Skip to Main Content

Let the Dead Lie

An Emmanuel Cooper Mystery

About The Book

The second in a crime series set in 1950's South Africa when apartheid laws were first introduced, Detective Emmanuel Cooper now returns to face murder, passion, and corrupt South African politics.

Emmanuel Cooper’s life has an “ex” through it: ex-soldier, ex-detective sergeant, and ex-white man. He now works undercover surveillance on the seedy Durban docks to make a living, documenting police corruption for his old boss. All of that changes when he discovers the body of a brutally murdered young errand boy, forcing Emmanuel out of the shadows. He decides that he has no choice but to elude the police in order to conduct his own unofficial investigation.

But after two more identical murders, Emmanuel becomes the police department’s prime suspect. Finding the serial killer is even more urgent than before. He dives into the Durban underworld for answers and finds the murders are part of something bigger than he could have imagined, and is soon deep into the politics within South Africa. Under the pressure of new racial segregation laws Emmanuel must find the killer before the Durban police pin the crimes on him.

Full of suspense and an unraveling mystery, Nunn offers a glimpse into South African politics during the 1950s and living under the racial segregation laws enforced by the National Party.

Excerpt

1

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA, MAY 28, 1953

THE ENTRANCE TO the freight yards was a dark mouth crowded with rows of dirty boxcars and threads of silver track. A few white prostitutes orbited a weak streetlight. Indian and coloured working girls were tucked into the shadows, away from the passing trade and the police.

Emmanuel Cooper crossed Point Road and moved toward the yards. The prostitutes stared at him, and the boldest of them, a fat redhead with a molting fox fur slung around her shoulders, lifted a skirt to expose a thigh encased in black fishnet.

“Sweetheart,” she bellowed. “Are you buying or just window-shopping?”

Emmanuel slipped into the industrial maze. Did he look that desperate? Brine and coal dust blew off Durban Harbor and the lights of a docked cruise ship shone across the water. Stationary gantry cranes loomed over the avenue of boxcars and a bright half-moon lit the rocky ground. He moved to the center of the yards, tracing a now familiar path. He was tired, and not from the late hour. Trawling the docks after midnight was worse than being a foot policeman. They at least had a clearly defined mission: to enforce the law. His job was to witness a mind-numbing parade of petty violence, prostitution and thievery and do nothing.

He scrambled over a heavy coupling and settled into a space between two wagons. Soon, an ant trail of trucks would roll out of the yard, packed to the limit with whiskey and cut tobacco and boxes of eau de cologne. English, Afrikaner, foot police, detectives and railway police: the smuggling operation was a perfect example of how different branches of the force were able to cooperate and coordinate if they shared a common goal.

He flicked the surveillance notebook open. Four columns filled the faintly ruled paper: names, times, license plate numbers and descriptions of stolen goods. Until these cold nights in the freight yard he’d thought the wait for the Normandy landing was the pinnacle of boredom. The restlessness and the fear of the massed army, the bland food and the stink of the latrines: he’d weathered it all without complaint. The discomforts weren’t so different from what he’d experienced in the tin and concrete slum shacks his family had lived in on the outskirts of Jo’burg.

This surveillance of corrupt policemen lacked the moral certainty of D-day. What Major van Niekerk, his old boss from the Marshall Square Detective Branch, planned to do with the information in the notebook was unclear.

“Jesus. Oh, Jesus …” A groaned exhalation floated across the freight yards, faint on the breeze. Some of the cheaper sugar girls made use of the deserted boxcars come nightfall.

“Oh … no …” This time the male voice was loud and panicked.

The skin on Emmanuel’s neck prickled. The urge to investigate reared up, but he resisted. His job was to watch and record the activities of the smuggling ring, not rescue a drunken whaler lost in the freight yard. Do not get involved. Major van Niekerk had been very specific about that.

The faint hum of traffic along Point Road mingled with a wordless sobbing. Instinct pulled Emmanuel to the sound. He hesitated and then shoved the notepad into a pants pocket. Ten minutes to take a look and then he’d be back to record the truck license plate numbers. Twenty minutes at the outside. He pulled a silver torch from a pocket, switched it on and ran toward the warehouses built along the northeast boundary of the freight terminus.

