spread-eagled like a charming guinea pig on a laboratory bench.
14
Battle stations. The klaxon sounded precisely at 10:30 a.m. the following day outside the CID buildings, bringing Pembrook scrambling to his feet. Kramer saw him take a quick glance out of the window and then emerge seconds later from the main entrance. The nearside front door was already hanging open. He revved the Chev’s engine again.
The door slammed and they were away.
“Where’re we going, sir?”
“Country club.”
“Did you read the statement from Sally?”
“Before you got in this morning, drunkard.”
“Find anything useful, sir?” Pembrook persisted, still somewhat aggrieved that his devotion to duty had not won any acclaim.
“Bugger all, apart from her saying that she overheard Boetie talking back to her father and what she called a sarcastic line about his having to find himself another girl. What you picked up from the bloke in the sports car was a lot more to the point.”
“I’m glad, sir. I worked the lift thinking I might be able to pump him a bit.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Sir?”
“That sort of gossip is the easiest thing to get out of the buggers up at Greenside. We’d have got it anyway if we’d asked. I did just that this morning after I’d been to the Jarvises’. ”
“But what happened at the Jarvises’, sir?”
“A lot.”
“Is it in the bag?”
“Almost.”
“Then you know who the mystery girl was?”
Kramer raised his head slightly to catch Zondi’s change of expression in his rear-view mirror.
“It wasn’t a girl,” he said. “Now just keep quiet until we’re clear of this traffic.”
Over on the other side of the valley, three African gravediggers crouched behind a hedge and passed a cigarette between them; not one rolled from newspaper such as laborers made do with, but a genuine Peter Stuyvesant that came to them ready-lit. It was one of the perks, this being able to salvage the shower of good tobacco that fell when mourners arrived without an opportunity to finish their smokes.
They made sounds of deep content as each took his puff, and argued in low whispers over whether it was less work to make a hole for a child’s coffin. The one who had been to school said it was obviously easier as there was not as much to shift. But the foreman pointed out that the more confined space made getting through the layer of shale more arduous. Their colleague sought a compromise by calling their attention to the fact there was less to put back in again. It was accepted and they looked forward to finishing the job by twelve and taking an early lunch. The hot sun had made them feel excessively lethargic. They saved the other cigarettes for the afternoon and dozed against the spade handles held upright between their thighs.
As their instructions were to keep out of sight at all times, they had not taken any interest in the funeral proceedings after their snatch-and-grab raid on the area where the cars parked. So the salute fired by a full platoon of cadets from the high schools, which was both deafening and alarmingly ragged, came as something totally unexpected: all three of them immediately fled down the hill, brandishing their spades like spears and yelling in fright-not knowing quite why.
Mrs. Swanepoel cheered.
This utterly astonished everyone but Dominee Pretorius. He, better than any, perhaps, knew what a terrible state her mind was in; and besides, the woman had a wonderful, deep-rooted sense of her historical heritage.
It moved him more than anything that day.
Pembrook could restrain himself no longer. He rounded on Kramer and begged to be put out of his misery.
“Then let this be a lesson to you,” Kramer replied. “Always make a point of seeing everyone who might conceivably be involved in a case, however unlikely that possibility. Ah, that’s better.”
They had reached the dual highway.
“And another thing, Pembrook: beware of the mistake Boetie made when he tried to be a detective. Our job requires us not to make assumptions based on class, color, or religious belief. His set ideas cost him his life.”
“But, sir!”
“I want that in your head before we start to confuse you.”
Zondi gave a snort.
“Hey, you back there-stop that listening!”
“Straightaway, boss.”
The Chev moved over into the slow lane behind a wattle truck and dropped down to thirty.
“Well, it was like this, Pembrook man. I left that note in the office for you and then went to Greenside. As I was coming up the drive at No. 10, I see Caroline out there in the garden cutting some flowers. Hell, I think, that’s a quick recovery! So I stop and go over. Guess what? It’s her ma.”
“No!”
“At a distance, they’ve both got that wiry sort of body that never changes much. Hair style’s the same, same color, and eyebrows all buggered about to nothing.”
“Age?”
“Around thirty-seven. She must have reached desperation pretty fast wherever it was she met Jarvis. But that isn’t the point, is it? She jumps nearly out of her pants when I say who I am, and that I’m investigating the Cutler case. Then she says, ‘But it was an accident!’ Why are you so sure, lady? I ask. She can’t tell me but keeps on that I’m wasting my time. Hell! She should have known what big jumps my mind was taking.”
“I’ll bet! Did you-?”
“Stick around. When I was last at their place I told the Captain that we’d caught a loony housebreaker who admitted pushing Andy in. So when I ask her why she’s so anxious it was accidental, she says she doesn’t want the bloke to hang for nothing. That’s all right, I tell her, we know it wasn’t him. And then I say, all calm-like, ‘What happened, Mrs. Jarvis, did you and Andy roll over the edge?’ ”
“Christ!”
Zondi made a muffled sound.
“Next thing she’s laughing crazy but quietly and asking me how I know. That was a good moment to get the hell out, but I waited. Then she asked me what happens next and I tell her, Nothing. Like she says, it was an accident. No sense in dragging up evidence that would not alter the court’s verdict. I explain that was why I was calling by. Her relief, it was fantastic. The Captain had said he would kill her if it ever got in the papers.”
“But wait a minute, sir; if the two deaths are connected, then what the hell did she think she was doing?” Pembrook said.
“She felt guilty about the mad kaffir she thought we’d string up.”
“Since when has guilt been stronger than self-preservation? She could have left well alone. All this implicates her in the other.”
“Only if she connected them also. Think about it.”
Pembrook looked round at Zondi. All he saw was the crown of a straw hat tipped well forward.
“Be fair, sir,” he entreated. “You must have asked more than one question.”
“ Ach, yes, I’d forgotten. Just as I got back into the car, telling her not to worry, I said, ‘Do you ever wear trendy lipstick when you want to feel younger?’ And she answered, ‘What woman doesn’t?’ Enough for you now?”
The wattle truck, laden with bark and a loll of plantation workers, one of whom was playing the concertina,
