batch of photographs, just as that oaf had done back in the bar on Tuesday morning, and then dealt them out, one at a time, face upward on the desktop.
“Those are my cards,” he said, and went to call Willie to action stations.
But Mr. and Mrs. Haagner, just returned from the barbecue, having been the last to leave, said they’d only that minute looked in on his room and he hadn’t been there. Although, as a giggly Mrs. Haagner conceded, he might have been outside making a weewee. Kramer went to Willie’s room and found a small magazine propped up at the foot of the bed to show off an old-fashioned nude to advantage. He took the magazine and brushed passed the Haagners, not saying good night. He checked to see if the Chev was there, and it was. He broke into a run and went round to the yard, yanking open the stable door and finding the stall vacated. He heard a telephone ringing. He saw, through the barred window of the station commander’s office, de Bruin answer it. He sprinted to the window and heard the man groan.
“Quick! Who is it?”
An eternity later, Karl de Bruin clattered the receiver into its cradle, and stumbled over to hold onto the bars in a state of near-collapse.
“Suzanne. Pa came home, found her door unlocked. She said must’ve been servant girl. Hit her, wouldn’t believe her. She said policeman had been there. Hit her. Swore it. Hit her, went looking. Found Willie. Hit Willie. Hit her. Only got to phone now, bleeding. Willie gone. Game truck. Said he was going to-going to … Willie.”
“Ambulance!” Kramer shouted over his shoulder.
As he raced to the front, the Chev’s lights came on and it roared toward him, slewing round, the passenger door swinging open.
“Let’s go, boss,” said Zondi.
20
Like a skull on a dunghill, the great white stone shone in the moonlight, becoming smaller every minute behind them. The Chev howled and slithered and clawed its way up to the pass. No dust showed in its headlights.
“Ten-minute start,” said Kramer.
“Five, more like.”
“Never make it.”
“Before?”
“The fork down the other side.”
Bracing himself against the movement of the car, Kramer lit two cigarettes and stuck one of them in Zondi’s mouth. Then he flicked on the map-reading light and held the magazine beneath it.
“Dear God,” he murmured. “This is so old she could be his bloody mother.”
“Sorry, boss?”
“Sick.”
“Not your fault, Lieutenant,” grunted Zondi, missing the point and a sheer drop simultaneously. “You must take it easy, or you will do a foolish thing. What is the procedure when we overtake this vehicle?”
“Huh!”
“It is a good road for a puncture.”
“Trust a kaffir!”
“Every time,” added Zondi.
And they laughed.
It was the release Kramer had needed. “The procedure,” he said, “is simple. If he won’t pull up, then I’ll do as you suggest and take his tires out.” He placed his Smith amp; Wesson.38 on the map shelf in readiness.
“From the back or side?”
“Either. Willie will be all right-the doors and walls on that thing are so thick they’ll stop any spare slugs.”
He didn’t go into what might happen if the truck, losing a tire at high speed, left the road; that smattered of trying to think too far ahead.
“Let us hope that his gallows place is far from here,” said Zondi, making careful use of the ashtray. “The longer he drives, the better our chance will be.”
“While you’re at it, let’s hope I’m somewhere near right with my bloody theory.”
“That he must do the deed properly?”
“Uh huh. It depends on how far off the rails he’s gone, I realize that, but I’m certain all the fiddling about is essential to him. He’s got to weigh-”
“But what charge, boss?
“I’ll let you guess,” said Kramer, and outlined what had happened after the visit to Swartboom.
They were nearing the crest of the pass by the time he had finished. There was still no dust suspended in the beam of the headlights, and unless they reached the fork on the far side in time to see some telltale sign of his passage, their chances of ever catching up would be halved.
“Well, Mickey?”
“Can the fire be blamed?” Zondi replied enigmatically.
Then he gunned the Chev into the final S-bend before the top and the plunge into the long descent.
Willie Boshoff lay on his back, cold sober and terrified, the floor beneath him bounced, tilted sideways, and rolled him over again, smashing his face against something hard in the dark. Bound hand and foot, he could do nothing to save himself, and back he rolled again, tasting the blood and mucus from his broken nose. He retched.
The truck changed up. It began to move faster, more smoothly.
He should never have done it. The transfer would have been his without any extras. He should have told the Lieutenant instead of pretending to go off to bed.
His mind was repeating things. Playing over the way Swanepoel had questioned him when the Lieutenant and de Bruin had left. Making him see and hear again those little giveaways which had given him his idea. The Lieutenant can nail the hangman, he had thought, but I’ll be the one who gets the credit for his assistant. All I have to do is ask his daughter a few questions.
The truck-it sounded like a Bedford-slipped back into a lower gear, and Willie rolled again, the victim of his own inertia.
He had never got near her.
He’d never know what had made him mad enough to risk what he had done; never. Never know why it had been something he didn’t want to share. But to keep to himself, as he acted compulsively, slyly, stealing away on the horse and climbing in through the open bedroom window. To lose all sense of time when he discovered, left lying around quite openly, a leather demonstration carrying case of the kind that traveling salesmen use. A case packed neatly with all the tools of a terrible trade-the very same case and contents as described by Dr. Strydom in his Telex: the rope, with metal eye and rubber washer; a wrist strap and leg strap, unused; the black cap; fine copper wire; packthread; tape measure; two-foot rule; pliers; spare shackle.
The truck was slowing down. And down. And coming to a stop.
Pray God, a roadblock. Willie, who had recovered consciousness only momentarily, felt a greater darkness overwhelm him before he could find out.
Zondi snapped off the Chev’s headlights.
“Why the-”
“Down there, boss! At one o’clock!”
Kramer looked and saw, far below them on the valley floor, a pair of stationary headlights. An instant later, they were switched off. No other lights shone anywhere.
“But that’s bloody miles before the fork, man!”
“It must be where he has his place.”
