For the second time running, Kramer awoke startled and lashing out. He was being kneed in the groin.
“Hey, watch what you’re doing!” someone yelled.
He pulled the sheet off his face. A delighted boy of five was advancing up him on all fours.
“Good morning, Uncle Trompie,” the child said, grinning round at his mother who stood by the wardrobe.
“You nearly took poor Piet’s head off,” chided the Widow Fourie.
“I don’t mind, Ma,” Piet said generously.
And the noise brought his siblings scrambling into the room to bounce on their Uncle Trompie. They were all older and that much bonier, but Kramer would have willingly put up with it for longer than their mother.
“What’s all this?” she demanded. “Out you go and let your Ma dress in peace. She’ll be late for work in a minute.”
“How long is a minute, Uncle Trompie?” asked Marie, the eldest, who knew anyway.
“Out!” shouted Widow Fourie.
“Hold it,” said Kramer, sitting up and reaching for his cigarettes. He had bought them from a machine and there was some change slipped into the cellophane wrapping. He added it to what was in his trouser pocket.
“Yes?” Marie moved eagerly forward.
“If you can tell me how long a minute is, then all of you can have a fizzy drink down at the Greek shop, it’ll be open by now.”
“Sixty!”
“Seconds! Right first time-now you lot get out of here and don’t come back till you’re burping.”
The flat emptied like a greyhound trap.
“You spoil them, Trompie.”
“I spoil myself.”
Unwarily, the Widow Fourie had wandered too close in a search for her stockings. One hand was all Kramer needed for the wrist lock which brought her tumbling on top of him.
“Hey! You bloody police think you can do what you like!”
“Don’t you like it then?”
She giggled and nuzzled.
“I’ve been late twice through you.”
“I’ll give you a lift.”
“That’s lovely,” she said as she went under.
Lust was a many-splendoured thing, Kramer decided, as he watched the enchanting ritual of a full-bodied woman jigging her way back into a tight corset. Pure lust that was, none of your permissive society muck the Government banned from the news stands. He had seen a Playboy magazine once in the Vice Squad’s office and it left him thinking of dogs watering lamp-posts to excite other dogs they would never know. Filthy, degrading muck. But real lust-
“Isn’t it about time you started thinking about getting up?”
“Uhuh.”
“Just because you’re mad at the Colonel doesn’t mean I’ve got to be late for work, after all. Marie will have to give the kids their breakfasts as it is.”
“Uhuh.”
“Come on, Trompie, there’s a razor I use for my legs in the bathroom.”
With a groan, Kramer staggered out of bed and went through into the bathroom. The Widow Fourie threw his underpants in after him and was gratified to hear the sound of the wash-basin taps running. She hooked up her bra and looked around for her stockings again.
“Seen my nylons?” she called.
Kramer appeared in the doorway, scrubbing his chin with a bar of laundry soap in a final bid to get a good lather. He had his underpants over one shoulder.
“What colour are they?”
“Pink,” she answered, hurriedly pulling on her spare overall-she would never have time to change in the locker room at Woolworth’s.
“Pink,” Kramer repeated. “That’s not for stockings.”
“Fat lot you know. We’re all wearing them in haberdashery, the counter’s so high the customers can’t see.”
And then the thought struck him. Kramer dropped both soap and underwear in his rush across the room. The Widow Fourie glanced up irritably.
“Come on,” said Kramer. “Undo your buttons.”
“Keep your hands off me, they’re wet!” she protested. “Have you gone crazy, Trompie?”
“Undo them!”
She looked frightened, which he regretted, but the matter was too important to waste words.
“This must be how they see you,” she said softly as her fingers worked down the row of large white buttons on the plain blue uniform. “Please don’t do it again, that thing with your mouth.”
Kramer was not listening. He was intent on examining her undergarments as they appeared longitudinally in the gap. The low bra was a brilliant red, trimmed with a black lace frill with a dot sewn into it. The corset was scarlet with a bold pattern in deep crimson. The panties were an odd pair in poster green, cut very high at the hip and embroided on the more substantial areas with yellow roses.
The Widow Fourie was standing stiffly as if she expected to be touched where her flesh would crawl.
“Relax,” mumbled Kramer, finding a smile.
“I just wanted a look.”
“Oh, yes?”
She began rebuttoning. Her expression was grim and obviously her mind made up.
“I think we must have a talk in the car.”
“Tell me something: why do you wear those things? It’s very important.”
Now she was completely taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“Why such fancy stuff? Why not the ordinary white you see in the shop windows?”
“I dunno. I suppose it’s because I have to wear this uniform all day long.”
