“Of course, you would have been even more welcome pitching up before the work was done,” de Bruin joshed him. “Us blokes have only just finished the obstacle course for the over-tens. Gysbert made some lovely fish out of bean tins for the magnet pool—did you see them?”
“Er—no. I’ll catch up on that later.”
“You’re coming tonight?” asked Swanepoel.
“Ja. Ja, I think I am.”
“I see; when the cat’s away …?”
Swanepoel’s witticism won an undeservedly loud laugh.
“You mean when the.…” Willie lost track of that. He had just realized that Jonkers and Ferreira were now both absent at the same time.
“Go on,” Swanepoel encouraged him. “I don’t mind what you call that fat little bastard.”
“Easy, man, easy,” said de Bruin.
George van der Heever and one or two others joined the half-circle; they nodded to Willie in a friendly way, making him feel very welcome. The whole idea of the mission seemed—no, he was under orders: it wasn’t his job to think.
“To what do we owe this honor?” asked Hendrik Louw, a man you didn’t see often himself.
“Celebration,” said Willie, ad-libbing. “A kaffir I caught during my training has just lost his appeal.”
“Never met one with any,” Swanepoel quipped, getting his laugh again.
“Which means?” de Bruin asked, frowning at the other man. “Ach, he gets the chop.”
“How does that make you feel?” a strange face inquired.
“I don’t mind so long as I don’t have to watch it. They pull their bloody heads off sometimes, hey?”
“Oh, ja? What happens to them exactly?” the stranger said, moving in a little closer, touching the wart on his cheek.
In a minute or two, Willie had such an attentive audience that he only wished he’d done something like this before. And he didn’t have to pay for his second—or third—lager either.
Kramer sat on a pile of beer crates in the bar’s scullery and willed his toes to uncurl. That’s what Willie’s clumsy feed line had done to them, and now his teeth were clenched at the sound of the increasingly tipsy full performance. Except for an occasional prompting, not another voice had penetrated the plywood partition in the time it had taken to smoke two and a half Luckies.
He passed the remaining half to the washing-up boy, who was enjoying this unforeseen break in his activities, and took another swill of the Lion ale he’d opened. Zondi had been muttering about Jackson when they had called briefly at the station house; there had not been the opportunity to hear him out—which might have been a mistake. Something about Jackson having the brains and the motive.
“They keep the coons in one big cell so they can sing together,” Willie was saying, “seventy or so at a time.”
“It’ll be less soon,” a light voice observed.
“How’s that?” Willie challenged.
“I saw in the Sunday Tribune that the Transkei has got its own two hangmen now—both wogs, need you ask.”
“Ja, and did you read what the official said?” a wheezy bass joined in. “They got applications for the job from all over the bloody country, but the four whites who applied weren’t given serious consideration. Christ, that makes you realize how independent we’re making them, hey?”
“Perfect job for a coon,” someone else said, laughing. “Good pay for unskilled labor you don’t even have to do every day! I’m glad none of my boys got to hear about it!”
“It’s not unskilled,” a voice said.
“Huh! That wasn’t what I read in my paper. When the official was asked whether they were getting any training for the work, he said, ‘No comment.’ ”
“He wouldn’t be authorized to comment on prison affairs of that nature,” said the voice. “Of course these men will be trained.”
The wheezy bass sniggered. “What with? Hundred-pound mealie bags?”
“They might use them to stretch the rope the night before. You’ve got to put some weight on it, or mistakes in the amount of slack will occur.”
“Mealie bags?”
“Filled with sand.”
“Ah! Now he tells us!”
There was a big laugh all round. Kramer placed his ear to the partition.
“Like I was telling you,” Willie said, reclaiming the limelight, “if it’s a white guy, then sometimes he gets a special program on the loudspeaker for a couple of hours the night before. There’s a convict who acts like a D.J., plays him hits, his own requests, passes on messages from the others—mostly just saying ‘Good luck.’ ”
“He can smoke, I suppose?” asked the light voice.
