Present Darkness by Malla Nunn Read Free Book Online Page B

for the other thing.”
    “You’re giving me the night off?”
    “Just this once.”
    He blew out the candle and tore off his jacket and tie. Next came the leather holster holding his Webley revolver, which he laid on the side table with the butt angled for easy reach. Shirt and trousers followed. He slipped under the sheets. Davida turned onto her side again. Emmanuel placed a hand to the curve of her hip and felt the heat of her skin through the thin cotton of her nightdress. He breathed in her scent, the faint trace of rosewater in her hair. There was no place for the two of them outside of this little hut. He didn’t care. Not tonight and maybe not ever.
    Still, he had to be careful. If Mason or the other police found out he’d leaked news of the investigation to a black friend and then come home to a coloured woman’s bed, they’d destroy him. The boys from Vice would tear down the delicate web of hope and lies that held his life together and they’d enjoy it. Davida and Rebekah would suffer.
    Be careful. The words reverberated in Emmanuel’s head until he was unsure if the warning was one meant for him or for Lieutenant Walter Mason, telling him and his questions to stay away from this hut and from his girls.
    *
    Sunlight burned through a high window, heating a corner of the bare concrete floor. The girl crawled into the sunspot and lifted her face to the rays. Her skin warmed. The ache in her bones eased. From outside the window came the low hum of cicadas and the lonesome creak of a windmill. The air smelled of dust and of fruit rotting on the ground. She was in the country and far off the tarred main road leading back to Jo’burg. She listened for dogs and heard none. Their absence was strange. Cities had cars and farms had dogs. But the big man was no farmer. No, he was city bred with smooth, uncalloused skin.
    She glanced around, taking in her prison. She had an army cot with a lumpy sisal mattress covered by a scratchy grey blanket and a wooden ablution bucket. A stained and tatty pillow was the one compensation to comfort. This was no room for living, just the opposite. The hairs on her arms prickled at the thought. The long drive from a dirt alleyway in the city to a slab floor in an isolated farmhouse might be the last journey she ever made.
    A guinea fowl’s incessant chirp reached her from the outside. Then, far off in the distance, she heard the throttle of a car engine travelling the rough dirt track to the house. Pain made her memories unreliable. The feel of her fingers gripping the locked door handle to the room came back to her.
    The big man and his friend had a fight. She remembered that even through the pain. After the snap of breaking furniture and a string of dirty words, they’d left the house and slammed the door shut. How long ago had that been? The stars were out and the moonlight fading. She’d tried to get out of the cell before eventually curling onto the mattress: to sleep and to heal and forget. Time blurred. Now the big man was on his way back.
    She stood and stretched for the window. It was too high to reach. Moving quickly, she pushed the cot across the floor to a space directly beneath the window. The mattress was uneven under her bare feet. Another long reach and her fingertips touched curling paint and the edge of a metal shape. The lock. It had to be. She perched on tiptoes, straining to reach the mechanism. Not quite. Another half a foot and she’d get to the lock easily. An extra foot in height and she’d be able to open the window and climb out.
    The engine idled at the gates to the property. Three, four minutes and the nightmare would begin again. She jumped to the concrete floor, dry-mouthed and nimble. Both the cot and mattress had to be back against the wall before the big man returned. The sound of the car grew louder.
    She pushed hard and the metal legs of the cot scraped against the concrete. There’d be marks on the floor; each a tell-tale map of her escape