The Steam Pig

9

It was one hell of a night.

Gershwin Mkize’s final words were: “The steam pig…” Then he slumped, fell face first to the floor, and lay very still with his arse in the air.

Kramer and Zondi remained seated, staring at it dully. They thought they had broken the bastard. They thought they had taken him to the edge and dropped him over. Perhaps they had. But the posture seemed to proclaim an insolence that ended things the way they had begun.

Kramer raised a foot. Gershwin was just out of reach. His foot flopped. Zondi did not even make the attempt. They were both exhausted. Pooped.

Sure, it was all over-only Kramer’s body needed time to adjust to the idea. It was still running rough on a too-rich mixture of hot blood and gland juice. His face was flushed, his left temple pulsed quick as a toad’s throat, and his stomach hurt. His bladder, too, was under stress. One false move and he would be walking with his knees pressed together.

Outside it was morning.

One of those edge-to-edge mornings that make milkmen feel superior as they skim off its cream while the white boss sleeps.

By now, however, pint bottles stood half-empty among the cereal packets and Trekkersburg was hurrying along to keep the economy going boom boom boom. In the street, cars, lorries, buses and motorcycles had regressed to an assembly-line crawl; nose to tail, never quite going, never quite stopping, but getting someplace. Then right beneath the window, which was still covered by the slat blind, a giggle of secretaries paused to wait for a friend.

Kramer felt he must take a look; he suddenly craved their shower-fresh skins and crisp cotton blouses and sticky pink lipsticks. It was a mistake.

The sun speared him in the eyeballs. They bled red, robbing him of all but a glimpse of the girls as they tiptapped off with the latecomer. And worse: when he turned around he discovered that the light was the kind that turns a party’s gay litter into a squalid mess come dawn. This had been no party, but what the day did to his office was intolerable.

Every sordid item now declared itself in stark relief against its own sharp shadow; the coffee cups, the hose pipe, the crumpled packets, the wet towels, the plastic duck. The floor was a mess from smoking-and so was the air. Only the stench did not show up, although it was a close thing.

Then a passing schoolboy whistled across to a classmate and Kramer wondered at himself. It had been like this before and would be again. In a few minutes a fatigue party would be brought up from the cells. The scuff marks and cigarette smudges would disappear as completely from the parquet flooring as Gershwin’s thin bile. The towels would go down to the canteen and the duck and the rest of the stuff back into the cupboard. By nine the room-with its four cream walls, brown woodwork, two chairs and a desk-would be unremarkable as ever.

Which was the way he wanted to feel.

“Zondi, I’ve got to go, man.”

“Boss.”

“Send down for Khumalo to help you get this crap bag charged with Shoe Shoe’s murder on Saturday last. You said you’ve already charged the other two?”

“Straight away after I saw them at four.”

“Fine. Tell the prosecutor-think it’ll be Mr Oosthuizen this morning-that I want a week’s remand. He’ll fix it up. After that, you go home. I’ll ring the township manager if I need you before then, otherwise six on the dot outside here.”

Zondi nodded and reached for the telephone.

All the way down the passage Kramer kept his mind off his bladder. He did not want to give it any excuse for over-excitement. He made the white tiled wall just in time and was marvelling at one of life’s elementary pleasures when Sergeant Willie van Niekerk emerged from the cubicle behind him. He was the first Murder Squad man Kramer had seen in two days.

“Morning, Lieutenant,” Van Niekerk murmured with his customary civility, turning on the tap at the basin. There was no soap but he had brought his own in an envelope.

“How’s things?” Kramer asked, eyeing the Lifebuoy.

“ Ach, so so. Can’t grumble-got my reports finished last night. All up to date.”

“Oh, yes? Looking for work, are you?”

“Like the soap, sir?”

“Ta. I’ve got a nice little lot lined up for someone who knows what he’s doing.”

“Really? The case Colonel Dupe keeps starting to talk about?”

“What does he say?”

“Nothing. That’s why I’m interested.”

“Ja, that’s the one.”

Van Niekerk appeared to be examining his pen sketch of a moustache in the mirror but he was keeping the edge of an eye on Kramer.

“But haven’t you got someone working on that one already, sir?”

Kramer smelt tact.

“I’ve got a kaffir. He’s no bloody good for what I want done.”

“Which is?”

“Statements, phone inquiries, paperwork.”

“I could take a look at it, sir.”

Kramer handed back the soap, unused.

“Then let’s go up to the main office for a minute, Willie.”

