The Sunday Hangman

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The Sunday Hangman Page 25

by James McClure

He jogged.

  Too low and bulletproof.

  Gravity was bulletproof, too; once the falling body began to fall, there would be no stopping it.

  He paused and took aim. Aimlessly.

  This pause seemed providential, because he suddenly noticed, for the very first time, a small thicket of plane trees on the far side of the truck. Tall, densely packed plane trees which could be hiding anything in their midst.

  “Amen,” said Gysbert Swanepoel, touching Willie again on the shoulder. “I have five steps to take, my son, that is all.”

  The air in that stifling cloth bag was foul.

  And for a man breathing his last, this became the greatest injustice of all.

  Tears ran down Willie’s bruised cheeks.

  One. Two.

  “Go well, Willie.”

  He shook. The whole world shook.

  The floor jerked violently beneath him.

  21

  ZONDI KNEW ONLY one way of defying gravity to do its worst, and that was by changing its direction. Not in relation to the center of the earth, of course, but within the design of death which man had placed upon it.

  Whether his move would come in time—or a split second too late—he had no idea. Nevertheless, it seemed worth trying.

  So he half stood on the throttle of the truck, his right leg locked at the knee, and aimed the left front at a bank. The truck leaped toward it.

  By swerving to the right as he left the track, he’d throw the truck fractionally off balance. Its list would increase, however, once the left front tire struck the bank and, if the angle was correct, the truck would become momentarily airborne. After that, it would crash down on its side.

  Or, as the Lieutenant would say, such was the theory.

  When Kramer saw the truck suddenly start up and roar off, he cursed himself for an idiot: Swanepoel had never left the vehicle, but had hidden in the back with Willie.

  Kramer knelt on one knee, braced his gun hand in the crook of his left elbow, and fired five shots.

  Then whooped when the truck swerved, struck a low bank, heeled over, and banged down on its side, bursting the big back doors open.

  There was a bright orange light shining inside it.

  Kramer approached the truck with great curiosity. He found Gysbert Swanepoel lying on the ground pinned down by a large mealie bag of sand, stunned and smiling stupidly.

  “Is it heavy?” he asked.

  “Eleven stone exactly,” Swanepoel answered.

  “Uh huh.”

  Down the other end of the truck, Kramer found Willie with the noose around his neck. As the distance from the center of the ceiling to the wall was a mere three feet or so, he was sitting there quite comfortably, with plenty of slack to spare. The noose slipped off easily; the bag—being stuck to his face—was a trifle more difficult.

  “I’m St. Peter,” said Kramer. “Harp or electric guitar?”

  Willie stared blankly.

  “You’re all right, kid. You’ll live.”

  “I want a transfer,” said Willie.

  This struck Kramer as being exceedingly funny. But he knew that if he laughed, he might go to pieces. “I’ll get a knife for the straps,” he said. “Fingerprints wouldn’t thank me for handling them. Just try to relax now.”

  Willie, trusting as a puppy, nodded.

  Kramer traced the rope back. It went over a pulley, which had replaced one of the meat hooks in the ceiling, and was joined at the shackle to a steel cable. This cable then went over another pulley, situated at the back of the truck, and was fixed to the mealie bag.

  “Machine hanging,” he said to Swanepoel, who hadn’t tried to get up. “What put me off was that the only example I’d ever heard about had taken place in a room thirty-five feet high. But you don’t need much height when you use two pulleys.”

  “Not if your truck is long enough to have the slack tightening horizontally,” Swanepoel agreed. “You just need enough for the prisoner and the drop to be side by side, on the same level. It’s all a bit crude, but it works—which is the main thing. Usually I add a few curtains and that to give it more atmosphere.”

  “How was the bag released?”

  “Nothing fancy. This bit of nylon rope kept it suspended until I sliced through it with a knife. Then it would drop, take up the slack—and crack! I’m very keen to tell you everything.”

  “I’ve noticed. Why?”

  “I want it all to come out in court.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And then I want to see how they do it for myself.”

