“I am most grateful,” Zondi told him. “My pupils will be delighted to make better acquaintance with the leaders of our fair city.”
And with that he opened the file on Councillor Terence Derek Trenshaw.
Kramer believed in expedience. It was expedient to put Zondi on to collecting background details, expedient to have the increasingly truculent Van Niekerk confined to the office, and expedient to have Mrs Perkins wake her dear little Bobby although he did not get up until three.
Bob Perkins was delighted.
“So the tape’s important after all?” he asked, hunting about for it. “I didn’t think so, with your leaving it with me.”
“Have you got a portable?”
“Oh, this thing can plug in anywhere, I’ll take an adapter. Here you are.”
He handed Kramer the tape.
“Fine, then let’s go.”
Mrs Perkins went out to the garden gate to wave them off. She flinched nervously when Kramer let out the clutch and left some tyre tread behind with her.
“Going far?”
“Just around the corner.”
“Barnato Street?”
“Ja.”
“Smashing. What do you want me to do?”
“Play the tape.”
It was Bob’s turn to flinch as Kramer began braking outside No. 223 and then changed his mind so abruptly that the delivery boy ahead of them owed his life to a decimal point. The Chev finally stopped four houses down on the far side of the old night-cart lane.
“How about some real detective stuff then, Bob?”
“Great! What must I do?”
“You see that lane there? It leads up the side of the property we’re interested in. All we have to do is go up it very quietly until we get to a gate in the wall, on the other side is a cottage-I’ll go first and open the door. Then you come. Nobody can see you until you are right by the door because there are some high bushes. Step across that part smartly and I’ll tell you the rest.”
“Check.”
Kramer hid a smile as they got out.
And it all went exactly as planned, with Bob making the leap into the cottage like a true Springbok.
Kramer looked through the lace curtains at the kitchen windows on the far side of the garden. Miss Henry was hovering about the maid Rebecca. They were sharing the washing-up.
“Okay, now all you’ve got to do is get that recorder of yours going and we’re away.”
“Over here?”
“Just push the sofa from the wall if the plug’s hard to reach.”
Bob gave it a shove with his knee and it rolled aside on well-oiled casters. Then he knelt down to fit the reel.
Miss Henry was pouring water from a kettle into a tea pot over the sink.
“Hurry it, if you can, Bob.”
“Won’t be a sec. I suppose you noticed someone else has had a deck here before?”
Kramer spun from the windows.
“Where?”
Bob pointed to an area of the carpet which had been covered by the sofa. There were four slight impressions in it like those made by the rubber cushions at each corner of a tape recorder.
“Run it to the last piece, where there isn’t so much missing.”
“Right. Fast forward wind coming up.”
Miss Henry was still in the kitchen.
“One more thing, Bob: can you play it loud as a piano?”
“If you like. I’ve got one hell of a wattage on this.”
“Like a piano.”
“That’s set. I made a note about volume on the box.”
He talked too much. Miss Henry had gone. Kramer swore silently.
“Countdown?”
“Zero. Let’s have it, Bob.”
Kramer started as the first faltering notes of Greensleeves plunked out. Then he sat down on the carpet beside Bob to listen.
The sound he had expected began very softly in a very high key. It gradually built in strength and then started wavering from one side of the scale to the other. It did not come from the amplifier.
Rebecca was having the shrieks in the kitchen.
The pianist’s fingers tripped over a chord and there was a pause. The chord was repeated slowly and then the tune went on.
Rebecca was in the garden now and so was Miss Henry, almost crushed in the Zulu maid’s terrified embrace.
The tape snapped.
“Hell, I’m sorry. That was a lousy splicing.”
“Perfect, my friend.”
Kramer rose and opened a window on the two women edging compulsively towards the cottage.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said cheerfully.
Rebecca covered her head and ran, squealing like a black sow.
Miss Henry was made of sterner stuff.
“I knew it couldn’t really be her,” she said.
“Why not, Miss Henry?”
“Because she’s with the Lord-and He doesn’t allow it.”
That brought Kramer’s head back through the lace curtains. He pressed a fist to his lips and then went outside.
“I’m sorry that we’ve upset your servant. It was just a little test we had to carry out.”
“All I can say is that it’s just as well the old lady is in the front room. A shock like this could have done terrible things to her. I must admit I don’t feel quite myself either.”
“I’m sorry about that, too.”
Miss Henry subsided into the garden seat conveniently behind her.
“It was uncanny, you know,” she said.
“The music?”
“Dear old Greensleeves. The number of times we’ve heard that in the past. Always the same mistakes, too, the silly things. And the way it goes boomp-boomp-boomp like a train coming out of the station. Who was playing? One of her nice gentleman pupils?”
“Which exactly do you mean, Miss Henry?”
“Oh, they all looked about the same from where we were. Two were on the tall side, one middling and there was rather a stout gentleman, too. None was any better than the other at it. A shame, too, because an hour’s lesson isn’t cheap.”
“They always stayed an hour?”
“From eight to nine. You could set your watch by it.”
“I know I’ve probably asked you some of these things before, Miss Henry-you don’t mind?”
“It’s only you’re always on about my poor gentlemen. They haven’t done anything wrong, have they?”
“Why do you keep calling them gentlemen?”
“Because of their clothes and the way they held themselves. I can always spot one, it’s my upbringing, you know.”
“Last time you said there were five of them.”
“Gracious, did I? Perhaps I was counting that gentleman who called about her life insurance.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I almost bumped into him one night as he was coming out of the lane and I was coming back from a late meeting at church. He said ‘excuse me’ so politely I had to mention it to her.”
“Why didn’t you mention it to me, then?”
Miss Henry caught the change of tone and her brows quivered in an anxious arch.
“You did ask about regular callers, sir. He only came the few times.”
“Did she say what insurance company?”
“I think it was-Trinity? Does that sound right?”
“Is this the man, Miss Henry?”
“I haven’t got my specs with me, if-”
“Just take a look.”
“Goodness, that’s him. I know by the shape of the head. A Mr-?”
“Francis, Leon Francis.”
This went down well with Miss Henry. She put her head to one side and whispered it over.
“That is a nice name. Now you aren’t being nasty to him, are you?”
“Come on, Miss Henry, I’ve told you how sorry I am we gave you a fright. We didn’t do it on purpose, you know.”
“Now you’ve gone and reminded me again. The awfullest part was when the music stopped. Rebecca and me both thought we could hear the poor thing talking.”
“We weren’t making a sound in there.”
“How silly! You never could hear her anyway, even from up close, and she always pulled the big velvet curtains for our sakes.”
“We all make mistakes, Miss Henry,” Kramer said, taking her arm.
And he led her, just like a real lady, all the way down to the kitchen door.