The minute lasted one hour and some seconds. By the end of it, Van Niekerk knew all he needed.

And Kramer was on his way home. Home sweet home being a room in the house of a retired headmaster. Perhaps, strictly speaking, it was more than simply a room for it opened out on to its own enclosed verandah covered in granadilla vines. There was space enough for quite a bit of furniture and not a few callers. Kramer preferred to live without either. He settled for a divan, small wardrobe and a cardboard carton in which he kept his laundry lists and private papers. He had long since secretly conceded that he shared, in part, the philosophy of the Kalahari Bushmen. These hunters believed that shelter and clothing should be no more elaborate than circumstances demanded-a man’s duty was to invest his labours in his belly so to labour again. And that was how Kramer spent his money. Whenever possible, he would glut himself on steaks rich and various and as rare as a welder’s thumb.

His living arrangements did, however, have one disadvantage which a savage might laugh off but which distressed him in the mornings: he had to share a bathroom with the landlord, Mr Dickerson, and his lady.

Kramer braked hard. The traffic lights outside the Rugby ground had beaten him to it. He sat back in the bucket seat of his own little Ford.

And in a moment of total recall he felt the pinch of the narrow, cold bath on his shoulders. Then the icy droplets falling from the washing festooned above it on a rack. The old dear’s knickers would dry in ten minutes out in the sun. Oh no, she feared the sight of them might incite the garden boy. It was no good speaking to her about it either. She would only ask again why the law required bikini girls on cinema posters to have decent dresses painted over them. There was no answer to that.

The lights changed.

As if to demonstrate that such feats of memory were not necessarily an act of will, his brain made manifest what really had caused him to baulk at the thought of a bath before ten o’clock: the smell.

Mr and Mrs Dickerson were of the age and disposition well known for its morbid preoccupation with bowel movements. The window sill, the shelf above the washbasin, and the medicine locker itself bore weighty testimony to this. There were patent pills, powders and potions by the score, promising everything from gentle relief to an event not far short of common assault. Each label presumed the sufferer need search no further, but Mr and Mrs Dickerson preferred to approach their problem with at least an open mind-and as some might the blending of an elixir. Every evening they met to discuss a fresh formula in laboratory whispers, gulp down the ingredients and retire with expressions of hopeful anticipation.

Unhappily, the test bench was also in the bathroom. Not any amount of lace trimming around the seat lid could disguise the fact twelve hours later. Not with the window nailed shut for fear of tempting the garden boy.

And after all Kramer had been through, it was just too much. His mind relented and it was like finding a full bottle among the empties: he realised it was Thursday-and the Widow Fourie always had Thursdays off.

Kramer gave the Ford its head and took the first turning left. Hibiscus Court’s basement car park swallowed him up just four blocks later.

The Widow Fourie answered his second knock, a little sleepy but in her housecoat.

“Where are the kids?”

“Out with Elizabeth. They’ve gone down to the swings.”

“Who?”

“Oh, just my new kaffir maid. Sonja got her for me-she’s very clean.”

Kramer smiled wryly.

“Come on in, Trompie, people can see me.”

He stepped inside and leaned back on the door to close it. The click cocked his nervous system.

The Widow Fourie walked towards the bedroom. Then, noticing that Kramer was not following her, she turned and allowed her housecoat to swirl open. She had nothing on underneath.

Kramer approached her. She closed her eyes and he kissed her. Then he covered her nakedness.

“Got any Lifebuoy?” he asked.

The Widow Fourie blinked.

“Could ask you the same thing,” she smirked, regretting it instantly. “Hey, no you don’t! You stay right here. There’s your chair. I’ll get the water running.”

But Kramer was afraid to sit. He stayed standing until she returned to undress him, very gently. It was a mother’s touch.

“That’s not Lifebuoy,” Kramer protested as he was led into the sun-bright bathroom. “I’ll come out of here smelling like a bloody poof.”

The Widow Fourie responded by sprinkling another handful of crystals into the already murky water. She knew how he liked them.

The first thing he did once he was in the water was to grab a plastic toy and hurl it into the corridor.

“Man, you’re in a funny mood,” sighed the Widow Fourie. “Annie loves her duck. Don’t you remember bringing it to her?”

“So?”

“Now, look here, Trompie-”

“More hot, please.”

He forgot the duck and concentrated on the cabin cruiser. It was a good wide bath and by moving his arms skilfully it was possible to create a current that sucked the boat all the way from the plug. On his third attempt it went aground on the weed-locked shores of his chest.