“Go on.”
Kramer scooped the stockings off the floor right at her feet and handed them over.
“Oh, ta. Well, all the assistants at Woolworth’s wear the same one and it’s a horrible blue. Drab, I call it.”
“Yes?”
“ Ach, work it out for yourself, man.”
“You tell me.”
“If you wear the bright undies you like then-even though no one can see them-you’re still different. That’s it: I put them on because they make me feel more the person I really am.”
Bull’s-eye.
The stocking on her left leg had got itself twisted. Kramer gave her his arm as she hopped over to sit on the bed while adjusting it.
“So what would you say about a dolly of twenty-two who is her own boss, can do what she likes, but goes around in drab frocks with a rainbow underneath?”
“I’d think there was still something forcing her to.”
“ Forcing her?”
“Of course. What woman wants to give the wrong impression of herself?”
“True.”
Flattered now by the rapt attention being paid to her every word, the Widow Fourie added: “What I say, and I’ve told the manager this umpteen times, I say that a little colour cannot hurt anybody.”
It seemed, however, that Miss Le Roux had feared it might. Hurt her very badly. And as she had been, it was something else to think about. But not now.
“I’ll shave at the office,” Kramer said, dragging on his clothes. He was dressed before the Widow Fourie had found her other shoe. He scrounged it from under the bed, slipped it on her foot, and said: “Okay, Cinderella, the Pumpkinmobile is downstairs waiting.”
She found herself laughing fondly as they reached the passage to the lift.
“You’re a nasty bit of work, Trompie Kramer,” the Widow Fourie said. “But come around again soon, hey? The kids like you.”
“Poor little bastards,” he chuckled-and ducked.
The way Mrs Perkins looked at Kramer when she opened her door made him uncomfortable. So did the dried lather which felt like localised rigor mortis.
“My Bob’s been up all night,” she said reproachfully. “I had no idea.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ll see he is looked after properly.”
“It’s not that. It’s his health. He isn’t very strong you know. Asthma.”
That figured. It also accounted for the yoga books.
“I’m sorry,” Kramer said again. “It’s just he was the only man who could do the job.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, your Bob’s a very clever bloke,” he confided, gaining his entrance and starting off down the corridor to the workroom.
“Lieutenant?”
“Yes?”
“Er-have you had breakfast?”
“Well…”
“You poor thing, you can’t have had a wink either-I’ll bring you an egg and some toast.”
Guilt was not Kramer’s favourite emotion. And he felt very bad when he opened the workroom door to find Bob on the floor in the lotus position, his eyes closed.
But the bulky lad was on his feet in an instant.
“Got it all ready for you, Lieutenant,” he said cheerfully. “Excuse the socks.”
“Good man. Anything interesting?”
“Very, very peculiar. I thought I had it and then I didn’t. Let me show you. You see I carefully spliced in some clean tape exactly the length of each burnt piece. This meant I could play it although there were silences in between.”
“Yes, that’s clear enough.”
“I’ll put it on then.”
The threading took a little longer than before, then sound came from the amplifier. It was piano music. A few bars. Silence. More music. Silence. The tune changed but remained very basic, real beginner’s stuff. Silence.
These continual interruptions worked on Kramer’s nerves. “How many more numbers like this?”
“They stay simple right to the end.”
“Which is?”
“The tape is an hour altogether.”
“Hell, somebody must have been keen.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I can’t bloody well concentrate with all these breaks in it, man. Sorry.”
“Nor could I-that’s why I made this other tape from it, leaving out all the joining pieces and bringing it into one. It’s still a bit of an ear-ache, but easier to follow.”
The reel was already in position on a second tape deck. Bob switched over to it.
Kramer listened for the first ninety seconds and then had enough.
“Okay, thanks Bob,” he said.
“I think you should listen to a bit more than that, Lieutenant.”
“No, I’ve heard what I want to. Is it double-track?”
“Yes, a few Christmas carols and endless Greensleeves.”
“That’s it then, isn’t it? Miss Le Roux was a music teacher and sometimes they use recorders to help their pupils to check their own playing. There were five mistakes just in that little bit.”
“And the way the rhythm stays virtually the same, too, whatever the tune. A heavy-handed amateur dee-da, dee-da, dee-da.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I’ll go along with you on that, Lieutenant-but only so far.”
“Why, man?”
“Because that’s what I thought until I’d let the tape run on a bit.”
Kramer pressed the on-switch himself.
“So?”
“Sssh, there’s one now.”
The playing suddenly stopped. There was silence. A prolonged silence just like those caused by the burnt sections. And then on again, from the same point on the score.
