A Beautiful Place to Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

door.
    Outside, the light was soft and white and shot through with fine dust particles. The coloured boys in front of the liquor store looked up, then quickly returned to their game. Better to have a policeman walk by than stop and ask questions.
    Emmanuel got into the driver’s seat, cranked the engine, and waited. Zweigman slid in next to him with his medical bag balanced on his knees. No one spoke as the car eased away from the curb and started back toward the hospital.
    “Where did you get your medical degree?” he asked. All the boxes had to be ticked before Zweigman was allowed to work on the captain’s body.
    “Charité Universitäsmedizin in Berlin.”
    “Are you qualified to practice in South Africa?” He couldn’t imagine German qualifications being denied by the National Party, even if the person holding them was Jewish.
    Zweigman tapped a finger against the hard leather of his medical bag and appeared to give the question some thought.
    They swung off Piet Retief Street with its white-owned businesses, and headed up General Kruger Road. Every street in Jacob’s Rest was the answer to an exam question on Afrikaner history.
    “Are you qualified?” Emmanuel asked again.
    The shopkeeper waved the question away with a flick of his hand. “I no longer feel qualified to practice medicine in any country.”
    Emmanuel eased off the accelerator and prepared to swing a U-turn back in the direction of Poppies General Store.
    “Ever been struck off the register in Germany or South Africa for any reason, Dr. Zweigman?” he asked.
    “Never,” the shopkeeper said. “And I don’t answer to ‘doctor’ anymore. Please call me ‘the old Jew’ like everyone else.”
    “I would.” Emmanuel pulled the car up in front of the Grace of God Hospital and switched off the engine. “But you’re not that old.”
    “Ahhhh…” The sound was dry as parchment. “Don’t be fooled by my youthful appearance, Detective. Under this skin, I am actually the ancient Jew.”
    Strange turns of phrase were one possible reason the oddball Kraut was sitting next to him, and not in some swank medical suite in Cape Town or Jo’burg.
    “I think I’ll call you the peculiar Jew. It suits you better. Now let’s see your papers.” Friendship with a man crazy enough to choose shopkeeper above physician was not on his list of things to do. He just wanted to verify the qualifications, then get relief for the pounding in his head.
    Sunlight caught the rim of Zweigman’s glasses when he leaned forward, so Emmanuel wasn’t sure if he’d seen a spark of laughter in the doctor’s brown eyes. Zweigman handed him the papers, the first of which were in German.
    “You read Deutsch, Detective?”
    “Only beer hall menus.” He flipped to the South African qualifications written in English and read the information slowly, then read it again. A surgeon, with membership in the Royal College of Surgeons. It was like finding a gold coin in a dirty sock.
    Emmanuel looked hard at Zweigman, who returned his stare without blinking. There had to be a simple explanation for the white-haired German being in Jacob’s Rest. Deep country was the ideal place to bury a surgeon with shaky hands. Did the good doctor have a fondness for alcohol?
    “No, Detective Sergeant.” Zweigman read his thoughts. “I do not hit the bottle at any time.”
    Emmanuel handed the papers back with a shrug. Zweigman was more than qualified to do what was asked of him. That was all the case needed.

    Far enough from the main buildings to create a buffer zone between the living and the dead, a round mud-brick hut worked double time as the hospital’s morgue and hardware storeroom.
    Emmanuel paused under the shade of a jacaranda tree and allowed Shabalala and Zweigman to get ahead of him. The stooped doctor and the towering black man moved toward the morgue on a carpet of the jacaranda’s spent flowers. At the path’s end, Sister Angelina and Sister Bernadette administered