Those Who Love Night (21 page)

“Why I can't know?”

Abigail saw something simultaneously aggressive and servile in the suspect. She could imagine him down on his knees begging on a street corner, but knifing in the back anyone who refused him.

“I want to know who is the lady. Is she Mr. Patel's lady?”

Mpofu moved in his chair, as if ready to attack the suspect. Abigail looked at Chunga and saw the set jaw and firm control she was getting to know.

“Is this lady Mr. Patel's lady?” the prisoner whined.

“This little bastard is looking for trouble.” Mpofu's voice had developed a harsh rasping tone. His hands had hardened into fists.

The prisoner was looking at Abigail out of the corners of his eyes, but this time he was wise enough not to continue. Chunga had raised a hand from the surface of the table and was patting the air very gently. The gesture seemed to be aimed at Mpofu.

“My name is Abigail Bukula,” Abigail said. “I am an advocate and Mr. Patel was assisting me in a court action against the government. Could you tell me your name?”

“Kleinbooi Mokgareng.”

“You're a South African,” Abigail said. “Why are you killing people in Zimbabwe?”

She thought she saw his eyes flick toward Mpofu before answering. “Mister Patel let them put me in jail.”

“The state put you in jail, not Mr. Patel.”

“This lawyer should not be questioning the suspect.” Inspector Dzuze made himself heard for the first time since Abigail had come in. He was looking at Chunga. Everyone took his lead from the
CIO
director.

“The inspector is right,” Chunga told Abigail. “Please continue, inspector.”

“We already have the motive recorded,” Dzuze said. “Tell us what you did on the night.”

“I shoot this little bastard, Patel.”

“Tell us from the beginning about that night.”

The prisoner looked from Chunga to Abigail. “I take the gun from my friend Albert's place.” The uniformed policeman started writing. “Then I go to the place where I know Patel works. I go upstairs in the building and wait for him to come out.” He was answering Dzuze's question, but his eyes were roving back and forth between Chunga and Abigail. Like a wild animal he had read the situation and knew that the danger was real, but, like an animal that has not yet seen the predator, he could not know just how great the danger was and from which direction it may come. “When he come out, I shoot him.”

“So you're saying…” Dzuze began.

“What make of rifle was it?” Abigail interrupted. The men in the room all turned to look at her.

“I not know.”

“What was the time when you did it?”

“Not late. Maybe eight o'clock. I not know.”

“Where does your friend live?”

“There on the other side.” He waved a hand. “Kuwadzana.”

“How did you get from your friend's place to the place where you killed him?”

“I walk.”

“Carrying the rifle—openly—so everyone could see it?”

He stared at Mpofu now. The
CIO
man saved him the need to answer. “Director Chunga, this is not right.”

“Abigail, please.” Chunga said gently. “Let our people do their work.”

“I'd just like to know which building he fired from and how he gained access to it.”

“Please, Abigail.”

It took Dzuze a long moment to gather his thoughts before continuing, but the real hostility Abigail felt came from Agent Mpofu. He was taking deep breaths. His eyes were hard. Abigail's interruption was clearly an outrage. Dzuze spoke: “So what happened after you shot Mr. Patel?”

“I run.”

Abigail interrupted again. “With the rifle?”

“I take the rifle back to Albert.”

Dzuze turned his attention to Chunga. “The rifle is in our possession and it has been fired recently.”

“Did you find the spent cartridges or the bullets?” This time Abigail was talking to Dzuze. Mpofu threw up his hands in apparent disgust.

“Abigail, I must ask you not to interrupt,” Chunga told her. “You're here as an observer only.”

“I'm sorry.”

“We found no shells at the scene.”

“I throw them.” To Abigail it seemed that the prisoner was trying to come to Dzuze's aid. “I throw them by the bush.”

“He could point out the spot,” she said. “It should be easy enough to recover them.”

Chunga put a hand on Abigail's forearm nearest to him. “Abigail…”

But she was already rising. “It's all right, Jonas. I'll wait in the charge office.”

*   *   *

When Chunga came out, she was waiting for him on one of the straight-back chairs the young police officer had offered her. The old lady had left, presumably having completed her business with the police. Her chair too had disappeared.

On the way back, Abigail was expecting some sort of reprimand, but Chunga only smiled at her. She had seen the same look on Robert's face when he was planning a surprise for her. “A drink?” he suggested.

Yes, she thought, I could use a drink. “Why not?” she said.

The café to which he took her had tables and chairs in a garden you could not see from the road. Chunga ordered a whiskey from a white-suited waiter wearing a red fez. Abigail asked for a Coke. “How many pleasant places like this still exist in Harare?” she asked.

“Not enough.”

“And you know them all?”

“There's not much in Harare I don't know. I need to know the city.”

“And what do you know about your suspect? Frankly, he doesn't seem to know too much about what happened that night.” Abigail said it challengingly, expecting him to defend their arrest.

“I agree,” he said.

“You agree?” How was it, she wondered, that he caught her off-balance so easily. “Jonas, why are you so unlike everything I expected?”

“What did you expect?”

“I expected you to defend all government and
CIO
actions.”

He smiled, a warm, playful expression. “Saturday evening you didn't seem to mind my being different.”

What was there to say? Abigail looked down at her hands, then back into that smile that seemed to be saying, whatever happens I'll be there to protect you. Or was that truly what it was saying? And how could he so easily create this confusion in her?

With a wrench, she forced her attention back to the man they had arrested. “I have to talk about more serious matters.”

The amusement disappeared. “You have my attention.” She could see that it was true. There was none of the patronizing of women that, in her experience, was so common in men, especially African men.

“As long as you hold that man, your men will not be looking for the real killer.”

