The Steam Pig (12 page)

“My turn?” Zondi asked.

“No, I think Mr Mkize wants to go with us now. Actually, I'd thought of a little ride out to the kids' paddling pond in Wilderness Park.”

Gershwin jerked upright.

“It gets around, doesn't it?” Kramer chuckled to Zondi. “Funny thing is that only the people we want to believe it ever do. The magistrates hear about the park and just shake their heads. What liars these black buggers are.”

“And it's not raining now, boss.”

Zondi came close to looking mischievous.

“On second thoughts, perhaps just a little chat in the office. What do you say, Gershwin?”

Gershwin got up with difficulty, his legs were not themselves, and presented his wrists.

“No cuffs,” Kramer said. “You have not far to go.”

Zondi took an elbow to guide him.

“Constable! Take these two canaries and put them in separate cells.”

“Yes, Lieutenant!”

“And no mats—you understand?”

“Suh!”

Kramer watched the constable carry out his orders, it was never safe for a policeman to be left on his own in the block. It was all done with surprising efficiency. Kramer was about to leave when a thought struck him.

“And constable, take the buckets out of those cells—we don't want the bastards being too comfortable.”

Shoe Shoe had had to sit in it, right up to the end.

 

9

I
T 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.”