Over the years Kramer had taken down a great variety of formal statements. They had ranged from long, rambling allegations about neighbours’ dogs to short, pitiful admissions by parents who had failed to keep a proper eye on baby in his bath. More than once he had snatched his tiny cramped words from a dying breath.
This should have prepared him to function professionally under any circumstances but he abandoned the idea after the first ten pages. He just let Mrs Francis talk and jotted down what he could. His brain was bruised from doing somersaults, it needed a rest.
Not that he got it.
“We moved into a flat behind the Esplanade about a year after we got married,” Mrs Francis explained. “Palm Court it was called-one of those skyscraper things with sea sand all over the verandahs at the back. Always lots of children around, noisy but nice.
“Tessa was our first. She was a good baby even if she cried a lot at nights. Pat said ‘No more,’ what with him just working on the buses, you see. Leon-he happened to us, if you know what I mean, and somehow we still managed.
“Up till their teens, that was. Then they started wanting all sorts of things. It was Tessa, really. She had such a gift for music, we had to get her a piano. That’s when I started dressmaking to help with the extras.
“Well, Tessa went from strength to strength with her playing. Her teacher, a Mrs Clarke, came up to me in town one day and said it was time our Tessa got herself another teacher.
“I was shocked. I asked, why on earth? What had Tessa done? This Mrs Clarke laughed and said, didn’t I know? Tessa had passed so many of her Royal College certificates she was now as well qualified as she was!”
“You mean she could teach music?” Kramer asked.
“Yes, that was it. Mrs Clarke, the dear old thing, had taken Tessa right up to where she was. She couldn’t take her further, could she? So anyway I told Tessa what had happened and she said the best person was some Belgian or other in the orchestra-municipal, I mean.
“The next day we went along to see him and he said all right if we could pay the fees. They were steep, I can tell you.
“Pat and I talked it over and we decided we must give her the opportunity. I would take in more work, sack the girl, and Pat would try for overtime.”
“And you did that?”
“Yes. Then Lenny-Leon-started to give us trouble.”
“Oh?”
“It wasn’t serious, not then. You see, he wanted to be a pilot but his maths were terrible. He asked his Dad if he could have extra lessons, and he said yes. Tessa was having them, wasn’t she?”
“Was he jealous of his sister?”
Mrs Francis hesitated.
“He said cruel things at times but brothers and sisters are like that.”
Kramer underlined the word “jealous” three times.
“Go on-what happened? Did he pass?”
“He never got the chance.”
“Why? What school was he at?”
“Durban High. But that’s got nothing to do with it. Pat got sick with all the long hours he was working and not getting the proper food either, he was in such a rush. I nagged at him until he went to Addington and the doctors there said it was TB.”
Mrs Francis stopped talking abruptly. Fearful that she would not carry on, Kramer broke off a carnation and handed it to her.
“Nice smell,” he said.
“Funny, that,” Mrs Francis murmured. “It was always carnations in the hospital-I suppose it was because of all those Indian kids selling them outside.
“What was I saying? Oh, yes. Well, Pat went in for what they call observation and the next thing I knew was they sent us a card saying he had been transferred to another hospital. I remember reading it and running in to our neighbours to ask if I could use the phone.”
“But why?”
“I thought there had been a mistake. I said to the girl at Addington that I wanted to know where my husband was. She asked for my name and then she was away from the phone for a long time. When she came back she asked if I hadn’t been sent a card. That’s why I was ringing, I said-the card said Pat had been sent to a native hospital.”
There was nowhere Kramer could look except straight at her.
“By this time my neighbour was getting all excited, she was right next to me you see, and she grabbed away the phone and started to give the girl a bit of her mind.
“All of a sudden she stopped talking. She went as white as a sheet and put the thing down. ‘What’s happened?’ I asked her. I was crying by then-I don’t know why. She started to cry, too. It was terrible, the two of us in the hall like that. Every time I asked her what they had said, she just shook her head.
“Then her man came home and he asked her. She said that-”
“Yes?”
Mrs Francis regained control of herself.
“While Pat was in hospital the doctors had noticed something. I don’t know what, I’ll never know. But what happened was that he had been reclassified Coloured.”
Kramer knew something of what she felt-it had happened to a school friend of his. Quite a bombshell. But laws were laws, so he put an official edge to his voice.
