The Gooseberry Fool (2 page)

Bugger.

He stood up, bent over, pushed the paper between his lapels and into his jacket pocket, then began to dress. The absurdity of convention in such a climate, however temporarily extreme, was stressed once more as the warmth of his shirt, slacks, and socks, imperceptible on a winter’s morning, engulfed him. His shoes, which had wandered off behind the brush container, seemed damp within and his toes enjoyed this. But his purple tie tightened like a tourniquet.

Done. The tedium of life—and death, for that matter—could begin again. With a pull on the chain for appearances’ sake, an old habit he had never been able to lack, he unbolted the door and felt his way out into the passage—catching Colonel Muller with his finger on the light switch.

“Still here, Kramer?”

“Sir.”

“Excitement too much for you, hey?”

“Always is, sir. But I’m on my way right now, never worry.”

“Kramer.”

“Sir?”

“You’re the one with the worries. I’m off to the Free State over Christmas, and your old mate Colonel Du Plessis is taking charge.”

Kramer mouthed a short word.

“Just what I had in mind,” said the Colonel, grinning, as he disappeared through the door.

Like the good little Kaffir he was, Bantu Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi had the Chevrolet waiting, its passenger door hanging open, right outside the main entrance to the CID building.

“You’re bloody keen,” grunted Kramer, sliding in beside him. How the hell Zondi managed to stay alive in that buttoned-up suit was more than he could imagine, wog or no wog. It must have been ten degrees hotter in there. Still, it did a lot for his image.

Zondi smiled, licking away a sting of saltiness from his upper lip. His expression was parboiled boredom, his face bright with sweat streaks. He started the engine, then teased the car against the hand brake. He needed directions.

“The note I had said the address was 40-something Sunderland Avenue,” Kramer responded, digging into his jacket pocket. “No time to read it properly. That’s right, 44.”

It takes a lot to make tires screech on soft asphalt, but Zondi achieved this with a U-turn only he saw happen. In seconds, air was rushing in through the side vents so fast Kramer’s eyeballs dried up.

He blinked casually and said, “I get the free funeral, you mad bastard. Remember that.”

“Better,” sighed Zondi, easing off for the traffic lights ahead. He stuck his right hand out of the window to funnel the false breeze up his sleeve.

“The note,” Kramer began, his tone didactic, “the note says that the deceased is one Hugo Swart, aged thirty-three, a bachelor. He lived alone, worked for the provincial administration as a draftsman, and was a big churchgoer.”

Zondi clicked his tongue.

“Multiple stab wounds—can mean anything. Last seen alive eight-thirty.”

“By, boss?”

“By his priest, Father Lawrence, leaving the church. Same priest discovered the body when he came round about nine-thirty to discuss something or other. Steak knife; no fingerprints.”

“Where was this body?”

“In the kitchen. Don’t ask me how the priest got in. I don’t know yet.”

“Boss Swart was a Catholic? The Roman Danger?”

“Not everybody’s Dutch Reformed who’s got an Afrikaner name, man.”

Zondi gave Kramer an impertinent sideways look and, fending the half punch neatly, took off on a show of green. His master was, at most, nonconforming agnostic.

“Any suspects, boss?”

“Local station say it must have been a Bantu intruder. They would; their bloody answer to everything. But I suppose they could be right. When last did anything really happen in this dump?”

“When the elephants lived here, I think.”

“Too right. Stop if you see a tearoom that’s open.”

There was a late-night cafe a few blocks farther on, and Kramer had him buy them each an ice lollipop.

“I’ll have the chocolate one,” he said, when Zondi got back into the car. “Can’t have you turning into a bloody cannibal or something.”

These delicacies went down very well, lasting all the way out of the city, across the national road, and into the southern suburb of Skaapvlei. They ditched the sticks as Sunderland Avenue, lined by the ubiquitous jacaranda tree, twitched off to the left.

Just the name of the street would have been enough. Zondi had no need to check the house numbers; the address they sought was clearly indicated by an assortment of vehicles, ranging from the District Surgeon’s Pontiac down to the mortuary van and two bicycles, parked haphazardly outside.

There was also a crowd of servants on the far pavement, whispering and giggling behind cupped hands—and a few whites who had suddenly decided to walk the dog themselves. Things that only happen in films get all the extras they can use.

Before the Chevrolet had completely stopped, Kramer was out and standing, thumbs hooked in hip pockets, looking the crowd over. He was careful how he did it, as somebody there might have something useful to say. Later on, that was. First he had to inspect the scene of the crime itself and get his bearings. So Kramer swiveled around to take in what the exterior of number 44 had to offer, nodding to Zondi to proceed as he did so.

The bungalow was the runt in a long line of handsome houses. Each of them had been born of a separate, conscious act of creation—of that blessed union between boom wealth and architectural talent which, because money is a dominate gene, invariably produces a brainchild as individual as its sire. That there were duplications of basic styles—Spanish colonial, early Cape Dutch, Californian aerodynamic, and restaurant Tudor—only went to show that nobody is quite the individual he believes himself to be. There was, however, nothing of the single-litter look of a speculator’s estate about them, even where the bungalow was concerned. Doubtless its stunted growth had been the result of some nasty fright during gestation, perhaps a bull running wild in the stock exchange. Poor little sod, for it was plain that, had it risen another floor, then its roof would not have seemed so unnaturally large, nor its truncated Doric pilasters so stumpy. How out of place it must have felt, and yet quite unable to mix in any other company.

As a choice of abode, the bungalow was something else—unusual, to say the least, for a single man, and a humble civil servant at that, Kramer expected the first stirrings within him of interest in the case. None occurred.

He walked over to the other side of the road and stopped.

