“Shhhh, man. He forces his way through the shrubs and then finds the way blocked by the tennis court wire. Does he then go round sideways?”
“If he has any sense.”
“Unless, of course, he can identify from where he is who or what is making those sounds.”
“Naturally, sir! He can see all right and that’s why he stands there, buggering up that little tree, looking right onto the patio…”
“Through two lots of wire netting. That’s important because although your eyes put it out of focus-like when you’re gawking in a zoo-it still blurs the vision slightly, particularly at night. I’ll come back to that.
“The question now is: What does he see? Take the official version. Andy is walking about bare-arsed, falls in, and doesn’t surface.
“Man, I doubt it. The first reason is we wouldn’t have had all this nonsense afterwards. Andy would have drowned and there’s an end. The other reason is that Boetie was good at swimming-remember what the Dominee said. If he had seen someone fail to rise in the water, it would have been his instinct to rush and save him.
“Which forces us to concoct an alternative version, and we start by asking ourselves why didn’t Boetie go to the rescue? Either he was afraid to or he did not see the point. What does that suggest to you?”
Zondi was the first to answer.
“That there was another person there, boss.”
“Or, sir, he knew Andy was dead already.”
“Impossible, Johnny; he could not even begin to see the bottom of the pool from where he stood.”
Pembrook glanced across to Zondi before answering.
“Then he must have made a judgment based on someone else’s behavior.”
“Ah, so Andy was not alone after all when he took his moonlight dip! And what’s more, this third party made no attempt at a rescue or the body would have been dragged back onto dry land-you can’t apply respiration in water.”
“And that’s what Boetie saw!”
“Plus what went before. If I tell you that a man has died mysteriously and there was another person there at the time, what are your conclusions?”
“Foul play.”
“You could go a step further, in the light of what happened to Boetie, and say murder. But let’s keep within the framework and just call it a crime.”
“Why didn’t he…?”
“This is where what Zondi said comes in. Here we have Boetie witnessing a crime. He knows it’s a crime and he knows the police will inevitably become involved in it because they must investigate all sudden deaths. He also reads the Detective Club column which praises the police to high heaven. Nothing can escape their watchful eye. Naturally he supposes the crime he sees committed will be no exception.”
“Christ, sir, that’s good!”
“Logical, nothing else. So what is there in it for him? If he tells the police what they already know, they will laugh. If he tells them what they will doubtlessly find out, they’ll want to know where he got his information. He realizes that it would be best to keep quiet.”
“That sort of cool thinking would take a hard-headed kid.”
“Boetie in a nutshell, Johnny. Okay, so he sneaks out and goes home, but he’s only twelve and he’s seen a man die. This keeps him awake. Makes him oversleep. Perhaps by morning it is all unreal and almost a dream. He forgets to do his homework. On Monday he wants to make sure he saw what he saw-and he’s also very curious to check on how the case has been treated. Crime in Greenside is big stuff.
“He buys a paper. What’s in it? An inquest stating Andy Cutler died accidentally. He must have flipped. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t make the same mistake we made over that line. ‘A typical drowning.’ ”
“But, sir…”
“Go on.”
“Surely that was his cue to tell the police? Now he was in the strongest possible position.”
“Oh, no, he could go one better. Here, the letter reads: ‘I think I have found a way of proving to him a big mistake has been made.’
“You mustn’t overlook Boetie’s feud with the station commander. That had made him really sore. He didn’t want to reveal the crime so much as actually use it to prove how useful he and his mates could be.”
Pembrook pushed back his cuff from his watch and frowned.
“You see,” said Kramer, leaning forward, “what Boetie had in mind was presenting the police not with just his eyewitness report, but the whole bloody thing tied up in a string. Real evidence like a real detective.”
“Sorry, sir, that’s too much to believe.”
“All right, let’s try another approach. Up to the moment Boetie saw the newspaper article he had no reason to doubt his assessment of the activity by the pool. Now he is confronted by what seems an incredible oversight. Or is it? Only an investigation can give him the answer and he prefers to carry it out himself.”
“Then nobody can call him a fool,” Zondi murmured.
“Well, Johnny?”
Pembrook had been turning the rubber roller of the typewriter in an irritating way. He jerked his head up.
“I think all he wanted was something to back up his word. One or two outside facts, maybe. If he had just gone to the station commander with his story, it could have been dismissed as a nasty piece of malicious hearsay- particularly as everyone was being so soft about the thing. I’m with you there, but now I can’t understand why he put it in his letter to the Detective Club. Or why he wrote to it at all.”
“A good point. My theory is simply that he felt he had to tell someone. You can see the kids take this club pretty personally.”
“Hmmm. Where do we go from here then, sir?”
“Just a minute-the wire netting. There is a chance that it boosted any doubt that started to grow in his mind. At that range he might not necessarily have been able to give a good description of the other party. He’d have to see them again first, so he decided to get mixed up with the family. He notices Sally is twelve and somehow finds out she goes to dancing. Let’s not trouble with that point too much. In the first place, it’s a reasonable deduction considering the type of girl she is-and in the second place, we know he was training down at the town baths with English boys. They could have told him.
“Hester is a snag. She expects him to go around with her, and won’t be easily fobbed off with excuses. She’ll get in the way. Then the conscience thing again, which I think is very real. And on top of this, the breaking-off committed him to his plan of action.
“Boetie gets all togged up and goes to dancing on Friday night. Naturally Sally is pleased when a boy takes so much notice of her for a change. She’s probably so hard-up that it doesn’t make any difference he’s Afrikaans-or maybe she goes for being a rebel daughter. With an old man like that, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. From here on, Boetie worms his way into the household, trying to find out what he can.”
“Yet he still isn’t any the wiser after how many visits?”
“Who said? He must have finally got somewhere because he implied as much when he asked Hennie to look after the toffee box.”
Pembrook opened it.
“I bet these codes could explain a few things. Pity there was nothing in his room-I was there two hours, you know.”
“That’s what I’m going to work on as soon as you leave. Christ, the time! You’d better go.”
Zondi handed Pembrook his raincoat and small suitcase, adding a little bow which did not go down very well.
“All right, sir, I’ll ring in the morning. I think I know what you want out of Miss Jarvis.”
“What’s that?”
“Mainly if Boetie told her dirty jokes, too. That’s the one bit that doesn’t fit into all of this.”
“You’re my boy.” Kramer grinned.
The padlocked Ford van carrying Danny Govender from the place of safety to the magistrate’s court for another remand that Thursday afternoon was being driven by Constable Hendriks.
