AFTER THE INSPECTOR LEFT I felt a deep uneasiness, unable to settle, waiting for further interruptions. At around five o’clock the phone rang and, as my hand went out to pick up the receiver, I was aware of a peculiar sensation – as if a storm was about to break, the smell of sulphur in the air. I’m not usually one for premonitions, but sure enough, the caller was Daniel, his voice panicky.
“Laura! The cops are here. They’re taking me in! Dhlomo wants to take me to the Loop Street police station. So I’m phoning you, but they may take my phone. Verne and Chantal are out – I need some help here.”
“What? Why are they taking you in?”
“They want to question me about the murder. Dhlomo seems to think I killed that guy. Please, Laura. Can you do something?”
Oh God. What on earth could I do? Why would they take Dan in? They couldn’t have any evidence, surely? I thought about lawyers, bail. There had to be something. “Okay, Dan. Hang in there. I’ll see what I can do. Loop Street?”
“That’s what he said. God – he’s coming.” Dan cut the connection. I felt sick. He could not be a killer. But the cops seemed to think they could tie him to Ndzoyiya. What the hell was I to do?
My brother is a lawyer, but in a big corporate kind of firm in Johannesburg. He wouldn’t be much help in trying to get bail in Pietermaritzburg for an impecunious Zimbabwean immigrant artist, accused of killing an elderly and seemingly respectable schoolteacher. Put like that, it wasn’t going to be easy to find anyone queuing up for the job.
Then I thought of Robin Watson. He is a lawyer in town who asked me out a couple of times not long after my divorce, or his. We got on fine, but there had been no spark, and while we’re still friends and occasionally help the other out when one of us is asked to something that would be more palatable with a partner, romance is not part of the deal. He had, however, been involved in all kinds of human rights and political cases in the old days, and still did various what he referred to as “public interest” cases. Even if Daniel’s problem wasn’t the kind of thing he dealt with, he could perhaps suggest someone who could help.
Time was important. Lawyers, like the rest of the world, would be knocking off around now. If we wanted to get Dan out, I had to move quickly.
I phoned Robin, and cut through the pleasantries. “Robin, I’m afraid I’ve got a problem, and I’m hoping you can help. I know it’s a cheek, but I need a lawyer fast.”
“What’s wrong – what have you done?”
“Not me. A friend. He’s been picked up by the cops … they seem to think he’s murdered someone. And Robin, he isn’t a killer. It’s all a horrible mistake. What can we do?”
“Slow down, Laura! Who’s he supposed to have killed? And where is he?”
I took a deep breath, and began to explain. It was a long story, and Robin kept stopping me, asking questions and, presumably, making notes. When I got to the end of my saga, I asked whether Dan would be granted bail.
“Well, it all sounds a bit thin, but if they charge him, murder’s a big one, a Schedule 6 offence. And you say he’s been in some trouble in Joburg, for some vigilante group? For sure, we wouldn’t get bail tonight if they do charge him. At least it’s only Tuesday: people who get picked up on Fridays have to sit in the cells until the following week – the cops have 48 hours to get them to court, but weekends don’t count. So he should be in court tomorrow or Thursday – possible Friday morning, depending on when they book him.”
“Oh God, poor Daniel. But Robin … can you do this? It’s a helluva thing to ask you. It’s not as if you even know him.”
“I know you and – most of the time at any rate – I’d trust your judgement. You believe he’s innocent?”
I’m ashamed to admit that when Robin asked me that, I had a hideous qualm. Can we ever really know anyone? Really know what makes them tick? Even my own children as they have grown up have become less predictable, less obvious, doing and saying things that seem to me to be out of character – or at least the character I think is theirs. They are no longer extensions of me, and they are often mysterious to me, despite our closeness. Someone who was a friend based on a shared interest but whose experience as a man who had had to leave his family, country and old life, and struggle with refugee status and poverty was so remote from my white, middle-class, safe, female background that he was inevitably a stranger in many ways. Despite this business of vigilantes, I couldn’t believe he would ever bludgeon a fellow human to death. Not Dan. He was way too gentle, too imaginative.
I tried to articulate some of this to Robin, but even down a phone line I could sense it was, to him, irrelevant. He began to get impatient.
“Okay, okay. Now, what’s Daniel’s status? Is he legal? Does he have a fixed home? And does he have an income? Those are the questions that will be asked in a bail hearing, if we can get one.”
“If! You mean he mightn’t even get a hearing?
“Laura – we’re talking a murder charge. We don’t know what the cops have got. It sounds pretty circumstantial to me, but they may have more evidence than you know about. Look, let me get off now. I’ll go down to the police station and try to see Daniel, explain you phoned me and offer my services. And I’ll see if I can talk to the investigating officer. Adam Pillay, you said? I know him. He’s a good cop, and a decent man – which, I’m afraid, does make it a bit strange if he’s arrested Daniel without more evidence than what you’ve told me about.”
“I told you. This Sergeant Dhlomo made the arrest. And I’m sure he’s got it in for Dan because he’s a foreigner. You hear about xenophobic cops all the time.”
“Well, okay … maybe. Anyway, I’ll see what I can do, and I’ll get back to you a.s.a.p. Hang in there.”
The sun had slipped behind the hills that give my house its backdrop – something I love about it and have loved from the moment I saw it, but do not intend to mention to Simon as we fight over swimming pools and safety – and the garden was in deep shadow as I pulled the studio door shut behind me. Grumpy came with me: he knew it was too late for a walk, but was ever hopeful I would open the gate and take off up the road. “Fat chance, mate. Remember yesterday’s walk,” I said, running my hand across his velvet head and sliding my fingers into the warm crease behind his ears. He gave a soft grunt of affection, and turned his head to lick me.
For the first time this year, there was a foretaste of winter. The breeze that carried the scent of some night-flowering plant from next door was cool and sharp. I stood by the old lemon tree where the green, rough-skinned fruit was beginning to shade to yellow. Later, they would turn almost orange and would be full of juice and pips. Grumpy would roll the windfalls down the slope of the lawn, playing endless, mindless games with them until they burst. I walked round the corner of the house, past the plumbago that mounded on the bank by the pool. Its blue flowers had a special intensity in the fading light, as if they had retained something of the sun even after it had left the rest of the garden.
I saw with a miserable jolt of reality into what had been a few moments of relative peace that dead leaves were beginning to dot the surface of the pool. I would have to do something about that, I supposed, instantly reminded of Simon’s phone call yesterday.
God, I hoped Robin could do something for Dan. And if bail was a possibility – surely it had to be – how much would it be, and where were we going to get money for it? I could put some up, but not much. I doubted if Dan had any: he never seemed to. Would Verne and Chantal be able to help? That reminded me. They had been out when Dan had called me to say he was being arrested. I had better try to get hold of them and let them know what was going on.