The sobs faded and then became muffled. Possibly the result of a hand held over a mouth. Emmanuel stopped and tried to isolate the sound. The yards were huge, with miles of track running the length of the working harbor. Loose gravel moved underfoot and a cry came from ahead. Emmanuel turned the torch to high beam and picked up the pace. The world appeared in flashes. Ghostly rows of stationary freight cars, chains, redbrick walls covered in grime and a back lane littered with empty hessian sacks. Then a dark river of blood that formed a question mark in the dirt.

“No …”

Emmanuel swung the torch beam in the direction of the voice and caught two Indian men in the full glare of the light. Both were young, with dark, slicked-back hair that touched their shoulders. They wore white silk shirts and nearly identical suits made from silvery sharkskin material. One, a slim teenager with a tear-streaked face, was slumped against the back wall of the warehouse. The other, somewhere in his early twenties, sported an Errol Flynn mustache and a heavy brow contracted with menace. He hunched over the boy, with his hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.

“Do not move.” Emmanuel used his detective sergeant’s voice. He reached for his .38 standard Webley revolver and touched an empty space–like a war veteran fumbling for a phantom limb. The most dangerous weapon he had was a pen. No matter. The gun was backup.

“Run!” the older one screamed. “Go!”

The men ran in different directions and Emmanuel targeted the smaller of the two, who stumbled and pitched toward the ground. Emmanuel caught a sleeve and steadied the teenager against the wall.

“Run again and I’ll break your arm,” he said. A coupling clanked. The older one was still out there somewhere. Emmanuel rested shoulder to shoulder with the boy and waited.

“Parthiv.” The boy sniffled. “Don’t leave me.”

“Amal,” a voice called back. “Where are you?”

“Here. He got me.”

“What?”

“I’ve got Amal,” Emmanuel said. “You’d better come out and keep him company.”

The man emerged from the dark with a gangster swagger. A gold necklace complemented his silvery suit, and a filigree ring topped with a chunk of purple topaz weighed down his index finger.

“And just who the hell are you?” the skollie demanded.

Emmanuel relaxed. He’d put down thugs like this one on a daily basis back in Jo’burg. Back before the trouble in Jacob’s Rest.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper,” he said.

With the National Party now in control, the police had become the most powerful gang in South Africa. The air went out of the Indian’s hard-man act.

“Names,” Emmanuel said when the men were against the wall. He’d deal with the fact that he had no authority and no jurisdiction later.

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” the Indian Errol Flynn said. He looked tough and he talked tough but something about the flashy suit and the jewelry made him look a little … soft.

“Names,” Emmanuel repeated.

“Amal,” the youngster said quickly. “My name is Amal Dutta and that’s my brother, Parthiv Dutta.”

“Stay put,” Emmanuel instructed, and dipped the torchlight toward the ground. A bottle of lemonade lay on its side near the pool of blood. Then, in the shadows, Emmanuel made out the curled fingers of a child’s hand. They seemed almost to motion him closer. A white boy lay in the dirt, arms outstretched, skinny legs tangled together. His throat was sliced open from ear to ear like a second mouth.

Emmanuel recognized the victim: an English slum kid, around eleven years old, who picked a living among the boxcars and the whores. Jolly Marks. Who knew if that was his real name?

Starting at the tattered canvas shoes, Emmanuel searched upward over the body. Army-issue fatigues were rolled up at the cuffs and threadbare at the knees. A line of string was tied to the belt loop of the khaki pants and a smear of blood stained the waistband. Streaks of dirt fanned out across the boy’s gray shirt and gathered in the creases around his mouth. The search revealed the lack of something in every detail. The lack of money evident in Jolly’s shabby clothes. The lack of hygiene in the tangled hair and filthy nails. The lack of a parent who might stop a young boy from going out onto the Durban docks after dark.

Emmanuel focused the light on the stained waistband again. Jolly Marks always had a small notebook attached to the belt loop of the khaki pants, where he wrote orders for smokes and food. The string that held the book was still there, but the book itself was missing. That fact might be significant.

“Did either of you pick up a spiral notebook with a string attached?” he said.

“No,” the brothers answered simultaneously.

Emmanuel crouched next to the body. An inch from Jolly’s right hand was a rusty penknife with the small blade extended. Emmanuel had owned a similar knife at almost exactly the same age. Jolly had understood that bad things happened out here at night.

