A song in the morning

16

A crisp, bright, autumn morning over the flat veld, the diamond frost going with the sunlight.

Monday morning. Another week. One more used up.

Jack had dismantled the model. He had returned the pieces to the bread bin.

In a corner of the yard at the back of the block of flats he discarded one of the two metal tubes. He had explosive enough for one tube only. He had to go out the way that he went in.

Jan carried the suitcase to the car. Ros had the shotgun, broken and carried under an overcoat, and the two revolvers.

Jack brought the tube.

Jack had told them he needed a stop on the way for a bag of readymix concrete. He said that he would sit in the back of the car, that he needed to think. He sat in the back of the car and concentrated on an approach from the south side over Magazine Hill, and diversions on the north side near the guarded perimeters of Defence Headquarters.

They could rent a service flat in Pretoria, Ros said. It wouldn't be difficult to find one, but it would be expensive.

Jack passed her a wad of rand notes. He slipped back to his thinking.

How much could he ask of them, of Jan and Ros?

The principal hotels were tried first.

Two detectives, with the two original photo-fits and also with a third photo-fit that was an amalgam of the shopkeepers' opinions, were briefed to visit the city's four and five star hotels. Other teams were directed towards the two and three star hotels, the booking offices of South African Airways, of the European airlines, and to Jan Smuts.

Every one of them worked from John Vorster Square, had been violated by the bomb. The two with the four and five star list appreciated that the hotels worked shift systems of reception and porter staff. They knew that if they drew blanks with this visit that they must come back to interview those staff who were not on duty that Monday morning.

At the Landdrost, first visit, the detective found the Indian day porter on duty. He left his colleague with the brunette on reception, poring over the composite photo-fit. She had known the face. The detective showed the day porter the photo-fits.

The day porter recalled the features. He had quite liked the man. He'd had a good tip for arranging the visit to Soweto, and another tip when the man had checked out. He nodded his head. He understood that the detective was from the security police. And if it was the security police then it was not pilfering or the fraudulent use of a credit card, it was sedition or terrorism. Heavily, the day porter nodded.

He wrote a room number on a slip of paper and pushed it across his desk to the detective. He was asked whether he knew the man's name.

"His name was Mr Curwen."

"Was?"

"The middle of last week he left, sir."

The day porter was in work. Not big pay but the tips were good. He'd remembered this man, for courtesy and for a warm word of thanks when the man had gone, carrying his own suitcase out, he hadn't forgotten that. It hurt the day porter to implicate the young Englishman.

The detective went to the cashier's desk. With the name and the room number it took only half a minute for him to be given a copy of the bill, and the dates of the guest's stay.

Soon afterwards a watch salesman from Port Elizabeth, sleeping in late with a Coloured call girl, was disturbed in his room. They were given two minutes to get their clothes on.

The salesman was in the corridor zipping his trousers, his 100 rand companion was beside him buttoning her blouse, as the dog was unleashed in the room. The salesman, in increasing desperation, tried without success to discover why his room was being searched. The detectives stayed in the corridor and gave him no satisfaction. Just the handler and his small black labrador dog in the room.

The dog explored the bed, and the drawers of the bedside tables, no reaction. It covered the desk beside the window, and the drawers there. It went past the television set. The cold nose flitted over the dressing table. The dog and the handler had made a slow circuit of the room when they reached the wardrobe in the corner opposite the bathroom door.

The dog snorted.

It had been trained over months to recognise the scent of minute traces of explosive. The dog had no skill at tracking a man, nor at finding hard or soft drugs in luggage. It was an explosive sniffer dog. The dog pawed at the wardrobe door, scratched at the varnish finish. The handler slid open the door. The dog sniffed hard into the bottom corner of the wardrobe, then up to the inside of the door. The dog barked, the tail going, then came out of the wardrobe and sat, and the handler gave it a biscuit.

"There were explosives in this cupboard," the handler told the detectives. "My guess would be that the suspect had traces on his hands from handling the explosives when he closed the cupboard door. The dog has found the traces inside only, but the outside would have been cleaned by the maid staff. But there's no doubt, there were explosives very recently in this room."

