and outer cleanliness, that he had presented on the parade ground six months earlier. On the morning, for example, when he had been asked to forsake appearing in the graduation parade, and to grow his hair hideously long instead.
Now his double life was drawing to an end, but it had been good while it had lasted. As the Bible said somewhere, the better you were, the shorter time you stayed. A number of successful raids by the Drugs Squad, each initiated by his gift for timing, had begun to make things more difficult and, in some quarters, his stranger’s face had begun to ring a bell. Soon it would be back into uniform for him, and the bottom rung to climb. Well, perhaps not quite the very bottom one, because his work had won him praise from above.
Plus warnings from those who had passed on, and who claimed to know the dangers as well as pleasures of belonging to an elite-or thinking you did. They would, for instance, occasionally remind him that he carried no firearm, and ask him to consider why this was true of no other white policeman. But that, surely, was a form of eliteness in itself, Wessels felt.
His mind wandered into arguments like these when there wasn’t anything specific happening. Right then he was just keeping an eye on a yellow car with two black males in it, parked forty yards down Monument Street beside an empty plot and opposite a row of run-down shops, most of which were closed anyway. These blacks weren’t doing anything, simply sitting there, and it was an area with a real mix-up of races during the day, being so near the station.
But Wessels was no fool. He tried to read the mud-splashed registration plate, and then shuffled, hawking and spitting, a little closer. This could easily be a new dagga drop-off point. And being Hein Wessels, you just never knew your luck; he might even try and approach them.
Marais put down the telephone and said, “Not at the mortuary, the hospital, or the prison.”
“And who was that on the other line?” asked Kramer.
“Shirley’s office. They say he’s out and they don’t know where to contact him; they’re leaving a message. He’s an interior designer, whatever that means.”
“I don’t think, gentlemen,” said the colonel, “that Mr. Shirley will have anything very useful to add, or Stevenson would have thought of him much earlier. His final statement is accepted.”
That had a ring to it that Kramer accorded a gracious nod. Marais nodded, too, vigorously.
“Furthermore, gentlemen, through an inquiry I myself arranged this morning, the night watchman at the shoe shop by the entrance to the alley states under oath that Stevenson, a known figure to him, went home as the city hall clock was chiming twelve-thirty. He keeps awake by listening for it, he says.”
“Hey, that’s a help,” said Marais, then blushed.
“You have not spoken out of turn, Sergeant, so at ease, man. It is a big help. This watchman further states that nobody left the alley from twelve-thirty onwards.”
“What about before then?” asked Kramer.
“Ah, there you spot the weakness. He did his last patrol inside the premises from midnight and reached the pavement only as the clock struck. He remained there until morning.”
Kramer lit a Lucky and waited for the colonel to find his place again among Marais’s notes. God, every conference was the same.
“Right, gentlemen. Miss Bergstroom was last seen alive at midnight and last heard alive slightly before twenty past. Between then and twenty-five past, when she was found by the manager, she had died.”
“And an unidentified male was with her at the time,” Kramer said, unchivalrously cutting across the preamble to steal the colonel’s punch line.
“Oh, ja? So you’ve been doing some thinking, too?”
“Sorry, sir, but it made a difference having it all written down here, and the time to read it.”
Marais put the newspaper down.
“Then you take it from there,” the colonel said petulantly.
Then broke the silence by himself carrying on. “From the evidence before us, it would appear that a male was present. Warrant Gardiner reports that the drinking vessels had been cleaned of any prints, and the wash basin- which is only one reason I want the DS here-had been given a thorough rub-over. Which means, why should any guest- Ach, no; let’s do this another way.”
Kramer kept his eyes on the tip of his cigarette.
“This male is with Bergstroom,” said the colonel, “and she gets killed by the snake. It’s a private show maybe. Who knows? Anyhow, she is dead and because he’s high-class-and here we have a fancy button to support that-this gives rise to social fears. He does not want it known that he was in the room of such a person, and at such a time as will cause him embarrassment following the publication of the inquest proceedings.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So he attempts to disguise his presence there. He cleans the glasses, but overlooks in his hurry-he had only seconds-that he put them down in the jam, which the girl would never do. He then wipes over the basin. The place is in such a hell of a mess, he doesn’t notice the button.”
“Or it isn’t his,” said Kramer unhelpfully.
“If Stevenson approaches at this time, there is nobody in the second dressing room, so he can hide there,” the colonel said, not liking being interrupted. “Or he can get out before that, and just pull the front door closed behind him. He faces no real problems.”
“I don’t know, sir. It could have been more than a social fear, as you call it. Who takes prints after an accident?”
The colonel began to fiddle with the pieces of his broken ruler. “Go on, Tromp.”
“Well, there is that chance, because the posters outside all said how dangerous it was, and because what happened seemed so-”
“Strydom?” the colonel said
“One or two little slips in the past, although his examination of the body in situ was thorough, and I saw enough of the P.M. to realize that any bruises on the neck could only have been made by-”
“And you think…?”
“He’s been paying too much attention to the bloody snake from the beginning.”
“But I want that snake to get attention, Tromp. I want every detail of the case looked over. I want all the staff interviewed for statements. I want semen from today’s deceased, too, while we’re on the subject. Enough has come to light now to change our whole attitude to the-”
“What about other causes?” Kramer asked. “That blow to the back of the head-was it proved to be from her falling?”
“And poison?” Marais suggested. “I mean, the glasses were cleaned and-”
“ Ach, no, Marais. He’d be bloody mad to leave them, and that would involve premeditation.”
“Mulberry bushes, Kramer, mulberry bushes.”
“You reject the idea of a blow, sir?”
“Not altogether, but I want everything gone over first. The snake marks are what worry me, in this respect.”
“Why not after it was in its own death throes? Put there to fool us? He probably hit it on the head before touching it.”
“The murderer, you mean?”
Kramer saw the broken edges of the ruler fitted together in a conscious gesture that made his eyes meet the colonel’s and hold their gaze steadily.
It was left to Marais to notice Strydom listening and gloating in the doorway.
9
A space had been cleared on the colonel’s desk, and shortly afterward an attendant from the museum arrived and placed on it a large enamel tray covered with a variety of colorful bits and pieces.
“But it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of,” the colonel said, recoiling at the snake stink of ammonia. “You can’t even imagine someone doing a thing like that!”
