The Sunday Hangman

20

Like a skull on a dunghill, the great white stone shone in the moonlight, becoming smaller every minute behind them. The Chev howled and slithered and clawed its way up to the pass. No dust showed in its headlights.

“Ten-minute start,” said Kramer.

“Five, more like.”

“Never make it.”

“Before?”

“The fork down the other side.”

Bracing himself against the movement of the car, Kramer lit two cigarettes and stuck one of them in Zondi’s mouth. Then he flicked on the map-reading light and held the magazine beneath it.

“Dear God,” he murmured. “This is so old she could be his bloody mother.”

“Sorry, boss?”

“Sick.”

“Not your fault, Lieutenant,” grunted Zondi, missing the point and a sheer drop simultaneously. “You must take it easy, or you will do a foolish thing. What is the procedure when we overtake this vehicle?”

“Huh!”

“It is a good road for a puncture.”

“Trust a kaffir!”

“Every time,” added Zondi.

And they laughed.

It was the release Kramer had needed. “The procedure,” he said, “is simple. If he won’t pull up, then I’ll do as you suggest and take his tires out.” He placed his Smith amp; Wesson.38 on the map shelf in readiness.

“From the back or side?”

“Either. Willie will be all right-the doors and walls on that thing are so thick they’ll stop any spare slugs.”

He didn’t go into what might happen if the truck, losing a tire at high speed, left the road; that smattered of trying to think too far ahead.

“Let us hope that his gallows place is far from here,” said Zondi, making careful use of the ashtray. “The longer he drives, the better our chance will be.”

“While you’re at it, let’s hope I’m somewhere near right with my bloody theory.”

“That he must do the deed properly?”

“Uh huh. It depends on how far off the rails he’s gone, I realize that, but I’m certain all the fiddling about is essential to him. He’s got to weigh-”

“But what charge, boss?

“I’ll let you guess,” said Kramer, and outlined what had happened after the visit to Swartboom.

They were nearing the crest of the pass by the time he had finished. There was still no dust suspended in the beam of the headlights, and unless they reached the fork on the far side in time to see some telltale sign of his passage, their chances of ever catching up would be halved.

“Well, Mickey?”

“Can the fire be blamed?” Zondi replied enigmatically.

Then he gunned the Chev into the final S-bend before the top and the plunge into the long descent.

Willie Boshoff lay on his back, cold sober and terrified, the floor beneath him bounced, tilted sideways, and rolled him over again, smashing his face against something hard in the dark. Bound hand and foot, he could do nothing to save himself, and back he rolled again, tasting the blood and mucus from his broken nose. He retched.

The truck changed up. It began to move faster, more smoothly.

He should never have done it. The transfer would have been his without any extras. He should have told the Lieutenant instead of pretending to go off to bed.

His mind was repeating things. Playing over the way Swanepoel had questioned him when the Lieutenant and de Bruin had left. Making him see and hear again those little giveaways which had given him his idea. The Lieutenant can nail the hangman, he had thought, but I’ll be the one who gets the credit for his assistant. All I have to do is ask his daughter a few questions.

The truck-it sounded like a Bedford-slipped back into a lower gear, and Willie rolled again, the victim of his own inertia.

He had never got near her.

He’d never know what had made him mad enough to risk what he had done; never. Never know why it had been something he didn’t want to share. But to keep to himself, as he acted compulsively, slyly, stealing away on the horse and climbing in through the open bedroom window. To lose all sense of time when he discovered, left lying around quite openly, a leather demonstration carrying case of the kind that traveling salesmen use. A case packed neatly with all the tools of a terrible trade-the very same case and contents as described by Dr. Strydom in his Telex: the rope, with metal eye and rubber washer; a wrist strap and leg strap, unused; the black cap; fine copper wire; packthread; tape measure; two-foot rule; pliers; spare shackle.

The truck was slowing down. And down. And coming to a stop.

Pray God, a roadblock. Willie, who had recovered consciousness only momentarily, felt a greater darkness overwhelm him before he could find out.

Zondi snapped off the Chev’s headlights.

“Why the-”

“Down there, boss! At one o’clock!”

Kramer looked and saw, far below them on the valley floor, a pair of stationary headlights. An instant later, they were switched off. No other lights shone anywhere.

“But that’s bloody miles before the fork, man!”

“It must be where he has his place.”

“Rubbish! How could he build on reserve land?”

