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“He wouldn’t have placed his faith in someone his own age.”

“Who could he ask, then? Some other adult he knew? Can you think of anyone, Trompie?”

“Hey, how about the Dominee?”

“Ring him and find out.”

Kramer did just that.

And came back from the phone to dance a small jig with the Widow Fourie. She pulled him down with her into an armchair.

“Come on, Trompie! Tell me what he said!”

“He invited me to the funeral tomorrow afternoon-the whole school’s going to be there. The cadets from the high school are going to fire a salute.”

She punched him in the stomach.

“Talk! Or there’ll be trouble!”

It was a bloody hard punch, too.

“A whole load of humming and hawing to start with and then he admitted that about three weeks ago Boetie had come to him to ask about the birds and the bees. Seems he’s quite accustomed to these requests. Anyway, he took Boetie through it all from start to finish-ovaries, little seeds with tails, the lot. Then the Dominee pulled up short again and I had to work hard on getting the rest out of him. You could see it was the sex killing behind his worries.”

“Go on!”

With a right jab like that they could do with her on the squad.

“Seems Boetie shocked the good man by asking him exactly in what position it was done. He had to do a drawing which he assures me he burned afterwards.”

“How sweet.”

“Wait for it. Boetie then, and I quote, ‘asked me a very strange question about the female taking the dominant position. Was this possible?’ That’s when the Dominee got very excited on the phone and said, ‘I soon put him right about that! What could have put such a diabolical and absurd idea into his head?’ ”

The Widow Fourie blushed and never looked better. She was a simple soul at heart.

“So that’s what was happening when he saw someone sitting on Andy by the bath!”

“Yes, and I might have reached this point sooner if I hadn’t thought those coded messages were in order-the second one was obviously the other half of the first. Was the girl et cetera. He had his doubts, all right.”

Kramer had gone over to drink the dregs of the coffee before it went cold.

“How did Andy die, then?”

“I’ve got a little experiment to make first before I say anything about that.”

“Does that mean you get going straightaway?”

“ Ach, no, plenty of time.”

Even so, Kramer’s impatience wrought miracles of reconciliation and within the hour he had the Widow Fourie spread-eagled like a charming guinea pig on a laboratory bench.

14

Battle stations. The klaxon sounded precisely at 10:30 a.m. the following day outside the CID buildings, bringing Pembrook scrambling to his feet. Kramer saw him take a quick glance out of the window and then emerge seconds later from the main entrance. The nearside front door was already hanging open. He revved the Chev’s engine again.

The door slammed and they were away.

“Where’re we going, sir?”

“Country club.”

“Did you read the statement from Sally?”

“Before you got in this morning, drunkard.”

“Find anything useful, sir?” Pembrook persisted, still somewhat aggrieved that his devotion to duty had not won any acclaim.

“Bugger all, apart from her saying that she overheard Boetie talking back to her father and what she called a sarcastic line about his having to find himself another girl. What you picked up from the bloke in the sports car was a lot more to the point.”

“I’m glad, sir. I worked the lift thinking I might be able to pump him a bit.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Sir?”

“That sort of gossip is the easiest thing to get out of the buggers up at Greenside. We’d have got it anyway if we’d asked. I did just that this morning after I’d been to the Jarvises’. ”

“But what happened at the Jarvises’, sir?”

“A lot.”

“Is it in the bag?”

“Almost.”

“Then you know who the mystery girl was?”

Kramer raised his head slightly to catch Zondi’s change of expression in his rear-view mirror.

“It wasn’t a girl,” he said. “Now just keep quiet until we’re clear of this traffic.”

Over on the other side of the valley, three African gravediggers crouched behind a hedge and passed a cigarette between them; not one rolled from newspaper such as laborers made do with, but a genuine Peter Stuyvesant that came to them ready-lit. It was one of the perks, this being able to salvage the shower of good tobacco that fell when mourners arrived without an opportunity to finish their smokes.

They made sounds of deep content as each took his puff, and argued in low whispers over whether it was less work to make a hole for a child’s coffin. The one who had been to school said it was obviously easier as there was not as much to shift. But the foreman pointed out that the more confined space made getting through the layer of shale more arduous. Their colleague sought a compromise by calling their attention to the fact there was less to put back in again. It was accepted and they looked forward to finishing the job by twelve and taking an early lunch. The hot sun had made them feel excessively lethargic. They saved the other cigarettes for the afternoon and dozed against the spade handles held upright between their thighs.

As their instructions were to keep out of sight at all times, they had not taken any interest in the funeral proceedings after their snatch-and-grab raid on the area where the cars parked. So the salute fired by a full platoon of cadets from the high schools, which was both deafening and alarmingly ragged, came as something totally unexpected: all three of them immediately fled down the hill, brandishing their spades like spears and yelling in fright-not knowing quite why.

Mrs. Swanepoel cheered.

This utterly astonished everyone but Dominee Pretorius. He, better than any, perhaps, knew what a terrible state her mind was in; and besides, the woman had a wonderful, deep-rooted sense of her historical heritage.

It moved him more than anything that day.

Pembrook could restrain himself no longer. He rounded on Kramer and begged to be put out of his misery.

“Then let this be a lesson to you,” Kramer replied. “Always make a point of seeing everyone who might conceivably be involved in a case, however unlikely that possibility. Ah, that’s better.”

They had reached the dual highway.

“And another thing, Pembrook: beware of the mistake Boetie made when he tried to be a detective. Our job requires us not to make assumptions based on class, color, or religious belief. His set ideas cost him his life.”

“But, sir!”

“I want that in your head before we start to confuse you.”

Zondi gave a snort.

“Hey, you back there-stop that listening!”

“Straightaway, boss.”

The Chev moved over into the slow lane behind a wattle truck and dropped down to thirty.

“Well, it was like this, Pembrook man. I left that note in the office for you and then went to Greenside. As I was coming up the drive at No. 10, I see Caroline out there in the garden cutting some flowers. Hell, I think, that’s a quick recovery! So I stop and go over. Guess what? It’s her ma.”

“No!”

“At a distance, they’ve both got that wiry sort of body that never changes much. Hair style’s the same, same color, and eyebrows all buggered about to nothing.”

“Age?”

“Around thirty-seven. She must have reached desperation pretty fast wherever it was she met Jarvis. But that isn’t the point, is it? She jumps nearly out of her pants when I say who I am, and that I’m investigating the Cutler case. Then she says, ‘But it was an accident!’ Why are you so sure, lady? I ask. She can’t tell me but keeps on that I’m wasting my time. Hell! She should have known what big jumps my mind was taking.”