Let the Dead Lie (23 page)

'Do
you know what girlfriends and house models do, Emmanuel? They wait and they
serve. That's it. Pet goldfish have more exciting lives.'

'If
you want excitement take up hunting. This is a criminal case with guns, knives
and very bad men.'

'That
sums up my life so far,' she said. 'You're twenty-four years too late to
protect me from harm, but it's nice that you tried.'

She
disappeared into the interior of the house and Emmanuel slumped down on the
couch. Stopping her would be a snap. She was half drunk. Easy prey. But maybe
there was something in the suitcase: a piece of information that could turn the
case around.

'Ready?'
Lana had changed into a blue cotton dress with a high neckline and a wide skirt
that fell well below the knee. A woven straw bag dangled from her wrist: the
Walther's new home. Flat walking shoes and a face wiped clean of make-up
transformed her from femme fatale into the hometown sweetheart that soldiers of
every stripe had fought to return to.

It
was a sleight of hand.

'Eighteen
hours,' she said.

The polished
leather creaked and the silver locks snapped open at the first push. Clothing
toppled out and scattered across the table on Chateau La Mer's red-brick porch
where Helene Gerard had set them up before disappearing inside. Emmanuel sifted
through layers of lined coats, dresses, thick sweaters and cable-knit scarves.
Nicolai and his wife had no plans to stay in subtropical Durban.

'German, English
and French labels,' Lana said. 'All a couple of years old by the look of
things.'

A small
cardboard box with ripped edges was jammed against the bottom of the suitcase.
Emmanuel removed the lid. A colour image of Natalya in a crisp red army uniform
glowered from the heavyweight paper. She had a Nagant rifle slung over her
shoulder and rays of sunshine broke the cloud cover and illuminated golden
wheat fields. Woman, lover, soldier, farmer and pin-up girl for the revolution.
Cyrillic text ran along the bottom.

'It probably
says something like, "A celebration of blood and seed",' Lana said
with dry humour. 'Russians dislike subtlety.'

'The
leaflets dropped onto battlefield soldiers were none too subtle, either,' Emmanuel
said.

By
the close of the war the images employed by all sides were blatantly
pornographic: German women assaulted by Russian men with ungodly phalluses;
English girls pleasuring each other because their husbands were dead, sick or
maimed; French women prostituting themselves for a Yankee dollar. The leaflets
were meant to fire up or disillusion the men. They'd either fight to protect
their women or give up to go home to them.

'What's
your guess for this one?' Emmanuel handed Lana another photo of Natalya, this
time dressed in a colourful peasant costume and holding a basket of unnaturally
red apples.

'Spring
Harvest from the Virgin Lands?' Lana threw back, then added, 'That girl never
picked a piece of fruit in her life.'

'Only
when the camera was rolling.' Film was the perfect medium for Natalya. It allowed
single and prolonged close-ups of her flawless face.

'You
know her?'

'She's
in the other room. Pregnant and sleeping.'

'Oh.'

'With
her husband.'

Emmanuel
retrieved the last photo. Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as
Joseph Stalin, sat on a brown velvet couch between two attractive women with
glossy blonde hair, and slender legs encased in silk stockings. The women had
straight white teeth unused to chewing boiled horsemeat or turnip dumplings.
Natalya was one of them. A handwritten sentence was scrawled along the bottom
of the photo in black ink.

Lana
pointed to a word at the end. 'I recognise that. It says "Iosif".
That was my father's name.'

Emmanuel
studied the signed photo again. A group of five uniformed military men were
clustered behind the couch but closer to the door of the palatial room, as if
awaiting an audience with the great man. One of the officers had Nicolai's
bulky frame but he was clean-shaven and stood with squared shoulders.

'That
could be her husband,' Emmanuel said. 'But he's too far away from the camera
for me to be sure.'

'One
big star, maybe more, on the collar tabs of the jacket.' Lana leaned closer.
'The two-tone peaked cap and tunic could be NKVD. The state security service.
If the photo was clearer I could tell you more.'

Emmanuel
looked at her, in awe and in thrall of her casual knowledge of things military.

'My
father wanted a son but he got me instead,' she said. 'I tried hard to make up
for that mistake.'

'What's
your best guess on this man?' Emmanuel tapped the officer that most resembled
Nicolai. He wasn't sure how important the answer was. He just wanted her to
keep talking.

'A
major or higher rank in the state security service. Does that fit the man in
the house?'

'Not
really,' Emmanuel said. But then again, Nicolai had found the strength to haul
himself from the deckchair in the house on the Bluff and he'd stayed calm when
the bullets flew. It would also explain why the shooter had come after the couple.
A senior NKVD officer would be a prime target for the English, the Americans
and possibly even a Russian agency keen to reacquire a defector.

'What's
your connection to them?' Lana asked and began refolding the heavy coats and
scarves into the suitcase.

'Good
question.' Emmanuel put the box of photographs back into the corner with the
Stalin couch shot on top. There was something in Stalin's dark hair, dark eyes
and cold smile that reminded him of Khan. 'I followed a lead in the Jolly Marks
murder that led to the Russians.'

'Jolly,
that's the boy killed in the freight yard?'

'Yes.
The Russians were probably the last people to see him alive,' Emmanuel said.
'But beyond that I don't see a connection with his murder or the murders in
Stamford Hill.'

'One
of the bar regulars is a railway policeman. He said an Indian gang that
supplies children for the white slave trade killed the boy. Two scouts in fancy
clothes panicked when the boy tried to run away.'

That
old fiction. No matter which way the English or the Dutch community turned,
they were bedevilled by the insidious nature of darker people. Lawns left to
die in the heat by insolent house boys; beloved domestic pets deliberately
overfed by careless housemaids; and, lurking in the shadows of every European
town, the terrifying and ever present spectre of dark-skinned men with an
insatiable taste for white women.

