The Sunday Hangman (31 page)

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.

Z
ONDI KNEW ONLY
one way of defying gravity to do its worst, and that was by changing its direction. Not in relation to the center of the earth, of course, but within the design of death which man had placed upon it.

Whether his move would come in time—or a split second too late—he had no idea. Nevertheless, it seemed worth trying.

So he half stood on the throttle of the truck, his right leg locked at the knee, and aimed the left front at a bank. The truck leaped toward it.

By swerving to the right as he left the track, he’d throw the truck fractionally off balance. Its list would increase, however, once the left front tire struck the bank and, if the angle was correct, the truck would become momentarily airborne. After that, it would crash down on its side.

Or, as the Lieutenant would say, such was the theory.

When Kramer saw the truck suddenly start up and roar off, he cursed himself for an idiot: Swanepoel had never left the vehicle, but had hidden in the back with Willie.

Kramer knelt on one knee, braced his gun hand in the crook of his left elbow, and fired five shots.

Then whooped when the truck swerved, struck a low bank, heeled over, and banged down on its side, bursting the big back doors open.

There was a bright orange light shining inside it.

Kramer approached the truck with great curiosity. He found Gysbert Swanepoel lying on the ground pinned down by a large mealie bag of sand, stunned and smiling stupidly.

“Is it heavy?” he asked.

“Eleven stone exactly,” Swanepoel answered.

“Uh huh.”

Down the other end of the truck, Kramer found Willie with the noose around his neck. As the distance from the center of the ceiling to the wall was a mere three feet or so, he was sitting there quite comfortably, with plenty of slack to spare. The noose slipped off easily; the bag—being stuck to his face—was a trifle more difficult.

“I’m St. Peter,” said Kramer. “Harp or electric guitar?”

Willie stared blankly.

“You’re all right, kid. You’ll live.”

“I want a transfer,” said Willie.

This struck Kramer as being exceedingly funny. But he knew that if he laughed, he might go to pieces. “I’ll get a knife for the straps,” he said. “Fingerprints wouldn’t thank me for handling them. Just try to relax now.”

Willie, trusting as a puppy, nodded.

Kramer traced the rope back. It went over a pulley, which had replaced one of the meat hooks in the ceiling, and was joined at the shackle to a steel cable. This cable then went over another pulley, situated at the back of the truck, and was fixed to the mealie bag.

“Machine hanging,” he said to Swanepoel, who hadn’t tried to get up. “What put me off was that the only example I’d ever heard about had taken place in a room thirty-five feet high. But you don’t need much height when you use two pulleys.”

“Not if your truck is long enough to have the slack tightening horizontally,” Swanepoel agreed. “You just need enough for the prisoner and the drop to be side by side, on the same level. It’s
all a bit crude, but it works—which is the main thing. Usually I add a few curtains and that to give it more atmosphere.”

“How was the bag released?”

“Nothing fancy. This bit of nylon rope kept it suspended until I sliced through it with a knife. Then it would drop, take up the slack—and crack! I’m very keen to tell you everything.”

“I’ve noticed. Why?”

“I want it all to come out in court.”

“Uh huh.”

“And then I want to see how they do it for myself.”

“On yourself?”

“That’s the idea!”

“Sorry,” murmured Kramer. “All you’ll ever see is the inside of a loony bin. You aren’t fit to plead, Gysbert Swanepoel.”

Even as he said this, Kramer noticed the curious upward turn to the man’s eyebrows, and realized that it matched what he dimly remembered of the face of Anthony Michael Vasari. An unlikely association, perhaps, yet one which now fitted neatly into the context of a Catholic woman married four years without children, having a war baby and then adopting two others. This might explain what had drawn Tollie to the man in the first place—it certainly explained what a backveld farmer was doing with a world map in his living room. Kramer was aware he really ought to have thought of all this before, but there had always been so much else to think about, and that story of the prisoner of war had been just weird enough to sound true. God, what a terrible torment the man must be suffering, yet supplying him with his answers was—

“Bastards!” bellowed Swanepoel. “I
must
know!”

The mealie bag was tossed aside like a feather pillow. The huge farmer scissored Kramer’s legs from under him, then took hold of him by the throat. Kramer fought back, kneeing him in the groin, and they rolled over and over, crashing
against the rocks. Finally Swanepoel broke free and rose, pulling out a knife, cursing and sobbing, demented.

Kramer seized the excuse. He fired, killing the man instantly. Mercifully, he thought.

The shot didn’t echo.

It brought total silence, like the crack of a clapperboard.

Then out of that silence came a deep, low laugh; a laugh quite out of proportion to the size of man who made it. A laugh Kramer knew well, having heard it where children played, where women wept, where men died; always the same degree of detached amusement.

“Zondi, you old bastard! So it was you?”

He hadn’t wanted to ask this before, just in case there had been no reply.

Leaving Willie in his hell for a little longer, Kramer put away his gun and strode to the front of the truck. The cab was empty. He twisted round. Zondi was lying against the bank, his right leg out straight and the other bent under him; he was trying to get a Lucky out of its packet. The clown laughed again, very softly, and shook his head.

“Give here,” said Kramer, kneeling and taking the packet from him. “You’re in shock, man—are you hurt?”

“A beautiful pain, boss.”

