Despite the discomfort, he had left his post only four times and then to make brief telephone calls. As it was, he missed the arrival of a big black car with dirty number-plates that now stood parked right outside the hostel gates.
At first Moosa had mistaken the white man seated over on the far side in the passenger seat for Zondi’s boss. The trouble was he kept his back turned as he stared into the yard. But the lights of a passing bus had shown he had dark hair after all. Obviously he was waiting for the driver to return from calling on Ensign Roberts. Well, he would have to be very patient. This was the hour during which Bible reading took place and Ensign Roberts permitted no interruptions-nor would he allow anyone who had supper in the hostel to leave until it was over. Moosa wondered if it was significant that he had not seen Leon Francis leave the rehabilitation dormitory when the meal bell rang.
This brought him back to that fourth and last call he had made to the CID headquarters. It had been surprisingly cordial. He had been assured most politely that Bantu Detective Sergeant Zondi was already on his way down, and that Lieutenant Kramer himself was taking an interest in his information.
What was beginning to bother Moosa was that he had been back at the window for another twenty minutes and yet had seen no sign of either of them.
It took Kramer more time than he had supposed to slink through the gardens that backed on to the hostel. There had been dogs and rose bushes and hard-arsed gnomes to contend with. His shins were a mess but luckily nobody heard or saw him.
The corrugated iron fence had also posed a problem, being very difficult to climb quietly if at all. Finally, however, he came across an avocado tree with branches as orderly as the rungs of a ladder. And up he went.
Better and better-right in front of him now was some scaffolding that carried on around a chapel which was being built in the hostel yard behind Ensign Roberts’s house. Kramer swung over to it with little trouble.
The builders, presumably drawn from the rehabilitation group, had reached the eaves, and so the scaffolding afforded a good high vantage point. Only there was nothing to see. The yard was completely deserted. All the dormitories were in darkness, as the regulations required when not in use. The sole light came from the dining-room-and with it the sound of someone reading Scripture in a deep monotone.
Kramer rose slowly to his feet and looked over the last course of bricks to the road. He drew in his breath sharply.
There was a big black car at the hostel gates, with a white man seated at the passenger window. The traffic’s lights did not reach round to his face, and anyway from that distance it would have been impossible to distinguish the features, or even the type of clothing he wore. Except that whereas a conventional tie would have made a vertical blur, a bow tie made a dark blob under the chin.
Jackson.
Kramer was sure of it. He was searching for the way down to the ground when he thought again. According to the councillors’ wives, Jackson had left in a hurry. Now he was sitting there as if he had all the time in the world. This was so eccentric it was dangerous. More than that: potentially lethal.
There had to be a reason. Kramer forced himself to ponder it although his whole body strained on a poodle leash. Logic demanded that he began with what was known: Jackson was a cautious man; Jackson kept himself out of trouble; Jackson was not alone; Jackson had sent a man in for Lenny Francis.
Kramer started to crawl on all fours along the scaffolding to look down into the yard again. He had been on the property for perhaps two minutes-in itself more than long enough for a messenger to fetch Lenny to the car. It was no messenger that Jackson had dispatched but a killer.
The yard, fifteen feet below and in deep shadow, still appeared empty. To his left, flanking one side of the chapel, was the corrugated iron fence behind Ensign Roberts’s back garden. Directly in front of him, the bare earth stretched away for twenty yards until it met the old age pensioners’ wing running across at right angles. On his right the wing housing the rehabilitation and hobo section protruded to within a few feet of the chapel. He could almost reach out to touch it.
Then he heard a sound. It came from two doors down.
“Christ. Oh, bloody hell. What’s happening?”-the voice was soggy with sleep.
Click.
“You kaffir bastard!”
The answering laugh was one Kramer would recognise anywhere.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“Shhh! CID.”
Zondi was in his playful mood.
But this was no time for games. He would lead his prisoner only a matter of ten yards before they could be seen from the gate. Jackson would be off like a flash. Or he might fire first and then flee.
Kramer had to stop that door opening, and there was no longer the time to look for ladders. He calculated that by swinging from the edge of the scaffolding, he would be left with a drop of nine feet. He could make it safely.
But before he could move, someone else did. The figure slipped out of the door nearest to him and began to edge towards the next one up the line-the one from which Zondi would emerge at any second.
The. 38 Smith and Wesson was in Kramer’s hand and levelled when it struck him that Jackson would react to a shot like an Olympic sprinter to a starting pistol.
The figure stopped moving. Like Jackson, it was waiting.
Cramp bit Kramer in the left calf. He rocked on his haunches, putting out his free hand to steady himself. It touched something hard and cold: the blade of a trowel honed sharp by coarse mortar. He grasped it tightly by the handle.
The door opened, a fraction too soon.
Lenny Francis stepped out into the night with a gun in his back and Zondi behind it. They took three paces. The figure sprang. There was a glint. A small cry came from Zondi. He sprawled, tripping Lenny.
Then as the figure raised its knife hand again, Kramer sprang. Not feet first but in a long dive with the trowel held at the apex of his arrowed body.
There was nothing calculated about it. Pure chance provided the perfect trajectory that tore open the throat of the hired killer. Gravity did the rest of the damage.
Kramer landed badly and Zondi’s skull, so hard against the ground, drove the wind from him. He curled up, gasping, retching, helpless.
Lenny, untouched, recovered Zondi’s automatic and trained it on them.
The engine of the big black car was running. The man had slid across and started it a minute ago. Now he was revving it gently.
Moosa had lost all patience. If this was how the CID responded to two good tip-offs, they were not worth his time and trouble. He would tender his account and sell cabbages.
Then the car was switched off again. The white man with a bow tie got out and stood on the pavement, his right hand closed over something in his trouser pocket.
Just a minute, this could be a detective after all. Moosa decided to keep watch for one minute longer.
Van Niekerk slammed down the receiver and turned to Colonel du Plessis.
“It was just that churra bastard to say there’s nothing doing down at the hostel.”
“Moosa?”
“He wanted to bugger off home.”
“Why tell him to stay on then?”
“Why not, sir?”
The Colonel dearly loved a dry wit. Their relationship deepened.
“He took a hell of a time to get that out, Sergeant.”
“Oh, he also talked a lot of crap about us having a bloke down there.”
“And so?”
“I didn’t say anything. Two seconds later he’s changed his mind and thinks it’s someone paying a visit.”