The delay was only eleven seconds.
This bastard, thought Kramer, as he jammed the coin home, is a man in a hurry.
The coin mechanism whirred and gulped.
Kramer whipped his arm out of the box, then almost lost his balance by stepping backwards on to a Coke can he hadn’t noticed earlier. He teetered, caught a glimpse of the hitch-hiker advancing, and nearly let the receiver slip from his grasp.
“Who’s that?” someone demanded distantly.
Recovering, Kramer brought the receiver to his ear and said, “You tell me who you are first, hey? Fair’s fair!” There was a thoughtful pause, then he started violently.
“You bastard!” exploded Colonel Muller. “De Klerk worked out that was where you must have disappeared to, but I didn’t want to believe him!”
“Sir? But why—”
“Because there’s been another shooting, Lieutenant!”
“Hey? Not Bradshaw again!”
Colonel Muller laughed nastily. “No, not Bradshaw again—nobody even remotely like Bradshaw! Do you want to know the name of the intended victim this time? She was a schoolgirl called Classina Marie Baksteen.”
And the fair-haired man came out of his telephone box muttering, “Jesus Christ, it was only a trunk call—can’t anyone get anything right these days?”
19
CLASSINA MARIE BAKSTEEN was a very sweet sixteen and had short-cropped blonde hair, big blue eyes, unblemished, honey-colored skin, and long, comely limbs. She lived at 33 Hiemstra Road, Six Valleys, with her mother, father, and two younger sisters. She was working for her Junior Certificate of Education, and went to the J. G. Strijdom High School for Girls, where the medium of instruction was Afrikaans. Classina was a model young Afrikaner, born of Afrikaner parents, reared in an Afrikaner atmosphere, and her worst subject was English. How anyone could invent a language where words like plough, cough, through and though each had totally different vowel sounds was beyond her. She was very pleased and proud that when Afrikaans had been invented in 1926, nobody had allowed himself to be so silly. Her mother tended to endorse her views, but her father gave her no encouragement—in fact, quite the reverse. Although Klaas Baksteen had a secret loathing for all things even marginally Anglo-Saxon, and had taken the Germans’ side in every war film he’d ever seen, he was none the less aware that if Classina failed to improve her knowledge of the republic’s second official language, then her hopes of becoming a psychiatric nurse could be dashed. And so, ever a conscientious parent, he had told Classina to sit at the desk by the window in the back room that night until she had finished her English homework. One hot sunnie day, Classina had begun, before running out of inspiration. The window had been wide open, and through it had come all sorts of tiny, distracting sounds from the wattle plantation behind her back garden. Chitterings and squeaks and the raark of frogs mainly, and then sudden ghostly hushes. From further away had wafted the bugle noises made by the English-speaking boy on the corner, who had recently joined his school’s military cadet band, a new and very sad case came to the hospital, Classina had gone on, and he was put with the other patience in the ward for people who’s personalities were split up. After that she had managed an entire page before the blank expanse of a new leaf in her exercise book made her mind wander. Standing on the inner sill of the open window had been a very big glass vase in the shape of a swan with its neck tucked down as a sort of a handle. Classina’s mother had arranged five bullrushes in it that afternoon, and had been surprisingly boastful of the effect. The arrangement was, she had told Classina, based on an idea she had picked up from that snobby Mrs. Drake down the road, only she had greatly improved on it. The new case, wrote Classina, was a big worrie because he liked to fill his water jug with all sorts of funnie things ‘There must be sum hidden reeson behind this,’ said the Ward Sister, who was very wise for her age and had lovely blue eyes. From then on, the essay had just flowed from Classina’s fountain pen of its own accord until she reached the middle of a sentence which began, The new case cried big tears when they said he was cured for ever and he tried to kiss the Ward Sister’s hands and
“And then,” said Classina, retelling her tale for the third time, “I just screamed! It was amazing! The vase just blew up in bits all over my exercise book!”
