After taking a pull at his own Coke and a bite from his doughnut, Kramer cleared a space on Malan’s desk for the plaster casts of the shoes, and laid Malan’s boxwood ruler beside them. “Shoe,” he said.
Zondi dug into the shopping bag, felt around, and handed him the right shoe of the pair he had brought back from Nkosala, giving a little sigh.
“Why the sigh?” asked Kramer, measuring the shoe.
“Once before, boss, I had to look for the owner of a brown boot—hau, it took a very, very long time to find out who it had belonged to.”
“Just a bloody minute …” murmured Kramer, measuring the shoe again and then checking its length against both of the casts. “I expected this bloody thing to be a bit shorter than the cast made from its impression, to allow for the spread of mud under pressure, but this item of footwear you got from the boiler boy is over an inch longer than both of them, hey? It can’t ever have been Kritz’s!”
Looking most perplexed, Zondi moved around to check the measurements over his shoulder. “But that shoe was certainly taken from among Boss Kritzinger’s effects. Lieutenant—the boiler boy had actually confessed to it, knowing he could be landing himself in big trouble.”
“His ma could have given you the wrong pair, though—had you thought of that?”
Zondi shook his head. “Impossible, Lieutenant. I took the boiler boy with me, and he had already described these shoes to me before we arrived at her house, citing certain identifying marks that I was then able to verify.”
“Such as?” demanded Kramer.
“A roughness the shape of a nail clipping on the right one, a little cut on the toe of the left, and the blackness not quite even, so that the left one has a touch of purple in it.”
“Shit, why has life got to be so complicated, hey?” protested Kramer. “Just for a few seconds there, I thought we were at last—Jesus, I know whose bloody shoes these are!”
“Lieutenant?” said Zondi.
29
“YOU ARE NEVER going to believe this,” said Kramer, finding his mind in such a bloody boggle that his words weren’t coming easily, “but these are the shoes stolen from the cook boy!—night of the explosion.”
“Hau! From Moses Khumalo?”
“The very same, Mickey. I swear it.”
Zondi shook his head. “No, boss, it makes no sense,” he said.
“Bugger sense! It’s true, hey?”
Zondi again shook his head, infuriating Kramer.
“Listen, kaffir,” he said, “what else did you say you’d brought back?”
“Er, a belt, Lieutenant.”
“Fine! Have you seen me look in this bag?”
“Uh-uh, you have not looked in that bag, boss.”
“Here, take it!” said Kramer, tossing the bag over. “And I’ll tell you what you’ll find inside: one black belt with a grey side as well, and a buckle that’s a gold color with a five-pointed star in the middle.”
Zondi removed the belt from the bag, inspected it, and gave a low whistle.
“Am I right?” demanded Kramer.
“One hundred percent, boss! How did you know this?”
“Because I remember what Cassius gave as the description of the cook boy’s stolen items, that’s how!”
“But, boss,” began Zondi, rather hesitantly, his brow furrowed, “does that mean the Lieutenant is saying that Boss Kritzinger arrived at Nkosala mortuary dressed in the clothes of another man, of a Bantu—not his own?”
“He must’ve done!”
“Maybe the boiler boy could have become confused between the clothes of a dead thief and—”
“Impossible. No other fresh stiffs in the place.”
“Hau, the implications could be very strange, boss!”
“Too right,” agreed Kramer. “Shit, I’d better check this out first, before we do anything else, hey?”
He managed to reach Nkosala remarkably quickly, give or take a few impromptu detours that undoubtedly left the other drivers involved pale, shaky, and deeply reflective. The WELCOME TO NKOSALA sign didn’t so much go by in a blur as appear to duck hurriedly.
“Easy, man, easy …” Kramer told himself, throttling back as he approached the hospital driveway.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Terblanche, leaning against his police Land Rover round the back of the white wards, reading a newspaper, and a sudden thought occurred to him. He made a sharp left turn, crossed some lawn, and came to a sliding halt beside the station commander.
“Tromp!” said Terblanche. “What brings you here, hey?”
