“Is that right, Twala?”
“ Hau, yes, please, my master! True’s God!”
“This induna I know to be a liar,” Zondi said.
“So he could have been sneaking off?”
“It is possible.”
But Kramer knew from the way Zondi said it that little interest or conviction went with it.
“Why bring him in?”
“There were difficulties, boss. The foreman is a very formal man.”
“Oh, ja?”
“Also I want to know why he hides from me. He says it is because his name is being shouted at the office and the other boys tell him I am there.”
“I am fright!” said Twala, raising hands like a beggar.
“Pockets?”
“Nothing.”
“And of course he denies any knowledge of the robberies themselves?”
Zondi nodded.
“What about Constable Wessels? Has he seen him?”
Again Zondi nodded. The apathy was on its way again- still nothing positive. There had not been a single trace of a fingerprint or anything else in the yellow Ford.
“Have you made him do the jumps yet?”
“No, boss,” answered Zondi, and had Twala leap about so as to drop anything he might have secreted inside himself, a prison trick with tobacco readily adapted to hide dagga as well.
Then the door opened and Sithole said, “Excuse me, Lieutenant, but a car has been found.”
“ Ach, I know that, man,” Kramer replied irritably, “so just bugger off.”
He was watching a scarlet stain spreading in the filthy pullover Twala wore next to his skin.
“Did you do that, Zondi?”
“ Hau! Let me look! This is a knife wound, boss.”
“You’re slipping, hey?”
Then Twala began protesting he’d only been trying to defend himself, and it had been the other fool’s fault for drinking so much and he hadn’t killed him anyway, just taught him a lesson. The rest was entirely in Zulu.
At the end of which Sithole again poked his head in and said, “Excuse me, Lieutenant, but this is a crashed car with persons in it.”
Everything changed when Peter Shirley finally arrived home in his MG sports, most apologetic for having been half an hour late, but a couple of tasteless idiots had nearly driven him screwy by picking holes in a wall covering that was just perfect for them.
“Hardly a profession,” Mrs. Shirley sniffed, accepting her son’s peck on an uplifted cheek.
And then, to Marais’s considerable relief, withdrew.
Shirley was not quite as imagined either. He and Marais shared a stocky, fairly average build, and then went their separate ways. His hair was three inches longer, his body was good but a little soft, and his eyes had seen nothing. Also, his fingernails were bitten right down. His mum should have put aloe juice on them, or mustard; that would have killed the habit before it was too late. Yet, for all that, he still seemed a nice bloke.
“It doesn’t look as if you’ve had any of this tea,” Shirley said to him as soon as they were alone.
“Well-er-we were just having a chat. Your mum-Mrs. Shirley was giving me an account of your movements.”
“Great, but sorry you had to be stranded with the Dragon. Look, I’ll just get Martha to do us another pot.”
“But aren’t you in a hurry?”
“Nothing deadly-and don’t worry about Martha. She’s a poppet.”
Marais stood up and stretched, then inspected the flower arrangement, which was still unfinished, with all the long ones to one side instead of in the middle.
Shirley was gone only about two minutes, and then came back in, stuffing an enormous wedge of chocolate cake into his mouth. He held out a plate for Marais to select a piece of his own.
“That’s lekker, thanks, hey?”
“Martha again. Brilliant! Can do absolutely anything. I’ve tried to interest her in improving her literacy, though, but she won’t.”
“The best ones know their place.”
“There you and I might beg to differ,” Shirley replied, smiling warmly, “but naturally you see a much seamier side of African community life than I do. Must tend to distort things a little.”
“ Ach, in my opinion, a kaffir is a kaffir-doesn’t matter what side you look at.”
Shirley laughed and choked on a cake crumb, patting himself hard on the back.
Then Martha brought in a fresh pot of tea and Marais made a point of thanking her for it in Sesotho, the only Bantu language he spoke. She giggled gratifyingly and wobbled off.
“I could speak Zulu as a kid,” Shirley said, “but now I’m afraid it’s all gone out of the window. Milk?”
“And three sugars, please.”
“Pity the old man’s away bundu-bashing. You two should get on famously; lots in common and all that.”
Marais nodded, very flattered that here at least was someone who regarded him as good as the next man in the pursuit of justice. Then he swallowed his tea hurriedly so he could get his notebook out and cause no extra inconvenience.
Shirley leaned toward him attentively, his chin cupped in one hand, and said, “Well? What exactly can I help you with?”
“Just routine, you understand: your movements last Saturday night.”
“God, what an evening! I had this little nurse lined up, positively aching to forget bedpans for a while, and she didn’t appear.”
“Should have asked us to find her,” joked Marais.
“Must remember that next time! Blind date, to be honest, waited for her at the nurses’ home and she didn’t pitch up. Left a note, thinking she might have been kept late on the ward- often happens-and went on waiting at the Wigwam. The usual crowd came in after a bit, but I wasn’t in the mood, and sat at one of Monty’s tables for two. I mean, she might have got a lift up at any minute, and I wasn’t having one of them get his paws on her.”
“You said Monty? You were on those sorts of terms?”
“Did his place for him; twenty percent discount and a free membership for life-oh, that wasn’t clever, was it?”
Marais took another slice of cake, leaving two for sharing.
“And then, Mr. Shirley?”
“Well, I watched Eve’s first number and decided to stay on for the second.”
“Would the nurse still come?”
“All that was forgotten by then, to tell the truth. I’d been knocking back a bit of plonk and that second act-not for your notebook, I think! You do get this down wonderfully fast.”
“That’s because I worked in the courts before joining the force.”
“Really? That must be unusual. But where were we? Ah, yes. Her act ended and I was dying for a pee and shot down to the gents’. When I came out, it seemed everyone had gone, except Monty, having problems with that idiot who eats Mau Mau for breakfast. I certainly didn’t want to become involved in that, so I slunk out down the other side and got safely to the door. What a relief. That man-”
“What about the band?”
“They’d gone, too. Always shoot out of the place-you should see them.”
“And the time?”
“Couldn’t tell you exactly. Five past? Something like that.”
Marais broke off from his shorthand to print that in block letters
“Not finished yet, Sergeant? Has someone near and dear been dragging my name in the mud?”
Marais glanced toward the door and grinned.
“Nearly. It’s just Stevenson left us a message with his suicide note saying, ‘Why not ask Shirley’ on it.”
“How peculiar!”
“It doesn’t mean anything to you?”
“No. Does it to you?”
“Honest, it’s got me floored. Same goes for the lieutenant, and the colonel. Not something to do with Eve perhaps-Miss Bergstroom?”
Shirley poured Marais another cup while he thought it over, and then one for himself.
“Ah! I think I’ve got it. I’m in that note perhaps because of something Monty confided to me that same night, all very hush-hush. Saw I was alone and came over for a few words. We got started on a bottle together and, after bitching generally about women, he said he wouldn’t include Miss Bergstroom in this because he felt he’d formed-and I quote-a ‘beautiful little relationship’ with her. Ever met his wife? God, quite unbelievable. Poor old Mont-quite a little poppet in his own way.”