“Ja, he’s permitted tobacco the minute his appeal fails.”
“Like a sort of ration?”
“Not just any old amount, man! He’s there to be punished, remember. But I reckon they would let him save it up for the last night,” Willie explained.
“Where,” asked the neutral voice, “did you pick all this up, youngster? I notice that sometimes you are a little unsure of your facts.”
There was a brittle pause.
“Meaning?”
“I’ve heard differently, that’s all. How about another one in that glass of yours?”
Here the voice became lost in a boozy hubbub that came up as suddenly as a twist on a volume knob; nobody, it seemed, had enjoyed that surprisingly tense little moment. Kramer felt a tap on his shoulder; it was the washing-up boy, returning a favor by pointing out a small peephole in the plywood.
Kramer peered through it. Gysbert Swanepoel was unmistakable as he towered over Willie on the left! Behind the black beard—there was enough of it to stuff a pair of size 6 boxing gloves—was a strong face with high cheekbones. His complexion was coarse and unevenly tanned, like the skin of a rice pudding dusted with cinnamon, and the deep-set eyes had a bright sparkle. The nose was narrow, the eyebrows distinctive, and the ears very thin. He was smiling indulgently.
On the right side of Willie was a man of much the same age, short and tubby, wearing a porkpie hat and braces. He had a head like a pink lollipop topped with gray fluff from a schoolboy’s blazer pocket. His features had been licked smooth so that they tended to run into each other, leaving only the overhang of a long upper lip to stress the hard set of a mouth like a bite mark. He wore round spectacles with tortoise-shell frames over eyes that were a curious tawny. His expression was strained.
In between them, Willie stood twiddling his empty glass by the stem, trying to appear completely relaxed. But by the hitch of his shoulders, it was plain that he expected at any moment to have a noose dropped over him.
“Silly bugger,” said Kramer, not wanting the initiative to be taken from them. “Go and fetch Samson, my friend—tell him the sink’s blocked.”
A white shirt blocked his view for a few seconds. When it moved aside, Willie and the short man had gone. In came Samson on tiptoe.
“Forget it!” Kramer said, raising a finger to his lips, then dived through the door into the inner passage.
“Hello,” chirped the old lady with bandaged legs. “It is so nice to see you here again. Will you be staying long?”
He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and got by when she drew back in delighted surprise. The fly screen filling the doorway at the end of the passage gave him an ideal position from which to see without being seen. It wasn’t needed: Willie and de Bruin were standing in among the kids’ games with their backs turned to him, talking earnestly together.
“And these are the fish I was telling you about,” de Bruin said as Kramer came within earshot. “He’s very clever with his hands when he wants to be. Does that look like a bean can to you?”
Willie looked up at the tin fish spinning and glittering at the end of a short line. The magnet lost its grip and the fish fell. In picking it up, both men became aware of Kramer’s long shadow on the grass.
“There you are, Boshoff; I’ve been looking.”
“Er—hello, sir.”
Kramer took Willie aside, and said quietly, “Well, Judas, which one was it?” He noted the jerked nod. “You’ve done a first-class job. Stick around here, watch for Number Two, and I’ll handle this bastard.” Walking up to de Bruin, he stuck out his hand. “Lieutenant Kramer, here for the weekend.”
De Bruin’s grip was unsure. “Pleased to meet you. Karl de Bruin is the name.”
“I’ve just been speaking to Boshoff here.”
“Ja?”
“He’d like to stay on for the party—in fact, he’s got a message from Mr. Ferreira for the chef. But I’ve to get back to the station, so I wondered if it’d be too much of a favor to ask for a quick lift?”
For an instant, the man dithered. “Why, certainly, I’d be pleased to help out. My work here is finished for—”
“Ta, very much,” said Kramer, giving Willie a dismissive wave. “Don’t be too late, Cinderella, or you know what’ll happen to your pumpkins.”
Then he forced the situation by beginning to stride for the car park. De Bruin caught up, but said nothing until they’d reached the trees.
“You’re standing in for Sergeant Jonkers, I hear?”