“You’re just a big kid,” the Widow Fourie muttered, tying her belt tight like apron strings. “I suppose you want chips with your eggs?”

He was asleep.

And he stayed asleep until she tried to change the water which had become surprisingly chill for such a hot day.

“No, leave it,” he said. It was like a Cape stream in spring.

So the Widow Fourie perched on the wash basket and lit two Luckies. Kramer dried a hand and took one. He began to talk.

Eventually the Widow Fourie asked: “What was this Gershwin like when he confessed? Was he all relieved like they are in plays on the radio?”

“Oh ja. All off his chest. One big smile.”

“I can never understand that. It seems so stupid. I mean, now you’re going to hang him.”

“So? What is everyone afraid of? What they don’t know. Now he knows. Simple.”

“Still, it must be hard getting it out of a kaffir like him.”

“True.”

“Zondi has their mind, of course.”

The cabin cruiser sank beneath his fist.

“True, too.”

Bubbles came up in a thin stream.

“Why so quiet all of a sudden?”

“Nothing.”

“Can’t you see a connection between these two cases-is that what’s troubling you?”

“Naturally, we wasted a whole night on it. I tell you it’s quite straightforward. Gershwin killed Shoe Shoe for some damn fool reason, you know what these wogs are, and now he’s trying to make a good story for the court. They always do, even if they know they’re going to hang.”

“You mean this thing about getting a message from an unknown gang to kill his bloke or else?”

“Yes, it’s either that line or the one about spirits whispering evil things in their ears. What made it sound wrong at the start was he didn’t know the gang’s name. We just didn’t give him a chance to make one up, that’s all.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Trompie, he could have heard something somewhere.”

“A whisper you mean? Okay, so there’s a gang that makes small fry like Gershwin jump to attention and mess themselves. Let’s say the same lot’s behind Miss Whatsit’s murder. Is it likely that an outfit that uses a hired pro would delegate a job to a fumbler like Gershwin?”

“Thought you said you were impressed by his m.o.? It was a fluke you found Shoe Shoe’s body so fast. It could have been there years and then do you think anyone would have bothered to even ask Gershwin about it? Not a chance. You didn’t do anything when he was stabbed. And that’s another point; if Shoe Shoe was found dead in an ordinary way, surely the chances would be that someone would look for a spoke hole?”

“That’s my girlie, but it wasn’t a fluke that we got on to Shoe Shoe-it was a logical progression from the Le Roux murder. Zondi just followed it up.”

“Ah, but they didn’t expect that to be discovered in the first place, did they? There’s your fluke.”

Kramer began to soap his hair.

“Have it your way,” he said. “But this is all theory. The only link it suggests is that a gang with a name we don’t know is going about knocking off white girls and black beggars. Take it from there, if you can.”

The Widow Fourie went out and returned with a fresh packet of Luckies. Kramer had slid down to rinse his hair and so only his nose, mouth and knee-caps were above water level. It startled her mildly when the lips parted to speak.

“I know for a fact that Gershwin Mkize murdered Shoe Shoe,” the lips intoned slowly, “and I know for a fact that even if what Gershwin said was true, there is nothing more he can tell us.”

It was strangely impressive, rather like a scene from some ancient legend about a sub-aqua oracle. The Widow Fourie stood fascinated.

But Kramer said nothing more. He surfaced with a great splash and grabbed for a towel. The Widow Fourie handed him one absently.

“What about Shoe Shoe though?” she asked. “Surely he would know-you’d have thought he’d have said something when they were doing that to him.”

“According to Gershwin he had a hell of a lot to say-but it was all nonsense. He must have cracked with the shock. Can’t say I’m surprised, it was the second time for him.”

“What sort of nonsense?”

“Just gibberish and it didn’t help matters that Gershwin tried to put it all into bloody English as usual. We pushed him hard on this but got nowhere. In fact Gershwin was beginning to go a bit himself by then and you couldn’t really tell one lot from another. Stuff about people who tipped him-Shoe Shoe, I mean-and those that didn’t and councillors and the mayor’s car and all the important things he knew about important people watching from in front of the City Hall all day. Ach, I can’t be bothered. We didn’t even try to write it down in the end, just let him run on until he keeled over.”

“Do you remember any of it?”

“No. I tell you most of it was real rubbish.”

“Oh, just try to remember one thing. I think you’re so lucky to have an interesting job like yours is.”

