“Ben? Hell, it’ll be good to hear from an old mate again. But meantime, let’s go and see if we have got a nice cell for you.”
Stevenson took a little time finding his feet. While this was going on, Kramer noticed a bottle on top of the safe, and that there was only one used tumbler beside it.
Every lie had to start with a truth somewhere, he mused on the way out.
“That’s as much as I can ascertain from the outside,” said Bose, glancing up from the viper he was painting. “Have you made your mind up yet?”
Strydom dithered, and then closed the door behind him.
“So it wasn’t necessarily my boy? She could have done it herself? Are you sure?”
“The possibility must exist. Although it would have had to be coincidental with her own demise.”
“Ja, ja-otherwise she could have freed herself.”
“May I?” Bose asked deferentially, as one expert does to another before straying into his field.
“Please.”
“The reptile could, of course, have been used to cover the-if I may make so bold-the work or rather marks left by another lethal agent. Hmmmm?”
“Manual, you mean? That’s where I’ve just been-to the mortuary to check.”
“I see; so that’s out of the question. You must pardon my being so fanciful; it’s the books my wife reads.”
“Agatha Christie?” Strydom asked with interest. “Or Dick Francis?”
“Edward McBain. An American gentleman, I fear. But your decision?”
Strydom dithered again, agonizingly. By rights, he should not be fooling around with an exhibit before the inquest, and it should be safe under lock and key. But then the paper he had planned was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to really impress his colleagues in forensic medicine-colleagues who had, although not perfect themselves, much enjoyed one or two small errors of his in the past. While an actual, life-size model of the python would certainly be the talk of the week.
“So,” he said, “it comes down to a coincidence, ja?”
“Nothing more sinister than that,” Bose said, with one of his slow smiles.
“But do you-”
“Academic, purely academic interest. The real problem being, if you want it done in a hurry before anyone notices, we’d better make a start. The mold should be allowed to dry for at least a night. I’ll pop in a wee bit of salt and speed it up, of course.”
“Okay, so we take a chance,” Strydom said, getting to the door before adding, “I’m very grateful, hey? If ever you want a special favor done, you know where to come.”
The whisper was that Chainpuller Mabatso was running a ruthless protection racket. But Zondi had tired of whispers. Now he wanted to hear the rest loud and clear from one of the victims. So he pointed his gun, cocked it, and threatened to put a second hole through about two hundred pop songs.
Beebop Williams, sitting around the back of his record bar with his shoelaces tied together, found his voice.
“Must have been two hours after I opened up again,” he disclosed earnestly, “when I noticed this cat picking over the latest, but never once did he seek a request. Quite a few folk drove over after the shooting, just to look around-you know, the fat cats from over the top side?”
He meant the black merchants rich enough to have managers run their businesses.
“So I was attending to their needs, and my boy Jerry was helping me out, because when they get excited they don’t mind spending money, and so it went for quite a time. Then this guy comes over and says he’s got a little deal to discuss, and we come back in here.”
“ Here? ”
“No, man, I can see he’s clean-not even a knife,” said Williams, at last settling for English, which would be less confusing than a mixture. “But I stand in the doorway, see? Sort of half on. Then he tells me. The butcher wasn’t paying up right. He wasn’t doing what he should, seeing as he’s got this contract.”
“Did he say Chainpuller?” Zondi broke in.
Beebop Williams flinched. “That word’s on your tongue, brother, and it’s ideal-but I didn’t put it there. Are we agreed?”
Zondi nodded.
“Then he says his boss is now one short on his contracts and he figures that Beebop is just the man for the job.”
“How much?”
“Ten rand a week.”
“And did he say anything about Lucky and the others?” “He kind of waved his hand around. So I got the message.” “The guy that came here-he is coming back for the money?”
Beebop patted to show how flat his pockets were.
“One payment already? How about the rest?”
“Put it like the others in a tin, go up near his-near the hut, and throw.”
“When?”
“Sunday night when there’s no people around. Now look, man, I don’t want no pigs-”
“What did the guy look like? Know his name?”
It nearly came out, then the heat of the moment cooled.
“What guy?” Beebop Williams said, all surprised.
But that was enough. Even the softening effects of sophistication had their limit, and it was time now to contact the lieutenant.
Marais was confident of one thing: the button had not been lost off any of Monty Stevenson’s work shirts.
Mrs. Stevenson had emptied the wardrobe shelves for him, and they had ticked off each and every garment against an inventory she kept to inhibit the wash girl’s congenital dishonesty. Then there had been tears in the hall-during which Marais learned that whatever happened to Monty didn’t matter much, but she’d just realized how she and poor little Jeremy might suffer-and that had been that.
Now he was on his way to interview the last member known to have left the club that night, having decided that the poser of the clean glasses would be best left to a fresh start in the morning. He was light-headed through lack of decent sleep.
It was six o’clock by the time he drove onto the forecourt of the garage. With the law prohibiting the sale of petrol at night and over the weekend, it looked deserted until he noticed a light still burning in the small office to the rear of the showroom.
There Gilbert Littlemore turned out to be one of those ex-Kenya types who kept calling coons “Sambo” and “nig-nog” and other childish names. The sort who made Marais’s membership in the Nationalist party seem ridiculous when they twisted apartheid to mean having polite servants and not separate development for all races-which was far more important to anyone who loved the country. Trust throw-out Englishmen to think that politeness was something you needed a policy to control.
“You don’t take any of their damn cheek, I suppose?” Littlemore said, pushing aside the hire-purchase forms he had been completing. “I’m sorry to go on like this, but I did expect a bit more discipline down here. Good God, at the rate we’re going, I’m likely to find myself working with Jungle Jim alongside of me! As a salesman, I mean!”
“Jungle Jim?” queried Marais, deliberately needling him. That was another thing he couldn’t stand-the way they kept trying to be what they thought was South African.
“Oh, my mistake! Jim Fish-that’s it, isn’t it? Now, you were saying…?”
“I’m making certain inquiries concerning the Wigwam, as I told you on the phone, and I would like to have a statement from you.”
“Public or private use? Ha-ha!”
“Ha, bloody ha,” said Marais wearily, getting out his ballpoint.
“Well, I was there with a party actually, but they all toddled off before Eve’s second performance because one of the ladies said it made her come all over peculiar.”
“Or was it you?” Marais said in Afrikaans.
“What? Oh, sorry, can’t understand a word of it yet; a jolly bad show, I know.”
Just as Marais had supposed. Christ, even Mickey could speak it fluent, and English, too, for that matter, and he was only a wog. But he was on duty and would have to stop playing games and behave himself.
“ Ach, my mistake, as you say. But can we get to the point, please? When did you see Stevenson?”
“Ah. Seeing I was left alone at the table, the manager came over-Monty, that’s right-came across and sat with me. We saw the show, then quietly killed the rest of the wine together. Then he started making noises about licensing hours and, rather unnecessarily, I thought, saw me to the door. After all, we had stopped drinking, and I wasn’t going to ruin his carpet for him! Remember saying to him, ‘Steady on, old chap, only twenty past-you can’t throw a knight out on a dog like this!’ Picked that one up in Dar.”