Free Let the Dead Lie by Malla Nunn Page A

waterfront.
    'I'm
fine.' He heard the lie in his voice and thought she did too.
    'If
you say so.'
    Two
slack-jawed sailors seated at the bar watched her collect used glasses and
stack them onto a tray. The men looked as if they'd turned up at the dock to
find their ship headed out to sea without them.
    Emmanuel
noticed a black and white photograph of a whaler nailed to the wall above a row
of gin bottles. It was a long way yet before he turned into a bar-side pervert.
But the languid movements of the barmaid's body and the dark fall of her hair
were hard to ignore.
    He
swallowed his drink. Whisky flooded through his arms and legs as if through the
branches in the tree of life, and his mind focused. The decision to follow
leads in Jolly's murder was foolish, and this attempt to recreate his past life
was more than that: it was dangerous. Walking near the crime scene with Jolly's
notebook in his pocket was bloody-minded stupidity and an invitation to dance
the hangman's jig.
    The
words 'please help' were not a personal plea from the dead boy. He had to let
the kid go.
    'Major,'
said the barmaid.
    Emmanuel
sat up at the use of his old army title and recognised his mistake instantly
The major was a silver- haired man with broken blood vessels in his cheeks. It
was a classic drinker's face with every bottle accounted for.
    'The
usual,' the major said.
    The
dark-haired barmaid flashed a look at Emmanuel and caught his eye. Electric
currents sent his heart into near-arrest. He checked the level of alcohol in
the tumbler. Half full. The eye contact held a moment too long was not a
fantasy.
    He
finished the whisky in one hit and considered the alternative. A beautiful
woman, the centre of every man's attention, had expressed an unspoken desire
for physical connection.
    'More?'
    'Same
again.' Emmanuel said. Another hit and he would go back to the single cot with
its neat hospital corners and folded-down blanket. The bed of a soldier or a
priest.
    The
full whisky tumbler slid back into view.
    'On
the house,' the pretty barmaid said and moved down the counter, filling a line
of shot glasses along the way.
    'What's
the occasion?' Emmanuel asked the older barmaid, who wore cat's-eye glasses
and a sour expression. She was pushing fifty and it appeared that every one of
those years had been hard fought and hard won.
    'It's
Lana's last night. She's moving up. Got a job at a posh ladies' boutique on
West Street working as a house model.' The barmaid's smile was nasty. 'Let's
hope they don't give her the combination to the safe.'
    She
moved away, and left Emmanuel to tussle with the enigmatic comment. Stealing
was a common criminal activity and if he had to pick the dark-haired barmaid's
area of operation, he'd pick fraud. A smile opened a lot of doors and even more
wallets. Not that the older woman's word was a solid foundation on which to base
anything. She'd made no effort to hide her malice.
    Emmanuel
drained his whisky and pushed back the barstool. Lana collected the empty
tumbler.
    'Do
you have a car?' she said.
    'Yes.'
    'I
need a lift. Can you take me?'
    She'd
never been turned down, Emmanuel imagined. Never had a man say no. Who was he
to change the course of history?
    'My
car's around the corner,' he said.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    A
whisper rustled through Emmanuel's consciousness, like a skirt trailed against
the floor. He sat up and blinked hard into the unfamiliar environment. A garden
of floral prints crowded the tiny room. A lavender bush motif on the curtains
crashed into daisies embroidered on scatter cushions thrown on a couch. On a
small table pushed up against the window stood a ceramic vase with a dozen
white roses in bloom.
    Last
night's lift home had turned into much more.
    The
black shadow of Jolly Marks's murder had made him reckless. The need to chase
life in order to outrun death was a soldier's response to fear and one that he
recognised from wartime Europe. Trouble was, he'd awakened in South Africa and
not