Emmanuel knew this boy, knew the details of his life without having to ask a single question. He’d grown up with boys like Jolly Marks. No, that was a lie. This was whom he’d grown up as. A dirty white boy. This could have been his fate: first on the streets of a Jo’burg slum and then on the battlefields in Europe. He had escaped and survived. Jolly would never have that chance. Emmanuel returned to the Indian men.

“Either one of you touch this boy?”

“Never.” Amal’s body shook with the denial. “Never, never ever.”

“You?” Emmanuel asked Parthiv.

“No. No ways. We were minding our own business and there he was.”

Nobody in the back lanes of the Durban port after midnight was minding his own business unless that business was illegal. There was, however, a big difference between stealing and murder, and the brothers’ sharkskin suits were pressed and clean. Emmanuel checked their hands, also clean. Jolly lay in a bloodbath, his neck cut with a single stroke: the work of an experienced butcher.

“Have either of you seen the boy before, maybe talked to him?”

“No,” Parthiv said, too quickly. “Don’t know him.”

“I wish I’d never seen him.” Amal’s voice broke on the words. “I wish I’d stayed at home.”

Emmanuel tilted the torch beam away from the teenager’s face. Violent death was shocking, but the violent death of a child was different; the effects sank deeper and lingered longer. Amal was only a few years older than Jolly and probably still a schoolboy.

“Sit down and rest against the wall,” Emmanuel said.

Amal sank to the ground and sucked breath in through an open mouth. A panic attack was in the cards. “Are you going to … to … arrest us, Detective?”

Emmanuel pulled a small flask from a jacket pocket and unscrewed the lid. He handed it to Amal, who pulled back.

“I don’t drink. My mother says it makes you stupid.”

“Make an exception for tonight,” Emmanuel said. “It’s mostly coffee anyway.”

The teenager took a slurp and coughed till fat tears spilled from his eyes. Parthiv gave a derisive snort, embarrassed by his younger brother’s inability to hold liquor. Emmanuel pocketed the flask and checked the narrow alley between the warehouse wall and the goods train.

He had a body in the open, no murder weapon and two witnesses who, in all probability, had stumbled onto the crime scene. This was a detective’s nightmare–but also a detective’s dream. The scene was all his. There were no foot police to trample evidence into the mud and no senior detectives jockeying for control of the investigation. Clumps of vegetation embedded in the gravel shuddered in a sudden breeze. Beyond Jolly’s body, the butt of a hand-rolled cigarette blew on the ground. Emmanuel picked it up and smelled it–vanilla and chocolate. It was a special blend of flavored tobacco.

“You smoke, Parthiv?” Emmanuel asked over his shoulder.

“Of course.”

“What brand?”

“Old Gold. They’re American.”

“I know them,” Emmanuel said. Half the Yank army had puffed their way across Europe on Old Gold and Camel. For a few years it seemed that the smell of freedom was American tobacco and corned beef. Old Gold was a mass-market cigarette imported into South Africa. The vanilla and chocolate tobacco was probably made to order.

“What about you, Amal … do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Not even a puff after school?”

“Only once. I didn’t like it. It hurt my lungs.”

Parthiv snorted again.

Emmanuel shone the beam on Jolly’s hands and face. Amal looked away. There were no defense wounds on the boy’s hands despite the open penknife. The killer had worked fast and with maximum efficiency. Maybe it was the night chill that made the murder read cold and dispassionate. The word professional came to Emmanuel’s mind.

This was hardly a description that fit either one of the Dutta boys. He played the torchlight over the rough ground again, looking for hard evidence. Jolly’s order book was nowhere near the body.

A coupling creaked in the darkness. Parthiv and Amal focused on an object in the gloom of the freight yard behind him. Emmanuel swiveled and a black hole opened up and swallowed him.

© 2010 Malla Nunn

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for Let the Dead Lie includes discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Malla Nunn. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book. 

Discussion Questions

1. Early in the novel, we learn that Emmanuel Cooper did not know his father, thus complicating the issue of his race. How does this affect Emmanuel throughout the story?  Discuss what it would mean to be reclassified from a privileged group to a racial minority.

2. In the novel, lower classes are associated with violence and crime, and subsequently distinguished as “nonwhite.” Is this indicative of the time and place? Does the depiction of race in the novel resonate with current issues?

