The Sunday Hangman (17 page)

“If you’d met Signor Vasari, you would be left in no doubt that it could well have ended their marriage. He was a man of such stern principle that I’m certain he was really to blame for his son’s delinquency, far too overbearing. Those two daughters they later adopted must be leading a devil of a life among all the temptations of Europe. Ironically, he also loved that boy deeply—perhaps he wished too much of him. It doesn’t take a mathematical mind to see that Anthony Michael was the blessing of their reunion, give or take a few weeks.”

“So the father never—”

“God knows, I did the best I could!” Anger uncurled in Colgate’s deep voice, and he rose, standing with his back to the
cold fireplace. “I’ll never understand what possessed Roberts! I’d only just agreed to take him under my wing with Vasari—who insisted I should do so—when I found out we were too late. That
wasn’t a murder
until that damned little renegade started lying!”

Kramer waited and then said, “So the father never got to hear about this man? She kept it to herself?”

“Wouldn’t you have done? Sorry about that—er—little outburst.”

“And she never actually saw him again?”

“As a matter of fact, I think she did. Yes, took the family to see him without the old man being any the wiser—which is how this chappie knew about the son, one presumes.”

“It was also in the papers. Did she tell you his name?”

“For my part,” Colgate answered him, frosting slightly, “I was satisfied that the ‘well-wisher’ had a most admirable reason for not intruding, and saw no reason to press the matter. The poor woman was distressed enough by having to entrust her secret to me—it ultimately destroyed her, you know. Ghastly business. And furthermore, I’d like to remind you, I was being paid in cash.”

Colgate always slipped them in at the end, using laughter like some kind of antacid.

Without letting his smile fade, Kramer pressed harder. “No idea of his occupation?”

“None. Came originally from farming stock; that’s the best I can do, but that’s true of so many Italians. Your questions are beginning to interest—”

“Did she say—imply, even—when this get-together took place?”

“A ‘chance’ encounter on the beach seems most likely, wouldn’t you say?”

“What about at Witklip?” suggested Kramer.

And saw Mr. Cecil Colgate, S.C., M.A. (Cantab), slap, a hand to his forehead in a courtroom gesture of sudden, very decided comprehension.

“Witklip was where Vasari wanted to be buried, old son,” Kramer disclosed some thirty minutes later.

The Chevrolet was wending its own way to Kwela Village; he and Zondi had just lit their last cigarettes of the day, and the smoke was tasting stale and unpleasant.

“Hau, boss! Everything goes click.”

“A lot does—or seems to,” said Kramer, “but we shouldn’t try to generalize. Keeping what I’ve found out just to Ringo, let me fill you in on the rest of what old Colgate had to say first.”

“Yebo?”

“Witklip came up in conversation just the once, directly after sentence of death had been passed. Colgate had gone down to the cell to shake hands and say an appeal would be useless. The kid took it calmly, like they often do, and Colgate asked him if there was any request he’d like to make. Vasari wanted to know if it would be possible for his burial to be at Witklip.”

Zondi clucked his tongue.

“Ja, it put him in a hell of a position. He hadn’t any means of knowing whether the Commissioner of Prisons would be giving the body back, nor did he know what sort of funeral might be permitted. He asked if there was some special reason, not having ever heard of the place himself. Not really, Vasari said; it was just a place he’d always liked. A long time before, when he was still a kid, he and his folks had stayed there with an uncle over a long weekend. He’d gone horseback riding and swimming, and there’d been a party at the farm one night. But best of all he’d liked walking in the veld and being so far away from people. The only other time he had been in the country was at Steenhuis Reformatory, and being there had made him talk about Witklip until his pals teased him. In the
end, if anything went wrong for one of them, the catch phrase was: ‘
Ach
, it’ll be okay when we get to Witklip—hey, Vasari?’ He talked a lot in the cell, making jokes like that, but Colgate could see it meant something to him. Then they took him away to catch the train.”

“No church there, boss.”

“Aikona—no bloody graveyard either. Colgate found that much out and never mentioned it to anyone.”

The rutted dirt of Kwela Village juddered beneath them, breaking off the long ash on Zondi’s Lucky. He took a hand off the wheel to dust himself off and stub out the rest. Then he gave a long, low whistle and said: “Are you thinking what I am thinking, boss? About this uncle?”

