The Sunday Hangman (18 page)

“Morning, Doc,” Kramer said, taking the telephone over to the barred window. “It’s Tromp here. I’m in Witklip, looking
for a gallows setup such as you started to describe the other day on the way back from Doringboom. Something about half-inch adjustments? A vertical space at least twenty feet high? Just give me all the details and procedure notes and have them Telex it up to Brandspruit. Thanks, hey? Bye.”

“I suppose you’d like specifications for the hangman as well?” Strydom asked caustically. “It wouldn’t be any trouble. Or are you coping all right in that direction?”

“I’m doing fine, only I’m in a bit of a hurry right now. Anything you can let me have will be much appreciated.” Kramer killed the line. “Luthuli!” he yelled.

The tiptoeing in the charge office became the businesslike clumping of size-twelve boots, there was a knock, and the door opened. It wasn’t Luthuli but a Bantu constable still in his teens, flat-featured and bright-looking.

“Mamabola, sir,” he said, introducing himself.

“Lieutenant Kramer, Trekkersburg CID. I’ve taken over while the sergeant is away. Understood?”

“I understand, sir,” Mamabola said in Afrikaans.

“Can you drive?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take the Land-Rover to Brandspruit and wait there for a Telex I’m expecting. I want that Telex before it arrives.”

Mamabola smiled, saluted, and withdrew in his size eights.

“Cheeky sod,” Kramer said, enjoying the joke. “And now for his lordship.”

But it was a little too early to catch Colonel Muller in his office. Kramer compromised by leaving a message to say where he was, and that he’d be calling back later in the day, with any luck. Then he heard a horse come clattering into the yard behind him.

It must have done that by itself, because its rider arrived at the office door almost simultaneously, tugging a trouser
crease out of his backside, and otherwise trying to assume the dignity of an acting station commander. The face was much as remembered, although the frown seemed more a matter of shortsightedness than personality, and the rest—with the exception of the strong, thick wrists—was nondescript.

“What do they call you?”

“Willie, sir. I mean—”

“Sit. Explain the absence of Sergeant Jonkers.”

“Um—well, it was his weekend off. He’s gone down to Durban—ja—because his mother or some relative was sick.”

“Do you know his address there?”

“He didn’t leave one, sir.”

Willie plainly didn’t believe the story he was giving any more than Kramer did, but there was nothing to be gained from dwelling on the matter. “Make me a list, commander, of the names of every farmer around Witklip, starting in the north.”

On the bank of a river about one kilometer south of Witklip, Zondi was giving Mr. Rat a nice long rest in the shade of some willow trees while he waited for the local girls to begin flirting with him. They were still at the giggle-and-peep stage, very conscious of the well-dressed stranger above them, yet wholly intent—or so they’d have the world believe—on the clothes they were washing in the silt-soupy water.

He had made the steep walk down from the village because he was after gossip, and this was where most gossiping was done. Then again, while his city bearing had an intimidating effect on male rustics, such as those to be found hanging about the general store, it invariably excited curiosity among their wives and daughters, making them very ready to strike up a conversation. And of course, as it always took time to win the confidence of strangers, Zondi liked to think that not a moment need be entirely wasted.

With unflagging pleasure, he watched the washing being slapped down on the flat rocks and rubbed so hard that breasts bounced and bracelets jingled. He laughed softly when someone knocked their packet of soap powder into the current and had to wade hastily after it; he clucked his tongue when a buxom maiden lost her footing, soaked herself through, and rose in a shift dress that had become skin tight and revealing.

“Have you no shame?” the others teased her.

“She would surely need no shame,” observed a coarse-faced woman, grinning up at him, “if all she desired was to be mounted by a lame dog—what do you say, stranger?”

“Hau, mother, that is true! But would not a dog prefer to mate with a bitch?”

Shrieks of delight followed as Zondi beckoned to the woman and patted the grass in front of him. Then the banter began, with the womenfolk speculating loudly and pessimistically on his worth as a lover, and, in return, being treated to the best repartee he could offer. The coarse-faced one enjoyed all this hugely, although she still managed to get through more work than any of the rest.

“Now, if I were seeking a wife,” Zondi hinted craftily, nodding at the clean washing she had been tossing up near him, “then I would wish to know your name, my mother.”

