The Gooseberry Fool (6 page)

Colonel Du Plessis had separated them by picking on the only other death going to preoccupy Kramer, and then cleverly substituting an officer of equal rank in his place. The fact that praise had been poured on Zondi indicated the devilment of their plans. Plans that had two objectives, and either way they had to win. Plan A was to cause aggravation by splitting the team, hoping the wog, left so much on his own, would mess things up. Plan B was to have Scott see if he could not find another solution to the killing—one which Kramer and Zondi had not supposed existed.

He could just picture the scene when Colonel Muller returned and was handed the Swart report.

Plan A: After all, they would say, if Kramer was willing to have Zondi do so much of the investigating, so were we—the lieutenant is highly respected. We saw no reason to alter the arrangements, although now we know our confidence was unfounded.

Plan B: Well, it seems Zondi decided it was the Bantu domestic, sir—maybe that’s why Lieutenant Kramer slipped up in the house. It was just as well Lieutenant Scott took over when he did, or we’d never have found out. Of course you must be disappointed, Colonel Muller, but some of us have been wondering about those two. You know what we mean?

Either way they had to win—providing, however, something did go wrong. For the first time in years, Kramer found himself carefully appraising Zondi’s capabilities, testing—with complete honesty—how much confidence he had in the man; after all, both their careers depended upon it. But Zondi was not found wanting, and Kramer felt sure he would make it to Robert’s Halt and do the necessary without any trouble. Which shifted the onus to himself. Granted his examination of the house had not been exhaustive, yet the case hardly demanded it should be: open and shut was the expression he wanted. Granted he might have gone over the study more carefully; but Scott had done so, and was still loafing about, and this indicated nothing had come up. No, the likelihood of Plan B ever bearing fruit was very slight.

So back to Plan A and a counterplan. If Zondi was going to come unstuck because his boss was not around, then the absurd reason for his absence could, with a little help, be made twice as absurd. And absurdity was something that got Colonel Muller’s goat but good.

“I shall go to absurd, but absurd, lengths,” vowed Kramer aloud to himself, finding a cafe at which to have breakfast. “Ach, man, but the mind will bloody boggle!”

His mind would, ultimately.

4

B
REAKFAST
C
OMPRISED AN
entire packet of streaky bacon, a loaf of fresh white bread, and a family-size bottle of strawberry pop, consumed with gusto at the side of the national road north. Zondi was uncertain what his day would bring, and anxious to ensure missed meals would not trouble him. He would have lit a fire for the meat, but farmers could be trigger happy at this time of year.

To be sure, the grass was very dry, and one ember could easily have the low hills of grazing swept black in minutes. A bleak, blond land, with scattered thornbush making smudges of dull green like white women’s eyeshadow, and bare patches of earth the pinky red of their sunburn. A hard land, too, that gave nothing for nothing. A good place for puff adders and lizards and the shrikes that hung their prey on the barbed-wire fences.

His watch had stopped and the car had no radio. But judging by the sun, it was still before eight. Plenty of time to smoke a Stuyvesant and take another look at the map. At least the car, a beaten-up Anglia, had this much that was useful in it.

Zondi had about another ten kilometers to do on the tar, then he turned right and carried on along a district road—its number was illegible. Five kilometers of this, then a turning left past a mission. Then, only two kilometers beyond that, the trading store and small hamlet of Robert’s Halt.

He was thankful not to be in a hurry once the corrugations of the dirt road, regular as those in a washboard, began to drum beneath four very doubtful tires. There were also potholes big enough to swallow a wheel and sharp stones that clattered like hail on the car’s underside. The dust, however, was the worst of the lot, making short work of the ill-fitting doors and covering everything. But he was glad to be in a car and not, as long ago, on the seat of a donkey cart beside his father. Then the stones had been the worst as passing vehicles shotgunned them up at you. Once he had been bit on the ear—which was better luck than the donkey had met with on another occasion, when it lost an eye.

Through a line of gums and wattles on the left appeared several whitewashed concrete-block buildings dominated by a tinroofed church. From the size of the cross above it, Zondi guessed Roman Catholic and then saw a sign that read: “St. Bernard’s Mission School and Hospital.” It seemed strangely deserted for a school, although the pupils could still be in assembly. Which did not, however, account for the fact that no patients were visible, and that was odd. Still, none of this was any of his business—that lay not a kilometer away over the ridge.

The Anglia churned its way up, spending a nasty ten seconds with its inside wheels deep in a rut, then topped the rise and slithered to a halt. In the valley below was Robert’s Halt, hidden in among more gums and wattles. This happened to suit Zondi’s purpose perfectly, for he had decided that a slow, deceptively casual stroll up to Shabalala’s side would be preferable to a hard sprint after him.

He took the car off the road and locked it. Then he pulled his old trick of turning his jacket inside out—which was what most rustics did, being very taken with the shiny satin lining—and checked his shoulder holster for snags. All set.

It was a good day for walking, not nearly as hot as the previous one, and the air in the valley very clear. Zondi first watched swifts swallowing insects in the sky, then looked to see what quality of cattle grazed the slopes around. He saw none. He listened for the zipping whistles of the herd boys keeping their charges together on dipping day, but heard none.

He stopped. This place was indeed very peculiar. If an ache in his body had not persisted to remind him of how he had spent the night, he would have cursed himself for drinking too much. Even so, had he sunk an oil drum of Moses Makatini’s moonshine, Robert’s Halt would still have seemed unreal.

There was nothing tangible he could deduce from his observations, but they bred caution within him. So he found a cross country route to the trading store which would allow him to approach unnoticed—the path was so overgrown he had little chance of meeting anyone else on it, either.

