The Gooseberry Fool (25 page)

“Sorry, sir,” he said, after a pause.

“From you, I suppose that’s really something,” Colonel Muller replied. “But get the hell out of my sight.”

14

T
HE GREATEST HURT
of them all, far crueler than anything else suffered on Kramer’s rack of regret, was what this fiasco must have done to the Widow Fourie. She had forgiven and forgotten, returned, come back at Christmas, the best present he ever unwrapped, and such had been her welcome. Two hours of tentative happiness, and then God knew how many more of worry and anguish, of sick concern for the brats of a Kaffir as willful, stupid, and deaf to bloody reason as himself. Yes, Zondi shared some of the blame, but only some. The rest fell entirely on Kramer. Went off half cocked, Du Plessis had said. Distracted by prejudice, Scott had said. They were right, the bastards. No, not bastards; not this time round.

Jesus, what a clown he had been that morning when the message about the train came through. He could have dropped everything right then and sod the lot of them. It would not have been the first time he had told Du Plessis to go stick a report in a pigeon’s hole. And all Scott had wanted was him out of the way, so it would not have mattered anyhow. But no; pride, conceit, arrogance—give it what fancy name you liked—had got the better of him. Made him go racing around putting two and two together and getting twenty-two on his slate. Bloody wonderful. If he had just approached Scott at the swimming pool, the chances were he would have been put in the picture, had the rest of the day and the next with the kids and herself.

Started again, differently, so it would last, so she would never go away again. Oh, Christ.

He reached out again to dial the flat but found he still could not bring himself to do so. There might be no answer. Again.

The phone tinkled and never got the chance to ring properly.

“Yes? Look—”

“Old McDonald here, Lieutenant. That is you, isn’t it?”

Kramer moved to replace the receiver, then decided to get it over with.

“Kramer speaking, Mr. McDonald. I was going to give you a ring actually, tell you that we’ve dropped the case.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yes, nothing to it—never thought there would be. But we’ve got to be certain in these matters.”

“It was just—”

“Uh huh?”

“First day back, Lieutenant, getting down to the hard graft again, tidying up. Naturally I started with my late colleague’s affairs. Something very distressing—very odd.”

“In what way?”

“Well, it amounts to this: Mark surrendered all his policies a week ago.”

“Hey?”

“Cashed them in; did it on the quiet, too, somehow. Twenty thousand rand in all.”

“Twenty, you said?”

“Yes, quite a bundle that would make.”

“But what the hell did he do with it?”

“It isn’t in his bank—I’ve made discreet inquiries—and his wife hasn’t seen a penny of it.”

“You’ve been on to her?”

“Had to; there was a call from head office about his using the firm’s car—you know what head offices are like, no blooming sense or compassion. I hoped she’d say theirs was out of commission that night, but it wasn’t. But they simply can’t claim any off the estate, not with the way it is now.”

“Forget the car—tell me more about this money. How was he paid?”

“By transfer. The bank—Look, don’t tell anyone about this, please; more than my friend’s job is worth.”

“Talk, Mr. McDonald. No pack drill.”

“Mark withdrew this money in cash—small notes.”

“And nobody was told why?”

“My friend couldn’t very well ask around this morning, could he? But he did remember one teller saying that the nice Mr. Wallace had his secret vices after all.”

“Such as?”

“Gambling. He’d said he needed it for gambling debts—a man who wouldn’t even take a jackpot ticket with the rest of us on a Saturday. And horses are one thing, the sort of gambling he tried to imply was another.”

“Man, oh, man.”

“Yes, Lieutenant, just how I feel.”

They both listened to the background noises on the line for a while. Then Kramer flipped open his notebook.

“Remember he said he wanted to talk to you that night at the Comrades’ Club, Mr. McDonald? Could it have been about this?”

“It’s been on my mind ever since—this isn’t the first time I’ve tried to get you.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. McDonald. Another case, a big one. Although this sounds.…”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“A big one, too, man. Now I want you to say nothing about this, understand? I’ll be round soon as I can so you can show me the papers. Okay?”

“I’ll be here.”

Kramer killed the call with a push on the cradle bar, flipped on three pages in his notebook, found an address, found a number in the directory, and dialed it.

“Good morning, madam. This is the police here, CID. Can you tell me if Miss Samantha Simon is there, please?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry. She’s gone to work.”

“When did she leave?”

“Let me think. A bit earlier than usual, I suppose—about eight. Yes, just after her breakfast. The ten-past bus.”

“Do you take a paper, madam?”

“Pardon?”

“The Trekkersburg Gazette—do you have it delivered?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Did Miss Simon see a copy of it by any chance?”

“My hubby and me always let her have it first. We’re retired, you see. We have all day.”

“Uh huh. And when she went out, did she have anything with her? A suitcase maybe?”

“Pardon?”

“Was she carrying anything, madam?”

“Oh, no, just her handbag.”

“Thanks and bye,” Kramer said, again prodding the cradle bar.

The number rang for some time before being answered.

“Librarian speaking,” said what sounded like an answering machine.

“Oh, good morning. I’m sorry to trouble you like this, but you see I’ve found this season ticket—bus season, that is—and it’s got your address on it”

“Well?”

“I was wondering if I could speak to the person it belongs to, Samantha Simon?”

“Miss Simon? Busy at the counter.”

“She is the pretty one, isn’t she?” Kramer leered audibly.

“So that’s your game!”

The librarian slammed down his receiver and left Kramer quite certain that nothing would be said to alarm the cool little bitch until he got to her.

