Let the Dead Lie (15 page)
'Transfer
from Johannesburg. It's my first week.'
'All
the same, I'll be seeing some identification first,' she said. 'Then we'll take
the next step.'
'Of
course.' Emmanuel withdrew the brand-new ID from his pocket and handed it over.
The plastic cover was pristine and the ink fresh. He wondered if the woman
would notice.
'Never
met a policeman that looked the way you do.' She gave the ID back after reading
it and made a point of studying the dark silk tie and the pale citrus-coloured
suit with the delicate mother-of-pearl buttons hand-sewn down the front of the
jacket.
'Never
met a woman preacher before,' Emmanuel said. 'So that makes us even.'
'Miss
Bergis Morgensen.' She introduced herself with a nod. 'I've got to get back to
my family and give them a parting blessing. Wait here. I'll answer your
questions when everyone has gone. Jolly's passing has shaken people's faith so
we'll keep this quiet, if that's all right.'
Emmanuel
was happy to step back. He wanted to stay on the right side of Miss Morgensen,
but more than that, he wanted to keep a safe distance from the broken members
of the missionary woman's congregation.
They
passed him on their way out of the churchyard in a parade of human frailty. A
stumpy leg, a mouth with more gaps than teeth, a dark hollow where once had
been an eye. Most disturbing of all was the combination of black skin and a
physical impediment, which amounted to double punishment under the National
Party laws that squeezed natives out of skilled labour and secondary schools.
Emmanuel
waited for Miss Morgensen to bless the last member of her flock, a malnourished
Afrikaner girl with cropped brown hair and a snub nose. The preacher held her
hands, palms face down, over the girl's bowed head. 'You are a holy temple. May
the Lord provide you shelter from the storm.'
'Amen.'
The girl received the prayer and hurried to the street with her bony arms
swinging by her side. She appeared to be running from church into the arms of
the devil, which was the pattern Emmanuel had followed during his years of
religious instruction.
'This
way.' Miss Morgensen unlocked the door to a small shed nailed onto the back
wall of the church. The storeroom shelves held a paltry collection of
commodities that Old Mother Hubbard would have turned her nose up at. 'I pack
and distribute charity boxes on Sunday afternoon. We can talk while I work.'
She
took a small wooden crate from a shelf and started to fill it from an assortment
of dented cans and bulky paper bags stacked on a round table. Her movements
were brisk and strong for a woman who must be in her seventies.
Emmanuel
shrugged off Gerard's jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. Silk seemed
a vanity in the spartan room. He lifted a box from the shelf and placed it on
the table. Bergis Morgensen did not like talking to the police and, perversely,
he liked her more for it.
'One
of each item?' he said.
The
missionary hesitated then thrust her chin in the direction of the meagre
stockpile. 'Three of sardines, two of spam, a bag of flour and sugar, then hand
the box over to me.'
Emmanuel
sorted through the cans and found the sardines and the canned meat, all with
the labels peeling away from the metal. The flour and sugar bags were light,
perhaps five cups inside.
'Now.'
Miss Morgensen received the first completed box and topped it up with half a
bar of soap and a washcloth that had been cut down from a towel and resewn.
'What do you want to know about Jolly Marks?'
'You
identified the body?'
'His
mother asked me to, so I went to the morgue and signed the papers. The police
have me in a few times a year, normally when they need to put a name to an
unidentified body that's been found around the Point.' She shut the box and
tied it off with string then wrote the name 'Ephraim Nakasa' along the side
with a pencil attached to the table by a string. 'Jolly was the first child
I've had to identify and I pray the Lord never gives me that errand again.'
Emmanuel
took down another box and arranged the cans and bags so they at least covered
the bottom. 'You knew Jolly and his family pretty well then?'
'His
attendance at Zion wasn't regular but he came often enough to be called one of
my flock.'
'Do
you know anyone who could have hurt him?'
'Hard
to say. The children in and around the docks live in a floating world. One day
the tide brings in gold, the next day poison. Normal does not exist.
Prostitution and violence are a part of everyday life.'
'What
about his father?'
'In
and out of jail. In and out of bars. Never in church. He's got seven more
months to serve in Durban Central Prison for holding up the local milkman for a
couple of bob. That tells you all you need to know about Jolly's father.'