As he descended toward the river, Zondi began to hear sounds as confusing as everything else: dull thuds and scraping and the squeal of metal, yet no voices. By then he should have been close enough to hear even a child laugh.

The branches thinned and he saw Robert’s Halt across the river—and a sight quite extraordinary. The place was surrounded by policemen, the whites armed with sten guns and the Africans with spears. Their riot vans unfortunately blocked off a proper view of what was going on beyond them.

Zondi cursed. Cursed and swore because he had been given a car without a radio. There must have been sudden, dramatic developments in the case he was unaware of.

As he continued walking toward the hamlet, his mind struggled with conjecture, tried to think of what possible reason there could be for such a turnout. Even if Shabalala had taken a gun from Swart’s home, and was expected to resist arrest, six men at the most would have been sufficient for the job.

The thuds and squeals ceased.

Zondi checked his step, slipping behind an aloe to see what happened next. There was the sound of an engine starting up and then, from behind the riot vans, came a truck piled high with villagers and their property.

What an idiot he had been: it was an eviction. An ordinary Black Spot eviction, one of hundreds, an everyday event—and he had allowed his imagination to distort his vision. Of course there were thuds when furniture was loaded on a truck; naturally there were noises when valuable roof sheeting was stripped off to be removed as well; obviously it was not a time for talk, nor for children to laugh. As for the cordon of police, that was standard procedure to prevent any stupidity.

A bulldozer roared into raucous life and emerged from the scrub to flatten the vacated homes. It waited, however, for three other trucks to carry away the last of the people. They forded the river close to where Zondi stood and he could see no men among them, except for the very old. Certainly nobody resembling the description he had been given of Shabalala.

Which was hardly surprising. With the Force out in force, Robert’s Halt was the last place a killer on the run would want to be that particular morning.

The Trekkersburg police mortuary was a squat red-brick structure almost undetectable in a dip in the long grass and weeds behind the barracks. From the low viewpoint afforded the driver of a modern American car, it was, in fact, invisible; you just had to commit yourself to a well-worn, twisting track that revealed all rather suddenly.

Kramer braked hard and drew his Chevrolet in beside the Pontiac owned by Strydom. Only one window in the four deadpan walls was at eye level; through it he could see Sergeant Van Rensburg in the office taking a fortifying nip of Cape brandy. Van Rensburg fortunately did not see him; the man was a tiresome bastard at the best of times.

First the fly screen and then the big metal doors, a sudden chill that was not entirely a matter of temperature, and the familiar sight of Strydom up to his elbows in another man. Enjoying every moment of it, too.

“Aha!” said Strydom, bringing out a brace of lungs and taking them over to the sluice.

“Sis,” said Kramer, lighting up.

Strydom let the water run, then sliced open the spongy organs, scraping at their interior with his scalpel.

“Well, where’s our friend then, doc?”

“Third table along.”

“That thing?”

“I hinted as much last night, Lieutenant. Proper human concertina. Propped the top over there so it wouldn’t roll off.”

Van Rensburg had been busy with his water spray and—it seemed—with a comb. For Mark Clive Wallace, white male aged forty, had both a clean face and a part as he stared across at Kramer from a shallow bowl on the instrument cabinet. He looked a friendly sort.

“Hello, old mate,” said Kramer, stooping to look Wallace in the eye that was open. “Tell me, what did you get up to?”

“One hell of a lot of booze in his belly, for a start, Lieutenant. Not so much in his blood, though. Must’ve belted down a few very fast just before it happened.”

“I’ll find something to fit that then. What else?”

“I’d swear his hands weren’t on the wheel when he hit the guard rail. You see, you’d normally expect at least fractures of the thumbs, here at the base. My guess is that he had them over his peepers.”

“What’d make him do that?”

“A bright light?”

“Not bad, doc. Or maybe he just didn’t want to see where he was going.”

“Suicide?”

“A theory.”

“The only other thing I can tell you is that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.”

“How was his health?”

“Not bad at all. Nothing terminal—and no ulcer either, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Kramer continued his examination of the three-dimensional mug shot, noting the parentheses of smile lines bracketing the wide mouth, and the ebullience of the upswept mustache. It was not the face of a man who lightly took his own life.

“Could be he just misjudged and panicked, doc,” he murmured.

“I’ll go along with you on that.”

“But still that fool Du Plessis—”

Strydom would doubtless have been sympathetic had not Van Rensburg entered at that moment with a clipboard ready to take notes.

“Morning, Lieutenant! Another scorcher of a day, hey?”

Van Rensburg tipped his head, listening, and Kramer noticed the tin roof had begun to plink as it expanded under a fierce sun. He wondered what the weather was like upcountry, wherever it was Zondi had gone. And he hoped to God all was going according to plan.

Zondi had sat for a long while in the spiked shade of the aloe, watching the police party ensure the total destruction of Robert’s Halt. He watched them dispatch abandoned dogs and then sit down to a picnic tea. He watched the horseplay that followed. He watched a dung beetle carve a perfect sphere from a pile of droppings near his feet.

Finally he decided there was nothing to be gained from going across, identifying himself, and asking about Shabalala. Nobody would know anything: personal details were never the concern of eviction squads. He also encountered problems when asking favors of officers unknown to him. Besides, they were unlikely to believe his story of having been sent out alone to catch a white man’s murderer.

But the basic reason behind his reluctance to involve others rested on the fact that being allowed the initiative was a true compliment—one he intended repaying with a nice neck for the gallows.

There were now signs that the squad would soon be returning to base. The officer in charge kept looking around to the west, where, above the wooded escarpment, cloud was massing with astonishing swiftness, piling up like shaving cream from the lieutenant’s aerosol can. In another hour, sky drums would beat and long legs of lightning begin their dance, stamping death into the dust. Nobody who had a choice wanted to be around for that.