down by a large mealie bag of sand, stunned and smiling stupidly.
“Is it heavy?” he asked.
“Eleven stone exactly,” Swanepoel answered.
“Uh huh.”
Down the other end of the truck, Kramer found Willie with the noose around his neck. As the distance from the center of the ceiling to the wall was a mere three feet or so, he was sitting there quite comfortably, with plenty of slack to spare. The noose slipped off easily; the bag-being stuck to his face-was a trifle more difficult.
“I’m St. Peter,” said Kramer. “Harp or electric guitar?”
Willie stared blankly.
“You’re all right, kid. You’ll live.”
“I want a transfer,” said Willie.
This struck Kramer as being exceedingly funny. But he knew that if he laughed, he might go to pieces. “I’ll get a knife for the straps,” he said. “Fingerprints wouldn’t thank me for handling them. Just try to relax now.”
Willie, trusting as a puppy, nodded.
Kramer traced the rope back. It went over a pulley, which had replaced one of the meat hooks in the ceiling, and was joined at the shackle to a steel cable. This cable then went over another pulley, situated at the back of the truck, and was fixed to the mealie bag.
“Machine hanging,” he said to Swanepoel, who hadn’t tried to get up. “What put me off was that the only example I’d ever heard about had taken place in a room thirty-five feet high. But you don’t need much height when you use two pulleys.”
“Not if your truck is long enough to have the slack tightening horizontally,” Swanepoel agreed. “You just need enough for the prisoner and the drop to be side by side, on the same level. It’s all a bit crude, but it works-which is the main thing. Usually I add a few curtains and that to give it more atmosphere.”
“How was the bag released?”
“Nothing fancy. This bit of nylon rope kept it suspended until I sliced through it with a knife. Then it would drop, take up the slack-and crack! I’m very keen to tell you everything.”
“I’ve noticed. Why?”
“I want it all to come out in court.”
“Uh huh.”
“And then I want to see how they do it for myself.”
“On yourself?”
“That’s the idea!”
“Sorry,” murmured Kramer. “All you’ll ever see is the inside of a loony bin. You aren’t fit to plead, Gysbert Swanepoel.”
Even as he said this, Kramer noticed the curious upward turn to the man’s eyebrows, and realized that it matched what he dimly remembered of the face of Anthony Michael Vasari. An unlikely association, perhaps, yet one which now fitted neatly into the context of a Catholic woman married four years without children, having a war baby and then adopting two others. This might explain what had drawn Tollie to the man in the first place-it certainly explained what a backveld farmer was doing with a world map in his living room. Kramer was aware he really ought to have thought of all this before, but there had always been so much else to think about, and that story of the prisoner of war had been just weird enough to sound true. God, what a terrible torment the man must be suffering, yet supplying him with his answers was-
“Bastards!” bellowed Swanepoel. “I
The mealie bag was tossed aside like a feather pillow. The huge farmer scissored Kramer’s legs from under him, then took hold of him by the throat. Kramer fought back, kneeing him in the groin, and they rolled over and over, crashing against the rocks. Finally Swanepoel broke free and rose, pulling out a knife, cursing and sobbing, demented.
Kramer seized the excuse. He fired, killing the man instantly. Mercifully, he thought.
The shot didn’t echo.
It brought total silence, like the crack of a clapperboard.
Then out of that silence came a deep, low laugh; a laugh quite out of proportion to the size of man who made it. A laugh Kramer knew well, having heard it where children played, where women wept, where men died; always the same degree of detached amusement.
“Zondi, you old bastard! So it was you?”
He hadn’t wanted to ask this before, just in case there had been no reply.
Leaving Willie in his hell for a little longer, Kramer put away his gun and strode to the front of the truck. The cab was empty. He twisted round. Zondi was lying against the bank, his right leg out straight and the other bent under him; he was trying to get a Lucky out of its packet. The clown laughed again, very softly, and shook his head.
“Give here,” said Kramer, kneeling and taking the packet from him. “You’re in shock, man-are you hurt?”
“A beautiful pain, boss.”
“Hey?”
“My leg is broken.”
“Christ! Right one again?”
“Left.”
Kramer lit the cigarettes, drew on them thoughtfully, then handed one to Zondi.
“Mickey!” he said, grinning. “Mickey, you cunning little kaffir! And just how many weeks off do you reckon this’ll entitle you to? Enough?”
“Enough for both, Lieutenant-for how can one rest without its brother?” Zondi chuckled. “How do you feel yourself?”
“Now I come to think of it, not so good,” said Kramer.
