A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn Page A

back at the police station later this afternoon.”
    Hansie was down and pushing his way through the crowd before the sentence was finished. The brunette was still on the church grounds when the most senior police official in Jacob’s Rest, eighteen-year-old Hansie Hepple, laid a hand on her shoulder.
    At least he feels something, Emmanuel thought. In a small crush of coloured people he caught sight of Anton, the level-headed mechanic who’d saved him from a beating. He motioned him over.
    “Elliot King,” he said after they’d exchanged greetings. “Can you tell me where he is without pointing him out?”
    Anton’s brown eyes flickered over the gathering with quick intelligence. “Under the tree to your left, paying his respects to the family. Fair haired, wearing a safari suit.”
    Emmanuel spotted him right off. He exuded the kind of casual ease that comes from sitting on a pot of family gold. The tailored khaki suit was a nice touch. It imparted a rural man-of-the-people charm without diminishing his superior status.
    “Money?”
    “Sugar mills and now game farms.”
    Elliot King proceeded down the line of family members, shaking hands as he went. The chill from the Pretorius men reversed the midday heat by a few degrees. Even Louis managed a look of disdain.
    “What’s up?” Emmanuel asked.
    “Captain Pretorius sold the old family farm to King a year or so ago. They think King cheated the captain on the price.”
    “Did he?”
    Anton shrugged. “Captain never complained about the money, only the sons.”
    “Anything come of it?”
    “Just a lot of hot air. Silly talk from the brothers about King being a swindler, but King is too big for them to mess with. The Pretorius boys don’t like it when they don’t get their way.”
    “You know what it’s like to be on the wrong side of them?”
    “Everyone in Jacob’s Rest has had a taste. I’m no different.”
    Emmanuel was about to ask for more details when two newcomers to the family group caught his attention. The men, crewcut commando types, were squeezed into the cheap cotton suits worn for court appearances and interrogation cell duties. Both were drawn from the “rough justice” section of the training manual. Neither appeared capable of playing the soft man, versed in worming confessions out of prisoners using empathy and skill. They were the Security Branch.
    “Friends of yours?” Anton asked.
    Emmanuel jumped off the mudguard and pulled Anton down after him. The crowd washed around them like a black sea, momentarily blotting out the presence of sharks in the water. Emmanuel took a deep breath. Two days. Just long enough to select personnel for the assignment, brief them, and arrange transport. The Security Branch had no intention of taking a backseat. They were in on the investigation from the start. “Taking an interest” was just the bullshit they’d thrown van Niekerk’s way to keep things calm while they marshaled their forces.
    “Don’t know them,” Emmanuel replied. “But I’ve got a feeling they’ll introduce themselves to all of us soon enough.”
    Anton swallowed. “Should I be worried, Detective?”
    “Are you a political man? Do you belong to the Communist Party or a union that disagrees with the National Party laws?”
    “No,” the coloured man replied quickly. “Can’t say I like what’s going on, but I’ve never done anything about it.”
    “Are all your identification papers in order?”
    “Far as I know.”
    “Then keep it that way,” Emmanuel said. “The Security Branch is here to look for political activists, and whatever the Security Branch looks for they find.”
    “So I’ve heard,” Anton answered quietly. If the Security Branch had the power to spook a white detective, what chance did a coloured man have?
    “You know how to play the game, Anton. Just keep playing it.”
    “You a strange man,” Anton said lightly. “What do you know about the game, anyway?”
    “I was born here. Everyone in