'Is
there someone else in his everyday life that made you suspicious? An odd
relative or a man who makes a nuisance of himself around children in this
area?'
'I've
prayed on it. But God is stubborn and hasn't answered me yet.' Miss Morgensen
tilted her head and frowned. 'How did a stranger get close enough to harm
Jolly? That's the question on my mind.'
'You
think Jolly knew his killer?'
'I
believe he did.'
'What
makes you think so?'
The
crime scene was cold and impersonal. The knife wound clean and precise. Murders
where the people knew each other were normally messy and driven by emotion.
'Jolly
worked on the docks but he was careful,' she said. 'All his customers were
regulars. He knew the rail yards and the quays better than the harbourmaster.
It would have been hard for a stranger to surprise him.'
Emmanuel
considered Miss Morgensen's theory but wasn't convinced. Out on the docks, a
stranger with money was an instant friend. It was wishful thinking to believe
that Jolly Marks worked exclusively for a select band of prostitutes and thieves.
Emmanuel couldn't throw away any leads at this point, however.
'Nobody
comes to mind?' he said and pushed a box of supplies across the table. If the
Flying Dutchman wasn't at the passenger quay he'd need a new lead to pursue.
Fast.
'Nothing
so far but God and I are working on it, Detective Sergeant.' The missionary
scribbled the name 'Brian Hardy' on the second charity box and 'Bettie Dlamini'
on the third. 'He hears every prayer and He notices every death. "Are not
two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground
apart from our father." Matthew 10:29.'
If
a hundred years were as nothing to God then both he and Miss Morgensen might
die awaiting a divine answer to the question of who killed Jolly Marks. Man's
twenty-four hour clock was winding down and the suspect description was still
'a white man in a black suit' except that he could now add 'and possibly known
to Jolly'.
'You
don't believe,' Miss Morgensen said without rancour and began to pack the
charity boxes into a wheelbarrow with a punctured tyre.
'I've
seen forests of sparrows fall into trenches filled with bodies,' Emmanuel said.
'I'm a little thin on belief.'
'The
war, eh? Infuriating, isn't it?' The missionary chuckled. 'How stubborn God is?
I often wonder what he's up to with the famines and the wars and now with this
poor country.'
She
tied the last box with string and wrote the name 'Delia Flowers' along the side
then placed it in the wheelbarrow. She retrieved an oak walking stick with a
curved handle from the corner and laid it across the top of the charity
supplies.
Flowers.
Not a rare surname but not common either. The warren of decrepit cottages and
cold-water flats served by Miss Morgensen's charity was the natural nesting
ground for the people the major had called 'rootless whites'. Emmanuel was
fresh out of leads and it was hours yet before he could search for the Flying
Dutchman at the passenger quay. He stopped the missionary when she began to
wheel her load to the door.
'I
have a car,' he said. 'I'll take you on your deliveries if you like.'
'Are
you sure, Detective Sergeant?'
'My
good deed for the day.'
A
chain-link fence topped with barbed wire encircled the back entrance of the
red-brick industrial building. Rusted paint cans leaked colour onto the drive
that led from the street to the factory. Miss Morgensen lobbed a stone across
the yard and hit the back door, which opened a fraction.
'Come,'
she called and a lopsided black man sprinted across the concrete with his
nightwatchman's coat flapping behind him. He lifted a loose section of the
fence and the missionary pushed the care package into the yard. Points of sharp
wire punctured the man's hands but he appeared not to notice.
'Ngiyabonga.'
He mumbled his thanks and ran back with the box to the shelter of the factory.
The whole exchange took less than a minute. Silhouettes flittered in the
doorway and then disappeared when the man reached the door.
'He's
not alone,' Emmanuel said.
'You
are mistaken.' Miss Morgensen turned to the car, chin out and shoulders back.
'He is a single man.'
She
walked away quickly and Emmanuel had to extend his stride to keep up. The
wariness from in the churchyard was back and he knew why.
'I'm
investigating a murder. Natives who are in town without a proper passbook are
not my concern.' And thank god for that, he thought. The National Party's
passbook laws had come into effect after he made the jump from the foot police
to the detective branch. Yes, he'd used the passbook laws to extract
information from vulnerable suspects but the endless trawl for natives who had
trespassed too long on white streets was never one of his duties. 'And neither
are their families,' he added. Two or more people could have cast the
flickering silhouettes in the factory doorway.