Yes, cool was the word for it. She must have realized that now the man was dead his finances would show a deficit that would bring her back into the action. Yet to have cut and run would have been her downfall. She was going to bluff this one out, and had probably taken a few precautions as it was. He would enjoy seeing how long she stayed cool in the heat of what he planned to do.

Just at that moment, as Kramer was grabbing up the spare cuffs, Zondi entered the room holding his nose with his good hand.

“You, you bugger! Where have you been?”

“Hau!” replied Zondi. “Since when has the boss been doing the rubbish collection?”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“The Chev, in the boot, rubbish to the top and a smell that is terrible.”

Kramer bloody nearly hit him. And it had been for his sake, too, the Widow had gone to such trouble. Instead he shouldered Zondi out of the way roughly, perversely pleased to hear the thump of plaster cast against the filing cabinet. Then he plunged into three startled Africans just outside the door.

“Jesus!” shouted Kramer. “What the bloody Christ next? What do you want here, slima?”

The Zulu obscenity slammed into the trio as hard as he would have liked to place his boot.

“They want nothing here,” said Zondi from the door, rubbing his shoulder. “It is I who want them. And you, too, boss, for they are witnesses.”

“To what?” Kramer asked over his shoulder, striding away.

“The Swart case, of course, boss. They all saw the white master who you think did it.”

Kramer and Zondi left the servants with the Bantu detective constable who had done the driving, and was now to take down detailed statements from all three. They went back into the office and closed the door.

“Nice work,” Kramer said, indicating that Zondi should draw his stool up to the desk.

“Thank you, boss. You were waiting for me that you did not ask these people before?”

“Something of the kind. Cigarette?”

He unlocked his middle drawer, lit two Luckies, and handed one across.

“But tell me, Zondi—how was it you moved so fast this morning? I wasn’t here to fill you in on the case.”

Zondi stubbed out his Lucky, shuddering.

“I come here, there is nobody to greet me. So I have a little look at these dockets. I read them and wonder why my boss is worrying himself with this Traffic case. I put the dockets back like I find them and, hau, see the truth of the matter.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“The way the dockets are side by side—the boss is taking the cases together. Very, very clever, the nose blood.”

“Hey? You just tell me how your thinking went—I’m interested.”

Flattery was Zondi’s Achilles’ leg, bugger one tendon.

“Like this, boss. When the man Wallace goes to the drinking place, he tells the people there that it is so hot that his nose has been bleeding and they see little bit of blood on his shirt and are sorry for him.”

“Uh huh.”

“Now the laboratory, boss: I see this work was done down in Durban because ours was closed for Christmas. You send the clothes, blood sample, say analyze, and they don’t see anything strange they should ring you up about.”

“No?”

“Ikona, because many times the men at the wheel in vehicles have blood from passengers on them.”

“Wallace didn’t have a passenger—did he?”

“Ah, yes, boss, but did you tell the laboratory this? See, you cannot trick me. They get just the one shirt, the one suit, the one form with one name on it. It is alcohol you are really interested in. They tell you it is high. Then they test quickly the blood stains, thinking you are mad maybe, and put down O group and A group. Wallace is O group, am I right?”

“No cheek, now.”

“And Boss Swart is A group—the small quantity, simple! Then this glass they make jokes about—that, too, I can understand.”

Kramer, who had taken the report out of the envelope that morning, just before Muller was due to arrive, without more than a glance at the alcohol level, now gave it his undivided attention.

The technician had written: “Glass fragments in left trouser turn-up, from lead content possibly Venetian origin. What was he doing in his motor, running a bar?”

Hell, Kramer had actually read the words “glass fragments,” come to think of it, but had got no further because the appalling scribble irritated him in his haste. He had also seen it as “glass” in its general sense, expecting pedantry about windshields, and not in the sense of “a glass,” or he would have never skipped the rest. The truth was, and it was best kept to himself, his only reason for looking at the thing at all had been to see if the lab had agreed to play ball in hammering Du Plessis. He had told them it was only an exercise for the hell of it, a favor he would explain later.

“And that was why you took these pictures out to Skaapvlei?” Kramer said, spreading out the selection showing Mark Wallace and his firm’s wrecked car.

“It seemed what I could do for you, boss. The two women, they both saw this car near the house on the night he was stabbed. They were sitting by the gutter near to where it was left. They also saw the master go into the house and come out after the other master came home. They saw he had a bad chest; his lungs made sounds like an old dog.”

“Catarrh,” said Kramer after a quick look at Strydom’s postmortem report.

“I did not know the meaning when I saw it, boss.”

“You’re forgiven. But why didn’t these women come forward?”

“They thought it was Shabalala who killed him, boss. This is what everyone was thinking; the policeman had said so.”

Damn Van der Poel and his pimp’s bloody soul; his chatter and preconceptions had screwed the case right at the start.

“What about the man you brought in?”

“A friend of the man Shabalala, who works on the other side of the road. He gets off at seven and sometimes he went in to help with the washing up so it was finished quickly.”

“Oh, yes?”

“He can swear that Shabalala put the key under a brick by the back door when he left the house after work.”

“Did Swart know this?”

“How can I tell, boss? But it is what many servants do, for their masters do not like to trust them with a key, not so?”

Kramer was familiar with this commonplace of crazy logic and could only be mildly surprised that Swart subscribed to it. Probably he had just never checked on a habit Shabalala had picked up elsewhere. Many householders failed to make the most elementary checks on the security of their homes. Often the worst offenders, in this respect, were single persons, like Swart, who thought they had nothing to lose.