Snake

14

On the stool where Martha Mabile had sat, Peter Andrew Shirley now reposed, languid and unmoved by all that had been said to him over the past six hours.

Kramer had never seen a man conceal his feelings of guilt so completely. Even the innocent always showed some signs of tension as they began to attach wild fears to trifles. And yet that unconscious act of his with the underpants had shown beyond a doubt that the smooth-talking bastard suffered a bad conscience.

Prick it hard enough and the rest would explode in a gruesome mess of sobbed confession. But so far every dart of fact had bounced off.

Kramer, working on his own now, tried again. “You advanced your mother’s clock before waking her, you advanced the girl’s clock outside her kia door-you did this to regain the twenty-five minutes you lost while causing the death of Sonja Bergstroom by strangulation!”

He might as well have said by giving her whooping cough.

“You had the opportunity to retard both timepieces-and so nobody would notice you were twenty-five minutes behind the proper time, you made a long journey that swallowed it up in alleged stops. The truth is you drove hard all the way.”

“Timepieces is quite a word coming from you,” said Shirley. “I must tell my father that. He will be amused.”

“What else will amuse him? The idea his son is a killer? That he used his mother to take the edge off suspicion by being late for a framed interview?”

“He will certainly rather take to the idea that anyone could suggest I’d do such a thing as you allege and then take no precautions of my own-beyond fiddling the timepieces -to cover my tracks. Nobody interested in self-preservation could be such a fool.”

“I see them every day.”

“Oh, do tell me-where, Lieutenant Kramer?”

“On the road, in sports cars. Driving at speeds which are excessive without due care and attention, relying for their own safety on other road-users obeying the law and doing the right thing.”

“You’re quite a philosopher!”

“Uh-huh. It does seem to sum up the philosophy of a poop who kills a girl and then expects everyone else will do the right thing-only Monty Stevenson didn’t bloody do the right thing, did he?”

“What?”

“It was his own lawlessness that first drew this matter to our attention, although it would have happened anyway in the course of time.”

“How much more have we in common, poor Monty and I?” Shirley asked, once again as cool as ever.

“Not your semen group, for a start!”

That was badly timed. Shirley shut up and made no further responses of any kind until nearly midnight.

When Kramer remembered he was dealing with a possible liberal.

“What is your attitude to the Bantu?” he asked.

“They’re people.”

“I see. With feelings and all that, same as you and me?”

“So they say.”

You could not expect much more than that in a police station.

“What if I now disclose to you that a Bantu is willing to give evidence that confirms the tricks you played with the clocks?”

Shirley laughed, making it loud and mocking.

“You think he’s a stooge, then?”

“Of course, and I’m sorry for him; perjury is-”

“You don’t suck up to the Bantu because of a bad conscience about what you did to one of them?”

“You’re ideas are very primitive, if I may say so.”

“The Bantu’s name is Aaron.”

“He can’t be Jewish as well, surely! A Sammy Davis in Trekkersburg?”

“Would you like to meet him?”

“Love to.”

Kramer rang down to Zondi and told him to bring the man up. They arrived so quickly it seemed that only seconds later the door of the interrogation room was swung open to reveal the pair of them under the passage’s hard light.

“There he is,” said Kramer. “There’s Aaron.”

Shirley swung around on the stool and stared without interest at the solemn figure in a cook boy’s suit. Then his eyes narrowed slowly before opening wide.

“Him!” he gasped.

And turned to Kramer as if he had just seen an apparition and not a baffled old wog.

“I’ve never heard anything like it, sir,” said Wessels, following Kramer back to his office. “He just fell apart!”

“I knew he had a bloody conscience, man. It was just finding the right way of breaking through to it.”

“He seemed more poop-scared than sorry to-” “ Ach, leave that now. Tell me what all this is about psychopaths; that’s more my kettle of fish.”

Wessels repeated Gardiner’s message, ending it in the office itself.

“Uh-huh.”

“Warrant Gardiner also made a point about the gunman having enough time to take the small change.”

“Which he didn’t do at Lucky’s,” Kramer said, dumping himself wearily down in his chair and yawning.

“No, sir?”

“Got-sorry-pinched by some mini skabengas.”

The yawn went across to Zondi, waiting for a lift in his corner, and then to Wessels.

“This was the first time they take the change,” Zondi muttered, forgetful of the formalities. “Is it not strange? What was of no use to them-the small coin-was of use to us, however.”

“Ja, that’s true,” Wessels agreed. “At least somebody has gained something worthwhile from all this.”

With another yawn, he said good night and slopped off.

“Zondi!” Kramer said.

Like black lightning it had hit him.

The store up near the station, which sold cigarettes under bright lights until all hours, was empty of customers.

A car carrying two men screeched to a halt outside it and one man jumped out.