Miss
Morgensen reached the Buick and rested against the hood. She studied Emmanuel's
face. He let her. A minute passed and, satisfied by whatever she saw, the
missionary said, 'The factory owner lets Ephraim stay in the storeroom with
his wife and two children. She doesn't have the passbook that allows her to
work and live in the city so they have to be careful. The package helps keep
the family together.'
'So
things haven't improved in the black locations.'
'Not
enough. Men still have to leave their kin and find work in the white man's
world. And what are we without family, Detective Sergeant? We are dust in the
wind.'
'You
have family in South Africa?' Emmanuel asked. The missionary was as solid and
individual as a rock.
'My
blood relations are in Norway,' she said. 'But my real family is here at the
Zion Church. And you?'
'My
parents are dead and I don't see my sister much any more.'
It
was a lie. His father was still alive. The last time he'd seen him was twenty
years earlier: standing on the front steps of the Johannesburg central
courthouse, awkward in a pressed suit on loan to him for the duration of the
murder trial. 'Wave,' his sister Olivia had whispered, desperate even at that
young age to appear normal. 'Wave goodbye.' Emmanuel waved and his father
turned his back. It was a final parting with no words. Twenty years. His father
might as well be dead. His sister lived hundreds of miles away in Jo'burg.
'It's
not good for man to be alone,' Miss Morgensen said. 'That goes double for you,
Detective Sergeant.'
'Double?'
She didn't know one thing about him.
She
corrected herself. 'No. Triple. You are no more suited to being a speck of dust
than I am. We were born to take up space in this world, Detective Sergeant.
There's no running from that.'
Miss
Morgensen had her broken family to fuss over and protect. He had three murders
to solve in a dwindling amount of time. Maybe after that, when life was less
complicated, maybe then he'd think about family and just where his speck of
dust would land.
'Next
stop, Mrs Flowers,' Miss Morgensen said when they'd delivered all but the last
of the charity boxes. Emmanuel parked at the edge of a wide field pockmarked
with the remnants of night fires and switched off the engine.
'We'll
have to go cross-country to deliver this one.' She indicated a path that cut
into the derelict land.
Emmanuel
carried the box in the crook of his arm and followed the missionary down the
narrow path. They headed for an abandoned two-storey structure set amid
waist-high grass and guava trees most probably sown by bird droppings. Most of
the windows in the decaying building were boarded up and the remainder appeared
as black spaces punched into the bricks. The faint outline of the word 'Soup'
ghosted across a sooty wall. Maydon Wharf, the industrial heart of the port,
loomed in the background. A family of vervet monkeys trooped along the buckled
roofline and clambered into the branches of an overhanging fig tree.
'Has
she been here long?' Emmanuel asked. He felt for the handcuffs in his back
pocket to make sure they were accessible. The field was open on all sides
allowing escape routes in every direction. Too much ground for a single man to
cover. If he flushed out Joe Flowers, he'd have to grab him and pin him down
quickly.
'She's
been here a few weeks.' Miss Morgensen led him along the pathway with the
walking stick clutched like a weapon. 'A rent increase forced her out of her
last boarding house and she's too ill to work so she landed here. I'm hoping
this situation is temporary. This isn't the safest building. Too close to the
port.'
'Has
she got family?'
'A
son, but he's in all-male lodgings,' came the tactful reply.
The
vegetation on either side of the path was thick and the wind made a thin
whistling when it blew across the wild field.
Emmanuel
slowed before they entered the building and checked the area. All clear. Miss
Morgensen tramped towards a buckled concrete-and-steel staircase that led to
the upper level.
'The
ground floor is for the more transient types,' she said while they climbed
higher. 'The first floor has a few rooms with doors and locks. Mrs Flowers is
in one of those, thank the Lord.'
There
wasn't much to thank a higher power for in the gutted soup factory. Shoots of
green vine curled through the gaps in the boarded-up windows; cracks in the
ceiling admitted weak shafts of sunlight. Emmanuel's eyes adjusted to the
darkness.
