Read Online A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn - Free Book Online

his nerves.

    Lamplight flickered over a group of young women in mourning clothes who were gathered around a small blond woman in an oversize armchair. Her pale face, lined with grief, was all cheekbones and wide mouth. It was still possible to see vestiges of the young beauty who had married a hulking policeman and produced five sons to swell the ranks of the Voortrekker Scouts and the Dutch Reformed Church.
    “Who is this?” she asked. Emmanuel felt her blue eyes focus on him for the first time. “Who is this person?”
    “The detective,” Henrick explained from the doorway. The room was now a female space that he did not want to enter. “Detective Cooper has come from Jo’burg to lead the investigation. He’s going to help find out who did this to Pa.”
    Mrs. Pretorius sat forward like a sleepwalker awakened. “What are you doing here? You should be out there, arresting whoever did this evil thing.”
    “I need your help. I know it’s hard, but there are some things only you can tell me about your husband.”
    “Willem.” It was the first time the captain’s name had been spoken. “My Willem is gone…”
    The tiny woman howled in anguish, her body swaying back and forth like a marionette on broken strings. Emmanuel sat down, breathed deeply, and allowed himself to observe but not connect. Disconnection. That was the trickiest part of the job, the one in which he excelled.
    “Shhh. Ma. Shhh…” Louis slipped into the room and kneeled beside his mother. He kissed her on the cheek, and mother and son held on to each other for a long moment. There was a startling resemblance between the youngest Pretorius boy and the fragile woman who held him in her arms.
    Out of his grease-covered overalls, Louis was comfortable in the room full of women. He was blonder and finer boned than the sisters-in-law, buxom farm girls built to outlast famine on the veldt.
    Emmanuel glanced over at Henrick and caught a flicker of discomfort. How had the captain felt about the soft boy who bore no resemblance to the hard-edged Pretorius men?
    “It’s okay,” Louis whispered. “I’ll take care of you, Ma. I promise.”
    Emmanuel waited until mother and son loosened their grip on each other. The daughters-in-law murmured comforting words.
    “Mrs. Pretorius…” Emmanuel knew he was about to make himself unpopular. “May I talk to you alone? I have a few questions I need answered and it would be better if we had some privacy.”
    “Not Louis,” Mrs. Pretorius said. “Louis stays.”
    The daughters-in-law glared at him and walked out of the room to join the family groups congregated on the back stoep. He waited until the sound of their whispers faded, then said, “Mrs. Pretorius, when was the last time you saw your husband alive?”
    She held on to Louis’s hand. “Yesterday morning. We had breakfast together before he went to work.”
    “Did he say he was going anywhere unusual or meeting anyone in particular?”
    “No. He said he was going fishing after work and that he’d see me in the morning.”
    “You were normally asleep when he came home from fishing?”
    “Yes. Willem used the spare room so he wouldn’t disturb me.” She squeezed Louis’s hand tighter. “I had no idea he wasn’t home until Hansie came…”
    She began to cry and Henrick stepped into the room. Emmanuel held his hand up like a traffic policeman and Henrick stopped in his tracks.
    “Can you think of anyone who would do this to your husband, Mrs. Pretorius? Anything he told you would help.” Emmanuel kept his voice soft and urgent.
    “Come, Ma,” Louis said. “Tell the detective what you know.”
    The blond woman took a deep breath. When she looked up, her eyes were hard as uncut diamonds.
    “The old Jew,” she stated flatly. “Willem said he caught him hanging around the coloured area at night. He was up to some funny business.”
    “Did your husband catch him doing something?” That would explain Zweigman’s resentment.
    “No.