“Lots,” said Kramer through his car window. “Only you know those photos Suzman took of Maaties in situ down at Fynn’s Creek? I want to know where I can get hold of them and—”
“Funny you should say that!” said Terblanche, looking very pleased with himself. “Not five minutes ago, when I went to buy this paper, I remembered the snaps and so I picked them up at the chemist’s where Sarel took them for developing.”
“Give,” said Kramer, holding a hand out.
“I’ll come round,” said Terblanche, and seated himself in the front of the Chev before passing over a Kodak print wallet marked FOR JAFINI POLICE/URGENT. I hope they’re okay. I haven’t had the stomach for a peep myself yet.”
“So how’s our friend from Mabata doing?” asked Kramer, opening the wallet. “Are they keeping Stoffel in hospital?”
“I’m waiting to find out, hey? Only I hate the smell in these places and Doc Mackenzie isn’t finished with his tests yet.”
“Hmmm,” murmured Kramer, not really listening.
He had started going through the twelve contact prints made from Suzman’s roll of 120 film. Uppermost were three out-of-focus snapshots of a grim-faced old bitch in a deck chair on a crowded beach, shading her eyes against the sun with one hand while using the other to keep a merciless grip on the collar of a small mongrel, cowering low at her side.
“Ach, those are just Sarel’s private ones; it’s his own film, of course, which he had to interrupt for us,” explained Terblanche. “He must’ve been trying to get one of his ma smiling but she wouldn’t—typical, really!” And he laughed.
Kramer returned them to the wallet and fanned out the remaining contact prints like a hand at poker.
“A real dragon, his ma,” Terblanche went on. “I remember the time their cook girl smuggled her piccanin into her quarters to spend the night when it was sick, whereupon she—”
“Hans, can you just shut up a sec?”
“Sorry, Tromp! Sorry! Looking for anything special?”
Kramer ignored him and went through the rest of the prints one by one, dealing them into his lap. They were a typical amateur balls-up; two weren’t in focus, three had Suzman’s shadow falling over Kritzinger’s body, obscuring detail, and the whole lot were too contrasty, making it impossible to distinguish certain shapes or to guess at the color of things—the jacket, for instance. Even so, a set of properly lit, properly taken pictures by Fingerprints would probably have proved equally disappointing; the half a bucket of gut spilling out of the body was enough to hide any belt buckle.
“Well,” he said, stuffing the prints back into the wallet and then pocketing it, “I’d best get down to the mortuary for a minute.” And he threw open his door.
“Doc’s not there, Tromp. He’s busy with—”
“Ja, you said. Only I’m looking for Niko.”
“Oh?”
“You’ve seen him today?”
Terblanche nodded. “He wanted me to come and have a coffee, only I couldn’t, could I? Not while I’m—well, sort of on duty here, hey?”
“Hell, no,” said Kramer.
“My beautiful shoes! Hau, hau, hau!” exclaimed Moses Khumalo, clapping his hands in delight, as Zondi brought him into the CID office. “And look, my belt also. Hau, you are a very great detective. Sergeant Zondi!”
“Glad you think so, my brother,” said Zondi, pulling over a chair for the rustic to perc
h on. “Want your black suit back as well?”
“Hey! That is possible?”
“Very possible. Or at least, a new one very like it.”
“Hau!”
“Seat yourself and I will do the same. We will talk, Moses Khumalo.”
“No, I must stand, Sergeant Zondi. I am but a humble man in your presence.”
“We will sit, my friend, and we will share this fine American-blend cigarette together, while we speak further on the subject of young madams. Would you not like that?”
“Hau, very, very much, Sergeant Detective!” said Moses Khumalo.
Niko Claasens was making the hummy sounds a man makes when he thinks he is all on his own, pottering around his little kingdom, building new castles in the air. He gave a tremendous start when he noticed Kramer watching him from just inside the double doors to the refrigerator room.
“Hello, Niko,” said Kramer. “Having a quiet afternoon, hey?”
