to at least see if they wanted them They can always chuck them out.”
“But they’re not moving in until the day after-”
“I realize,” said Kramer, “but you know what womenfolk are like in this mood-they can’t stop till it’s all done.”
McKay showed gum and sympathized. “I ken fine! I ruddy dread new arrivals-Mr. McKay this, Mr. McKay that. The worst are the ones who think your name’s Jock and that you’re responsible for the dirty books their bairns find left under the bath.”
Zondi gave Kramer a pleading look.
“We better be going, Mr. McKay. Mustn’t hold you up.”
“A wee moment-the keys?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Aye, fine, no hurry, no hurry. Then I’ll be wishing you a good night.”
He hobbled back into his flat and Zondi immediately pushed toward the lift, making Kramer nearly start the whole thing up again outside the door to number IB.
That had been their worst moment. The actual abduction of Chainpuller Mabatso had run like clockwork, while observing to the letter a strict condition Zondi had placed upon it. All they had done was to sneak down the ridge behind the hut, arrange themselves with the tarpaulin on one side of the door, toss up a cocoa tin with some change in it, and wait. Chain-puller had meandered out, buttoning up his fly, and had been engulfed as he stooped to recover his dues.
And the best moment had been when Chainpuller’s current rental, all straight-haired wig and white lipstick, had poked her head out to see the wizard of Peacevale being carried off by two demons without faces-a sleeve of cheesecloth, thoughtfully provided by Bokkie Howells for cleaning the car’s windows, had been easily divided into two masks that didn’t even need eyeholes. While the story she’d tell would be half the battle won already.
Kramer groaned and took a grip on the heavy end again as the lift opened at the fifth floor. As lightweight as Chainpuller might prove on a set of scales, having to lug him all the way up the ridge and then down the other side, to where their car was hidden, had been enervating as well as time-consuming.
“Last lap,” he said to Zondi, “and for Christ’s sake don’t step on that cat.”
Strydom sat up in bed panting. His wife’s plump arm encircled his waist and tried to pull him down again as she muttered endearments. But he stayed where he was, tense and in a muck sweat.
“What is it, Chris?” she finally asked, rousing herself to lie propped on one elbow.
“I don’t know.”
“You haven’t had a dream, hey? You never have dreams- since when did you have a dream? I’ve never known you to have dreams. Never.”
“Hmmm?”
“I mean, with your work you can’t afford to-at least, that’s what you’ve always said. Remember? That time on our honeymoon when I thought you were dreaming? Only it was me dreaming that you were dreaming and all the time you-”
“It was terrible!”
“Hey?”
“No, I meant… it must have been a dream. So lifelike and real, though. Right in front of me. With smells, too.”
“You get smells in dreams sometimes,” she replied reassuringly, taking his clenched hand and patting it. “And colors? Did you see colors as well?”
“Ja, I did. Isn’t it supposed to be black and white, like the newsreels?”
“Not always. Although last time mine was black and white and I was trying on new dresses and it nearly drove me mad. Maybe it was that book you were reading.”
“No.”
“ Ach, tell your little Anneline all about it, and then it’ll go away. Come on, Chrissy, lie down again beside me.”
He lay back, hearing the mattress sigh with him, and moved his head over until he could feel her white curls against his cheek.
“Man, it was terrible,” he said in a low whisper. “I was back in Pretoria Central on a morning of some hangings. Father William was there, and Koos and the commandant-all the usual crowd.”
“Go on, my pet.”
“Things were going just as normal, and I had this feeling I had been away but was pleased to see everyone again. Only I couldn’t see the hangman and I wanted to ask him how his racing pigeons were coming on. I kept looking for him although work had already piled up for me downstairs-”
“They’d started with the Bantu?”
“Ja, although that didn’t seem funny at the time. Six Bantu and a colored, two rapes and the rest murder-no, one house-breaking with aggravated circumstances. Anyway, I knew there were all those certificates to sign. So I thought maybe he is in the condemned cell in B2, the small one for Europeans. I went there and I could tell which one from the aromas of the steak and eggs the bloke had ordered. You remember? Nearly always steak and eggs and peaches for pudding-hell, I was the one who actually saw all that food go to waste. But here am I outside the cell, and I push the thing back and look in. You know what I see there? A big mirror on the wall and my eye looking back at me. That’s the first thing I see.”
“And that’s what gave you such a big fright?”
“ Ach, no-wait. When I take my head away, I’m not by the cell anymore, I’m back in the shed. Of course, I think, this is where he’ll be. But I’m just there by myself. Then they bring in the white prisoner and I see that it’s Tromp!”
“Who?”
“Tromp Kramer-and I know this even though he’s already got the black hood on. Everything’s quick so I can’t ask about the pigeons and they put him on the trap and Father William says the Amen and he’s hanging-hell, but the bugger kicked hard! And I see… you know how the chain comes over the beam to make different lengths for the rope? You know that chart I showed you, heights and weights and the slack in between? I look up to see if it’s holding because I don’t want him to suffer-that’s rubbish for you, the chain coming loose.”
“Ja-”
“And all of a sudden I see it’s a mamba, not a rope, and that it’s-”
Anneline Strydom laughed fondly, replacing her arm and hugging her husband to her.
“You’re so silly,” she said. “Anyone can see where this dream came from. You don’t need Joseph to tell you it would just break, do you? Trompie jumped, he was all right-and you know how that boy likes his big plates of steak and eggs. Remember that time? I’d made for four?”
He laughed and snuggled up.
Gardiner was doodling. Drawing cartoon faces on thumb-prints he had himself made on the back of an old calendar, and giving them legs. Then he gave them arms and different things to hold, and wrote funny captions beneath each one, like “I never laid a finger on her” and “My alibi is I was out hitchhiking.” He had always liked art, even the watercolors at junior school, which always ran into each other, and his considerable graphic skill had made his specialized branch of police work a wise and rewarding choice.
Gardiner was also waiting. Marais had rung him in high excitement to ask if anything dramatic had been found in the dressing room, and when told it hadn’t, the clown promised to be over in a tick. He apparently had something momentous to impart, once he’d finished writing it out neatly for the lieutenant.
But the wait was getting beyond a joke. Both Gardiner’s dinner and his pretty wife would be stone cold by the time he got home, and he’d been hoping to broach the matter of a fishing trip up the North Coast instead of the visit to the game reserve.
So he finally just locked up and went over to the CID building, noticing the time on the city hall clock and discovering that his watch had lost an hour. This very nearly made him pick up the car and go, but his curiosity, as always, got the better of him. His rank had been well earned.
Marais was asleep, his head resting on folded arms on top of his typewriter. The snoring would have done justice to a bullfrog.
Gardiner saw the sheet of paper in the machine had just been begun, so he picked up what looked like a first