3. In chapter 4, Emmanuel can tell by Parthiv’s body language that he is lying to him. When else does Emmanuel realize he has been lied to and how does this affect his actions?

4. It could be argued that the Flying Dutchman is the least corrupt character Emmanuel comes across during his investigation. Would you agree with this? Who do you feel is the most corrupt? 

5. What would happen if the United States issued a law where race or religious affiliation had to be placed on your identification card? Would it be allowed? What would you do?

6. In chapter 12, Miss Morgensen talks of feeling judged by Brother Jonah, even though he is physically not there. The author mentions the Christian belief of God seeing and judging all. Do other characters share this same belief? Are other religious beliefs expressed? If so, do they sway the choices the characters make?

7. Dr. Zwiegman and Shabalala put themselves in danger when they agree to help Emmanuel. Why do they do so? What are some of the other underlying themes of loyalty and trust among the various characters in the story? Of betrayal? 

8. Discuss the author’s decision to frame the book with the story of Emmanuel in Paris. What do you learn about loss? About Emmanuel?

9. The Dutta brothers play a significant role in the plot. Why does Emmanuel feel an obligation to protect Amal?

10. Lana explains to Emmanuel that she is waiting, saving up money, until she can leave Major van Niekerk and start anew. How do you believe Lana justifies her relationship with the major? How does Emmanuel’s opinion of Lana alter throughout the story and why?

11. Emmanuel shows few signs of weakness. The only glimpse into his psyche or hint of doubt is evidenced through the phantom staff sergeant. How does the phantom staff sergeant motivate Emmanuel’s choices and propel the story? 

12. Have you also read A Beautiful Place to Die, the first book in the Detective Emmanuel Cooper series? If so, how does Let the Dead Lie compare? In what ways have Emmanuel and the other recurring characters changed over the course of the two novels?

 

Enhance Your Book Club


1. Research a film that is set in South Africa and watch it with your book club. Discuss your reactions to the various cultural images, including scenery, cultural motifs and music. Suggestions include Invictus (2009), Catch a Fire (2006), Cry, the Beloved Country (1995), A Dry White Season (1989) and Goodbye Bafana (2007).

2. Find a recipe for South African bobotie to your liking, such as the one here, www.cookstr.com/recipes/south-african-bobotie, or another traditional dish, to make and enjoy at your book club discussion.

3. Apartheid was the system of racial separation that existed in South Africa until 1993, when Nelson Mandela was elected president. Learn more for discussion at www.apartheidmuseum.org.

 

A Conversation with Malla Nunn

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Family stories about “the old days” are a great inspiration and an amazing historical source from which to draw characters and events. Add photography books, novels, news stories and a vivid imagination, and that about sums it up!

 

What gave you the idea to write this particular story?

Both my parents lived in Durban in their youth, and I heard a lot of stories about that time and place. That gave me the setting. The actual story spun off a very clear mental image of a young boy lying in the dirt of a freight yard. Like Emmanuel, I just followed my nose and found out what happened to the boy and why.

 

What is the writing process like for you? Do you generally know the plot of the novel before you write it or does it unfold as you go along?

I’d love to know the plot from beginning to end before I start!  I generally write down fragments of the story as they come to me and then stitch it all together at various points. I do have a strong sense of specific events and conversations between characters before starting, and these mental scenes guide me into the world of the book. The word “organic” best describes my writing process.

 

Are any of your characters based on anyone in particular? Are there autobiographical elements to your work?

I draw bits and pieces from the people around me and from myself. I don’t believe that anything is entirely made up . . . it’s just rediscovered. For example, Emmanuel is an ex-soldier because many of my male ancestors were soldiers, and I remember meeting a few of the old men who’d lived through WWI and WWII. The novel is set near the harbor because my father was in the Merchant Marine and sailed out of Durban. I’m basically a story thief! I steal shamelessly from my parents, my relatives and my own childhood.

 

Lana mentions that she wants to move to another place when she has enough money, where no one knows her and she can start over. Is this a desire you have ever experienced yourself? Do you think it is human nature to want to find anonymity and start anew?