Kramer could see he had made her day. Come to think of it, it was high time he made her. So, simply to sustain the mood, he said: “The last thing he said was ‘the steam pig’.”

“The Steam Pig,” she repeated slowly.

Kramer looked up from her legs.

“Come again?”

She was puzzled.

“The Steam Pig-the same as you said it.”

“No, it wasn’t!”

“For God’s sake, Trompie, there’s no need to snap like that over a little thing.”

The Widow Fourie had reached the door before Kramer could speak again.

“You see,” he said quietly, “you say it like it’s the name of something.”

She turned and understood. And shivered.

Van Niekerk had made a most satisfactory start. For years he had gone about with a platoon of ballpoint pens ranged at the ready in his breast-pocket. One wrote in mauve ink, the others in red, black, green and the conventional blue. The thing was that he seldom felt justified in using them all in a single engagement, but this time he had.

And nobody could dispute how much such diversity had helped to clarify the complicated case sheet he had drawn up from his notes. Colonel Du Plessis, who had wandered in to ask casually after the Lieutenant, had done him the honour of staring at the finished job for fully five minutes.

He was alone again now, having moved into the Lieutenant’s delightfully spick-and-span office with all the paraphernalia he could possibly imagine his duties would require. He had pinned a large street map of Trekkersburg on the wall and marked various pertinent addresses with coloured drawing pins. He had spread the crime sheet on a card table borrowed from the sergeants’ mess. And he had placed the sparse collection of reports in a yellow basket labelled “ PRIORITY ”.

Which somehow forced him to read them all again even though they contained very little information. The one from Fingerprints on the cottage was a complete waste of time.

So he picked up two lists prepared from the Yellow Pages and debated whether to begin on the dispensing opticians or the electronic organ retailers.

A spin of a coin decided him on the latter. Soon he was copying down immense lists of improbable names read over to him, somewhat irritably in most cases, from invoice books. As the traders pointed out, this check failed to take into account the cash sales; but his reply to this was to the effect that the class of person he was interested in would hardly be likely to indulge in such vulgarity. This was also the reason he gave himself for omitting the two large cash-and-carry bazaars in the main street. The old women in Barnato Street had been most emphatic that the men they had seen going for lessons had been well dressed, prosperous-looking types.

As it was, Van Niekerk lost a lot of his early enthusiasm when he totted up the results and found he would have to check out one hundred and seventy-three names. They could wait. The opticians might provide an immediate lead.

But an hour later, and with two names still to contact, he was looking exceedingly sourly at Kramer’s name scrawled on the telephone directory cover. The opticians had been astounded by his inquiry-some had had to have the whole thing explained twice to them. Cosmetic contacts were definitely still a thing of the future in Trekkersburg, if not the entire Republic, and most of them doubted very much if they would ever catch on. He shuddered at the thought of going on to make a list of possibilities in Durban.

Thankfully the coffee arrived just then and, combined with a dozen brisk press-ups, restored something of his former vigour.

In fact he was actually reaching for the telephone again when Mr Abbott came through.

The undertaker had asked specifically to be connected to Lieutenant Kramer’s office so he wasted no time on formalities. He spoke briefly in a hurried whisper and rang off.

Van Niekerk shook his head sharply to clear it. Then he looked down at his shorthand note of the message:

“Got someone in the parlour asking questions about the deceased girl. Come quick. Not sure I’ll be able to keep them without a fuss.”

The mild-mannered co-ordinator took his cue. He was up and away and streaking for the street before it occurred to him to call the Lieutenant. But then this was a matter of extreme urgency and everyone knew how difficult it was at times to contact him. He could be anywhere.

Kramer was four blocks away in the cells of the Trekkersburg Magistrate’s Court, talking to Pop van Rensberg, the sergeant-in-dcharge.

“Anything for you, Trompie old son,” Pop was saying, keeping an eye on the Bantu prisoners tiptoeing up to the tap outside his office door to fill tins with drinking water.

“Hey, Johannes, you old skelm,” Pop bawled. “Don’t tell me you’ve been at the ntombis again?”

A lanky prisoner looked up from the tap and smiled bashfully.

“Greetings, my father,” he said respectfully in Zulu.

Pop waved an affable paw.

“Just one of my old friends,” he explained to Kramer. “I tease him about the girls, say he’s a rapist-he thinks it’s helluva funny.”

Kramer glanced at the man.

“What is he then?” he asked.

“Buggered if I know, but he does it often enough. Now who was it you wanted in the end cell by himself?”

“Gershwin Mkize-he’s just been remanded.”