“You were later informed of this through the proper channels?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you go before the classification board?”
“Me and the children did. We were reclassified, too.”
“What about your husband?”
“He killed himself in the hospital with a rubber bandage.”
There was a perfunctory rap on the door and Farthing trotted in.
“Sorry to disturb,” he said, scooping up the flowers. “The old man’s back if you want to see him, Lieutenant.”
Kramer shook his head and waited for the silly bugger to get the hell out again.
“You know that neighbour?” Mrs Francis asked. “She never spoke to me again, she didn’t. We were Coloureds now.
“Oh, well, then we packed up our things and went out to live in Claremont. Everyone there was very nice to us except the usual one or two. I managed to keep on my old customers-I didn’t tell them, you see-and found some new ones.”
“But wasn’t there anything about this in the papers?”
“A little piece, months after, when there was the inquest on Pat. Not so you’d notice it.”
That would be right. The Press did not attend inquests but picked up their stories when the records were filed at the Attorney General’s office.
“And what about the children?”
She drew her fingertips hard down her cheeks.
“It was terrible. I did everything I could but it didn’t work.
“They had to leave their schools for a start. That didn’t matter so much to Tessa, she had her music, but Lenny had still a way to go.”
“They have schools in Claremont.”
“He wanted to be a pilot, though. Job reservation broke his spirit.”
This line did not ring true to Mrs Francis’s way of talking-or thinking. She was bitter but not political. It sounded very much like the sort of thing a Jew lawyer would say.
“Lenny got into trouble, did he?”
“How do you know that, sir?”
“Never you mind. Just tell me about it.”
“He stole from people on the beachfront-in a gang that would go down from Claremont. They didn’t catch the others, just him. I told the magistrate all about it and so did Mr Golder. That magistrate! He said he would be lenient but he sent Lenny to a reformatory.”
“Well, he could have been given cuts, too,” Kramer objected.
“Yes, sir, I suppose that’s true.”
“Of course it is. But what happened to Tessa meantime? Did she go on with her lessons?”
“That bloody Belgian really had me fooled!”
The sudden, totally unexpected profanity was a tonic for both of them. Mrs Francis even managed a smile which did not mean anything else. Kramer leaned forward.
“I suppose if it hadn’t been for him, then none of this would ever have happened.”
“Then I must know.”
She nodded.
“You will understand, sir, it is very difficult to say these things when your daughter…”
He waited.
“I went to this man and said that Tessa could not come any more because there was not enough money. He was very shocked, he said, that such a thing should happen. And then he said that he would give Tessa her lessons for nothing. I knew that like most foreigners he was a liberal but this seemed to be too much to ask. Then he told me it was his duty as a musician not to neglect a talent like Tessa’s. He even said there were things more important than money. I’ve thought about that often. Oh yes, more important to him, maybe.”
Kramer experienced an insight which made him cringe. Peculiarly uncomfortable. The old girl really had an odd effect on him.
“I see. How did you find out?”
“The Belgian’s wife told me. She said if it happened again she would report them both to the police. And she would, too, I know the type.”
“And so?”
“It was up to me, wasn’t it? I got Tessa alone that same night and came right out with it. You should have been there. It was terrible. She wasn’t my Tessa any more.”
“What did she say, Gladys?”
“I don’t know really. That she didn’t care-that nothing mattered any more. She would sleep with any man if it got her what she wanted. Her life was ruined, she could never have the nice things she had always hoped for. She cursed me for bearing her even.”
“That was nasty.”
“Do you know something, sir? That’s when I started to understand what she was saying. I had made Tessa, I made her with a weak heart. All this life she was talking about could stop at any time, the doctors had said so.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“Have you any children?”
Kramer shook his head.
“Then some other day you may understand. So when my neighbour made a joke about us trying for white, I suddenly saw here a chance for Tessa.”
“What did she think of the idea?”
“She jumped at it. She was more my girlie again and talked about all the nice things she would buy to put around her. I promised her that she need never fear me getting in touch with her or anything.”
“That must have been hard for you.”
“No. I thought it would give her what I owed her. It was my sacrifice.”
“What then?”
“Tessa just went. Two years ago. I didn’t ask her where.”
“And Lenny? What did he say to all this?”