  “On yourself?”

  “That’s the idea!”

  “Sorry,” murmured Kramer. “All you’ll ever see is the inside of a loony bin. You aren’t fit to plead, Gysbert Swanepoel.”

  Even as he said this, Kramer noticed the curious upward turn to the man’s eyebrows, and realized that it matched what he dimly remembered of the face of Anthony Michael Vasari. An unlikely association, perhaps, yet one which now fitted neatly into the context of a Catholic woman married four years without children, having a war baby and then adopting two others. This might explain what had drawn Tollie to the man in the first place—it certainly explained what a backveld farmer was doing with a world map in his living room. Kramer was aware he really ought to have thought of all this before, but there had always been so much else to think about, and that story of the prisoner of war had been just weird enough to sound true. God, what a terrible torment the man must be suffering, yet supplying him with his answers was—

  “Bastards!” bellowed Swanepoel. “I must know!”

  The mealie bag was tossed aside like a feather pillow. The huge farmer scissored Kramer’s legs from under him, then took hold of him by the throat. Kramer fought back, kneeing him in the groin, and they rolled over and over, crashing against the rocks. Finally Swanepoel broke free and rose, pulling out a knife, cursing and sobbing, demented.

  Kramer seized the excuse. He fired, killing the man instantly. Mercifully, he thought.

  The shot didn’t echo.

  It brought total silence, like the crack of a clapperboard.

  Then out of that silence came a deep, low laugh; a laugh quite out of proportion to the size of man who made it. A laugh Kramer knew well, having heard it where children played, where women wept, where men died; always the same degree of detached amusement.

  “Zondi, you old bastard! So it was you?”

  He hadn’t wanted to ask this before, just in case there had been no reply.

  Leaving Willie in his hell for a little longer, Kramer put away his gun and strode to the front of the truck. The cab was empty. He twisted round. Zondi was lying against the bank, his right leg out straight and the other bent under him; he was trying to get a Lucky out of its packet. The clown laughed again, very softly, and shook his head.

  “Give here,” said Kramer, kneeling and taking the packet from him. “You’re in shock, man—are you hurt?”

  “A beautiful pain, boss.”

  “Hey?”

  “My leg is broken.”

  “Christ! Right one again?”

  “Left.”

  Kramer lit the cigarettes, drew on them thoughtfully, then handed one to Zondi.

  “Mickey!” he said, grinning. “Mickey, you cunning little kaffir! And just how many weeks off do you reckon this’ll entitle you to? Enough?”

  “Enough for both, Lieutenant—for how can one rest without its brother?” Zondi chuckled. “How do you feel yourself?”

  “Now I come to think of it, not so good,” said Kramer.

  OTHER TITLES IN THE SOHO CRIME SERIES

  Quentin Bates

  (Iceland)

  Frozen Assets

  Cold Comfort

  Cheryl Benard

  (Pakistan)

  Moghul Buffet

  James R. Benn

  (World War II Europe)

  Billy Boyle

  The First Wave

  Blood Alone

  Evil for Evil />
  Rag & Bone

  A Mortal Terror

  Cara Black

  (Paris, France)

  Murder in the Marais

  Murder in Belleville

  Murder in the Sentier

  Murder in the Bastille

  Murder in Clichy

  Murder in Montmartre

  Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

  Murder in the Rue de Paradis

  Murder in the Latin Quarter

  Murder in the Palais Royal

  Murder in Passy

  Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

  Grace Brophy

  (Italy)

  The Last Enemy

  A Deadly Paradise

  Henry Chang

  (Chinatown)

  Chinatown Beat

  Year of the Dog

  Red Jade

  Colin Cotterill

  (Laos)

  The Coroner’s Lunch

  Thirty-Three Teeth

  Disco for the Departed

  Anarchy and Old Dogs

  Curse of the Pogo Stick

  The Merry Misogynist

  Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

  Slash and Burn

  Garry Disher

  (Australia)

