Free Present Darkness by Malla Nunn Page A

He exited the alley under orders. The pile of scrub cleared from around the Mercedes Benz had thinned: scooped up by women for use as kindling and floor sweepers. On impulse, Emmanuel broke off a leafy twig and shoved it into his jacket pocket. Shabalala would identify it at a glance when he arrived in town in a few hours.
    “I’ll take the first five street numbers,” he said to Dryer and Negus. “You two take the next ten houses between you.”
    They split up and moved out. A crowd of locals had gathered opposite the alley, each craning over the other to catch the police action. The native Constables from the Sophiatown station formed a human chain to keep the pedestrians off the road. Three scruffy boys with distended stomachs threw stones at a yellow tomcat on the next corner.
    Emmanuel talked to the ten inhabitants of the building adjoining the alley. From the buckled-over woman wearing men’s boots, to the smooth-skinned boy with a slick of chemically straightened hair, none of the residents had seen or heard anything unusual the night before. The pattern repeated itself: each house populated with deaf, blind and dumb residents, some of whom had trouble recalling their own names.
    Emmanuel had lied to the police and to welfare officers with impunity when he’d lived in Sophiatown. The police were just another armed gang. Talking to them upset the local gangs who, in reality, controlled the township streets. They too had weapons: knives, machetes and clubs.
    A whistle sounded once and then again. The crowd had doubled in size by the time Emmanuel reached the lane. Ragged children squatted in front of the adults, their size allowing them the best view. An arthritic woman, balancing on two canes, sold bags of greasy fat cakes to the spectators.
    Dryer leaned against the Mercedes’ bumper, grinning like an idiot. Mason, Negus and the undercover operations twins bunched in a semi-circle, gazing at an object cupped in Mason’s palm. Light refracting off the corrugated iron walls gave the alley a red hue.
    “What have you got?” Emmanuel asked.
    “Proof.”
    “Of what?”
    “Come see.” Mason held a lapel pin between pale fingers. “We found it under the driver’s seat.”
    A closer look revealed the pin to be a gold-plated badge with the word “Prefect” engraved under the Saint Bart’s school motto, “One in Christ”. Dryer pushed off the bumper, casting a shadow.
    “It belongs to Shabalala.” The Afrikaner detective’s fleshy face shone with sweat. “He must have lost it when he was driving the car last night.”
    “Are we sure it’s his?”
    “Shabalala is a prefect. He’s also the only Saint Bart’s boy without an alibi,” Mason said. “Cassie had it right. He was after the Mercedes.”
    Emmanuel reached out and gripped the badge. Metal bit into his skin. An anonymous tip-off, an intact car hidden in an alley and then this treasure, dropped like manna from police heaven, together forged an unbroken chain of events leading to Aaron Shabalala’s conviction. The last time he’d encountered this level of twenty-four carat gold bullshit was when an officer fresh from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst promised a quick victory on Sword Beach during the D-Day landing.
    “You’re disappointed.” Mason palmed the school pin and slipped it into an inner pocket for safekeeping. The Lieutenant’s face glowed in the rusty light.
    “Just stunned by our good fortune,” Emmanuel said. “I can’t recall a case coming together so fast.”
    “Lucky, hey?” Dryer accepted a cigarette and a match from Negus. The undercover guys also lit up, producing a fug of celebratory smoke. “My holiday cabin in Kosi Bay is paid up in advance. No refunds. The wife thought she’d have to drive the children there all by herself.”
    “I’m for Kruger Park,” Big Ears said. “Me, my son and two cases of Castle lager.”
    The comment roused laughter from the smokers. A love of holidays glued them together.