Kramer felt quite numb as he looked around the room, seeing in the fragments of glass far more than merely a shattered vase. He caught the triumphant gleam in Colonel Muller’s eyes and turned back to the young girl. “Uh huh? What happened next?”
“Pa heard me scream, and he came running in like a flash! He started looking for the stone the boy must have thrown, because he’s always doing things like that, you know—the boy on the corner with the bugle.”
“Uh huh.”
“But instead he found this bullet lying on the couch.”
“Uh huh.”
“He knew it was a bullet because my pa’s in the Active Citizen Force,” Classina disclosed proudly. “He said it was a thirty-two and he phoned the police.”
“Ah, that’s an interesting point,” remarked Colonel Muller. “You say your pa is a soldier, but has he ever been in the air force?”
“Never ever. My pa says being a pilot is soft. He likes to push his bayonet right into the terrorists and give it a twist.”
“Well, Lieutenant?” said Colonel Muller, turning to Kramer. “Have you any further questions for this little girl before she goes to bed? Any comment to make?”
“Only that you and her pa would seem to have a lot in common, sir,” said Kramer, whose numbness was giving way to a sense of extreme irritation.
Colonel Muller responded with an angry look of his own. “Okay, Classina, off you go then! Just thank God tonight in your prayers that you weren’t hurt and—”
“Ach, I think it’s exciting!” said Classina, and her big blue eyes sparkled. “Think how jealous all my friends will be! I only wish there’d been some water in the vase, so I wouldn’t have to hand in my composition tomorrow. Pa says I’ve got to get up at six to finish the last page.”
“I’ll see what I can do to change his mind,” promised Colonel Muller, with an avuncular wink. “Come, Lieutenant, if you’ve seen all you want to here, I think we might as well go through to the sitting room and see what Frans has organized.”
Kramer strode after him, his fists clenched, and found the sitting room filled with detectives and uniformed men. Bateman was interviewing the parents.
“But why would anyone want to murder my little girl?” Mrs. Baksteen was demanding to know. “Why, for heaven’s sake? That bullet couldn’t have missed her head by more than an inch!”
“Half an inch, in my opinion,” said Mr. Baksteen, a stern pedantic-looking man with translucent ears like a fruit bat. “Half an inch higher and it wouldn’t have been deflected by the vase—you saw where I found it lying spent on the couch, didn’t you?”
“Ja, but why, Klaas? She hasn’t an enemy in the world!”
“Can we just get back to whether you heard a shot or not?” Bateman asked patiently. “Oh hullo, Lieutenant! Come to take over?”
Kramer ignored him.
De Klerk was seated at the dining table in an alcove, with the telephone at his side and a map spread out before him, looking like a hyena at an air crash.
“No hard feelings, hey, Tromp?” he said, grinning. “Or did I interrupt them? Just thought you’d like to be where the action was, and Colonel Muller here—”
“Let’s hear it, De Klerk. What’s the position?”
“Well, sir,” said De Klerk, pointedly addressing his reply to Colonel Muller, “I’ve had Botha dug out and he should be at Ballistics by the time the bullet arrives—say in about another ten minutes. Galt is here with a team of his men—he lives only round the corner, luckily—and they are at the back here, searching in the wattle trees for any sign of where the man stood et cetera. I’ve got men going along the road, asking house-to-house if anyone saw or heard anything, and—”
<
br /> “Any results yet, Frans?” asked Colonel Muller.
“Negative, sir. Naturally, there are also uniformed patrols and dogs making an extensive search of the whole area, and we’re picking up anybody who looks suspicious.”
“Any comment?” Colonel Muller asked Kramer. “Anything you’d like to see us do that we’re not doing already?”
Kramer could think of a number of things, but none of them were too polite or even practical. He shook his head.
“Our chief difficulty, Colonel,” De Klerk went on, “is the access this bastard had to the plantation behind. If you’ll look at this map, you’ll see that he could have parked anywhere along the dirt track leading from the reservoir, and then cut up through the trees. Or he could have circled round into the trees on foot, supposing he lives in this district, which seems even more likely now. Either way, by the time the alarm went up, he could easily have got away long before we arrived.”