“We were getting our silences mixed up,” smiled Bob happily. “That silence was recorded. ”
Kramer frowned.
“So what? You heard the wrong note-they stopped and started again. It’s what would happen during a music lesson.”
“Then why don’t we hear the voices? Surely the teacher would have been saying something in that pause? It can’t have taken that long for the pupil just to go back one fingering.”
Which was true. And suddenly something began niggling in a corner of Kramer’s mind, but for the moment he could not recall what it was.
There was a knock at the door and Bob sprang up to allow in Mrs Perkins with a breakfast tray. The egg was wearing a balaclava helmet.
“Ta very much,” Kramer said, taking the tray on his knees, “very kind of you.”
“Has my Bob been a help then?”
“You’ve said it,” Kramer replied, the entire yolk in his mouth already.
“Not really, dear. All I’ve done is set the Lieutenant a real poser that I can’t begin to make head or tail of.”
Kramer started on the toast and Mrs Perkins stared at him with morbid fascination; he was not eating at all but refuelling like some voracious robot. The huge mug of black coffee could have been a half-pint of multi-grade from the way it went down.
“Joking apart,” Bob said, eager to distract his spouse, “does this get you any further?”
Kramer wiped his lips on the paper napkin so thoughtfully provided, swallowed a belch, and stood up.
“Yes, it does and I’m very grateful, man,” he said. “I haven’t had time to think about it properly but I’m certain it’ll help a lot. There’ll be a cheque coming your way as soon as I see the boss at ten.”
“It’s almost that now,” Mrs Perkins said.
“God!” Kramer exclaimed, forgetting himself. “Bob, I must be going.”
Colonel Du Plessis was scratching his backside at the window when Kramer burst in without knocking.
“Good morning, Lieutenant,” he said without turning round. “I have been waiting for a full report. You have it in writing, I hope?”
“The hell with that, I’m interested in printed reports.”
Colonel Du Plessis sidled over to his chair beneath the large portrait of the President. He held his hands to his small paunch and watched Kramer slyly out of the corner of his eyes.
“ Ach, don’t be so liverish, hey? It should be me this morning, my stomach is really in a terrible state.”
He was an old woman and no mistake. He had the face of one, the stature of one, and the voice of one. When he handed you a docket across his desk, you expected to find weak tea and scones balanced on it. Yet he had the reputation of being one of the meanest, toughest men on the force. This was due largely to an unpredictable rage as shocking as having grandmother come for you with her crochet hook.
And he had an old woman’s guile as well.
“The Brigadier was very pleased to hear I had put you in charge of this case.”
“In charge? Don’t make me laugh. I didn’t decide to bugger up the thing just to get your name in the paper.”
The Colonel tutted.
“Let me finish first, hey? The Brigadier said to me, he said: ‘That’s one of our best blokes, Japie, see you give him all the help he needs.’ In fact, he asked me to make a Press statement-knowing you were up against no-next-of-kin troubles.”
“Crap.”
That should have done it. That should have brought the bastard leaping over his blotter. Kramer had waited a long time to provoke him into a charge of striking a fellow officer; now he had the perfect excuse for his own behaviour, nothing happened. Like they said, the bitch was unpredictable.
“Please sit down, Lieutenant. Good. I’ve just been chatting to your little Bantu sergeant. He had a lot to tell me, all very interesting. A little worrying, too.”
So that was it. He now knew far more than Dr Strydom had managed to babble over the telephone. And if Zondi had done his job properly, the Colonel was browning his trousers at the thought of what the Brigadier would do if he got to know how seriously the Gazette story had affected the investigation. The Brigadier had plainly never said anything about the Press-he hated them.
“You’re worried, Colonel?” Kramer echoed innocently.
“Tell me, Lieutenant, how does a white girl, a teacher, get mixed up with kaffirs who use the spoke? I can’t see it happening.”
“Not Zulus either. Dr Strydom says he’s only seen it done on the Rand this way.”
“And Zondi says she’s been in Barnato Street for two years.”
Then Kramer had an inspiration: “Who says she had to be mixed up with kaffirs at all? These killers aren’t always in gangs-some work freelance. All you need is a contact and the right kind of money.”
It was not really an inspired thought-simply a repressed one, surfacing. Why his brain had sought to shield from it was obvious: it made him sick to the stomach.
“God in Heaven,” the Colonel whispered. “You mean some white fixed this one up?”
“I’m just guessing, but it makes better sense.”
“God in Heaven.”