“Some building that is there already?”

“That isn’t used?”

Zondi gave all his attention to the road. His speed had dropped considerably, for the moonlight tended to play optical tricks with the sharp bends.

“Use full lights and just belt it,” ordered Kramer.

“So he can see we follow him?”

“Wouldn’t know it was us. No, wait.”

The Chev crunched to a halt on the verge, held in check by the handbrake until they could resolve their dilemma: on the one hand, to continue in hot pursuit might be to precipitate events, while on the other, a more cautious approach might get them there too late.

“I think he must have seen Willie off already,” Kramer said softly. “He’s stopped now to set up his side show. We’ve no idea of how long ago he left the barbecue party.”

“Or he has already seen our lights,” Zondi suggested.

“Not a chance. He was facing the wrong way to get anything this high in his rear-view mirrors. Bugger, why has he stopped?”

Now that they had been in the dark for a minute or so, their night vision was improving; the valley was beginning to roughen up as areas of different tone became more distinct. There was a crescent of fairly pronounced shadow about two hundred yards to the right of where the truck’s lights had gone out.

“Hau, pillbox!” said Zondi, using English.

“And ‘pillbox’ to you, my son.”

“No, boss! That is what throws the shadow. The pillbox the English soldiers poked their guns from-round, with small windows.”

“Of course! Ja, I can see it now.”

The ubiquitous bloody pillbox; so much a part of the landscape in parts of Natal, you never noticed them.

“Which is where he’s got his scaffold, Mickey!”

“Maybe he just wants to hide on the side road.”

“No, man; that’s got to be where it is! Can you think of a better spot?”

Everything was making sense again. For a time, Kramer’s theory of a cool, impersonal hangman had been irreconcilable with the bitter, impulsively violent character of Gysbert Swanepoel. One of the chief reasons for this being the actual evidence they’d had of a humane, carefully conducted ritualism, which didn’t go at all with what Swanepoel was alleged to be capable of when crossed. And yet, in this very conflict of opposites, lay the knowledge that Willie was still very much alive.

“There’s no hurry,” said Kramer, lighting another couple of Luckies. “We’re not dealing with one man here, but two. The way he knocked Willie down was his straightforward, surface reaction to a problem-he avenged himself in a way not uncommon among country folk. Now his obsession with capital punishment has taken over-there can be no doubt he caught Willie in the act-and he cannot imagine a policeman being made to pay the ultimate penalty for such a crime. So he has decided to execute him, deluding himself there is nothing personal involved in the matter. You follow?”

Zondi’s grunt was noncommittal. He put his hand back on the handbrake handle.

“I know what you’re thinking, man-that he’s just a bloody killer-but if he saw himself that way, then why all this complicated fuss? Because he needs to delude himself he’s no more a killer than the state executioner! And for the delusion to work, he has to kill without murdering. What’s the only way you can do that?”

“Legitimately? But his-”

“By not using a murder weapon, for Christ’s sake! He can’t use a gun or a knife or his hands-it has got to be the gallows. It doesn’t stop there either, because to sustain the delusion, the deed has to be taken very seriously, with the proper attention being paid to every detail, just like the real thing. And every time he succeeds in carrying out a perfect execution, he feels more certain in his mind about what happened to Vasari. That’s really what lies behind all this.”

“Why should he care so much?” Zondi said, releasing the handbrake.

“The old, old story: he didn’t see what happened to the sodding victim. You have; you’ve seen the pictures. You know that old man was just as alive as the little bastard who shoved him over the railing-Vasari.”

The Chev picked up speed as it free-wheeled on down the slopes of the ridge.

“A long drop,” observed Zondi.

“Ja, and they say he screamed all the way down onto the rocks. Didn’t die either, until the coolies had called the ambulance. I reckon we’ll make it with five minutes to spare at this rate.”

“Yebo?”

“Has to check the traps and fix the slack. Huh, might even have the whole night, if he’s decided to stretch the rope properly, but I wouldn’t like to bet on that.”

“Maybe Boss Willie will give trouble as well, increasing our chance.”

“Oh, wog of little faith,” Kramer sighed, quite certain the right decision had been made-and for the right reasons.

