“Get going and ask him what she wanted,” Kramer ordered.
Van Niekerk suddenly clicked his fingers, took out one of the reports and typed out a short list from it on pink paper.
“Yes?” Kramer said as the other receiver was picked up again. “She asked the way to Biddulph Street? Boy, this is a lulu. Ta.”
He went over to the map.
“I’ve got it!” he exploded suddenly. “The Biddulph Street out-of-town bus terminus! Why the jesus didn’t we think of it before? It fits.”
“I’ll say-shall I come with you, sir?”
“Best you stay here to liaise with Zondi if he comes through.”
“Then maybe you’d like to take this with you, sir?”
Kramer took the pink slip and looked blankly at the figures on it.
“Vital statistics,” Van Niekerk explained. “What every dressmaker should know.”
There were other times when he excelled himself.
Zondi had bought an ice cream for the urchin who had finally admitted, amid the jeers of his companions, to having looked after Shoe Shoe over the weeks before his disappearance. And Zondi had bought himself one, too.
They sat together behind the war memorial and talked between licks. It had been a shameful confession, for even the most wretched Zulu hates to have it known he has had to accept women’s work, but a Vanilla Glory brought total absolution.
“So old Shoe Shoe said he was going to get you some shoes, did he?” Zondi asked idly.
“No, uncle, proper boots he said.”
“And this was good?”
“I could find work then.”
Zondi winked. The child laughed. Of course he did not mean it. They were playing The Game.
“When was he going to get these boots then?”
“Oh, when he was rich like a white man.”
“And all white men are rich?”
“Yes.”
The small pink tongue took off just a wetness of cream each time.
“And how would he become rich? He could not work.”
“Ah, perhaps not, but that Shoe Shoe was a clever one. He could get rich by just saying words-he told me so.”
Zondi frowned in pantomime disbelief.
“True’s God! I never lie to policemen.”
They both laughed.
“Did he say who he would speak these words to?”
Small bony shoulders shrugged.
“He never said, but I know.”
“Oh, yes?”
“This very small sucker is nearly finished.”
“Look in your pocket.”
“Hau!”
“Yes, so you see you are not the only one who is clever with pockets, little tsotsi. ”
“All right, I’ll tell you. The white men, of course-who else can make you as rich as they are?”
He had a point there.
Zondi caught sight of Kramer’s car flashing by and jumped up. Too late-it was a foolish notion anyway.
What the young scruff had had to say was interesting but did not really lead them any further. Nor had what he discovered from his chief informers. While they all readily agreed there was definitely always room for a new gang on top, not one of them had ever heard of the Steam Pig.
The bus terminus in Biddulph Street was practically deserted.
After a quick look round, Kramer went to the supervisor’s office to learn that most buses left on the hour. It was just after one.
“And I can’t honestly say if there was or wasn’t an old lady in a black cotton dress and a flowery hat on any of them,” the supervisor said. “You could ask the ticket staff.”
The ticket staff referred him to the ticket collectors and then he interviewed the Bantu porters who loaded the luggage. No one would commit themselves-the fact that Mrs Johnson was also carrying a large yellow tartan bag should have been a clincher but it was not.
Kramer began bitterly to regret he had not brought Van Niekerk with him. Suddenly the description seemed so inadequate.
He dithered on the forecourt, fighting the logic which would drive him ultimately to calling in help. God, he abhorred the thought. The Colonel would love it.
Then an idea struck him. He went back to the supervisor’s office and asked if he could borrow one of the girl clerks for five minutes.
She giggled nauseatingly when he asked her to search the women’s lavatories but she went. And came back giggling her failure to discover any little old ladies-although she had spied what she was certain were an old gentleman’s boots under the door of one cubicle. Kramer dismissed her without thanks.
This was it. He would have to go back to the car and put out a general call. He also had a list of the buses which had left at one and headquarters could arrange for checks to be made along their routes and at their destination.
Kramer cut diagonally across the non-white area of the terminus, which was crowded as always, and got into his car at the kerb. He switched on the radio. There was someone on the air calling for an ambulance, which gave the message priority.
Oh, well, another minute or two could not hurt, it was such a balls-up already. Pity about that lavatory idea getting nowhere. He had liked that one. Just look at the mob around the black bogs.
“Jesus!”
A little old lady was making her way from the entrance marked non-white females. She walked unsteadily, tacking into the breeze which bellied out her black dress and made the sad roses bob on her hat. She came to rest not fifteen yards away with a bump of her yellow tartan bag against the back of a bench.
Kramer was at her side in seconds. He took her thin arm in two hands like a rudder and was steering her to the Chev before she recovered from her surprise.
“What’s happening? Where are you taking me?”
“Not far, madam. Just to this car.”
“But who are you?”
“A policeman.”
“But what have I done?”
“Contravened a municipal by-law for one,” Kramer answered. “Get inside, please.”
He depressed the hidden lock and then closed the door firmly. He went round and slid into the driving seat.
“What by-law are you talking about?”
“Mrs Johnson, is it?”
“Y-yes.”
“That was pretty clever of you, Mrs Johnson, hiding from me over there. How did you know what I was?”
“Hiding? Where?”
“In the non-white lavatory.”
“Is that what you think I was doing?”
And she began to laugh, not for long but it was horrible. It surprised him.
Mrs Johnson dug deep into her bag, extracted a crumpled tissue and dabbed her nose with it.
“Do you really think I’d go into one of those awful places if I didn’t have to?”
Surprise was one thing, shock was another. It was such a rare experience for Kramer that he gaped like a cartoon character. The effect was very comical but Mrs Johnson did not smile.
“I suppose I could get away with it,” Mrs Johnson added softly, “but it just isn’t worth the risk.”
“No,” Kramer said, automatically.
His mind was battling to regain its equilibrium. So the old woman was a Coloured, a person of mixed race. This took a lot of adjusting to-she certainly did not look like one. Or sound like one. Still, stranger things happened.
“Look at me,” Kramer ordered.
Mrs Johnson turned her head towards him slowly. He noticed she was trembling. How much older she suddenly seemed.
Kramer started at the top. The hat was limp black straw, decked in velvet roses which had long since abandoned any pretensions to natural representation. The hair beneath was very white, very fine and curiously free of any kinking. The face was broad but not remarkably so. What was striking was the mute pain which showed in the deep brown eyes-the whites of which had none of the usual yellow cast-and in the lines cut deep about the kindly mouth. By contrast, the neck was swan-smooth. The hands, clasped tight in the black lap, were strong yet delicate, with a faint cornflake mottling on the back. The feet were small, too.