They sat in silence. Kramer turned the idea over and over with a stick. It was ugly, it was revolting, it was unprecedented that a white murderer should get a black to do his dirty work. But it had a curious logic.
“Cost one hell of a packet,” the Colonel said at last. “If the killer came down from the Rand, you’d have to get him a forged pass or he might be picked up by the vans for vagrancy.”
Typically, he had chosen the point of least importance.
“Money’s nothing. Maybe he’s moved down here on his own and taken a job as a house boy. Things might have got too hot on the Rand, we’d better put through a Telex to Jo’burg and see if they have any leads.”
“I’ll see to that.”
“It’s the contact that is the trouble. A kaffir wouldn’t think of doing this job for a white unless he trusted him completely, knew him better than his own brother. But how? Where would they meet? Somebody would notice them together-the Special Branch are always on the look-out.”
“Maybe they could help us.”
“No, we’re not dealing with fools.”
“What about a middle man then? A black who fixes the deal independently?”
“The same goes for him. It could be a trap and he would be an accessory. Trust. Trust who?”
“What about this bloke Zondi says she was going to marry?”
“Oh, him. Yes, he’s our best bet so far-if he exists.”
“What do you mean?”
“Right now he’s just a medical theory, but I’ll look into it.”
“And Shoe Shoe?”
“Another theory, but it looks like we’ve moved out of his class. I’d better get round to the market square and call Zondi off.”
Kramer stood up and the Colonel accompanied him to the door.
On the way over, he said: “So you’ve found another excuse to have your Bantu pal along with you, hey?”
“It’s as much a Bantu case as white!” Kramer flared back.
“Easy, man, easy. I’m just pointing out that this trust you’re talking about can build up in certain situations, properly controlled of course.”
He should not have qualified his remark, now Kramer was no longer defensive but angry.
“Look, if you’re not happy with the way I work, then let’s go and sort this one out with the Brigadier.”
Beautifully done, a phantom toe-cap right in the old crone’s scrotum.
“Please, Lieutenant, there’s no need for that. Both of us know you-er, are best as a team. You missed my meaning.”
“So my work is all right?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“And I’m in charge of this case?”
“Completely in charge.”
“Right, then I don’t want any follow-ups in the Gazette, understand?”
“Should I tell them it was a false alarm?”
“Tell them if they print anything you’ll want to see the editor.”
“Fine, much better idea.”
“Also, I’m not writing a report on this case until it is finished and over.”
“You just get going, my boy, be your own boss. I’ve got a lot of interest in your success.”
“I bet you have,” said Kramer, closing the door behind him.
Shoe Shoe was still missing.
Zondi completed his ninth circuit of the City Hall and halted at the main entrance. The other beggars were about as usual, but he ignored them. He was going to ask his questions at the top.
So he crossed over De Wet Street and entered the courthouse gardens where the glimpse of a yellow Dodge drawing up at a side gate made him hasten towards a vantage point under A Court’s windows. But no one left the sedan as it was not yet one o’clock. Time to smoke a Texan.
At one the sun had passed its zenith and then the true afternoon began. As the shadow of the City Hall began to edge out over the pavement, the halt and maim left the civic portico and took up fresh positions. The spear of shade cast by the steepled clock tower switched sides and advanced on the other flank. At five it would slit into the General Post Office and people would pour out, cover the pavements, eddy into the gutters, and finally trickle away. But right now there was no rush. The heat was terrific.
And the yellow Dodge roared away down the Parade, leaving Gershwin Mkize to come lazily up the wide gravel path. The brown lawn on either side of him was so dry that the grasshoppers made tiny puffs of dust as they landed and took off. Their incessant movement contrasted strongly with the still forms of Bantu office messengers who lay sprawled during the lunch break with yesterday’s bread and yesterday’s papers. But it found an echo in the curious spring of Gershwin’s gait-which Kramer had once said was the result of going with a dirty woman. He certainly looked a type who would take on anything, with his thin lips, toffee-coloured skin and straightened hair.
Gershwin stopped and leaned against a palm tree. It was on a slight mound that enabled him to see over the traffic. The ringmaster had come to make his daily inspection.
Zondi remained where he was, about fifteen feet directly behind Gershwin, and smiled with satisfaction. It was always advisable to approach a man like Gershwin from the rear, whatever your motive. If it was hate, then, with his bodyguards waiting with the Dodge in the Market Square, your friends could lay odds. If it was just a few questions you wanted to ask, then men of his kind had no more sensitive area than the back-a slight touch there unsettled them, made them garrulous.
