’t make it? The thought of Shabalala’s wife Lizzie becoming a widow chilled Emmanuel. His lungs seemed to repair themselves instantly.

“All right but we split when I say.” That way, at least one of them would get to the rocks in safety. “With luck the car will chase
you
this time.”

Shabalala grinned, not bothered by the thought. They moved to the edge of the trees closest to the rocks. The car, a black Dodge, cruised by with the windows rolled down and bony elbows jutting over the metal.

“Come out, come out wherever you are …” the driver called. “I know, I know you’re not very far.”

The lyrics of a Frank Sinatra song used as a threat; Emmanuel gave the driver points for musical knowledge. The vehicle circled past the hiding spot and continued around to the other side of the trees. Taillights glowed red in the dark.

“Empty your mind,” Shabalala said. “Listen only to the breath coming into your lungs and then going out again.”

They broke cover and sprinted. They made the halfway mark before a car horn blasted three times, signalling the second phase of the chase. Emmanuel’s head reverberated with the sound of rattling bullets from long ago, and the cries of men as they were cut down. He’d run for his life under an iron sky on Sword Beach in Normandy, hid from snipers and huddled in mud trenches. Most of what he remembered now was the fear. As he had many times before, Emmanuel pushed the fear away, although he knew he would never fully rid himself of its power.

“Breathe, Sergeant. Breathe with me.”

Shabalala’s voice broke through the memory and pulled him back into the present. The throttle of the car engine surged and faded. He released a long breath and drew in another in time with Shabalala. Five more synchronised breaths and the world simplified. His body fell into rhythm. He was whole and intact: a survivor. He felt as if he could run forever. The rocks rose up from the earth like the walls of a citadel. Emmanuel jumped, found a foothold and scrambled the craggy surface to a ledge high off the ground. The Dodge braked and spun a circle. The boot smashed into the rocks and metal groaned. Car doors opened and feet hit the ground.

“Fuck.” Two bullets ricocheted off the granite wall to the right of Emmanuel. He pressed into the shadows, certain the shots were fired blind and in anger.

“How did they do that?” a male voice said. “They disappeared into the rocks!”

“Who cares how they did it? All I know for sure is that we’re in big fucking trouble. Help me push the car free. She might be good to drive.”

Emmanuel pressed his palms flat to the granite and worked around to a patch of starlight at the far end of the ledge. He jumped to a lower level, landing in a crouch. Shabalala was somewhere in this field of wild grass and boulders. The driver and his passenger swore a red streak as they struggled to push the wrecked Dodge free.

“We made it,” he said when the Zulu detective stepped out from the shadows and walked across the dry ground on cat’s feet.

“I had no doubts,” Shabalala answered.

The rock ledge where Emmanuel had sheltered cut a black slash into the rock face. How he’d gotten up that high, he had no idea.

28.

Mummified oranges lay scattered on the ground of an orchard planted in uneven rows. Their plan was to circle away from the crashed Dodge and then switch back in the direction of the river, giving the armed driver and his passenger a wide berth. From there they’d join Zweigman, Alice and Julie at Clearwater farm.

Emmanuel crossed the orchard, the dead fruit crunching underfoot. Branches threw shadows on the ground and a windmill creaked in the dark: a sound both lonely and bleak. He and Shabalala stayed silent, aware of a light shining up ahead. Lion’s Kill homestead, no doubt. They stopped at the treeline and looked out to a whitewashed structure so unloved that the moonlight hitting the silver roof turned it grey.

Gravel stretched from the edge of the orchard to the front door. Tyre marks criss-crossed the gravel but the yard was empty of cars and the traditional plantings of hardy aloes and lavender bushes.

“She said that a second car drove onto the farm this afternoon.” A light glowed in a front room. It might have been left on to guide the men in the Dodge back home. Or it might be illuminating an occupied chair.

“Maybe the visitor left,” Shabalala said from under the branches of a native tree. “Maybe the house is empty.”

There was only one way to tell. He’d promised Alice that he’d check what she’d called “the cell” for a new prisoner. He peered across the yard and made out a broken window boarded up with cardboard. The metal grate covering the opening was bent out of shape.

If his suspicions proved right then Davida had escaped being thrown into this very space by the big man.

“Sergeant.” Shabalala held out a cut stem with withered leaves. “Look.
UmPhanda.
The raintree.”

“Same as the branches hiding the red Mercedes.”

“The very same,” Shabalala said.

Emmanuel ran his hand over the trunk of a near tree and felt dried sap and raw timber where branches had been hacked off.

“This is the house of the men who beat the principal and his wife and then stole the car.” Shabalala nodded to the forlorn dwelling. “The big man and the little one.”

“I know it. The same men also broke into Fatty Mapela’s dancehall. If the big one had had his way, then Davida would be locked in that house right now. Let’s check the cell and be gone. When we’re back in Jo’burg we’ll find out who owns this place and drop the names to the Pretoria police.”

He stepped from the shadows onto gravel. White stones marked the perimeter of a hole dug out close to the side of the house; the braai pit that Julie had mentioned. Ash and bleached animal bones lay on the bottom. Shabalala went wide and scanned the area ahead. Emmanuel pressed to the wall and moved to the window in which the light shone.

He’d seen piss-poor farms before and had lived on one during adolescence, so the bleak interior of Lion’s Kill was no surprise. The uncurtained windows, paint peeling off the walls and dust on every surface were familiar. Likewise, the paraffin lantern on the fold-out table, the threadbare couch and the stuffed animal heads mounted on the wall. The beds would have lumpy sisal mattresses and the kitchen, a wood-burning stove that belched smoke.

“Empty,” he said of the room. “Swing around the back, check the other exits and entries. I’m going in.”

Shabalala lifted a brow. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“If that car engine starts up, those men will be back here soon. We have to move fast.” He crossed to the front door and turned the handle. The door opened. Folks in the country rarely locked their doors but they often kept loaded guns on hand in case of unwelcome guests. Shabalala disappeared into the night. Emmanuel slipped into the corridor of Lion’s Kill homestead. It was darker inside than he’d thought. The lantern glow drew him into the front room like a Neanderthal seeking fire.

He moved to the table. A paper-thin map, yellowed with age, spread over the tabletop. The words “Northern Transvaal” ran along the bottom in black ink: of all the things to find in a backwater farmhouse. He picked up the lantern and held it high to cast more light. A small detail snagged his attention and slowed his exit to the corridor. A black leather-bound bible lay on the arm of the couch, its thumbed pages slotted with strips of paper to mark the location of favourite verses. The men in the Dodge weren’t the praying kind and they’d be back as soon as the motor ticked over. He stepped into the corridor. The lantern flame threw circles of white light onto the walls and the wooden floors. Crickets chirped and the windmill turned outside. The two bedrooms each contained twin iron cots with unmade sisal mattresses and cotton sheets. There wasn’t much to see in the kitchen beyond a small dining table, a wood stove and a chipped cabinet stocked with mismatched cutlery.

A door led off to the side of the kitchen. Emmanuel opened it and entered a tacked-on annex made of thin wood panelling. Dust blew in under the gap between the concrete floor and the bottom of the walls. A flight of stairs led down to a subterranean space. The little room: Alice’s holding cell. His heart kicked harder with each downwards step; the old battlefield terror pressed a weight to his chest and coiled into his windpipe like a snake. He pushed his fingertips against the metal door and it swung open. Nothing good waited behind an iron door built below a wooden annex. He entered the concrete cell with the lantern held high. Shadows flickered. He moved deeper into the room and allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom. The rusting cot and mattress gave off the smell of sweat and dried blood. A primal dance, older than the advent of speech, had taken place here.