Let the Dead Lie Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothing
else. The van Niekerk notebook was safe in his back pants' pocket. The ID card
listing his age and race classification and his driver's licence were in a
drawer back at his flat. He never took them out any more. Let the tram
conductors figure out for themselves where he belonged. He was done trying.
    'The
dead boy at the train yard,' Maataa said to Emmanuel. 'He was white?'
    'Under
the dirt, yes, he was white.'
    'You
know this boy?'
    'He's
not a relation,' Emmanuel said. 'I've seen him around the dock area. That's
all.'
    'Big
trouble.' The Indian woman narrowed her eyes. 'You will go to the police?'
    'I
won't go to the police,' he said. 'It was a mistake to get involved.'
    Maataa's
angular face drew closer. She smelled of cloves and a temple fragrance Emmanuel
couldn't name.
    'You
are scared,' she said.
    'Yes,
I am.' It was better to stay completely off the Security Branch radar.
    'This
is very good.'
    Maataa
crooked a finger towards Giriraj. He untied the rope binding Emmanuel's hands,
then returned to the bedroom space and awaited the next command.
    'I
can go?' Emmanuel asked. He didn't want any misunderstanding.
    'You
will keep your word. This I can see.' She searched Emmanuel's features and
frowned. 'What is it that you are . . . European? Mixed race? Or maybe you were
born in India?'
    Emmanuel
said, 'You choose.'
    Maataa
laughed at the idea that she would ever have that power. 'Ahh, you are a
naughty man. Go with Parthiv but do not go back to the harbour. There are
plenty, plenty clean women in Durban.'
    'I'll
go straight home,' Emmanuel said.
    He
was escorted from the small room by Parthiv. The night garden was fragrant and
cream flowers the size of babies' hands twirled in the breeze. He was free to
finish the last one or two hours of the van Niekerk job and forget that he'd
ever attempted to relive the role of detective sergeant. The memory of Jolly's
curled fingers was stark.
    'What
were you doing in the freight yard?' he asked Parthiv when they stepped onto a
narrow driveway at the front of the house. The city of Durban glittered below.
Out on the dark mass of the Indian Ocean shone the lights of anchored
freighters awaiting the call into the harbour. Emmanuel guessed he was in
Reservoir Hills, a suburb created especially for the Indian population. Further
out on the urban edges was Cato Manor, the tin-and-mud catchment area set up
for the burgeoning black population.
    'I
too was looking for a woman,' Parthiv confessed and unlocked the kidnap car, a
midnight blue Cadillac low to the ground and gleaming with chrome. 'My mother
wants Amal only to study, study and study. This is not good. He is clever but
he is not a man.'
    Emmanuel
got into the front passenger seat and waited for Parthiv to fire the engine. Giriraj
stepped out of the side pathway and climbed into the back. He moved
surprisingly quietly for a big man. They reversed out of the sloping drive and
followed an unlit road edged with jacaranda trees.
    'Why
the docks?' Emmanuel asked. The lowest class of prostitute worked the dockyards
and the vacant boxcars.
    'There
was no choice,' Parthiv said. 'If I took Amal to a house where there are paid
Indian women, my mother would find out. She wants him only to make the good
marks and be a lawyer.'
    'So,'
Emmanuel clarified, 'you took your little brother to the docks to find a woman.
Maybe even a white woman. As a treat.'
    'Exactly.'
Parthiv smiled, happy his selfless motives were understood and appreciated.
    Emmanuel
wanted to swing back to the house, find Amal and tell him, 'Never listen to
Parthiv. Unless you want to spend a few years in a tiny cell with a bucket to
crap in, keep studying. You can cure virginity quick. Jail goes on forever.'
    'He's
still a child,' Emmanuel said. 'He'll find his own way in a few years.'
    'What
happened to that boy in the alley,' Parthiv said, 'that could also happen to
Amal. Gone, just like that. Better to die a man.'
    'Better
not to die at all,' Emmanuel said and tried to