“After a fashion.”
“Must be a rest cure after Durban.”
“Uh huh. You farm around here?”
“About twelve kilos out.”
“The place with the buck on it?”
“Could’ve been mine; ja, I keep a few head. Won’t be a moment.”
De Bruin did something Kramer had never seen done in the country before: he unlocked the driver’s door to his Ford three-quarter ton. Then he reached across and released the catch on the other side.
There was a sheen of sweat over his forehead which caught the cab light. The doors slammed. In silhouette, the profile was that of a prim, introverted, sensitive man.
“Judas?” said Willie. “Cinder who?” said Willie. “Jesus,” said Willie, “whatever will the bugger think of next?” And having reassured himself that none of these epithets had been derogatory in their intention, but merely good-humored banter, he settled for a score of five tin fish landed from the zinc tub of blue-dyed water. He tugged the fifth from the dangling magnet, wound the line a few times around the toy rod, and replaced them, ready for the children. “Having good sport, Willie?”
He started. “Ach, Piet! Where did you spring from?”
“Had a tough day,” replied Ferreira, standing there with his hands in his pockets, not coming any nearer. “They didn’t have the tread I wanted in Brandspruit, so I had to go down the road until I found a place. And you?”
Willie closed the gap. “We nailed him,” he said, pride thrusting aside the numbness he’d felt up till then. “De Bruin’s already on his way to the station. But you mustn’t tell anyone, hey?”
“God!” Ferreira was deeply shocked. “Karl? Kramer’s made a hell of a mistake!”
“We tested him: he knows all about hanging.”
“But last night—”
“Ja?”
Ferreira turned slowly to face the hotel. He began walking, and Willie tagged along at his side.
“Why such a reaction, Piet? You knew from last night, didn’t you?”
“Hmmm? Huh, I don’t know! I’ll have to think about it for a minute. Did you search the farm?”
“Nothing, but we know he’s got it hidden someplace else.”
“How?” The question was asked sharply.
“Well, because,” Willie said, then realized how imprudent he was being, “because of—I’m not sure actually.”
They mounted the steps. Of course, thought Willie, it had been seeing Piet back again that’d put him right off his guard. Perhaps, on reflection, he had no need to feel he’d dropped a clanger. Now that they were together, it was impossible to see his new friend as part of the conspiracy. Fanciful nonsense.
“Is de Bruin’s son here tonight?” he asked at the doorway.
“He’s away. Left Wednesday for army camp.”
“Oh? Tell you what, Piet—can I buy you one?”
“Ach, there’s—”
“You gave me lunch yesterday, hey? Fair’s fair.”
With something of a smile, Ferreira followed him to the far end of the bar, away from the knot of jolly fanners and the few guests who had now joined them. Willie looked covertly at Swanepoel, wondering what it must be like to have a daughter like that. Wondering what it might be like to have her himself, and imagining the moment when she pulled him down into her. A fantasy like this, deliberately evoked within a few feet of the father, revived a mixture of feeling in him that he’d grown to like. He ordered two Scotches.
“What’s up?” Ferreira inquired, trying to read his face. “You look like a cat that smells kippers.”
“I smell my transfer, hey? The Lieutenant can fix it for me.”
“Down to Trekkersburg? The CID? That’s pretty good!”
A move quite so radical as this hadn’t occurred to Willie, but suddenly he saw how just that would be. “Uh huh. It’s just a shame we didn’t get together before, Piet. I want you to know that.”
“All the best,” said Ferreira, clinking glasses. “I’m sorry, too, but—like they say—opportunity only knocks once.”
“Very true,” said Willie.
Then he raised his glass and drank. As he did so, his eye caught sight of an invoice tucked into the pocket of Ferreira’s white nylon shirt. , he read through the thin fabric.
Karl de Bruin sat as invited on the chair in front of the desk in the station commander’s office. He watched Kramer close the door, lock it, and return to sit opposite him, arms folded. He gave the appearance of being bewildered.