“Of course, Mr Banana. I’ve got names for them all you know. You see he-”

“Wears yellow. Will you get it moving, Pop?”

The sergeant took it good humouredly and waddled out into the hall bawling orders. His staff shepherded all the stray prisoners into their cells and took a yellow figure into one in the far corner.

Zondi came in through the grille from the court corridor and joined Kramer.

“Nice timing,” Kramer remarked. “He’ll have a week now to become a pretty boy again before he comes up in front of a court. But why wasn’t the remand earlier?”

“Big round-up last night for pass offenders. I gave your note to Mr Oosthuizen and he put Gershwin through in between cases.”

“Uhuh. Sam Safrinsky turn up to represent him?”

“Not a chance, boss.”

Pop returned to greet Zondi warmly.

“Hello, Cheeky,” he said. “Is this the way you want it?”

“Too quiet,” Zondi observed.

“He’s right,” Kramer agreed.

“Damn right,” Pop echoed, “you never know who you’ve got in here these days. Come on you lot, I want to hear you talking.”

His staff took up the cry, translated it, and immediately there was a babble of voices. After half a minute or so, it settled down.

“Fine,” Kramer said, and he and Zondi walked shoulder to shoulder down to the end cell.

Pop retired to where he could overhear nothing incriminating and joked with Ephraim, another old favourite. They enjoyed some good laughs.

Kramer had the broad piece of plaster ready in his hand before they entered the cell-the gauze which had kept it sterile was back in Pop’s wastepaper basket. And he applied it to Gershwin’s mouth before he could utter a single whimper.

They closed the door.

“Listen to me, Gershwin,” Kramer said. “I have come here this morning to ask you one question. When I take that plaster off I want just to hear your answer-nothing else.”

Gershwin nodded vigorously, clasping his handcuffed hands before him.

“No, we haven’t time to have a rehearsal,” Kramer went on. “Or to talk all day, too. Sergeant Zondi and I are going to give you half of something-if you lie, we’ll let you have the other half later.”

Gershwin cringed, trying to protect his head.

“First, the question,” Kramer went on. “Last night you used the words ‘the steam pig’. What we want to know is: was this some nonsense of yours-or was it something that Shoe Shoe said?”

Gershwin was mouthing frantically as Zondi took up his position behind him.

They concentrated on the soft parts of the body, the areas where there was no backing of bone to fracture or aggravate capillary damage through excessive resilience. One soft part was particularly favoured for its extreme sensitivity and relative isolation from vital organs.

They did it all with the fingers, never with the fist.

She kept her eyes on him all the time, which made Van Niekerk feel even more of a fool when he had to replace his revolver in its holster before leaving.

And she had such frightened eyes, that poor little old lady perched on the edge of the sofa in Mr Abbott’s showroom. Small wonder when you considered the way he had come in off the street.

Mr Abbott was hovering about waiting for him at the front counter.

“Any good?” he asked.

“I want words with you,” Van Niekerk growled. “What the hell do you mean making phone calls like that and having me think you had a bloody tiger around here?”

“Steady on, I said nothing about tigers.”

“You said you ‘couldn’t keep them’ without a fuss-what was I to think?”

“But you always fuss old ladies if you spring things on them. I didn’t want her upset. This is a business, after all! I thought you’d know how to handle it better than I.”

There was quite a considerable pause.

“Thanks, anyway,” Van Niekerk conceded. “It could have been something big. You never know.”

And with that he left Mr Abbott to console the old dear and send her on her way.

Van Niekerk was still smarting when he reached the office and found the Lieutenant and Zondi there making a mess of his crime sheet by writing in some nonsense all over the place.

“What’s all this?” he said, as brusquely as he dared.

“That’s what they’re saying down in Housebreaking,” Kramer chuckled. “Fanie Brandsma swears you were touching thirty by the time you passed their window.”

“I mean this ‘steam pig’ business,” Van Niekerk muttered.

“Oh, that? Well it just could be a lead.”

“Really?”

Kramer nodded. Now it was plain why he was in such unusual spirits.

“We’ve just paid a little call on our friend Gershwin Mkize,” Kramer explained. “We wanted to check on something he said last night, these three words.”

“And?”

“It seems that Shoe Shoe used them not once but often after realising why he was out there playing at scarecrows. In fact he kept saying to Mkize it was because of the Steam Pig that he was being done in.”