“Could be. He’s a bloke who must definitely have felt very bitter over what happened.”

“Had he not provided money for Advocate Colgate, then—”

“He’d never think like that, Mickey!” objected Kramer, having not allowed himself the thought either. “Or at least, God help him if he did! No, he couldn’t have, man; he stayed too far in the background to know exactly what went on.”

“Then what, boss?”

“Something simpler. He evened up the score and the hell with the legal niceties. Paid his debt in full.”

“Ah, the spirit of the law!” said Zondi, drawing up at the end of the pathway to his house and stepping out. “Thanks for the lift, Lieutenant.”

“See you. We make an early start, hey?”

“For Witklip?”

“Where else? Let’s just hope Sergeant Jonkers and that dozy constable of his are getting a good night’s rest! With any luck, we should really have their work cut out for them tomorrow.”

But it was already tomorrow, so without further ado the Chevrolet moved on.

C
ONSTABLE
W
ILLIE
B
OSHOFF
, once known to his tormentors at the police college as Elvis, reined in under the great white rock above Witklip and wished he could believe that Friday was going to be exciting and drastically different.

His shoulders slumped. There had been a time, of course, a couple of years back when he was only seventeen, when all he had asked of life was a horse and a gun. A time when he would leap into his saddle and gallop off at the slightest excuse, even if it was only a Bantu female reporting attempted rape at a beer party. These sorties into the reserve had seldom come to anything—inevitably the party would have been disbanded before his arrival on the scene—but it had been showing a police presence that mattered, and the Bantu had appreciated this. On about as many occasions, they had tried to force roasted mealies and other small gifts on him, and, to a man, they had always praised his fine horsemanship. The bugger of it was, however, that every time Willie had gone off like this, in one direction, then something far more serious would have to happen in another direction, and he’d return to find Sergeant Jonkers climbing the wall of the charge office. And so, except for his early-morning exercise, Willie had cut right down on horse-riding, and had been bored almost to tears by a coincidental drop in the crime rate during the weekends he was on duty.

“Bastard,” he muttered, having reminded himself that Jonkers had suddenly fixed up an extra-long weekend off, starting the night before. “Lazy, selfish bloody bastard. What’s he want in Durban?”

The horse clopped forward a few paces, nibbling neatly on the new stalks of grass that stuck out of the burned stubble like green knitting needles. Its warm rub against his inner thighs had a pleasant yet aggravating effect.

That was another thing: after fiddling almost every weekend for himself, Jonkers still expected Willie to create some form of love life in the nearest town, fifty kilometers away. Very funny, if not hilarious. Brandspruit’s only bioscope wasn’t even a building, but a battered 16mm projector owned by the chemist and set up for viewing on Saturday nights in the meeting hall; the bars were—like every bar in the country—for men only, yet neither hotel had ever heard of a ladies’ lounge; and the nearest thing to a milk bar was run for and by bloody coolies. Overrun, you might say, if the matter weren’t so serious. Because if you didn’t own a car, this left you with nowhere to sit with a shy young girl, let alone sweep her off her feet, from Monday to Friday.

Willie sighed.

He knew damn well he was just making excuses. His landlord, Mr. Haagner, the Witklip butcher, had offered him the use of the van any evening he liked. And the lads stationed at Brandspruit had promised him a little goose any night he had to stop over for a court hearing. Even if he was pressed for time, they said, there was a red-haired nympho in the Bantu Affairs office who made short work of anyone in uniform. It was, in fact, just this sort of talk, which excited him and scared him all at the same time, that kept him well away from town except on urgent business. As to why this was, he still wasn’t sure.

With a harumph, the horse raised its head and listened, tipping forward its ears.