Gershwin began to show signs of irritation. His thumbnail worked on the bark of the palm tree, fidgeting the fibres away, and his two-tone shoe tapped smartly. Then out came the yellow handkerchief. He used it on his face like a powder puff before giving it a twist up each nostril. He snorted.
And snorted again, in surprise. Zondi had flicked the stub of his Texan so that it struck the sweat patch in the yellow suit between the shoulder blades. Before he could turn, Zondi was at his ear.
“What’s the trouble, is Arm Chop swallowing his pennies again?”
“Ah, Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi,” said Gershwin without a sideways glance. “Arm Chop he a good boy now, spend short time in lavatories. My thoughts are for this new fellow by the phone box. He not look too damn happy.”
It was part of Gershwin’s vanity that he would rather speak bad English than Zulu, his mother tongue.
“Why not?” Zondi’s tone was light, bantering. “His first week in the big city? I bet when you spoke to him about it, the wax turned to honey in his ears. Look here, you said, you’re not useless after all. Your brothers cannot come in to find work because they have no passes, but the police will not mind if you don’t have one-they leave your kind alone. All you have to do is show your legs to the Europeans and they will give you money that you can send home to your mother-and your brothers.”
“Too true,” agreed Gershwin, supremely amiable.
Zondi switched to Zulu: “But now he knows. He wants his brothers to carry him away. But they have no passes.”
“Later he will get more for his families,” Gershwin said, sticking to English. “I’m telling you this one took much petrol to find, he stays far in the mountains. Much, much petrol-much money.”
“Have a Texan.”
Gershwin nipped one from the packet and dropped it in his eagerness to whip out a flashy gas lighter.
“Hell no, have another,” said Zondi in English again, catching him by the shoulder as he bent to retrieve it. Gershwin nodded-then, noticing a quick movement, used his heel to grind the tobacco into the ground. A black urchin, who made his living by rolling smokes out of stubs, slunk back on to the court-house verandah.
Zondi made Gershwin take his light off a match. That was for the kid.
“But business stays good, does it, Gershwin? I see there are two other new ones besides the boy.”
Gershwin took care to exhale into Zondi’s face. He did not blink.
“So, so, Mr Zondi.”
“How many altogether?”
“Ten, maybe twelve.”
“And is Shoe Shoe still your Number One?”
“Number One topside.”
There was a slight hesitation before the affirmation of Shoe Shoe’s status.
“But he has not been living down at your place in Trichaard Street for nearly a month now.”
That was the way; play it down, play it cool.
“Silly fellow that, Shoe Shoe. I telling him it best place but he like to sleep in the market too much.”
“Why so?”
“He no like the other unfortunatelies. Say he different from them. Say he was not born to shame mother.”
“Who looks after him, then?”
“I pay boys.”
“With his rent money?”
“I must not be out of my pocket because he is funny chap, Mr Zondi.”
“That boy over there, is he one who helps?”
“Any boys. My driver finds them.”
“So Shoe Shoe just says he isn’t coming back to Trichaard Street one night?”
“I telling you.”
“Why so suddenly? He had been there four years-yes?”
Gershwin’s thumb-nail went to work on the bark again. He was digging quite a hole in it.
“That’s right,” he said, very bored.
“And suddenly last night he leaves the market, too. Without his barrow.”
“Ah, now I know your troubles, Mr Zondi! But nobody steal Shoe Shoe, you know. Police not to worry.”
Gershwin was grinning from one small ear to the other.
“No?”
“He fear a spell from the others, they jealous. He take taxi up mountains to look for witchdoctor.”
“When?”
“Saturday before yesterday.”
“By himself?”
“Shoe Shoe save much money-not one family to him, you see-but why pay for two?”
“Do you know which taxi?”
“Parrot taxi cheapest.”
He meant pirate-and knew no inquiry was ever likely to succeed in that direction.
“There’s a whole row of witchdoctors in Brandsma Street, Gershwin.”
“Those with shops no good; all same like white doctors. Shoe Shoe come back by-and-by.”
Gershwin’s grin had fixed, hooked back on his eye teeth. His disclosure was in no way absurd, it all tied together nicely. If anything could make a Zulu-even as handicapped as Shoe Shoe-head for the bush, it was the dread of having had a curse on him. Such spells could only be dealt with in a secret place.
It seemed that Gershwin held a winning hand. So Zondi played the Joker. He tipped his Texans out, so they showered down at his feet, and beckoned the scavenger over. Then he walked briskly away, turning once to enjoy the conflict on Gershwin’s face that finally lost him his composure. The kick was a second too late-the boy and the jackpot had disappeared into the shimmering air.