Free The Water Man's Daughter by Emma Ruby-Sachs

Zembe, in unison still. The wallsof the store, already close and buckling, feel as if they are pressing in. The fat man’s face goes slack.
    “I can’t help you.” The man sits down.
    “Then no radio, no report.”
    “The 28s don’t operate here much, and when they do, it’s mostly through their runners. We don’t deal with them. We don’t even know who they are. The drivers don’t mess with the Numbers. No one does.”
    “You won’t help me?”
    “It’s not possible, Mama Afrika. Not possible.”
    Zembe turns away and steps on another crunching shell. The three background players resume their banter, but in whispers. The fat man follows Zembe out of the building.
    “Will you send out the report?” he asks.
    “Why should I?”
    “It has helped in the past to have us on your side.”
    “I need something more from you than pesky phone calls if we are going to cooperate.”
    “Ask me something I can deliver on next time.”
    “Yes, well, I’ll look forward to that.”
    O N T HURSDAY , Z EMBE HEARS FROM D ADOO AGAIN . The water company’s secretary asks her to hold and then his voice crackles through the old phone’s earpiece.
    “You were supposed to update me, but I’ve heard nothing.”
    Zembe responds too quickly. “There’s nothing you need to know.”
    “I trust that any updates will be faxed directly to my office.”
    “Of course.”
    “There is something I would like to speak to you about. I called the national supervisor, a Mr. Sipho Thizwe, about this, but he hasn’t returned my call.”
    “Yes?”
    “Mr. Matthews has a daughter. She is insisting on travelling to Johannesburg.”
    “Coming here?”
    “I’m sure she won’t be a significant inconvenience, but as you can imagine, we don’t have the time or manpower to deal with her vacation on top of the fallout from this … er … incident.”
    Zembe has half a mind to ask him why she should care about a girl’s pilgrimage to see the place where her father died.
    After a brief pause, Dadoo continues, “It would be a great help, to me and the company, if your office could supervise her trip.”
    “Pardon me?”
    “I have already booked the hotel. All that is needed is an escort and a schedule of events. Some of those I can handle, like a tour of the company and the sites where Mr. Matthews worked, but we must make her feel as comfortable as possible while she is here. The project is already suffering from too much bad press. An unhappy family member would not help matters.”
    “Mr. Dadoo, you can’t seriously expect my township station to play tour guide for some white kid?”
    “That is precisely what I am asking.”
    “Can’t be done. Sorry.”
    “That is disappointing. I will have to call the SAPS national director and tell him of our quandary. He is a member of our board, you see, so the girl’s happiness directly affects his own financial well-being.”
    Zembe pauses, takes a deep breath. “Fax me her itinerary. I’ll figure something out.”
    “That is most kind of you, Ms. Afrika.”
    She hangs up and takes a moment to think about how Dadoo has manipulated her. On top of the difficulties of this investigation, she now has to find a tour guide. Someone she can trust to keep the kid out of the way.
    There is a small knock at the door and before she can answer Tosh sticks his head in.
    “This fax just came for you.”
    That was fast. Dadoo must have been desperate to get the girl off his hands.
    “And Commissioner Thizwe called again. He seems agitated.”
    Zembe takes the fax from Tosh’s slim hands and glances at the grey type. She finds information about the girl and her arrival date; there is no time to get money together to hire someone. No money either, but that is beside the point. She needs someone she can control, who will do exactly what shesays. She moves quickly to her desk and picks up her bag.
    “I’ve got an errand to run. If Sipho calls, tell him his friends at the water company have