Instead there was this awareness that in some strange way he despised himself. Despised himself as he would a jaded Don Juan moving compulsively toward another whorehouse, another stranger’s body, another act of professional intimacy, another striving to climax and release, all without feeling a thing. Not a damn thing. Just feeding a lust, then walking away again. Back past the loungers waiting outside, ready to grab you, eager to know what you knew and what you had done, too afraid to do it themselves, yet yearning. And how weary a bugger felt even before it began.

“Jesus, I need a holiday,” he muttered, striding forward. Slowing down when he saw Sergeant Van der Poel, mincing, God help him, down the path with his right hand extended in greeting.

“That you, sir, Lieutenant?”

“It is, old mate.”

“Thought so, sir. Knew you straightaway. Said to my constable that it was you who had arrived and it was.”

Already the stupid bugger was finding a lot to say about nothing. Liked the sound of his own oily voice, did Van der Poel. Loved himself from cap to toecap, he did, which must have made his arse alone think it was something pretty special. Funny life for an arse that must be.

“Anything the matter, sir?”

There was: Kramer distrusted vain men. And vanity was all too apparent in the wavy locks slicked to cover a bald spot, in the uniform tailored to fit like a condom, in the Errol Flynn mustache trimmed to the brink of extinction above cupid’s-bow lips.

“What’s with your shoes, Van der Poel?”

“Pardon, sir?”

“You’re walking like a bloody pimp.”

How very satisfying this remark proved: it put things in perspective for both of them without wasted breath.

“This way, Lieutenant Kramer.”

“Ta, old mate.”

Inside the house, people were in every room and more especially the kitchen. Kramer ordered them all out with the exception of the priest, Father Lawrence, and the District Surgeon, Dr. Christiaan Strydom.

“Now we can get down to business,” he said, crouching to inspect the corpse. The sequence of the wounds was self-evident, requiring no explanation from Strydom. First the stab in the back, then the follow-up in the chest, and the one in the throat. There was another, smaller cut above the eyes.

“Mixing himself a drink when some bloke got him from behind,” he concluded.

“That’s how I see it,” Strydom concurred.

“Been here long?”

“I can be pretty sure about this one,” Strydom replied. “His temp and other factors give us nine-fifteen as the time of death.”

“I see. What time did you get here, Reverend?”

Father Lawrence looked up from his seat by the door.

For a man whose business was preparing for death, he was woefully unprepared for this one. His voice shook.

“I—I arrived at the house at nine-twenty, Lieutenant. I know this was ten minutes earlier than expected, but there are so few people to see in hospital at this time of year—Christmas, you know.”

“I know,” said Kramer.

“Sorry. Well, I didn’t think—er—think Hugo would mind, and came up and knocked. I waited and no answer. We had an appointment at nine-thirty to make final arrangements for Midnight Mass. He was to have organized transport for our older parishioners living on their own, you know.”

This time Kramer did not know but simply gave up.

“Then what?” coaxed Strydom gently.

“It was very odd, that’s what I thought. Hugo always so punctual—and his car in the drive. I don’t know why, but I gave the door a little push and it opened.”

“Time, Reverend?”

“I must confess I didn’t look at my watch, but only a minute or so had gone by. I called out and didn’t get an answer. The radio was on; I could hear classical music of some kind. I called again, louder. Gave another knock. Hugo was, of course, extremely hard of hearing, Lieutenant.”

“Deaf, you mean?”

“Very largely, but bore his cross with great courage. It’s sad enough when you’re born like that, but to have it happen to you in your prime is very different, much harder somehow.”

“Oh, yes?” Strydom’s professional interest was alerted.

“I can’t tell you what sort of illness it was, doctor; an infection is all I remember. That’s his hearing aid over there. Funny thing to smash, wasn’t it, Lieutenant?”

“I’ve seen funnier, man, but that’s probably why he didn’t hear the killer coming up behind. I’ll note it. Yes, so far this all makes sense.”

Kramer moved crablike around to the other side of the body. He pointed to two rather odd, square-shaped lighter patches in the thickened blood.

“Doc?”

“Hadn’t noticed those, to be honest.”

“Ice,” said Father Lawrence. “I wondered, too, but they hadn’t quite melted when I got here.”

“Uh huh, you’ve got a good eye, Reverend. Spot anything else?”

“No, nothing, Lieutenant.”

“And you say he was at church earlier this evening?”

“We have Mass at seven-thirty and Holy Hour from eight. He was there all the time, in his usual pew on the side aisle, beyond the confessional.”

“What’s a Holy Hour, please?”

“A time for meditation, mainly. We pray individually and then at intervals together. Say the rosary. For the first half, though, I generally hear confessions.”

“Do you get many folk at your Holy Hour then?”

Father Lawrence hesitated, anxious not to give the wrong impression.

“Enough of the faithful to make it worthwhile.”

“How many’s that?”

“Apart from the people at confession? About a dozen usually, I suppose.”

“Just curiosity, you understand,” Kramer said. “Now what can you tell me about Mr. Swart himself? How long has he been in this area? What were his plans?”

“I’m not sure I follow you, Lieutenant. Plans?”

“Well, a young man doesn’t buy a house like this for nothing; that’s what I mean.”

“Oh, I see! Actually Hugo rented it; the landlord lives just round the corner—Mr. Potter, at 9 Osier Way.”

“A big place for one.”

“He was hoping to marry soon.”

“Really? You know the girl?”

“No, she nurses in Cape Town. Her training ends in Easter and then Hugo and she.…”

“Her name, Reverend? Someone will have to inform her if she’s a fiancee.”

“Judith Jugg—that’s with two
g
’s. I’m not sure which hospital, though. Perhaps a sanatorium, as she was also Cath—”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of that. So Mr. Swart was planning marriage and took this house. A bit expensive, shall we say?”