“He was still in the reformatory at the time. I told him when he got back and he was angry. He said he would kill her for leaving me.”
That could have been awkward but Kramer said lightly: “So old Lenny has a temper, has he?”
“You’ve never heard the like of it! I don’t know where he gets it from either, my Pat was the quietest of men. But he loved his old mum, you see, and didn’t think it right what Tessa had done. Not until I told him about the other thing.”
“How did he take that?”
“For a long time he was as quiet as can be. Then he came to me in the kitchen and said perhaps it was best she had gone. There had been enough disgrace in the family.”
Kramer was stiff having sat for so long. He stood up and stretched and slumped down again with an encouraging smile.
“Better finish it now, Gladys. Now we’ve got so far. Tell me, how did you know that Theresa le Roux was your daughter?”
Mrs Francis smiled crookedly.
“Because I chose the name for her, sir. It was the one thing I asked of her. I wanted to know in case anything happened, in case she became famous.”
“And you read it in the Gazette? ”
“No, I don’t get a paper. It was Lenny who came round to tell me.”
“Had he left home then, too?”
“He wasn’t trying for white as well, if that’s what you think.”
“I don’t.”
“Lenny’s a good boy, sir. But he is a young man and it is right he should have his own place.”
“Of course.”
“Well, as I was saying, Lenny came round to me two days ago-Tuesday-and told me about the funeral notice. I asked him to drive me up here straight away so I could go to it, but he said no.”
“Why was that?”
“Because he said it could mean trouble for us if anyone found out. I said, what could the police do to us? But he said it was best not to, even if it was hard. I knew he was thinking of his job.”
“Oh? Where does he work?”
“I don’t know exactly-he’s never told me. You see, sir, I think he is a little ashamed of it; a Coloured person’s job somewhere. That’s why I never asked him straight out. He has his rights like his sis-must you hear all this?”
“Just tell me the rest quickly, Gladys.”
“Yes, sir. All right. Lenny said not to fret too much because he would make sure there were some flowers from me at the crematorium. He could leave them there without a card and nobody would know. He’s a good boy to his mother. Anyway, he left and I went by myself to the church where the nuns are.”
Kramer took the Press cutting out and put it on her lap.
“Did they show you this, too?”
She picked it up slowly.
“I haven’t seen Lenny again so far,” she said. “No, what happened was this. Yesterday morning I suddenly wanted to have the paper with the funeral thing in it. I wanted something I could see, if you understand.
“I asked in town where I could buy the Trekkersburg paper and they said at the station. My mind was in such a whirl, you see, that I didn’t think that the funeral was already over and there would be nothing in it. Then I noticed this.”
“It must have been quite a shock. Did you try to contact Lenny?”
“No, sir. He would never let me come here but I had to find out. Besides, I don’t know where he lives.”
So that was it. She had made another sacrifice, given him his privacy, too. Both the little bastards had abandoned her.
“Lenny is going to be really cross when he hears what’s happened now,” Mrs Francis added quietly.
Moosa had been pacing up and down his room for more than an hour. At least that was all Gogol could conclude from the heavy thumping sounds overhead. He stood behind his till and stared fascinated at the ceiling. It showed no movement but one of the neon strips had developed a stutter with the vibrations. Altogether it was quite extraordinary-the old devil was normally so lazy he kept a chamber pot in the wardrobe.
A customer slipped into the shop, a white youth in a T-shirt, jeans and expensive suede shoes. Gogol ignored him.
“I’d like these grapes, please.”
“One pound-two pounds?”
“One.”
He did not want grapes, Gogol knew that. Still, he might as well go through it-every little helped.
The grapes were dumped into the dirty scale-pan, weighed, tipped into a brown paper packet.
“Anything else, sir?”
The old ritual. Gogol realised the youth resented his look of disdain, but no doubt it was preferable to the recriminatory expression of a chemist’s assistant.
“Two, please.”
Gogol reached under the till, palmed a couple of packets of rubber prophylactics and popped them in with the grapes.
“One Rand fifty, sir.”
The youth paid without demur.
It amused Gogol to watch him head for his sleek sports car on the other side of Trichaard Street and make a mess of his take-off. They were always so nervous.
The thumpings had stopped.