Kramer was lucky not to be shot crossing the threshold.

“Put it away, Fred, and come here!” he ordered the squat, currently unjolly man in the apron who held a. 25 Beretta in both hands.

“Mother of God, don’t do such a thing again, Mr. Kramer! This floor I just wipe!”

“Here! Move it!”

Fred, short for Fernando and then some, hurried across, while his family, who had been listening to the radio in the back room, peered out.

“Is there something you wish Fred to do for you?”

“Yes, tell me two things. I rang Sister Maria today-y’know, Mr. Funchal’s daughter?-and she said Da Gama was running the family business now. On what sort of basis?”

“Basis? My English…”

A lanky teenager, with a downy mustache, came over and gave his father a long, urgent sentence in Portuguese.

“You know what basis means now?”

“I tell my father not to talk,” the youth said.

“Then you’ll do,” Kramer replied, snatching him by the scruff of the neck and running him out to the car.

In which his attitude changed as Zondi circled the other end of town.

“So Funchal’s death made them suspicious, hey?”

“They say if it had been any kind of accident or a sudden sickness or anything like that, then they would have come straight to the police.”

“And told us what?”

“But when they read that these blacks have already done the same in the township, and that a policeman saw them outside the cafe, they have to believe it. Then they read that the blacks are dead and no more investigation will be done, and that starts them talking again.”

“Who said it had stopped? It would have if we’d not got on to there being a third-which was thanks to a proper print job, that’s all.”

Zondi, alone on the front seat, looked into his rear-view, which was adjusted to reflect the youth’s strained face.

“You don’t answer questions you don’t like, do you?” Kramer said, lighting a cigarette.

“I answer all of them, mister.”

“Who are they, then?”

“The men of our community.”

“And Da Gama’s the one they’d be suspicious of?”

The Chev cruised another block, passing the mosque.

“Let me tell you what I’ve got to admit,” said Kramer, earning a quick turn of the head from Zondi. “To us in this country, a Portuguese man sells milk shakes and biltong. But Mocambique wasn’t one bloody big cafe, was it? Hey? What are you studying for?”

The India-ink stains on the fingertips showed up even in the streetlights.

“Engineer.”

“Then you understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

“Da Gama-”

“Yes, what was he before, back in LM?”

“When was that?”

“Before Frelimo took over-Christ, you mustn’t play games with me!”

“Frelimo,” the youth repeated, as though tasting some irony in the word. “One day very soon after the refugees come down through the Transvaal from the border, Mr. Funchal brings this man to my father’s tearoom and says he is the son of an old friend. He asks us to welcome him among us, for he has lost everything in the takeover. We are all very sorry for him and he seems a nice fellow. But then we are South African citizens, and so it is not until other men come from Mocambique that the stories begin.”

“They knew Da Gama?”

“No; that is the very reason for suspicion.”

“He was from somewhere else? Or are you saying that, in his way, he had a job like…”

The youth looked at Kramer and said, “But here the people know you. There are initials for them I cannot remember now.”

Zondi was coasting in neutral, trying to catch every word and make sense of it.

“Secret police,” said Kramer, and yawned again.

As the Chev picked up speed.

Sister Maria, in a pretty dressing gown, tightly belted, opened the Funchal front door to their knocking.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Sister, but my boy here has just made a report to me that Mr. Da Gama should know about. It concerns-”

“I am sorry, too, but Mr. Da Gama is still in Durban. He is spending the night there.”

“ Ach, really?”

“Is a Sister’s word not enough for you?” she asked, with the same gentle humor she had used on the phone.

“It’s just-”

“He telephoned only an hour ago-no, less than that; I’m so sleepy, I’m getting confused-yes, about thirty-five minutes ago, and said I was to go ahead with the funeral arrangements, while he organized it so all the managers could be there on Monday.”

“God bless you,” said Kramer and raced Zondi to the car.

“The Munchausen and step on it. If it wasn’t through the gents’, then it’s something Gardiner missed.”

“But, boss, that is many men he killed for this plan.”

“Got eyes like a vet’s. No problem.”

“I mean, what we do now is maybe foolish. We run, run- when do we think?”

“About…?”

“It does not all tie in a string. Dubulamanzi and Mpeta- how does he know them?”

“Those answers he can supply.”

“Are you going to arrest him on suspicion?”

“Uh-huh.”

Zondi brought the Chev down to a crawl half a block from the Munchausen, then switched off the engine and braked where it stopped.

“What’s all this, then?”

“The drunk kaffir checks first,” said Zondi, getting out and doing his swaying, lurching walk, kept carefully from parody, down the pavement.

He came back on his toes, running swiftly.

“There is a light under the kitchen door, boss, and I can see a man is moving in there!”

“Hey?”

“And you see that car I pressed my hand on to stop from falling? That engine is warm inside.”

