“Request, Trompie? This isn’t that sort of do, you know.”
“I’d count it a big favour, man.”
“Tell me what it is.”
“Greensleeves.”
“That oldie! We can’t play it on this kind of gig. They want show stuff, Latin Am. It’ll sound all wrong.”
“They won’t mind it that much. Most of them probably won’t even notice. For old time’s sake.”
“The things I do for people.”
“Make it short, if you like.”
“Okay. Don’t ask me why. You hear that, you blokes? My friend here wants a few bars of Greensleeves. Let’s take it from the top.”
And as Mannie gave the downbeat, Kramer stepped upon the bandstand beside him to look over the heads at Councillor Trenshaw, who stood against the doors to the Council Chamber at the far end of the room.
Greensleeves: the simple melody had an effect on Trenshaw which its regal composer never contemplated. It hit him right between the ears. It lifted him on his toes. It brought blood to his face. It fixed his startled eyes on Kramer.
Kramer looked back.
The Cococabana Trio got carried away. With maracas and guitar they soon had the sweet English maiden stamping in the dust of a Mexican square along with the best of them.
Then it was Kramer’s turn to gape.
Three other men were staring up at him, their faces registering alarm. One by one they turned to push their way towards Councillor Trenshaw.
In their wake came Kramer. They reached the council chamber doors and so did he.
“Please go straight through, gentlemen,” he said softly.
The group swung on him. A short, plump man took a pace forward.
“Let’s not worry the ladies, gentlemen.”
They nodded and went in ahead of Kramer who closed the doors on the party and then crossed the chamber to the light switches. Night had fallen unnoticed.
“Now will you all please take a seat.”
The four men advanced slowly, as in someone else’s dream, on the large crescent table that seated the council in full session. They did not sit together but went automatically to their places.
Christ, they all had places.
For a moment Kramer hesitated, and then he mounted the platform and took the mayor’s chair. He looked down on the table and saw each council member was provided with a blotter and a wooden wedge bearing his name.
“Councillor Ferguson, Councillor Da Silva, Councillor Trenshaw, Councillor Ford,” he read out, from left to right.
He knew what the next words would be.
“What’s the meaning of all this?” demanded Da Silva.
Kramer did not know himself-a vice racket run by a fifth of the city council was inconceivable. And what made it all most puzzling was the way they were all glaring at him. They were not frightened, they were angry.
“We have a right to know!” Ford barked.
Kramer took a deep breath. It was critically important he said the right thing.
“The Steam Pig, gentlemen.”
Something registered all right: Da Silva shot to his feet, furious.
“You’ve had the contracts off us! You people promised it was all finished and done with.”
“What was, Councillor?”
“You know very well.”
“The business about the girl,” Trenshaw mumbled.
“But it isn’t finished.”
“Look-”
Trenshaw extended a hand to restrain his colleague.
“Steady now, Irving. We don’t know this one. He could be trying to work something for himself on the side.”
Kramer remained passive as they stared intently at him, and they found no clue to his internal turmoil. But it was not good, he could not go on: he did not know what role he was supposed to be playing, or the words that went with it.
“I am a police officer. Lieutenant Kramer of Trekkersburg CID. I am investigating the murder of a Coloured female going by the name of Theresa le Roux. I have reason to suspect that you know something to our advantage.”
They let him say it all. And then they just sat. A bomb would not have shifted them. They would have welcomed it.
Da Silva began to sob.
“Well, thank God, it’s over,” Trenshaw sighed and the others nodded.
Kramer came down from the dais.
“If one of you would like to make a statement, I will just remind you that it is possible for a witness to give State’s evidence. This means proceedings will not be taken against you. Murder is a capital offence.”
“We haven’t murdered anyone!”
“No, Councillor Trenshaw? Then you tell me what it was you did to the girl-or had done for you?”
“Nothing!”
A giggle wriggled from Ferguson. He had begun to crack back in the Assembly Room.
“What if we all talk?” Trenshaw suggested, a slight smile finding its place out of long habit in a twist of his lips.
“Go ahead, sir, I’m listening.”
Van Niekerk had given Zondi the typewriter to clean. To his surprise it was being done very thoroughly.
“What are you using-meths?” he asked.
“Carbon Tetrachloride, Sergeant.”
“Why can’t you just say Car. Tet., man? Where did you get it?”
“Photographic.”
“Was Sergeant Prinsloo there?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Van Niekerk went back to his list of people who had bought electronic organs in Trekkersburg. Some addresses were still missing.
“Where did you put the directory?”
“Beside you, Sergeant.”
“Trying to be funny, Zondi?”
“No, sir.”
The directory flopped open and Van Niekerk had to move the outside telephone to make room.
“You say that the Lieutenant rang when I was speaking to the Colonel?”
“Yes. He has gone to a cocktail party at the City Hall, Sergeant.”
“I like that!”
“He said that we must ring him if there is important news, but not otherwise.”
“I see.”
Van Niekerk smiled to himself.
Kramer had been right about two things: Trenshaw was the leader of a gang and it had been mixed up in a vice racket.
Only the racket belonged to somebody else. To judge from the response to his opening remark, none other than that elusive but menacing spectre, the Steam Pig. But he had not pressed the point.
Time was relative and he had relatively little of it. Back at headquarters, the brotherhood of Arsecreepers Anonymous would be already plotting his downfall. They knew where to find him. They would not know what to do with what they found.
It was expedient, then, simply to let the four talk, crosstalk, sob and express. The whole of their story was emerging very quickly. One question from him would have destroyed the pace, even given time for second thoughts and for lawyers.
And while he listened, Kramer made a number of astute deductions based on obscure references-perception being relative, too.
Trenshaw had been the leader of a gang formed in childhood, forgotten in the acned years of night classes, fondly remembered in the decades of profitable sophistication, and reformed when worldly success finally opened the doors to the stifling confines of the Albert Club.
Not that it had been the same gang all along. Trenshaw himself was a stranger to Trekkersburg until his fortieth year, and the other three had never met during their early lives in the city. Each, however, had once belonged to a gang and every gang has its component parts: Trenshaw, the slightly soft-looking boy who nevertheless dared to put red pepper in the crotch piece of his aunt’s drawers as they hung on the line; Da Silva, the fat boy who liked to make thin boys cry with twists of his surprisingly strong fingers; Ford, the jovial boy who collected dirty words and stories-even made some up; Ferguson, the boy whose parents were never at home and who timorously insisted he always came along for the ride. None of them bad boys-and what fun they had had.
The Albert Club had looked over its half-moon spectacles as they each made their entrance, rustled an air-mail copy of The Times, and wished to God that old Brigadier Pinkie Thomas had not faded away. The new secretary, an upstart who had never seen action, was allowing the tone to go to pieces in a damnable fashion. Once the black ball had dealt summarily with counter-jumpers, Jews and Nationalist Party wallahs-now, alas, there were increasingly few men of honour left to do their duty at membership meetings. The whole world was going to hell-look at what had happened to the Seaforths, and to the Camerons. And that was in the UK.