“I know. I've already instructed them to question him further to confirm these suspicions. I expect he'll be released no later than tomorrow, unless we find new evidence.”

And yet you haven't even questioned Patel's widow, Abigail thought. But she drove the conversation in a new direction. “Also, on Saturday night the Makwati twins were arrested, apparently by your men. Are they also just going to be missing?”

“No. We have them.”

There it was again, another of his unexpected admissions. “Are you going to charge them?”

“I am. They were apparently keeping watch on the prison gate. No country allows that.” He was speaking seriously, wanting her to understand his position. “You have to ask yourself what their motive could be.”

“Perhaps they were looking for their friends.”

“If their friends are in Chikurubi, no one is going to see them from the outside.”

“Are you going to protect them?”

“Why should I?”

“Why did you protect them after the bombing?”

This time Chunga struggled for a reply. “It was not my decision only.” He stumbled over the words. “My director general knew about it.” With a visible effort to take back control of the conversation, he directed the discussion onto a new track. “I have a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“Who's the white man you were talking to in the hotel?”

“He's a friend.”

“Just a friend?”

“You're not jealous are you, Mr. Chunga?” Damn you, Abigail, she said to herself. Why do you go over to flirtation so readily with this man?

“Perhaps,” Chunga said. He looked seriously at her, the same look she had seen in Patel's office the day she first met him.

“Yudel Gordon is a criminologist. He's come to assist me.”

“That's a very good friend.”

“He is.”

“I also have something important to tell you.” He let her wait for the revelation. She said nothing, only returning his gaze with curious eyes. “A really important something.”

Forget it, Jonas, she thought, I'm not going to play your game. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, took out a folded sheet of paper and passed it to her. Abigail looked into his eyes without immediately unfolding the paper.

“Open it.”

She did as he instructed. The letter carried the national coat of arms. It had been written by someone in the Department of Justice and it announced the date of the hearing. “It's tomorrow,” Abigail said. “Why didn't you give it to me earlier?”

“I couldn't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because then you would have stayed at the hotel to prepare. I wouldn't have had your company this morning.”

She waved the letter at him. “Jonas, I don't know how to thank you. How did you do it so fast?”

“In Zimbabwe you need connections.”

“I can see that.” She looked again at the letter. “The letter says it's being held in Chikurubi prison.”

“The courts were full and special preparations are being made in the prison.”

Abigail thought about what was convenient for the authorities, and how holding the hearing in the prison meant that neither the public nor the press could be present. The hearing could be held in absolute privacy. Perhaps even the court's decision would not be made public. Why, Jonas, she asked silently, when you do something to make me trust you, is there always some reason in it to fuel my distrust?

“I want Mr. Gordon to come with me.”

“I'll arrange it.”

“Does the judge have a name?”

“It's in the letter.”

Abigail glanced at the letter again. Her habit of reading very fast often meant that she stopped reading letters and reports as soon as she thought she had the essential information. It sometimes resulted in her missing facts that she needed to know. “Judge Mujuru,” she read.

“An excellent and fair judge,” Chunga said.

I hope so, Abigail thought.

28

The afternoon passed slowly for Yudel. Abigail was in her room, preparing for the next morning's hearing. Rosa was in their room, waiting for her niece to collect her. To pass the time she was reading a book about space travelers who had occupied the earth five hundred million years ago. “It sounds like science fiction,” Yudel had said.

“Don't attack something just because you know nothing about it,” Rosa answered.

Idleness never sat easily on Yudel. Waiting for anything was almost an impossible ordeal. He was accustomed always to be wrestling with some problem. During daylight hours, he was either working on some aspect of his rehabilitation plan, or interviewing individual prisoners. Often there was not time enough in the day to deal with problems arising from the rehabilitation program. On those occasions the problems went home with him. Otherwise his evenings were spent consulting on criminal matters or seeing patients with emotional problems. Reading was done in bed, the book sometimes falling from his hands as sleep overtook him.

The next morning Abigail would come face-to-face with the very reason Krisj Patel had brought her here. Outwardly, there seemed to be nothing he could do to help her. But he knew this was not so. He could feel, somewhere deep inside himself, that there were aspects of Abigail's case that needed his attention, but what they were eluded him. Then there was the death of this Patel. And the investigation into it was being conducted by people who were definitely not sympathetic to the lawyer.

He went for a walk in the streets around the hotel. On a previous visit he remembered almost as many white as African faces in suburbs like this one. Now he saw no white faces at all, the great majority of the white population having sought refuge in other English-speaking countries. Most of those still in Zimbabwe either did not have the educational or financial requirements of the countries they were seeking to enter, or they had found a way to make good money here and had no intention of leaving it behind.

Under the circumstances, the sane thing to do was flee. That was what Yudel's grandfather had done, with his wife and children, when confronted by the realities of Germany in the nineteen-thirties. When faced with the choice between fight and flight, it only made sense to fight if you were the stronger. Anything else was madness.

He found an outlet of an international fast-food brand where he bought coffee for one dollar U.S. The next matter requiring his attention was to work out the tip. It was an easy one, coming to exactly twelve and a half cents. He handed over two dollars. It was only when the girl behind the counter looked helplessly at him that he remembered a dollar note was the smallest change in the country. Yudel accepted his change in the form of a Coke and a packet of potato crisps.

It was late afternoon by the time he got back. Rosa was on the back terrace, drinking tea. “I've just had the strangest call on my cell phone,” she said. “That matron van Deventer from the home where Dad stays…”

Yudel sat down opposite her. “Yes, I believe I've met her.”

“She's the strangest woman. She says that strings of women, strings, she said, have been calling to speak to Dad.”