“Er, ja, sir,” replied Claasens, his expression wary. “I’m afraid the doc’s—”
“Ja, ja, I know. But this is just an informal visit—Hans tells me you’re serving coffee?”
“Sorry, Lieutenant? Oh, I see! You would like some?”
“If it isn’t any trouble—I’m bloody parched, hey?”
“Of course not, sir! It’d be a pleasure—here, let me switch the kettle on.”
Kramer stood back to allow him to get past and reach the wide shelf where the coffee-making things were kept. “So you didn’t get Aap and the rest of those buggers?” he said.
“No, the Colonel wanted them all taken straight back to Trekkersburg for the sake of the relatives, thank God,” replied Claasens, switching on his electric kettle. “Man, most things you get used to in here. Last week, for instance, there was that Bantu female, stabbed to death by the mother-in-law, and her baby stabbed, too, when it started to come out the womb afterward, but—”
“If it’s one of your own, that’s very different,” said Kramer. “Ja, I know. Talking of which, remember those clothes of Maaties you chucked in the—”
“Ach, not that again!” said Claasens, turning with his big fists bunched. “How many more times?”
“Hey, hey, hold on a sec!” said Kramer, holding out a hand to fend off the porter’s indignation. “You’re going off half-cocked, you know that? I was about to make a perfectly innocent observation that was no reflection on you or the way you do your job, man.”
“You were, sir? Ach, I’m sorry, hey?”
“No need for an apology either,” said Kramer, ready now to conduct a little litmus test. “All I was going to say was, Kritz certainly did have one hell of a strange taste in clothes for a white man, don’t you think?”
The healthy pink began to drain from the mortuary porter’s cheeks, although his stance remained casual. “I’m not sure I—er, follow your meaning exactly, Lieutenant,” he said.
“I’m talking about what the body had on when it came in here,” said Kramer. “Christ, how on earth had poor old Maaties ended up wearing a worn-out pair of scruffy shoes three sizes too big for him, hey? And the kind of bloody belt only kaffirs buy from trading stores? Not to mention a frayed old shirt with a big patch in the back and a buggered charcoal suit that didn’t fit properly either?”
Ashen, Claasens just stood there, and then, to Kramer’s surprise, he took a pace forward. “How the HELL do you know that?” he hissed.
Moses Khumalo took his fifth drag on the shared Texan and passed it back to Zondi, using both hands as a clear mark of respect, while he nodded vigorously.
“Eh-heh, that is true, Sergeant Detective, the young madam was always friendly in her nature when white men came to the house. I think she liked them.”
“Who were these men?” asked Zondi.
Khumalo shrugged. “Men that came with the master,” he said. “Maybe they were the men he worked with—nearly all wore the same uniform.”
“So the master was always present?”
“Eh-heh, to the best of my knowledge, Sergeant Zondi. I work from six in the morning until ten at night and fall asleep very fast.”
“You have never seen any other white men at the house?”
“Once, a fisherman, who came when the young madam was alone to ask if he could have water for his bottle.”
“Did you see what he looked like?”
“Eh-heh, I filled his bottle for him.”
“Was he anything like this man?” asked Zondi, showing Khumalo a head-and-shoulders photograph of Pik Fourie, enlarged from a wedding picture, that he had found in the inquest file’s glassine envelope.
Khumalo nibbled his lower lip, concentrating hard on the image. “Hau, it is hard to say,” he said finally, “but maybe yes, maybe no, Sergeant Zondi. You know how it is with these white faces which can grow darker and then lighter, depending on what time of year it is.”
Wish you were here, Mickey, Kramer was thinking, just so I could see your expression, man. The behavior of Niko Claasens, mere mortuary porter at Nkosala, was becoming more and more extraordinary every second—anyone would think he was a bloody Boss agent, suddenly blowing his cover.
“I asked you a question, Lieutenant!” barked Claasens. “I’ve asked it how many times? Ten? Twenty times? Where did you come by this knowledge?”
“On the back of a Post Toasties box.”
“Don’t try being clever with me, man! Let me warn you, if you value your bloody job, me and the Colonel go back a long way—oh, ja, a very long way!”