The desire to start again is an essential part of human nature. It’s important to be able to see a new future for yourself, your family and, in some cases, your country. My own personal history is very much driven by a desire to start fresh. My parents moved from Swaziland in southern Africa to Australia because they wanted to leave the past behind . . . to bury it forever. They didn’t want us branded by our race and told where to live, whom to marry and what job to hold. My parents’ choice changed our lives for the better. I’m a great believer in new beginnings.  I live in Sydney but dream of a living on a small farm with chickens and a vegetable patch and a huge, open sky . . . or maybe an apartment in New York? It’s great to dream.

 

How were you able to write the character of Emmanuel from such a gritty, masculine point of view? Do you prefer writing male or female characters?

I had to work to refine Emmanuel’s masculine voice, but getting to know Emmanuel has been a real pleasure. I love spending time with him. Emmanuel is much less of a “talker” than I am, so I have to really listen to him and try not to put words in his mouth. If that fails, my husband, Mark, is always on hand to alert me to “girly” moments in Emmanuel’s dialogue and his actions!

I don’t have a preference for writing male or female characters, because I wrestle equally with the development of both. I like strong, believable characters, no matter their race, sex or age.

 

You paint a multicultural picture of South Africa, drawing on various cultures including Indian, Afrikaner, Zulu, Russian, Jewish and Greek, to name just a few. Was it important for you to involve many different cultures in your story? Can you talk about the different communities and how you decided to include them in the plot?

The community I was born into was pretty mixed. We were even labeled “mixed race.” Because we were always the “in-between” people and because my family lived in the independent Kingdom of Swaziland, my relatives were drawn from different “tribes.” There was nothing cool or hip about belonging to a mixed community back then because we were always overshadowed by the belief that race mixing was somewhat shameful and dirty. My multicultural South Africa is a simple attempt to reclaim history. South Africa wasn’t just black or white: it was Indian and Italian and English and Zulu and Xhosa . . . to name a few.

Every one of the cultures included in my book was real and present in South Africa in the 1950s. Indians were (and still are) a huge part of life in Durban. They were brought out to work in the sugarcane fields of Natal by the British and many stayed on. Their influence on the culture has been immense. The British, the Zulus and the Afrikaners all shed blood in the fight for control of South Africa. These three “tribes” helped shape South Africa . . . for better and for worse.

Also, Durban is a port town. People come in and out on the tide. I used that fact to really mix things up a bit.

 

How were you able to understand the underbelly of the gangster and criminal world? Was this something you learned through experience, research or imagination?

I drew inspiration from old black-and-white photographs published in Drum magazine in the 1950s. The photos are gritty and urban and full of life. My father also told me stories about growing up in Durban that contradicted the sunny tourist postcard images. He knew Afrikaner boys who smoked weed and drank beer in darkened playgrounds . . . in the early 1940s. My mother talked about avoiding the botanic gardens at night because of the bad things that happened there. I just loved the contradiction between the rosy historical pictures and the underbelly of the city. Research and imagination did the rest.

 

You were born in South Africa. Did your own heritage factor into your desire to write a novel set in South Africa?  

I was born in Swaziland in southern Africa, but the cultural and economic shadow of white South Africa loomed large in my childhood and shaped my parents’ lives. We left southern Africa behind, but I still have the most vivid memories of my grandmother’s farm after the rain and of white-robed baptism services held in outdoor pools, of funerals and weddings and the dusty playing fields of the boarding school. I grew up in a very tight-knit community, and the place and the people have never left me. I write about South Africa because it is literally “in my blood.”

 

Emmanuel was given a “second chance” by the major. Have you ever been given such a second chance at something?

Absolutely. Three years ago I was a stay-at-home mom who worked part-time selling wine over the phone. I wanted to be a writer but felt I’d missed my chance. Today, I’m living a totally new life thanks to the fact that my husband, Mark, gave me the space and the time to write. My friends and family believed in me without seeing a word I’d written.  Their support gave me the courage to take a second chance after years of stumbling.

About The Author

Photo Credit:

Malla Nunn was born in Swaziland, South Africa, and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. She is a filmmaker with three award-winning films to her credit, as well as the author of the Emmanuel Cooper crime series, When the Ground Is Hard, and Sugar Town Queens.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Atria Books (April 20, 2010)
  • Length: 400 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781416586227

Browse Related Books

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images

More books from this author: Malla Nunn