'Indians
didn't kill Jolly,' Emmanuel said. The 'who didn't do it' list was the
strongest aspect of the case so far. 'It wasn't the Russians, either.' The only
person who could be connected to all three murders was, in fact, Emmanuel
himself. He was the strongest suspect with good reason. Motive was immaterial
because the Durban detective branch had evidence.

'Excusez-moi.'
Hélène Gerard stepped onto the
porch with a pot of coffee and a plate of chocolate biscuits on a tray. She'd
sobered up and smelled of lavender. Her hair was pinned back and her smile had
been freshly painted onto her face. 'I thought you might like something to
eat.'

'Thank
you,' Emmanuel said and ignored Lana's stare. He had no idea why Hélène Gerard
was so desperately helpful. Only the major knew the answer to that question.

'How
do you take your coffee, Mr Cooper?' Hélène poured dark liquid into a cup and
her knuckles appeared white against the pot's moulded plastic handle. A
fraction more pressure and the handle would snap into a dozen pieces. ,

'White.
Two sugars.'

The
Frenchwoman's smile quivered and every breath seemed to be a conscious decision
to draw oxygen. Just holding the line. Against what, Emmanuel did not know.

'And
you, mademoiselle?' Hélène asked Lana.

'White.
One sugar. Thanks.'

The
metal spout of the coffee pot clanked against the edge of the cup. Hélène
steadied and finished the task without spilling liquid onto the saucer. Her
smile held.

'It's
late,' Emmanuel said. 'Don't stay up for us. We can manage.'

'You're
sure?'

'Get
some rest. I'll see you in the morning.'

Hélène
retreated to the door then hesitated. 'There's nothing else I can help you
with? Please just ask.'

'Everything
is fine,' Emmanuel said. 'You've taken very good care of us. I appreciate it.'

'It's
been my pleasure.'

Hélène
slipped back into the house and closed the double doors behind her, ever the
thoughtful hostess. Emmanuel stirred sugar and milk into the coffee cup. He
waited and he listened. Hélène was spying from behind the door. He knew it as
surely as he knew that she'd read over his identity cards while he slept.

'She
really likes you,' Lana said. 'Or she's scared of you. I can't tell which.'

Emmanuel
moved across to the porch doors. Footsteps creaked on the pine floors of the
interior corridor.

'She's
scared, but not of me,' Emmanuel said and automatically checked the garden and
the driveway for the source of Hélène's fears. A frog croaked near the marble
lady fountain but nothing moved. 'Finish your coffee and I'll run you back to
van Niekerk's.'

'Did
you find what you needed?'

'No.'
That was par for the course. Every new piece of evidence brought confusion, not
clarity. 'I still don't know who killed the Marks boy. Don't know why, either.'

And
that was what the deal stipulated: find Jolly Marks's killer.

'So
you're still in trouble?' Lana undipped the straw bag, took out the Walther and
slid it across the table.

'For
now. Thanks for your help anyway.'

'What
little it was worth.' She looped the handbag over her wrist and frowned. 'It's
funny. I really thought I could read more Russian script than that.'

Or
maybe waiting for Major van Niekerk to stumble home drunk and horny held no
appeal, Emmanuel thought. The information about the NKVD officer might prove
useful once Nicolai resurfaced from sleep.

Emmanuel
secured the gun and made for the Buick. He had nothing to give van Niekerk. The
major would have nothing to give the sinister man from the interrogation room.
Emmanuel fished out the car keys but didn't insert them. The ornamental
fountain splashed in the garden but there was another sound coming from the
mouth of the driveway. He held his hand up to indicate silence. A clipped
murraya hedge, shoulder high and jungle thick, shielded the house from traffic
and Emmanuel crouched low and moved quickly along its inner edge. Lana closed
the gap between them. He considered sending her back to the house but if there
was someone out in the dark then double the hands meant half the work.

"The
house is on a corner block,' he whispered. 'I'll check this part of the street.
You check the other. Don't look over the hedge. Ever. Find a gap. If there's no
gap, make one quietly. Understand?'

Lana
nodded.

'Back
on the porch in three minutes.'

Lana
crossed the garden, fleet as a bird's shadow. She crept along the hedge, her
hands and eyes working in harmony to find an opening in the greenery. Her easy
competence was disturbing. She had skulked and spied in absolute silence
before. Enough times to make it appear natural.

Emmanuel
avoided the driveway and moved parallel to the street, searching for chinks of
light among the leaves and vines. He found none and carefully broke through the
foliage one branch at a time to make a tunnel. The view did not improve.

Two
black Chevrolets were parked either side of the chateau's driveway in the
ambush position. A slim male in a dark suit buttoned his fly and then got into
the passenger seat of the closest vehicle. Pissing while on stake-out was a
logistical nightmare. Twin points of red light glowed in the unlit interior of
the second car. A quick smoke before a raid always calmed the nerves.

Down
the street, half a block away at most, a big black Dodge sat under a streetlight.
There were plenty of Dodge motorcars in the city of Durban but the
chrome-rimmed headlights and the dent in the front grille made this one an
exact match for the car at the side of the road on the Bluff. A silhouette
reclined in the driver's seat.

Adrenaline
shot a message to every nerve ending in Emmanuel's body: run hard, run fast. Do
not look back. With speed he could make it through the darkened garden, over
the fence and into the night. Then all he had to do was run and never stop, run
and never sleep.

You will not
retreat, soldier.
The sergeant major was calm.
You will not
raise a white flag. There's fifteen hours left on your deal with van Niekerk
and letting these fuckers roll you was not part of that deal. They'll take what
they want from the house and leave you holding the bag for the murders. That's
god's honest truth and you know it
.