Kramer shrugged. “Me and my arse go back a long way,” he said. “But not everybody’s all that impressed, to be honest.”
Claasens stared at him, then gave a low, grudging laugh. “I told the Colonel,” he said, his whole manner changing, the bluster giving way abruptly to a grim matter-of-factness. “Ja, I warned him you’d be bloody trouble, right from the start.”
“Oh, ja, when was that, hey?”
“The very first day you arrived, after all that fuss you made here at the postmortems, teaching Doc to do his job properly and everything—that was unexpected. I said then he should never have sent you.”
“Why not?” demanded Kramer.
“You were—well, not the kind of outsider we had need of, in the circumstances. In fact, ever since then I’ve maintained you should either have been withdrawn or be told the delicate position we’re in at the moment. Otherwise, like I told him, you’d be the kind to go your own sweet way, snooping too far into things, leaving us wide open to all sorts of bloody complications.”
“Such as?”
“You strolling in here this afternoon and deliberately letting slip that you knew things you shouldn’t! Come on, tell me how you found out about the clothes—that, I’ve got a right to know.”
“Oh, ja? Not until you fill me in on the rest of the story,” said Kramer. “Hell, the whole reason I came across to Nkosala in the first place was in the hope of cutting a few corners.”
“Trouble is, if I told you, it’d be for the opposite reason—to stop you doing anything,” said Claasens, placing two coffee mugs side by side, next to the Nescafe jar. “Jesus, you don’t know how relieved I felt when I heard this afternoon that you’d got it into your head this business was connected with those missions killings! Good, I thought—enjoy your nice wild-goose chase, Lieutenant! Then back you bloody came, not two hours later …”
“Ja, and I’m likely to keep doing that, hey, Niko?” said Kramer, tiring of all the half-statements, hints, and innuendos. “Only next time, man, it could be a case of me informing you of exactly what’s been going on, here and at Jafini—and of what I’ve already done about it, hey?”
“Look,” said Claasens, swinging round to face him, a cautionary finger raised, “what I said at the outset is still true: these are very serious matters! Do you realize how much is at stake here?”
“No, but I’m listening,” said Kramer, leaning back against the postmortem slab with his arms folded.
30
NIKO CLAASENS HESITATED, glanced at the wall phone over by the door, as though he would much prefer discussing the wisdom of his next move with a superior first, then turned to face Kramer again. “Okay, this has all gone too far to turn back now,” he said. “Either I put you in the picture, or the chances are you’re going to do some real damage without knowing it.”
“Uh-huh—and?”
“It’s like this, Tromp,” said Claasens, adding Nescafe to the two coffee mugs, “three of us have known all along what happened the night of the explosion.”
“Ach, bullshit.”
“But it’s true. Also, we’ve known who did it and why—down to almost the last little detail.”
“You mean I’ve—Jesus, you bastards …”
“Man, I don’t blame you, feeling that way! Hell, who likes to suddenly find out he’s been misled in every direction—and by his own people? But, as you’ll realize in a minute, there were reasons for this which outweighed any personal considerations, and besides, it isn’t as if you haven’t had a crucial role to play in seeing that—”
“Misled? Is that what you bloody call it? It’s—”
“No, wait, hear me out first! Because of what we three knew, we had no alternative. To have proceeded in the normal way with this matter would have done nothing but terrible harm to Maaties’ memory, his wife and innocent kiddies, and to the SAP as a whole, especially in these times of serious unrest, hey? That’s why the Colonel decided our first duty was to make sure there was no scandal, to let the case go ‘unsolved’ for now, and then, once the fuss had died away, we could take our own action and see justice done privately.”
“What scandal?” demanded Kramer. “What kind of action?”
“The appropriate penalty for murder, Tromp! Make no mistake, the swine certainly isn’t going to get away with it. But before I tell you his name, you have to understand that, from now on, you are part and parcel of the Colonel’s plan, and none of us must do anything that could jeopardize it, okay? Maaties and Annika were killed by Lance Gillets.”
“Ach, no! That’s ridiculous!”
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