“Hey?”

“My leg is broken.”

“Christ! Right one again?”

“Left.”

Kramer lit the cigarettes, drew on them thoughtfully, then handed one to Zondi.

“Mickey!” he said, grinning. “Mickey, you cunning little kaffir! And just how many weeks off do you reckon this’ll entitle you to? Enough?”

“Enough for both, Lieutenant—for how can one rest without its brother?” Zondi chuckled. “How do you feel yourself?”

“Now I come to think of it, not so good,” said Kramer.

Quentin Bates
 (Iceland)
Frozen Assets
Cold Comfort

Cheryl Benard
 (Pakistan)
Moghul Buffet

James R. Benn
 (World War II Europe)
Billy Boyle
The First Wave
Blood Alone
Evil for Evil
Rag & Bone
A Mortal Terror

Cara Black
 (Paris, France)
Murder in the Marais
Murder in Belleville
Murder in the Sentier
Murder in the Bastille
Murder in Clichy
Murder in Montmartre
Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis
Murder in the Rue de Paradis
Murder in the Latin Quarter
Murder in the Palais Royal
Murder in Passy
Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Grace Brophy
 (Italy)
The Last Enemy
A Deadly Paradise

Henry Chang
 (Chinatown)
Chinatown Beat
Year of the Dog
Red Jade

Colin Cotterill
 (Laos)
The Coroner’s Lunch
Thirty-Three Teeth
Disco for the Departed
Anarchy and Old Dogs
Curse of the Pogo Stick
The Merry Misogynist
Love Songs from a Shallow Grave
Slash and Burn

Garry Disher
 (Australia)
The Dragon Man
Kittyhawk Down
Snapshot
Chain of Evidence
Blood Moon
Wyatt

David Downing
 (World War II Germany)
Zoo Station
Silesian Station
Stettin Station
Potsdam Station
Lehrter Station

Leighton Gage
 (Brazil)
Blood of the Wicked
Buried Strangers
Dying Gasp
Every Bitter Thing
A Vine in the Blood

Michael Genelin
 (Slovakia)
Siren of the Waters
Dark Dreams
The Magician’s Accomplice
Requiem for a Gypsy

Adrian Hyland
 (Australia)
Moonlight Downs
Gunshot Road

Stan Jones
 (Alaska)
White Sky, Black Ice
Shaman Pass
Village of the Ghost Bears

Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis
 (Denmark)
The Boy in the Suitcase

Graeme Kent
 (Solomon Islands)
Devil-Devil
One Blood

Martin Limón
 (South Korea)
Jade Lady Burning
Slicky Boys
Buddha’s Money
The Door to Bitterness
The Wandering Ghost
G.I. Bones
Mr. Kill

Peter Lovesey
 (Bath, England)
The Last Detective
The Vault
On the Edge
The Reaper
Rough Cider
The False Inspector Dew
Diamond Dust
Diamond Solitaire

Peter Lovesey (cont.)
The House Sitter
The Summons
Bloodhounds
Upon a Dark Night
The Circle
The Secret Hangman
The Headhunters
Skeleton Hill
Stagestruck
Cop to Corpse

Jassy Mackenzie
 (South Africa)
Random Violence
Stolen Lives
The Fallen

Seicho Matsumoto
 (Japan)
Inspector Imanishi Investigates

James McClure
 (South Africa)
The Steam Pig
The Caterpillar Cop
The Gooseberry Fool
Snake
The Sunday Hangman
The Blood of an Englishman

Jan Merete Weiss
 (Italy)
These Dark Things

Magdalen Nabb
 (Italy)
Death of an Englishman
Death of a Dutchman
Death in Springtime
Death in Autumn
The Marshal and the Madwoman
The Marshal and the Murderer
The Marshal’s Own Case
The Marshal Makes His Report
The Marshal at the Villa Torrini
Property of Blood
Some Bitter Taste
The Innocent
Vita Nuova

Stuart Neville
 (Northern Ireland)
The Ghosts of Belfast
Collusion
Stolen Souls

Eliot Pattison
 (Tibet)
Prayer of the Dragon
The Lord of Death

Rebecca Pawel
 (1930s Spain)
Death of a Nationalist
Law of Return
The Watcher in the Pine
The Summer Snow

Qiu Xiaolong
 (China)
Death of a Red Heroine
A Loyal Character Dancer
When Red is Black

Matt Beynon Rees
 (Palestine)
The Collaborator of Bethlehem
A Grave in Gaza
The Samaritan’s Secret
The Fourth Assassin

John Straley
 (Alaska)
The Woman Who Married a Bear
The Curious Eat Themselves

Akimitsu Takagi
 (Japan)
The Tattoo Murder Case
Honeymoon to Nowhere
The Informer

Helene Tursten
 (Sweden)
Detective Inspector Huss
Night Rounds
The Torso
The Glass Devil

Janwillem van de Wetering
 (Holland)
Outsider in Amsterdam
Tumbleweed
The Corpse on the Dike
Death of a Hawker
The Japanese Corpse
The Blond Baboon
The Maine Massacre
The Mind-Murders
The Streetbird
The Rattle-Rat
Hard Rain
Just a Corpse at Twilight
Hollow-Eyed Angel
The Perfidious Parrot
Amsterdam Cops: Collected Stories