“He’s back, then!”

“Making the coffee?”

“Right! Any other lights?”

“ Aikona, just the one. The padlock is also off the front door and I think it will just open.”

“Expecting company, then. Come, we go together.”

“And the plan?”

“I’m going to take him. You wait the other side and follow his friend in. What’s the matter, man? Do you want to try for both at once?”

The door swung open at the press of his fingertips, and Kramer paused only to check that the feet were still in the kitchen. They were, and he could hear the clatter of a cup being placed in a saucer. When the boiling water was being poured-that would be the moment.

He advanced halfway across the rubber tiles, then stopped to listen. The sound took shape and he could pick out words being sung softly-words that had no meaning for him, as they were in Portuguese. Yet they gave him the final reassurance he needed.

A loud click came from the kitchen and the singing stopped. An electric kettle rang against a coffee jar.

In three strides he reached the door.

The water wobbled from the kettle’s lip.

Kramer burst into the kitchen and jabbed his gun into the man’s back.

Then saw the man was black and wore a scarf around his jaw as though he had a toothache. The dishwasher!

Who then attacked Kramer with sudden and terrible skill, uttering not a sound. Which only a faceful of scalding tea could stop before another neck was bruiselessly broken.

Kramer bundled the killer out into the cafe, registering as he did so that he’d lost his gun and two cups lay shattered on the floor behind him.

By then it was too late.

High above and in front of them, a rifle bolt was worked in a breech. A deliberate, alarming sound that jerked up the dishwasher’s head in a splash of light from the street to take the bullet right between his eyes. And level with the floor as he sagged to his knees.

Before the bolt could work again, Kramer had dived behind the counter.

“I will kill you,” said Da Gama’s voice from up in the darkened balcony.

“You have to,” Kramer replied. “Don’t worry, I understand.”

“Police?” asked Da Gama.

“Frelimo.”

“Your witness is dead?”

“Uh-huh.”

Kramer had by then heaved the heavy corpse in behind the chipboard of the counter and made himself a shield with it.

Da Gama, committed to destruction and escape within the least possible time, began firing into the counter. The chipboard proved just thick enough to slow the high-velocity slugs down and lodge in the dishwasher.

Either way, it was a matter of time, and Kramer hoped Zondi would appreciate that.

Zondi closed the door softly behind him, waited for a shot to ring in his ears, and slid the bottom bolt home to keep whoever it was up there outnumbered.

His PPK was already cocked, so he could move without making a sound into the middle of the floor.

The lieutenant was obviously pinned down behind the counter, but he saw no way of safely reaching him.

“It’s all up with you!” the lieutenant shouted at the balcony. “All up, do you hear? Up! ”

A heavier-caliber rifle cracked out its first shot above Zondi’s head, taking NO SALE out of the till. It would soon get its range.

“Up, up, up!” the lieutenant shouted. “You’ve got no hope left-no hope left. Do you understand?”

Zondi saddened at the thought a fine man should be going mad-then got the idea.

“That’s it! Right, Da Gama, this is when-”

That bullet brought a cough from the corner.

Then the lieutenant’s voice, a little croakily, began another string of defiant gibberish. “Stop! Stop! I’ll do anything. I’ll go back and say nothing. Stop! That’s dead right. Go on, shoot, you bugger! Shoot! You have been authorized.”

So Zondi shot straight upward into the thin floor of the balcony, grouping his bullets carefully, and keeping the ninth just in case it was still needed.

An act of thrift more than anything, as it turned out, because first there was a sharp, bouncing thud from above, and then a dull one.

“God in heaven,” said the lieutenant, staggering across with his brains showing. “Just wait till the colonel hears what you’ve done this time.”

Piet leaned his air rifle against the tree under which Kramer was sitting, and joined him on the grass.

“Tell me again,” he urged.

“Which one?”

“Oh, any.”

Kramer was not really in the mood for stories, and his leg, half encased in plaster, was irritatingly painful. Even after a whole week at Blue Haze.

“Tell me some jokes, then.”

“Hey?”

“The one about Mickey.”

“Zondi? He is a man, and you are a child.”

“All right, I know. The one when Zondi thought Gama had got you in the head, and you wiped some off and said you were so clever it sometimes came out of your ears.”

“Who told you that?” Kramer snapped. “Your ma?”

“Mickey did, when he came to help us with your suitcases and boxes. He also told me how you made him steer under the gun flashes, and how if you opened the windows then all the smoke would blow out. But aren’t you going to say the joke?”

“ Ach, man-you know it already.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“And it isn’t really funny because the dead man got nearly all his head blown off by the one bullet-which is why you must be careful with that thing.”

“Tell me again what that skabenga did.”

“Hell,” sighed Kramer, and then realized that his means of escape were nil. “The skabenga’s name was Ruru and he had once worked with Da Gama in a special sort of police force.”