Then he sat back to see what he could remember of the only pillbox he’d ever bothered to look at closely. The height would have been ideal-a good fifteen feet, even before you started to dig a pit into the earth floor-and there’d been stout wooden beams across the top. The windows and door had been bricked up, but not very effectively, and a good kick had given him access. These windows would also be bricked up, of course, to prevent any light from showing, and presumably the door would be some sort of restoration job. This left the roof as his most likely means of entry, providing it, too, was falling to bits like the other one. And that was some provision. With another sigh, Kramer realized he was saddled with a problem that had sorely taxed his forefathers, and that had seldom been solved without a considerable quantity of dynamite. That was, of course, why the bloody things were still about.

Willie came around again and knew that he had been moved. He was sitting, propped up in a corner, with something made of black material over his head. The change of position had relieved the congestion in his nostrils-he could feel the snot and blood sliding down his chin-and he could, very faintly, smell things. There was the shop freshness of the material, and, coming through it, an odor of disinfectant. He identified this as Jeyes Fluid, with which prisons and stationhouse lockups were traditionally saturated. The association paralyzed him.

Then a dark shape moved aside from his line of vision, allowing a bright, if slightly orange, light to penetrate the cloth and make it partially transparent. Like a child trying to cheat at a party game, Willie could see very little through it-except for the silhouette of something that hung between him and the light source. It was a noose.

A noose, Willie noted, with no slack taken up in the rope and neatly tied with packthread; a strangler’s noose.

He screamed, hoarsely.

“Nobody outside could hear you, even if there was anyone there,” said the voice of Gysbert Swanepoel, looming with the return of the dark shape. “I’m sorry you have to have the cap on so early, but I haven’t had time to make my usual preparations. I didn’t want you unduly upset.”

Willie tried to kick at him.

“Don’t make it harder for yourself, Boshoff. I’ve never had to tie anyone up before, and I’m hoping you’ll try to be a man when the time comes. Your execution will be at midnight, by the way, right on the dot.”

When Willie heard that, he stopped feeling terrified. He ceased to believe in what was happening. He sniffed and-as delicately as he could-spat.

“Shall we talk?” Swanepoel asked. “I’m afraid I have no assistance, so I have to play several roles at once. Let us suppose for the next few minutes that I am your kindly warder.”

“That rope’s wrong,” said Willie, amazing himself.

“In what way?”

“No drop.”

“Ah, but there is a drop, I assure you. I had you on the mealie scales before we came here. Eleven stone would give a standard American drop, as it happens-rather a fluke-but I’ve added three inches extra for reasons you may not want me to go into.”

“Can’t see it,” said Willie.

“It’s tucked away, Boshoff. Don’t worry, please; all will go off very smoothly, and you will feel no pain.”

“What about the stretch? Is the rope stretched?”

A large hand patted Willie on the knee. “Trust me, Boshoff, trust me. I use a steel cable for linkage-a little refinement of my own, as my procedures cannot be as leisurely. You seem to be showing a much more intelligent attitude tonight. What you said today really upset me. I can’t tell you how much.”

“Is that why you’ve got me here?”

The dark shape walked away, making the floor tremble at each pace, then returned.

“Ja, I suppose it must be, Boshoff-although I couldn’t have done anything about it, if you hadn’t given me an excuse.”

The man was either completely mad or the Lieutenant so terribly wrong that he deserved to die in Willie’s place. Mercifully, there was no reality in any of this-in fact, playing along with Swanepoel was like talking in a dream in which you felt perfectly safe.

“What excuse? What have I done?”

“You know quite well, Boshoff. You must have been that police friend of Tommy McKenzie’s he threatened me with. Deny you decided to step into his shoes, having heard all his stories.”

“And do what?”

“Fornicate with my daughter. Teach her evil, take advantage of a condition that had already caused me enough concern. To commit, in short, Constable Boshoff, a statutory rape.”

“No, I bloody didn’t!”

“Oh?” replied Swanepoel, without any real interest. “Then I shall have to use my alternative charge-in your presence at least. When I came on you in my bedroom, you attacked me: the charge under which you were convicted was one of house-breaking with aggravating circumstances.”

“You’re the judge, too?”

“For the meantime, until this matter comes before a proper court.”

“I don’t understand that,” said Willie. “And you don’t seem to understand that we’re on to you. We know all about everything! Oh, ja, and if you touch me, then the Lieutenant will know for certain who the hangman is!”

Swanepoel laughed; the sound was mocking. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “It’s taken them long enough. Would you like me to be the chaplain now? Five minutes are all you have left.”