“You know what I think, Frans? I think he probably meant to strike again at the racecourse, only we frightened him away by anticipating that and going there ourselves.”
“And this poor kid was just an easy target he found instead, sir?”
“Ja, everything seems to point to that,” agreed Colonel Muller. “You know what these lunatics are like, they set their minds to do a thing, and especially after challenging us as he did, he had to find someone to do it to.”
Kramer let them babble on unheeded, and then decided to go and see what success Galt was having. He found the team from Forensic a short distance into the wattle plantation, in line with the window at which the girl had been working.
“A heavy man,” Galt was sighing softly, treading round in a circle on the soft earth. “Very heavy—take a look under that branch there, Lieutenant Kramer. That’s where he must have stood, you see. I’d say a man of at least two-fifty pounds.”
Kramer looked at the spot, and saw the earth deeply indented. “These cigarette ends—are they his too?”
“Fresh as one could hope for,” confirmed Galt. “If you take eight minutes as the average burning time for that brand—I’ll double-check this in the morning—what you see there is about quarter of an hour’s worth. It all fits in rather nicely.”
“Couldn’t she have seen his cigarette from that window? There’s not even a twig in the way, and the range can’t be more than thirty yards.”
Galt smiled. “Haven’t you ever sneaked a smoke while you were in uniform?” he asked. “There’s not much of a trick to keeping—”
“Look at this, sir!” said one of his men. “I found it stuffed inside a bush further along to the right.” And he held out a crumpled nylon stocking.
“Aha! I think somebody must have panicked a bit tonight!” applauded Galt, taking the stocking and unfolding it in the beam of his strong torch. “If this was used for what I imagine it was, then we may find something if we turn it inside out.”
He did find something. A longish hair and a tiny smudge of pinkish cream, at which he sniffed cautiously.
“Pimple lotion?” guessed Kramer.
“It could be—then again, it might.… No, I’d rather not say until I’ve had a chance to analyze it. What color would you say this hair was? Reddish? Auburn?”
“Brownish—it’s hard to tell in torch light.”
Colonel Muller made his way up to them and was shown these finds. “Still very little to work on,” he observed. “The cigarettes and the stocking tell us more about the man, but they don’t point a finger at anyone in particular. Bradshaw’s description of his build is verified, of course, by the depth of these footprints.” Then he looked up and said, “Something else has been verified, by the way, which I’m sure both of you will be interested in.”
“Colonel?” said Galt.
“Botha has just been on the phone from Ballistics. The bullet fired here tonight is in every respect an exact match with those recovered from Bradshaw and Hookham.”
This came as no real surprise to Kramer, yet it proved the last straw. “Ach, the hell with all this!” he grunted, and turned towards the house.
“Lieutenant?”
“I’m buggering off, Colonel. I’ve had a gutful.”
Miriam was surprised to hear the Chevrolet outside her house in Kwela Village at such an early hour, and reached the window just in time to see her husband jump out, give a wave, and then disappear in a cloud of dust as the car took off again.
“Hau, but the Lieutenant seems in a big temper tonight!” she remarked, as she welcomed Zondi at the door. “Who is he so cross with, Mickey?”
“Himself, I think,” said Zondi, patting her behind affectionately. “Where are the twins?”
“Out. They promised to be home before the curfew.”
Zondi sat himself down at the table and rubbed his knuckles in his eyes. “Is there tea?” he asked.
“First there has to be hot water,” said Miriam, placing the kettle on the Primus stove. “You seem very tired.”
“Tired? I’m nearly finished! Would you like to know what happened today?”
And while they waited for the kettle to boil, Zondi went over the main events, trying to sort them out in his own mind as much as anything. Miriam found it very hard to understand what had made the Lieutenant get such a fixed idea that he’d ended up making a terrible fool of himself.