“My name you could have for nothing! But would you have enough cattle for ilobola? My husband gave my father twenty head of perfect stock for me!”

“And how long was it before he stole them back?”

Little by little, Zondi won her confidence, and when that was done, the rest of them felt free to join them under the willow trees. How they giggled.

“You are a wicked woman,” he whispered, giving Mama Coarse-face a nudge. “Can you not see how your lustful talk has put ideas into the minds of the young ones?”

“Is a fire to be blamed for what cooks in a pot?” she answered, nudging him back in matronly glee.

There was a pause. Toes wriggled, and river clay was poked from between them with stalks of grass; the rat also wriggled, annoyed by the elbow that had bumped against the leg. Zondi slipped a hand into his inside jacket pocket and felt for the picture of the white tramp.

“And now to a serious matter,” he said, pleased with the progress he was making.

Kramer was standing at the window of the station commander’s office, gripping the bars very tightly and trying to get an equally strong grip on his temper. After all, he’d not asked for much, simply a list of fanners, which any half-wit should have been able to provide in a twinkling, but Boshoff was still stuck on the seventh name thirty minutes later.

“This is too bloody much, man!” Kramer snapped, spinning round and thumping his fist down on the desk. “How long have you been here at Witklip? Since police college?”

“Twenty-six months and three weeks, sir,” replied the abject acting station commander.

“And you can’t do better than this? Christ, Witklip’s a place for getting away with murder, all right!”

Then Kramer realized how precise that count had been and, despite himself, he had to smile; obviously, Willie Boshoff wished that the duration of his stay had been a great deal shorter.

Encouraged by the smile, the youth said, “I just never get many jobs outside the reserve, Lieutenant. If a farmer has a complaint, then he sees Sarge at Spa-kling, or if he phones, then I’ve got to fetch Sarge to speak to him. They don’t really know me, you see—and someone has to look after the Bantu.”

“They don’t have Bantu on their farms? What else have they got to complain about?”

“Ach, what I mean is that I’ve never got on a personal level, if you understand, sir. Naturally, I raid the compounds from time to time, but nobody wants me to go banging on their front doors to tell them about it! They’re all friends of Sarge’s and so—”

“Hold it, Willie.”

“Well, he likes to do favors, sir.”

“Shut up.”

Kramer was searching for an alternative, and in no mood to have his shoulder wept upon.

“Favors? What about Ferreira? Don’t they all use his bar and come to the barbecue!”

“That’s brilliant, sir! He must know them at least as well as Sarge does. Shall I go and ask him to come?”

“No, Willie,” Kramer said patiently. “Unless you want to be in Witklip all your life, you will go and
tell
him to come.”

He began to root in the filing cabinet, just on the off chance of finding something interesting. What he did find was an accident report on Mr. and Mrs. P. W. J. Ferreira and their daughter-in-law, Mrs. P. E. Ferreira, who had all been fatally injured in a level-crossing collision near Brandspruit some six years back. The report gave their home address as
Rest Haven, formerly Happy Valley Hotel, Witklip
, and said that their son, Pieter Eugene Ferreira, had been at the wheel. No charge was going to be preferred, Jonkers had added in his own handwriting.

“Tea or coffee, sir?” asked Luthuli, hovering in the doorway.

“Coffee, I think—for three.”

“Tree? You want girl make rocky bun for visitor?”

Somebody, it seemed, had taught the man to regard himself as a bloody butler. “No, thanks. Plain coffee—that’s all.”

“Hau!”

“Three spoons of Nescafé, three cups—you’ve got the picture? Have yourself a quiet day.”

“Hau!” Luthuli exclaimed again, and disappeared mumbling.

Then Ferreira arrived with Willie, looking far less sloppy than he’d done the time before, and without those idiotic sunglasses. His smile lingered like the damp feel of his handshake.

“I’m told you want a list of everyone,” he said, taking the chair pointed out to him. “Is this some development regarding Tommy? Willie didn’t seem to know.”

Kramer saw no reason to start explaining anything at this stage either, and settled for what was immediately important. “I can tell you both this much, hey? I’m engaged in trying to trace where a certain woman and her young son stayed for a long weekend on a farm in this district about twenty-five years ago. That isn’t as impossible as it sounds, and when I get the answer, I’ll be a long way towards solving a serious case.”