Willie looked across the valley to where the road from the south came through a notch in the far ridge; all he saw was a plume of dust left by some vehicle that had already dropped out of sight behind a fold of barren hillside. Then, almost stealthily, he allowed his eyes to sink to the farm that lay almost below that point, and he felt his loins leap. To think that she’d still be in bed, for it was not even eight yet, and that, in a perfect world, he could be in bed with her, coaxing a new awareness. Bringing her slowly, gently into the new day, urging her with small, exquisite thrusts of his body; while in each hand, cupped from behind, those sweet marshmallow breasts would be stirring. Then she would laugh, break free, and come back at him her way, shameless and inquisitive and eager, so hard here, there so soft.…

“Hey,” said Willie, checking himself with a chuckle, and being sure to banish the dangerous fantasy completely.

He clapped the horse on the shoulder and ruffled its mane. His mood had perked up suddenly, and the prospect of a whole weekend without Sergeant Jonkers hovering in the background, over at the hotel, took on a different look. He might even drop in on Ferreira himself for a change—or better still, attend the weekly barbecue, leaving Luthuli to give him a bell if there was trouble. Without Ma Jonkers getting her talc all over you every time she asked for a dance, and without his lordship making you grill his chops for him, a bloke could probably have a very nice time. And if Tommy the merc had returned, there might well be a chance of hearing his gruesome stories at first hand for once.

Again the horse harumphed.

Without his being particularly aware of it, Willie’s gaze had been following a car far below him; a car that had approached swiftly from the south, and was about to enter the last coils of the dirt road into Witklip.

Away in a corner of his mind, he now recognized the vehicle as the orange Chevrolet belonging to the tough CID
lieutenant from Trekkersburg; the one whose boy had a limp, yet could strike at a fleeing chicken thief like a bloody black mamba. In an adjacent corner of his mind, he realized that, as acting station commander, he’d better giddy-up and get down there.

But Willie Boshoff just sat and stared, preoccupied by an idle fancy born of height and distance. Like a spark eating up a fuse, the glimmer of the car was turning the road behind it into billowing dust, into powder smoke, as it advanced through each twist and turn, hastening for the wattle-dark village.

“I’ve seen the Lone Ranger,” said Kramer, “but where the hell is his boss?”

Startled by this sudden inquiry, which had been made without warning or preamble, Bantu Constable Goodluck Luthuli placed his eye to the star-shaped hole in the privy door and peered out at him.

“
Hau!
” said Luthuli.

“Well?” Kramer demanded. “You’ve seen me before, so out with it! I haven’t got all bloody day! Christ, now where has this one got to?”

The eye had vanished.

“Luthuli is saluting the officer, sir,” translated Zondi, after some mumbled Zulu from within. “At attention.”

For an instant, Kramer’s high hopes for the day sagged, then he managed to say quite calmly: “For God’s sake tell him I salute him back—and to stand at ease as quickly as possible. Plus, repeat my question.”

Zondi did that.

“He not here, suh,” Luthuli replied in kitchen English. “He go last night on holiday all time to Tuesday next week.”

“The sod!” Kramer snapped.

And the eye, which had returned to the hole, gave a little twinkle.

“Maybe it will be easier like this,” murmured Zondi, showing more tact in his use of Afrikaans than in his suggestion. “Remember what you said about the red herrings last time.”

“Rubbish! I want a few facts on the locals for a quick elimination job, and I reckon he’d have known them off pat. I wonder who he cleared this leave with?”

“We have not informed headquarters of our—”

“Look, man—stop being so bloody reasonable, okay?”

Kramer started back up the path through the weeds to the station house, walking with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. The sudden departure of the Jonkers couple sounded very like the consequence of a domestic crisis, and he had only himself to thank for that—however, as Zondi said, it wasn’t all that much of a catastrophe, and the day was still young. A comic thought dashed through his mind.

“Who are you smiling at, boss?” asked Zondi, catching up.

“Me,” said Kramer. “Has it occurred to you that Sarge Jonkers might have really got the wind up after our little conversation? That he might be part of all this?”

“Of course.”

They laughed and walked on.

“What shall I do this morning, boss? You will be working in the office, not so?”

“What you like, Mickey. Catch up on some sleep.”

“You will give me a shout?”

“I shouldn’t think it’d be before lunchtime.”

“Okay.”

Tossing him the car keys, Kramer turned and went indoors. It was the work of a minute to sweep everything irrelevant off the office desk into one of the drawers, and another ten seconds saw the cat in the Out tray on its way. In the same time again, he had put a call through to Trekkersburg.