“Everyone’s at school.”
“Grown-up friends maybe?”
“Huh?”
“Tell me, what did you blokes do together yesterday afternoon?”
“We went shooting birds with our air guns.”
“Up near the country club?”
Hennie scowled.
“We never go there! It’s too far. Besides, you’re not allowed.”
“How many did you get?”
“An Indian myna.”
“Not bad! They’re a smart lot. And did you have any plans for today? Were you going shooting again after school?”
“No, it’s swimming. We’ve got to practice for the gala. Boetie and me-”
“Yes?”
“Nothing. We’re in the interhouse relay.”
“Is that what you talked about last night before he went home?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Try hard, please.”
“He just said he’d better be going a bit early before it got dark because his tire was flat.”
“But he lives close by, doesn’t he?”
“It was something like that.”
“What time was this?”
“Sort of six o’clock.”
“You’re lying to me, Hennie! Want to know why?”
The boy ducked and ran for the door. Kramer grabbed him.
“Shall I tell you? Because Boetie’s air gun is there in his bedroom, but he didn’t go home last night. Not at all! ”
Hennie’s top lip trembled like the lid of a saucepan brought to the boil. Any minute he would spill over.
“Now take it easy, son! Just tell me how it was that you and Boetie were shooting when-”
“His gun’s broke.”
“And so?”
“He borrowed my big brother’s.”
Kramer’s hands fell to his sides.
“Oh, Jesus,” he sighed. This line of inquiry was getting him bloody nowhere fast, it really was. Maybe he should get back to the sick men with dirty fingernails, no sense in upsetting everyone, including innocent kids. But he had one thing left to do: flash his trump.
“Hennie, I’ve got some bad news. Boetie isn’t going to be in the gala.”
“Why?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll tell your ma and pa that you asked me this question-straight out?”
“Yes.”
“Boetie is dead.”
Adults collapse, children can only gape.
“He was murdered, Hennie, killed by a very wicked man.”
The convicts outside began a low chant, singing of their cattle and their wives and their children back in the reserves; it helped them bear the weight of a grass roller they were unloading from a truck. A window opened and a nasal voice screeched for silence. It went deathly quiet.
Kramer stared at Hennie incredulously. He had expected the boy to register shock but not fear. Not fear so great it smelled worse than the puddle of urine expanding on the classroom floor.
Beauty Makatini, as Zondi now knew her to be, was preparing lunch in the Swanepoels’ kitchen. She opened two tins of pilchards in sauce, sliced six tomatoes, washed a lettuce, and grated some carrots. For dessert, she halved two pawpaws and squeezed lemon over them.
“Too much,” murmured Zondi from his seat on the bread bin. “You heard the priest say the boss and the missus were sleeping.”
“This morning I make porridge and eggs for four people, Detective Zondi. Bonita and the priest eat it all and I have to find toast for them, too. They are very hungry, I think.”
He chuckled. For a while he had suspected she was up to the old trick of making sure there would be leftovers to supplement her own meal of boiled beans. But you could not get away with that one in every household and, from what he had heard about Mrs. Swanepoel, hers was no exception.
Dominee Pretorius poked his head in.
“Boy, your boss is outside now. Beauty, what’s wrong with the bell? I rang it three times from the front room.”
“ Hau, shame! I hear nothing.”
Zondi sidled past, giving her a secret pat on the bottom, and went out the back door.
He was just in time to see the Chev drive off without him.
Kramer brought it back a few minutes later with what almost amounted to an apology. He explained that after Hennie disgraced himself in the classroom, it had only been right to take the poor little bastard straight home before his pals saw him. In his hurry he had forgotten to inform the school and, on realizing this, had shot around the corner to use the call box.
“He was very frightened, boss?”
“Poop scared. But he wouldn’t tell me why-and he wouldn’t tell his mother. You see, I don’t think he really knows himself; it’s just a feeling I got.”
“This is strange.”
“But bugger-all use to us. Could be he just fancies he’s next in line because they were great mates. You know kids.”
“This Boetie fellow was also strange, boss,” Zondi said softly.
“Why’s that?”
“The servants all around here say he made life very hard for them. He looked at their passes.”
“He what? ”
“Checked their passbooks. Wanted to know if they had bike licenses. Went to their rooms at night to see if there were strangers sleeping there unlawfully.”
“Never!”
“He also arrested three Bantu youths for loitering with intent.”
“I don’t bloody believe it.”
“My people did not lie to me, boss. I sat with them for an hour.”
It seemed to Kramer longer than that before he found his tongue again.
“Man, I’ve heard of playing cops and robbers…”
“Playing? It was not toys he showed them.”
“Hey?”
“Beauty says he had everything-truncheon, whistle, and handcuffs. Real ones.”
Kramer snapped his fingers. A subliminal image had started to nibble at the wall of his conscious mind. It was not going to make it, but a strong impression filtered through: Boetie’s bedroom was the place to be. Something there had already made sense of all this.
“Back into the house,” he said, pushing at Zondi to open the car door and sliding out after him.
Once back in the room, Kramer stood in the center of it. He was searching for a cue rather than a clue. He simply let his eyes pan uncritically over everything within the four walls. They stopped dead on a neat pile of magazines by the bed.
“Of course!” Kramer said, scooping one up and ruffling through it. He found what he sought on page three-a