Gogol turned from the shop window just in time to see Moosa, all dressed up to the nines, lifting a bag of peanuts from the spike. He must have come downstairs on tiptoe like the Phantom Avenger.
“Hold it!”
Gogol snapped his fingers and extended his right hand. To his immense surprise, Moosa put a Rand note into it.
“On account,” Moosa said airily. Then he walked to the shop-door and opened it.
“Where the hell you think you’re going?” Gogol asked.
“Out on a little business,” Moosa replied. “I’m going to see a man about a car.”
Of all the bloody cheek.
Kramer had one thing on his mind when he arrived back at his office with Mrs Francis: he was hungry. So ravenously hungry that the void had squeezed its way right up his gullet and was now fingering the little button that makes you retch. It reminded him of his childhood and that was intolerable.
As was the sight of Van Niekerk tidying up the remains of a late lunch eaten at the desk off a large white table napkin. The sergeant’s wife was obviously an excellent provider. In the centre of the cloth was a pint-size thermos flask with splashes of gravy on its wide rim. Around it were gathered a number of translucent plastic containers, very like those used for cultures, each containing a scrap of lettuce or some other organic residue.
“All you need now is a ruddy microscope and you’ll really be set up,” Kramer grunted.
“Pardon, sir?”
“This all you’ve got to do-eat?”
“It’s after two, sir. I’ve been busy and I’ve got something for you.”
“Not now. Where’s Zondi?”
“Oh, he’s back. Just fetching my coffee.”
“Right.”
Kramer turned to Mrs Francis, who had been doing her best to remain hidden from Van Niekerk behind his back.
“I’ll take you down to an office where you can be alone for a while,” he said. “The Bantu sergeant will bring you something to eat.”
He escorted her to a vacant interrogation room, switched on the light, and left her to her thoughts. None of which could have been too pleasant.
Zondi had taken care to slop a good deal of coffee into Van Niekerk’s saucer. And so he was standing, pokerfaced but happy, listening to the recipient’s plaintive grumblings when Kramer spotted him.
“Food!”
“Yes, boss?”
“Go round to the Greek’s tea-room and fetch me one big curry with double rice.”
He handed Zondi his change.
“And while you’re there, get a pie for yourself and the old woman.”
“Thank you, boss. Coffee, too?”
“I’m not drinking the muck from the canteen at this time of the day. Make it two pots of tea as well, hey?”
Van Niekerk watched Zondi’s exit with some satisfaction and then went on packing his lunch things away in an airline bag.
“You’ve been there?” Kramer asked, pointing to the sticker which read: NEW YORK.
“No, you buy them like this,” Van Niekerk explained.
“Uhuh.”
“Do you want to hear now what I’ve picked up, sir?”
“Okay, go ahead.”
Van Niekerk rose from behind the desk and gestured at his vacated chair.
“You’ll be needing it for your lunch,” he said.
Kramer murmured his thanks, and sat down.
Assured now that he had Kramer’s full attention, Van Niekerk flipped open his notebook.
“I did these calls in alphabetical order, sir, as I took them from the directory. The last one of all was to Messrs Webber and Swart in Buchan Street. I spoke to Mr Webber himself and he told me he had prescribed a pair of contact lenses such as I described.”
“Make them himself, did he?”
“No, sir, he sent to Germany for them.”
“I see. Go on. Did the girl buy them from him?”
“The customer gave her name as Phillips, sir-but we’re pretty sure she’s Miss Le Roux all right. You did tell me to stay in the office and not go out.”
“Fine. I can drop in later with a photo. But when was all this?”
“She took delivery of them three weeks ago.”
Kramer whistled softly.
“So recently? Did she give any reason for wanting them?”
“She said she was a model, blue eyes were better for business purposes or something. Webber saw nothing wrong in this because she looked like a model. Anyway, he was pleased to be asked to do something so different for a change. It took him quite a bit of time to find the name of the German firm.”
“I’m sure Mr Webber was only too happy to be of assistance,” Kramer said drily. “These dollies. Tell you what, ring him and get him to come round here-that’ll save some bother.”
“Okay, sir.”
Van Niekerk was on the telephone to Mr Webber when Zondi returned with the food.
“Take a cup of tea and a pie down to Room 18 and then come back here,” Kramer instructed him. “There’s something I want you to hear.”