  The Dragon Man

  Kittyhawk Down

  Snapshot

  Chain of Evidence

  Blood Moon

  Wyatt

  David Downing

  (World War II Germany)

  Zoo Station

  Silesian Station

  Stettin Station

  Potsdam Station

  Lehrter Station

  Leighton Gage

  (Brazil)

  Blood of the Wicked

  Buried Strangers

  Dying Gasp

  Every Bitter Thing

  A Vine in the Blood

  Michael Genelin

  (Slovakia)

  Siren of the Waters

  Dark Dreams

  The Magician’s Accomplice

  Requiem for a Gypsy

  Adrian Hyland

  (Australia)

  Moonlight Downs

  Gunshot Road

  Stan Jones

  (Alaska)

  White Sky, Black Ice

  Shaman Pass

  Village of the Ghost Bears

  Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis

  (Denmark)

  The Boy in the Suitcase

  Graeme Kent

  (Solomon Islands)

  Devil-Devil

  One Blood

  Martin Limón

  (South Korea)

  Jade Lady Burning

  Slicky Boys

  Buddha’s Money

  The Door to Bitterness

  The Wandering Ghost

  G.I. Bones

  Mr. Kill

  Peter Lovesey

  (Bath, England)

  The Last Detective

  The Vault

  On the Edge

  The Reaper

  Rough Cider

  The False Inspector Dew

  Diamond Dust

  Diamond Solitaire

  Peter Lovesey (cont.)

  The House Sitter

  The Summons

  Bloodhounds

  Upon a Dark Night

  The Circle

  The Secret Hangman

  The Headhunters

  Skeleton Hill

  Stagestruck

  Cop to Corpse

  Jassy Mackenzie

  (South Africa)

  Random Violence

  Stolen Lives

  The Fallen

  Seicho Matsumoto

  (Japan)

  Inspector Imanishi Investigates

  James McClure

  (South Africa)

  The Steam Pig

  The Caterpillar Cop

  The Gooseberry Fool

  Snake

  The Sunday Hangman

  The Blood of an Englishman

  Jan Merete Weiss

  (Italy)

  These Dark Things

  Magdalen Nabb

  (Italy)

  Death of an Englishman

  Death of a Dutchman

  Death in Springtime

  Death in Autumn

  The Marshal and the Madwoman

  The Marshal and the Murderer

  The Marshal’s Own Case

  The Marshal Makes His Report

  The Marshal at the Villa Torrini

  Property of Blood

  Some Bitter Taste

  The Innocent

  Vita Nuova

  Stuart Neville

  (Northern Ireland)

  The Ghosts of Belfast

  Collusion

  Stolen Souls

  Eliot Pattison

  (Tibet)

  Prayer of the Dragon

  The Lord of Death

  Rebecca Pawel

  (1930s Spain)

  Death of a Nationalist

  Law of Return

  The Watcher in the Pine

  The Summer Snow

  Qiu Xiaolong

  (China)

  Death of a Red Heroine

  A Loyal Character Dancer

  When Red is Black

  Matt Beynon Rees

  (Palestine)

  The Collaborator of Bethlehem

  A Grave in Gaza

  The Samaritan’s Secret

  The Fourth Assassin

  John Straley

  (Alaska)

  The Woman Who Married a Bear

  The Curious Eat Themselves

  Akimitsu Takagi

  (Japan)

  The Tattoo Murder Case

  Honeymoon to Nowhere

  The Informer

  Helene Tursten

  (Sweden)

  Detective Inspector Huss

  Night Rounds

  The Torso

  The Glass Devil

  Janwillem van de Wetering

  (Holland)

  Outsider in Amsterdam

  Tumbleweed

  The Corpse on the Dike

  Death of a Hawker

  The Japanese Corpse

  The Blond Baboon

  The Maine Massacre

  The Mind-Murders

  The Streetbird

  The Rattle-Rat

  Hard Rain

  Just a Corpse at Twilight

  Hollow-Eyed Angel

  The Perfidious Parrot

  Amsterdam Cops: Collected Stories

 

 

 


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