“I have not recited all of it,” said Zondi, “for truly, woman, it no longer matters, but I do think I know the reason behind it.”
“He is a good man, Mickey, so it must have been a good reason.”
Zondi smiled. “Uh huh, but he has his weaknesses, like all of us. His undoing was this Boss Hookham, for he was a brave man and a man of great spirit in the Lieutenant’s eyes. Even though he is dead, I am sure he has taken a strong liking to him. That isn’t all. Boss Hookham had this girlfriend from long ago, also a good person who had endured much suffering with courage, and the Lieutenant likes her very much—he even told me so. Do you see the dangers in this?”
Miriam picked a matchstick out of one of the lines she had scored in the rammed-earth floor to simulate proper floorboards. “No, but you go on,” she said. “I will smack that Gogo if she makes her mother’s room untidy again!”
“To understand properly, you have to have seen the defiled body of Boss Hookham in the boot of the car. It was so small, so broken; the hands tied and the big hole filled with flies in the back of the head. Hau, it was not how a brave man should die! It was wrong! What happened, I think, is that the Lieutenant could not accept that Boss Hookham had died in this meaningless fashion, that he had been caught and tied up and shot by some crazy person for no reason at all.”
“But these things are not uncommon, Mickey,” said Miriam, filling her teapot. “And did not the first boss get shot at for no reason? The young girl also?”
“No reason,” confirmed Zondi, “except what a madman thinks is a reason. Only the Lieutenant doesn’t care what anybody does to this Boss Bradshaw, you see, whereas Boss Hookham was different. So he tried to find some sense in such a terrible thing, and all that came to him was this bombing. It explained both shootings to him, giving him a strong feeling he had grasped a branch when it was not even a twig.”
After pouring two cups of weak black tea, Miriam clucked her tongue again and said softly, “What a pity the Lieutenant has no belief in God, my husband. Only God can give any meaning to this life we lead.”
Then one of their children stirred in its sleep in the next room, chuckled happily, and they smiled at each other.
Vivid pink and blue lights flickered in the windows of the flat above the hairdressing salon, and sounds of heavy rock, laughter and hard drinking were clearly audible from the street.
“Well, I’ll be buggered!” said Jonty, swinging wide his front door.
“Not a chance, cuddle bunny,” said Kramer. “But can I come to your party all the same?”
Jonty feigned a knee kick and dragged him inside. “Christ, you look shattered!
” he said. “That sort of day, was it? Nevermind, pal, your troubles are over! Trust in Jonty!” He was really pretty drunk.
The main room of the flat was packed like a lift in a burning skyscraper, except the people crammed into it were having the time of their lives and were only too delighted to welcome another passenger aboard. Faces he had never seen before smiled at Kramer from all sides, a few pretty girls raised their eyebrows, and within moments he was engulfed in the deep belly-boom from the big speakers and the sheer warmth of so many sweaty bodies. Blue, pink, blue blue, pink, blue, pink pink pink, rattle, howling horn and guitar chords crashing—it was chaotic. He grinned: a splurge of senseless, mindless, meaningless chaos was just what he needed. And drink—lots of it.
“Booze is through in the kitchen,” said Jonty, anticipating his wish like a good fairy. “I’ve got me a genu-wine Texas bartender tonight! Yessiree, some fella one of the lasses from the varsity brought along. Just sing out yer order, pardner, and ol’ Gene’ll set ’em up! There’s somebody I need a quick word with.…”
Kramer shouldered his way through into the kitchen and spotted the Texan easily enough: he had a tanned, pleasantly laconic face, and was wearing faded jeans, a checked shirt, a belt and rawhide shoes. He was also recounting some anecdote to a young couple in faultless Afrikaans. Not wishing to spoil the punch-line or to interrupt anything so comfortingly bizarre, Kramer helped himself to half a tumbler of neat brandy, drank most of it, topped up and joined the couple just as a laugh ended the tale.
The Blood of an Englishman Page 19