The Chev stopped on the road where the track led off up to the truck and, a couple of hundred yards beyond it, the pillbox. If Swanepoel heard its engine, then he would simply suppose it had passed on by.

“Get on the walkie-talkie and tell Goodluck and his lot to drop everything and come down here fast!” Kramer told Zondi, opening his door. “All I’m concentrating on is getting Willie out to begin with, and then we might be able to do with some additional help.”

“I could create a diversion, boss.”

“Mickey, I’m sorry, but you’re not up to it, man. You have already done a fantastic job. Okay?”

Zondi reached over the back of his seat for the radio.

“It would take you,” Kramer said, impatient to go but unable to leave him like this, “five minutes to reach the bloody truck, Mick. Be reasonable!”

He felt a dry palm squeeze his fist briefly.

With his throat constricted so it hurt, Kramer turned and sprinted up the track, keeping on the grass. As he drew near the truck, his hand brought the revolver’s nose up, just in case. But the cab was empty and the back locked, with the great latch snug behind its cleats. He reached a barbed-wire fence and looked for where Swanepoel had passed through with his burden. This wasted time, so he vaulted over before finding out.

“Priorities,” he muttered with conscious grim humor. “Probably hasn’t got the drop right yet-no bloody table to check it against. Hey ho for the Witklip computer.”

The slope leading up to the pillbox, squat and evil against the moon, was treacherous with loose stone. He tripped and went down hard, making one hell of a clatter.

The absurd, wild, fervent hope that help was on its way had taken possession of Willie. If only he could keep Swanepoel talking long enough, the nightmare would suddenly-and very sweetly-come to an end.

“You mustn’t think I haven’t my eye on the clock,” Swanepoel said abruptly. “The law is very particular in these matters.”

“You’re the law? If you’re the law, then what did you charge Ringo Roberts under? Tell me that!”

“Murder.”

A starburst of pain in Willie’s nose made him pause, then he gamely went on: “But that’s where you’re wrong, see? The law decided that the charge should be withdrawn.”

“Ach, not that murder,” Swanepoel said casually, moving away to make a final inspection of the noose.

Willie watched his shape move the rubber washer thing up and down. He also became aware that he had wet himself. This had been a serious offense in the home, and it made him feel very ashamed.

“Which murder?” he demanded angrily.

“My son’s.”

“Who?”

“Anthony Michael.”

“Jesus!”

“I knew you wouldn’t know that, and, for obvious reasons, I don’t mind you hearing it from me now. I like to tell people when I have the chance, which isn’t often. You know, I saw him once, as a matter of fact-I think she brought him for that purpose. Perhaps to see the land of his father, so he’d have it in his mind always, because she was like that. A strange, lonely, beautiful woman, who knew me like no other person has ever done. She also knew what was right. She knew that we were of two cultures, and our lives would run on along separate lines.

All she ever asked in return was that baby, and I gave life. I gave life, I can take life; I am a man!”

Loudly, mockingly, Swanepoel laughed. His insanity was established, but through it ran a steel wire of logic that suddenly snapped taut, choking off the breath.

“Have you a father?” he asked, laying that great hand on Willie’s left shoulder.

Willie shook his head.

“Good! I thought not-it is also something I always try to find out. The father suffers terribly, I can promise you. I suffered even when seeing my man-child, who had been nothing to me but sperm I had spilled, and knowing we would always live apart. Which was nonsense! Nonsense! I had made love-I loved that woman-I had made love, and they killed my love. She went away broken. I’ve never understood why others could not see he was mine. I wondered if the man guessed; I caught him watching me strangely. At times, I’ve been sure that Karl guessed, but he would never say so. Tenderness is not widely accepted; he would expect me to bear the stain of sin. It wasn’t sin. I had to stay on until we were sure it had happened. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she whispered, ‘you must go now. I have part of you for always.’ She crossed herself. I wept. I used to be a proper crybaby!”

Desperately, Willie said, “But Vasari wasn’t murdered!”

Swanepoel grabbed him by the shoulders, dragging him to his feet. “Wasn’t he? What happened to him? Can you tell me that?”

“He-he was hanged.”

“Ah! A subtle difference? I’m glad you have spotted it! You know why?”

Again Willie shook his head, dizzy with fear and nausea.

“Because it is one I use myself,” said Swanepoel, laughing very loudly. “Let’s see the bastards talk their way out of that!”