The
upper floor contained a series of rooms squared around the staircase. They
moved to a door at the far end of a corridor where the shadows were at their
deepest. Force of habit dipped Emmanuel's hand down to his hip to unclip his
revolver and he touched the empty loop of his belt instead.
He
followed Miss Morgensen into a rectangular room with four mattresses laid out
on blistered linoleum tiles and stood just inside the doorway. A charred
hot-water urn was bolted to the side wall where the staff morning-tea table
must once have been. Three of the beds were unoccupied; the fourth was home to a
faded woman with thinning brown hair. He placed the box on one of the empty
beds and moved back against the wall.
The
woman struggled to a sitting position and wrapped a fringed shawl around her
shoulders. Her cheeks were sunk so deeply into her face that she resembled a
mine collapse.
'Mrs
Flowers ...' The missionary hesitated at the foot of the mattress, her way
barred by a wooden box packed with apples wrapped in purple crepe paper. A
bulging sack stamped 'Export' leaked a pool of raw sugar onto the floor. The
silver trim of a new Primus gas burner sparkled like a diamond in the dim room.
'I
forgot you were coming,' the woman said and plucked nervously at the tassels of
her shawl. 'I was just resting.'
The
box of apples and the sugar sack had come straight off the docks on the Maydon
Wharf. They were common enough items to be listed missing or stolen in shipping
company ledgers and then forgotten. Mrs Flowers's new woollen shawl and the
pyramid-shaped bottle of perfume on the crate next to her bedding were the kind
of gifts a thoughtful son might shoplift for his ailing mother.
'You
look well.' Miss Morgensen squeezed herself onto the end of the mattress and
glanced at the new things surrounding Mrs Flowers. The Zion charity box was
paltry compared with the gas burner and the boxes of candles and matches
stacked along the wall.
'I
feel well,' Mrs Flowers said. 'I've got some of my strength back.'
'That's
good news. You need to rest, and when the hospital gets its shipment of
medicines I'll bring your pills straight over.'
A
whistled tune accompanied the slap of shoes on the central staircase. Mrs
Flowers tried to lift her weight off the bed but her strength failed her. The
whistling grew louder and Emmanuel kept out of sight.
'Don't
fret, sister.' Miss Morgensen patted the woman's hand. 'We'll leave you in
peace.'
The
Norwegian missionary picked up her walking stick and straightened her skirt.
Emmanuel stayed put and listened.
A
tall female figure wrapped in an ankle-length mauve coat appeared in the doorway.
A box of fresh tomatoes was cradled in the woman's arms, and the chiffon veil
of her jaunty straw hat shielded her face from the world. She stepped forward
and flashed a broad shin. Dark hair sprouted through the nylon stocking.
Mrs
Flowers whispered, 'My boy ...'
The
box of tomatoes smashed to the floor and red fruit bounced across the tiles.
Emmanuel grabbed for Joe but he was quick and slid through the doorway like an
eel. Emmanuel caught a handful of material and tugged. The coat came away in
his hands and Joe ran the length of the corridor. Emmanuel sprinted and closed
the gap to a body length at the top of the stairs. Joe cleared two at a time,
his muscular arms flapping away from his body in an effort to gain speed.
Emmanuel lunged and Joe went airborne, sailing over the last four stairs in a
mighty leap that sent a cloud of ash exploding off the floor when he landed. He
sprinted out of the front entrance and disappeared into the grass.
Emmanuel
ran the perimeter of the crumbling building. Joe Flowers was fast despite the
weight of his huge head. A woman's leather shoe in a ridiculously large size
lay at the edge of the field.
A
breath came from deep in the faded greenery.
Emmanuel
approached carefully and broke through the vegetation. A small man stood in a
trampled circle of grass with his trousers around his ankles. An obese girl
with lank blonde hair was busy removing her bloomers. They swung around,
panicked at being discovered. The girl was more experienced than her customer.
She slipped into the brush with her underwear bunched in her hand. The man
struggled with his trousers; breath coming hard with fear now, not
anticipation. A wedding ring flashed dull gold when his hands fumbled with the
buttons of his fly.
'Please,
mister,' the man mumbled. 'I've never done nothing like this before. Promise.'
'Button
up your pants,' Emmanuel said. 'And go home.'