• • •

He had the name of Jack Curwen. He had an address in the Surrey town of Leatherhead. He had a date of arrival in South Africa.

The colonel dictated his telex.

He had forensic confirmation that the explosive traces found on the inside of the wardrobe door matched the types of plaster gelignite most generally issued by the Soviets to the military wing of the A.N.C.

By choice he was an overworked man. He drew to his own desk as many strands of investigation as it was possible for him to gather in.

He missed a link.

He did not marry the information he now possessed with the report sent from London by Major Swart before the John Vorster Square bomb, which had been circulated to the colonel by Pretoria.

The colonel had so much to concern himself with, it was understandable, only human, that he missed the link.

•* •

The telex had been transformed from a jumble of numbers to a demand for immediate information. The telex lay on the desk of Major Swart.

Major Swart's office was deserted. The telex was placed on the untenanted desk.

Halfway through that Monday morning.

There had been a short hail shower. The forecast was for rain later.

Major Swart thought it a dismal occasion. A burial service without dignity. But then Arkwright had been a pathetic creature.

It was an hour's drive out of London for Major Swart. Piet had brought him down the M4 to the village beyond Reading.

They were dressed for the part, the major and his warrant officer.

The major was unshaven and in jeans with an old donkey coat on his shoulders. The warrant officer had chosen denims with a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo on the back of his jacket. The major had thought there would be a better turn out. It was the last chance perhaps to get a tail on the young man introduced by Arkwright to Jacob Thiroko. And the bastard hadn't shown. He could have saved his time.

He recognised faces from Anti-Apartheid. No one that was special. A few kids out of the secretaries' pool, a man who made speeches at the really bum meetings when the seniors didn't want to know. He saw Arkwright's parents, country people, and they looked as embarrassed at the contingent from London as they were by the attendance of Arkwright's wife's people whose Jaguar was a flashy intrusion in the lane outside the church.

The group was around the open grave. He could hear the vicar's voice, as sonorous as the clouds. He and Piet were standing back, amongst the old head stones.

"Pleasant surprise to see you here, Major Swart."

He turned fast. He didn't know the man who had come silently over the wet grass to stand behind him. A big man, wearing a good overcoat.

"Detective Inspector Cooper, Major Swart. Didn't expect you'd be out and about to offer your condolences at the death of an Anti-Apartheid activist."

The anger was crimson on the major's cheeks.

"I'd have thought the embassy could have done better on the clothing allowance, Major Swart."

Swart saw the amusement on the detective inspector's face. "There is no regulation restricting the travel of South African diplomats inside the United Kingdom."

The detective inspector looked him over, with mocking enjoyment. "None at all, Major. Going on afterwards to the family for a drink and a sandwich, are we?"

"Go and fuck yourself," Major Swart said.

"Nice language for a cemetery, Major, very choice. I doubt you'll tell me why you're here, but I'll tell you why I'm here. Our investigations tell us that Douglas Arkwright was followed out of a public house on the night of his death.

It is our belief that he was attacked as he walked home.

Some of his injuries were consistent with a kicking. Stroke of luck for us, really, but when he went under the bus only his head and shoulders were hit by the tyres, that's how we can say for sure what were other injuries he had very recently sustained. It is our belief that Arkwright was running away from his assailants when he fell under the bus. Wouldn't be murder, of course, manslaughter would be the charge. You'd know about that, Major Swart, you being a policeman back home. Any ideas on who would be interested in roughing up a creep like Douglas Arkwright?"

"Any time you want advice on how to police your inner cities, just telephone me, Inspector."

"The National Theatre could give you a hand with your costume, Major. And you, Warrant Officer. It is Warrant Officer Piet Kaiser, isn't it? I thought so. Ask for the wardrobe mistress at the stage door. Very helpful folk."

The major walked away, his warrant officer close behind him. He didn't look back. He presumed the man was Special Branch.

They drove off, crashing through the gears, causing the vicar to pause in mid flow.

Major Swart and Warrant Officer Kaiser stopped at a pub on the Thames and didn't leave before closing time.

It would be late afternoon before he found the telex on his desk that required immediate attention.