“Tonight in the bar at Spa-kling Waters hotel, you saw fit to contradict certain remarks made by my colleague. I think you will know which remarks I refer to, Mr. de Bruin.”
“Ja; so what? Surely you haven’t brought me in here to say that’s an offense!” De Bruin laughed uneasily, taking his hat off to twist it by the brim. “The lad had got his head full of cock-and-bull stories.”
“How would you know? What are your sources of information?”
“Usual place: newspapers, magazines, things I’ve read.”
“Published in this country?”
“I don’t buy papers from—”
“That is a lie!”
De Bruin made to get up.
“Sit down, farmer. Stay down until I’ve asked my questions. Why did you see fit to make these contradictions?”
“I don’t like to hear talk like that, Lieutenant Kramer.”
Kramer decided to sneer. “Oh, really? Too gruesome for you, is it?”
The pupils of the man’s eyes were like flies caught in chips of amber. His lips—smiling so winningly a moment before—were tightly pressed together. A pulse ticked in his left temple.
“It was too gruesome for me. His comments could also have upset people who might think his account was accurate. Upset them very much.”
“Ach, I see: sort of part of your duty as a leader in the community?”
“If you like,” said de Bruin, tensed against the next move.
“How do you know Constable Boshoff was wrong? What are your sources of information?”
The hat revolved faster in the stubby fingers. “I just know it isn’t like that. The state wouldn’t allow it. To talk like that is close to treason.”
“Treason? You interest me, Mr. de Bruin. What made you say that, may I ask?”
“What? It’s nothing—a figure of speech. We all use it.”
“Uh huh?”
“That’s all. Are you finished?”
“So the state wouldn’t allow it,” Kramer repeated with deliberate sarcasm; acknowledging the fact that nothing need ever be wasted by adding: “All the state asks is that a condemned prisoner is hanged by the neck until dead.”
“In one sense, but the people who do it are trained.”
“
When, where, and how, Mr. de Bruin? From your vast knowledge, you must be able to tell me that!”
With calculated suddenness, Kramer rose and went round to stand over the unhappy man in the chair. De Bruin tried to smile again, blinking against the light overhead, and licking his lips before answering.
“Well, it would have been some time ago, I suppose. Perhaps things have changed, perhaps there have been retirements. I may even be wrong, in which case I’d be happy to apologize to young Willie in private.”
“Apologize?”
“Look, I’ve stood all—”
“Apologize? Kiss and make up, you mean? Then walk out of here? You’re under bloody arrest, Mr. de Bruin, as you damn well know!”
De Bruin got slowly to his feet, dropping the hat on the chair behind him. “No, I don’t damn well know. You asked for a lift and then started making this fuss. I think it’s time you gave me an explanation, young man, or—”
“An explanation? That’s your job, Karl.”
“I’ll not say another word until I’m informed as to what the devil you’re playing at, and that’s final.”
The tawny eyes stayed steady, the big fists bunched; there was no fear in him, and, very obviously, he was tough. Filled with a righteous indignation that only the innocent or the insane would feel their right.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Go away,” said Kramer, without looking round.
“It’s me, Lieutenant! I’ve got a report that’s urgent!”
De Bruin glanced at the door, giving Kramer an instant in which to lift his truck keys from the desk.
“Wait, I’ll be back,” he said, and left him standing there. Once in the charge office, Kramer gave his orders. “Nyembezi, by this door. Mamabola and Luthuli, get outside and search that truck. I want everything from it—tools, tow rope, sacks, maps, the lot. And now your problem, my friend?”
Willie pointed at the office door and made I-can’t-talk-here signs. He looked fairly canned and rocky on his feet—ready for bed, in fact. But there was something in his expression that made Kramer hasten after him into the garden.
“Piet told a lie and I caught him,” he said breathlessly. “Said he’d been down the road while all the time he was in Brandspruit, scared of seeing you until it was over. He wasn’t sure if he hadn’t buggered it all up. Stayed away as long as he could. You know what?”
The Sunday Hangman Page 21