There wasn’t a sound in the shadow of the pillbox. Kramer circled it, moving in a crouch, absolutely silently. The windows had been bricked up and so, it appeared, had the door.

Then he came upon the thorn tree. It grew right beside the thick wall, branching off asymmetrically, before heaving its canopy over the top. With luck, it would make a prickly but adequate scaling ladder. He bolstered his revolver, reached up, and dragged himself into the lowest fork. Testing each branch carefully, he progressed from there, rising barely six inches at a time, his hands sticky with the tears made by the thorns. He kept pausing to wipe them dry, for fear of doing the butterfingers when the moment came to draw. A dry branch cracked under his testing tug.

He froze.

There wasn’t another sound.

Swanepoel stopped laughing. He pinned Willie hard against the wall. He turned him round and took hold of his wrists.

“So you see, I want them to catch me,” he whispered in Willie’s ear. “I’ve always wanted that, ever since Roberts. He was the only one I hid, because I wasn’t ready then. I didn’t have an impressive enough number. But they were such fools! Such fools! I left the cap as a clue last time; did they find it?”

Blubbering, Willie managed to say, “They’ll-they’ll hang you, too!”

“Of course, Boshoff. How else will I ever know the truth? Ever know what happened to my man-child? They won’t tell me themselves and the books all contradict. The Englishman I respect; he may even, as Karl says, have taught our hangman his skills. But when? How long ago? He has retired-has our man retired also? What of these stories of the white pickax handle? Of the short drops? The drops too long? When that trap opens, just before I die, I will know. Nobody will stop me.”

He brought Willie away from the wall.

“But-oh, Jesus save me! — it-it won’t work with me, Mr. Swanepoel! I did nothing capital! You won’t be able to claim that in court. Make fools of them! Please stop this! Please let me go! I’ll give you anything! I’ve never even been with a woman!”

“It’s best not to, Willie. Hold still while I undo your feet; only beasts should be dragged to their death. You must stop struggling now and show dignity. Walk tall like my boy did; make me proud of you.”

Panting, pouring with a stink of sweat as sweet as rotting flesh, Zondi staggered as far as the truck and could go no farther. The walkie-talkie, which had proved useless because of the high ridge between him and Luthuli’s party, was still clutched in his hand. He tossed it down.

There was no sign of the Lieutenant up at the pillbox.

Zondi looked into the cab of the truck. The open door and the keys in the ignition switch indicated that Swanepoel had abandoned it in a hurry. Perhaps all that theorizing had been too fanciful, too reverent about executions in the way that white people often were, trying to turn killing into pulling teeth. Perhaps it was all over, and there was blood in Boss Boshoff’s mouth.

There was a scrambling noise.

The noose was around Willie’s neck. It was being tightened and the rubber ring drawn down into place. The floor beneath his stockinged feet felt absolutely solid; he couldn’t detect the crack. Just bumpy lines.

“You’re right,” Swanepoel agreed. “It has driven me a little mad. The doubt, I suppose. Still, each time I see it work perfectly, I know it must have been quick for him, providing it was done properly.”

“You don’t need me, too,” Willie whispered, not being able to speak any louder, having curled away in a far corner of his mind. “You don’t need another. You’ve proved it five times.”

“Any scientific experiment requires many repetitions for the result to be of any significance, Willie. I could have performed five flukes. Shall I tell you why you’re different from the others? And more like my son?”

Willie nodded. Another second-anything!

“They gave me no trouble because their guilt would make them yield to what must inevitably happen. But, like Anthony Michael, you do not feel guilt. That is why I want to see if you can still take this like a man. I am going to say goodbye now, then I am going to walk-”

“A prayer! I can’t die without a prayer!”

Swanepoel sighed. “Our Father,” he said.

Kramer looked over the top of the pillbox and saw the top branches of a thorn tree growing inside it. Below that, silvered by the moon, weed. Broken beams, brought down by termites, lying where they had fallen. “Ach, no!” he gasped.

Then began climbing down, ripping his clothes and his skin in his haste, feeling nothing. Ten feet from the ground, he jumped and rolled, cracking his head on an anthill. Dazed, he staggered up, stumbled, ran.

Round in a circle, not knowing which direction to take. He stopped. Looked all around and saw nothing but the truck.

Despair dashed aside reason. “It’s in the truck!” Kramer shouted. “In the sodding truck! Must be!”

He started to run again.

The truck was too low.

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.