“Of …? Please, sir,” said Willie.

“Call it suspected murder,” Kramer replied, being careful to keep within the framework he’d laid down for himself. “How many farmers do you reckon there are?”

Ferreira needed a second longer to function again. “Around two dozen. Taking those nearest, we’ve got Peter Crowe, George van der Heever, Gysbert Swanepoel, Karl de Brain, Mr. Jackson—”

“Write neatly,” ordered Kramer, sliding the sheet of foolscap across. “Full names, farm names, home language, approximate ages, any comments.”

The list was returned to him twenty minutes later.

“I wasn’t too sure what you meant about comments,” Ferreira admitted, having failed to make any. “Newcomers I’ve left out.”

“Thirty-two!” said Willie. “Phew!”

Kramer looked down the names with equanimity. Compared with some elimination jobs he’d done—like when one
of 1,400 black workers had stitched up a bullying foreman in a boot factory—this was a walkover. Of those thirty-two names, none was foreign, but he had been expecting that. Twenty-seven of them had Afrikaans as their home language, and the rest English; he’d been expecting that, too. The five English-speakers would be his prime target.

“Not that I see how you’ll pinpoint this bloke,” Ferreira murmured deferentially, having had time to think. “Not if he’s mixed up in any way—which I can’t imagine for a start. I mean, he’s not likely to say, ‘Oh, ja; I was the bloke who had them to stay.’ ”

“There was a party,” explained Kramer.

Willie waited, then said, “And, sir?”

“Ach, I’m relying on people who were at this party to remember those two. When they do that, then we’ll know who the host was—and take it from there. From these figures I would conclude that if one of the English-speakers gave a party, he’d have to have Afrikaners among his guests, too, to make up the numbers.”

“Jackson’s the only stuck-up redneck in the district,” said Ferreira. “The rest of us—man, you wouldn’t know the difference. Was this party specifically for these people?”

“I don’t reckon so. But—”

“Then you’ll excuse me saying, Lieutenant, that having folk for the weekend is quite common out in the country, and twenty-five years is a long time to forget one little party.”

“I was thinking the same,” said Willie.

“Not if she was tempted to do her party trick,” Kramer told them, a smile quirking his lips. “The lady concerned was an Italian
mamma mia
who could speak some Afrikaans. That should jog a few memories—or do you get them here pretty often?”

Ferreira grinned his defeat and sat back. “Okay, you win. The only wops we’ve ever had here could only speaka da English.”

“ ‘We’ve’?”

“You know, at the hotel when I was a kid.”

Perversely, Kramer’s mind skipped sideways to investigate why he had always presumed that the Ferreira family were late on the scene and hardly an established part of it. Then he recalled the farmhouse-like architecture of the hotel—which wasn’t an uncommon feature in itself, of course—and tried to reconcile this with the fact that the building wasn’t very old. You surely didn’t design something one way to convert it almost in the next breath.

“Spa-kling Waters,” Willie said helpfully, in response to the uncomprehending silence.

“No, not then,” Ferreira contradicted him. “It was still Tobruk Guest Farm; my dad called it that when he made a mess of trying to be a farmer after the war. He’d dreamed too much in the desert.”

An unlucky family, mused Kramer, seeking distraction in the three changes of name for the grotty place he’d come across. A family of losers struggling to find the right words for the sign writer; the right spell, if you liked, to fend off their fate. None had worked so far, and yet here was the surviving son still mixing self-deception and bad magic, still trying to prove a point nobody else cared about.

“Right, Mr. Ferreira,” he said, rising in sudden restlessness. “Tell me all about the wops at your hotel.”

“What I remember best was my dad kicking up hell over having them to stay—I mean, he’d been sticking bayonets in their backsides not so long before—but my mum liked the lady and really put her foot down.”

“She had a son?”

Ferreira glanced at Willie, then went on: “Ja, and a husband. I played with the boy quite a bit, showed him round—y’know? He wasn’t bad for a banana boy; quite daring, in fact. Usually the kids we got were skits of horses and all that, y’know? And
Jesus, could he swear! Which is why I nearly peed myself at the barbecue that Saturday night—when him and his uncle started singing.”