“Like you and Mi-”

“Uh-huh. So when the terrorists took over in LM they ran away and came to this town, where-no, that’s wrong. First Da Gama came here and bossed an old man into making him his sort of son because the old man-”

“Funchal?”

“Because Funchal was rich and funny, not in the ha-ha sense, and he was afraid of Da Gama. Then Ruru came and worked as a dishwasher in their tearoom. Gama and Ruru planned to kill the old man and then, later on, cheat the whole family out of their shops. Ruru was black, so he could go among the blacks in Peacevale and find men-gangsters-who would help them.”

“Why?”

Piet always asked that question.

“What did I say the last time?”

“Because they were promised a lot of money and could see how clever Ruru was.”

“Now don’t ask it again! Anyway, Ruru and these two, Dubula and Mpeta, made a start by killing shopkeepers in Peacevale.”

“Lucky?”

“That one your ma must have told you!”

Sensibly, Piet said no more and pretended great interest in a ladybird.

“Anyway, they finally come to the day when they think that Ruru is going to rob an expensive- ach, a place in town where there’s lots of money, and he tells them all about how rich Mr. Funchal is. They wait in front of the shop, they hear the bang, and they drive off and dump the car. Then they walk back to where Ruru said he would meet them in an old De Soto. Now, they don’t know, but this De Soto is their coffin on wheels!”

“This is the part I like best.”

“Ruru has already hidden the gun-which was just a pistol with no telescopic sights-and the exact same amount of money as Gama will say is missing, under the seat. Then, to make extra sure we won’t go on looking, Ruru also puts a centavos in the tin and has to mix it with ordinary coins so it won’t look too-y’know.”

“Obvious?”

“Uh-huh. Don’t forget, just before the car came outside the-”

“I know that one backwards! Gama went down and emptied the till. Then he called-no, wait. Mr. Funchal was sitting behind his till. Dubula could see this and when there was nobody going into the tearoom, he tooted his hooter. Then Gama, who couldn’t see underneath him, knew it was safe to call down and tell Mr. Funchal to look in his till. Mr. Funchal opened the till, saw nothing was inside, and looked up at Gama to ask what was going on. Gama already had him right in his sights where the hairs cross and-”

“Who is telling this story, you or me?” said Kramer, and cuffed his head.

“Ow, you big bully!”

“So there are Dubula and Mpeta driving out into the country where the hairpin bends are-it’s not very far. Ruru tells them to stop and he hands each of them big wads of paper wrapped in rags and says they must count their pay.”

“He is in the back seat!”

“Correct. And as they bend to look at the money-”

“Which is only paper!”

“He does this to their necks.”

Piet got up off his stomach and tried to imitate the action. “Is that true?” he asked. “Would that really kill you?”

“ Ach, no!” Kramer lied with a laugh, because he’d just seen the Widow Fourie approaching across the garden with two lagers, and this was her child he was corrupting.

“And then?”

“Ruru does what he’s done many times before, and he fakes an accident so nobody will notice. Then he and Gama go and see what the Durban shops are like and-”

“Why didn’t they have a light on in the tearoom when you made a big fool of yourself?”

“Careful, sonny! What do they need with a light when they’re just going to talk and up there on the balcony there are all those windows? A light would have drawn attention to them, and it was their meeting place. You see, Gama was white and…”

Thank God. Bloody Piet had finally lost interest.

Then the boy looked up and said, “Is that story true. You know, really real?”

“Why ask?”

“Because everyone dies in the end and how-”

“What’s this? More stories?”

“Ja, Mum-the one about the snake.”

The Widow Fourie stopped short.

“Trompie! You’d tell-”

“The one about the snake in the grass, Mum, that’s all.”

“Thank heavens for that,” she said, sitting down and handing Kramer his glass before smiling.

“Was that Zondi just now?”

“Popped in to see how you were-I don’t think he likes Klip Marais much-and to say they’re not going to proceed against Martha.”

“I’ll see you,” said Piet, shouldering his gun and going off to the barn.

Kramer was following the line of a stout branch above his head.

“What’s the matter?” the Widow Fourie asked. “Don’t tell me my favorite tree has now got spitbugs in it?”

“No. I was just thinking: after all that, there would be only one hanging.”

“Peter? Peter Shirley? But I say he’s mental!”

“Huh! The law says he can tell right from wrong.”

The Widow Fourie made a face at him and then drank some of her lager.

“Have you noticed about Piet?” she asked.

“What now?”

“He never calls you Uncle Trompie anymore.”

“Uh-huh?”

“And you know why?”

“Because I’m the landlord?”

“Because I think he loves you.”

“Piet,” said Kramer, getting up by grasping the tree, “is just another sodding snake in the grass.”