And two minutes later he gave his subordinates a resume of the Francis interview.
The chubby little fellow in the doorway appeared so awed by his surroundings that he could not bring himself to knock. This gave Kramer time to mop up the last of the curry before finally pushing his plate aside.
“Come in,” he said.
“I’m Mr Webber,” the visitor announced, not moving an inch. For a man of about fifty he was being very childish, but the place had this effect on some of the better class of person.
“Just the man! I’m Lieutenant Kramer and this is my assistant, Sergeant Van Niekerk.”
“How do you do?”
“Take a chair, Mr Webber.”
The optician scuttled across, sat and glanced all about him.
“Not at all what I expected,” he volunteered. “So bare and so ordinary; like a waiting-room-not that you’ve had to wait long for me, mind! Ha ha.”
“The torture chamber’s next door,” Kramer said.
“Pardon?”
“Haven’t you ever been in a police station before, Mr Webber?”
“No, not CID-not in this country.”
Van Niekerk looked interested.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Reading, it’s a place in England.”
“Very nice, very nice-and you like it here? Are you going to take out your papers?”
“I’m a citizen already,” Mr Webber replied smugly.
And the momentary tension in the room was eclipsed.
“You’ve no idea what they say about this country at home,” Mr Webber hastened to explain. “The stories I’ve read in the Sunday papers.”
“Well, now you know, Mr Webber,” Kramer soothed. “And some day, when we’ve got time, I’ll tell you what I’d like to do with the people who write such rubbish without understanding our problems.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Lieutenant.”
Kramer looked away. God knows what trouble the Government was having with its immigration programme if this was what was being allowed in. No guts at all.
“Here’s the photograph, sir,” Van Niekerk said, holding out one of the head-and-shoulders. Kramer took it and wandered round to Mr Webber’s side.
“Is this the same girl?” he asked.
“Yes, it is-that’s Miss Phillips all right. I’d know her anywhere.”
“Certain?”
“Yes.”
But Mr Webber still took the photograph from Kramer’s hands for a closer inspection.
“How did she pay for the lenses?”
“Cash. I must say she looks rather odd in this.”
“She’s dead.”
“Good gracious.”
Now he seemed entirely reluctant to give up the photograph. Kramer turned to Van Niekerk.
“Have you got the other ones handy? I think Mr Webber would like to see one or two.”
Van Niekerk frowned. This was most irregular. Nevertheless he handed them over.
Mr Webber got to his feet for his treat and became the first man Kramer had ever seen go green.
“But-but she’s been ripped right up the middle!” he gasped. “Who could have done a terrible thing like that?”
“That’s what we intend to find out,” Kramer said.
Mr Webber made a very swift exit.
“Ah, well,” Kramer said, pouring another cup, “that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’d like to bet that only a bloody immigrant would have lapped up her story about modelling.”
“It sounds reasonable enough to me, sir.”
“Maybe.”
“How was she to know he was a redneck? Look at this list-she could have picked any one of them. They’re not all from overseas.”
“It’s just that I think this Tessa was no ordinary girl. She knew what she was doing. Picked her men.”
“Like who?”
“Like the doctor,” Zondi suggested. “You say so yourself, boss, he is not Number One.”
“But good enough for her purposes,” Kramer added. “How about that, Willie?”
The sergeant shrugged. It was a mere detail.
The outside telephone rang.
“For you,” Van Niekerk told Zondi.
The conversation was very one-sided. Zondi listened in silence apart from the occasional grunt and then put his hand over the mouthpiece.
“It’s Moosa,” he said. “I put him on to the Lesotho car lead this morning. He’s found out about it. Seems it’s used by one of the fellows who fetches Gershwin his cripples from the reserves. The Lesotho plates are just so as not to make anyone suspicious of seeing it out on the dirt roads.”
“Cross it off, Willie,” Kramer sighed, pushing the crime sheet over to him. “There’s one little theory down the drain.”
“But what shall I tell him, boss?”
“Moosa, is it? Hell. I hope you know what you’re doing, kaffir.”
Zondi grinned.
“He’s a new man, so he tells me. Don’t worry.”
“Then have him wait in his place. You can go and see him later with a picture.”
“Who of?”
“The brother, Lenny-now he worries me, and no mistake.”