“He shout it many times,” Zondi quoted from his notebook. “He says all this trouble is trouble from the Steam Pig. It is a bad thing. It make even the white baas much frightened. He hear white baas telling friend that the Steam Pig will mean the end of his days.”

“Christ.”

“Yes, the link, Willie. These cases are definitely connected.”

“Did this Mkize say under whose orders?”

“He still says he didn’t know then. But thinking about it now he wonders if the Steam Pig wasn’t behind it.”

“So it’s a gang, Lieutenant?”

“Seems like it. Or somebody running a mob. What else could it be?”

“Dunno. But I’ve never heard of it.”

“You shouldn’t have if it’s any good.”

“True.”

“All the same, I want checks made. Zondi here will go round his informers. But I want you to be careful, hey? We don’t want to give any warnings.”

“Okay, boss.”

“You, Willie, you’re to check the name out in Records-see even if you can find some bunch with the same initials.”

“Just two things, sir: why didn’t Gershwin come out with this before-”

“Because he thought it was rubbish.”

“And did he say what white men were heard talking?”

“No, Gershwin just imagined that Shoe Shoe overheard things said from where he sat at the side of the City Hall steps. He must have done, come to think of it-it’s the sort of place that people speak their minds, especially coming away from meetings when they’ve had to bottle it all up.”

“You’re saying that Shoe Shoe got this off city councillors and that, are you, sir?”

“No, I’m not, just giving an example-be sensible, man. I’m talking about what Gershwin thought. Shoe Shoe could have picked it up round the back in his wheelbarrow-the car park’s right by his sleeping place.”

“Europeans often say private things in front of Bantu,” Zondi chipped in. “They do not expect men like Shoe Shoe can speak their language, either.”

Kramer suddenly realised that he had spoken critically to Van Niekerk in front of Zondi. He hastened to make amends.

“Tell me, old mate,” he said, “where were you off in such a hurry to? Get a hot tip on the geegees?”

He knew Van Niekerk’s weakness, but it misfired. The man squirmed and frowned for a reply.

“I’ve just had an idea, sir,” he said with recruit-like eagerness. “This expression, for want of a better word, is in English. Now I know there is an English saying ‘pig iron’-do you think that ‘steam pig’ is another of these sayings?”

“It’s worth a check,” Kramer agreed. “Now come on, man, what has been happening round here?”

“Well, to cut a long story short, I did get a tip-off, sir, but from Georgie Abbott. He rang to say somebody was on his premises asking after Miss Le Roux.”

“For God’s sake, man! Why didn’t you say so in the first place? I’ll see them right away.”

Van Niekerk swallowed hard.

“I let her go, sir.”

Only Zondi’s presence saved Van Niekerk from castration. Anything less drastic held no interest for Kramer, so he simply asked: “Why?”

“Because, because there wasn’t much to it, sir. She said that she was a dressmaker, that she had made two or three frocks for Miss Le Roux about two years ago. She remembered her because she was such a nice, polite young lady.”

“Why wasn’t she at the funeral?”

“She didn’t know her that well, sir. She says she thought she’d be sort of intruding.”

“Into what? Did she know if the girl had a family?”

“I asked her that, sir. She said there had never been any mention of one but she had the impression her customer came from somewhere in the Cape.”

“If she knew all this, why didn’t she come to us then?”

“That was it, sir. She said she didn’t know about the report in the Gazette. She was quite surprised when I told her.”

“Then what in God’s name was she doing in Abbott’s place?”

“Well, she said she was just passing and had seen the funeral notice and couldn’t help wondering why a young girl like that had passed away so sudden. Those are her words, sir-they’re here in my notebook.”

“Go on, Willie.”

The familiarity heartened Van Niekerk.

“So she just nipped in and tried to chat up Georgie. You know what old women are.”

“She was an old woman then?”

“Oh, yes, a nice old girl-about sixty-five, you know.”

“Uhuh. Tell me, did she seem at all-er, frightened of speaking to you? Why do you hesitate?”

“Because it’s difficult to say. People are funny when they talk to police. I’d say no more nervous than usual.”

“Good. Then it seems you did a very good job. But I’d still like a word with her, might be something else I could get.”

“Of course, sir, she gave me her name and address. A Mrs Johnson. Gladys Johnson.”

“Fine-and where does she live?”

“One-six-nine Biddulph Street.”

Van Niekerk crossed confidently to the map and ran his finger along Biddulph Street to where one-six-nine was marked. Zondi took one glance and discreetly left the room.

For, according to the map, Mrs Gladys Johnson was the old woman who lived in a shoe factory.