The Gooseberry Fool Read online

  “No cheek, now.”

  “And Boss Swart is A group—the small quantity, simple! Then this glass they make jokes about—that, too, I can understand.”

  Kramer, who had taken the report out of the envelope that morning, just before Muller was due to arrive, without more than a glance at the alcohol level, now gave it his undivided attention.

  The technician had written: “Glass fragments in left trouser turn-up, from lead content possibly Venetian origin. What was he doing in his motor, running a bar?”

  Hell, Kramer had actually read the words “glass fragments,” come to think of it, but had got no further because the appalling scribble irritated him in his haste. He had also seen it as “glass” in its general sense, expecting pedantry about windshields, and not in the sense of “a glass,” or he would have never skipped the rest. The truth was, and it was best kept to himself, his only reason for looking at the thing at all had been to see if the lab had agreed to play ball in hammering Du Plessis. He had told them it was only an exercise for the hell of it, a favor he would explain later.

  “And that was why you took these pictures out to Skaapvlei?” Kramer said, spreading out the selection showing Mark Wallace and his firm’s wrecked car.

  “It seemed what I could do for you, boss. The two women, they both saw this car near the house on the night he was stabbed. They were sitting by the gutter near to where it was left. They also saw the master go into the house and come out after the other master came home. They saw he had a bad chest; his lungs made sounds like an old dog.”

  “Catarrh,” said Kramer after a quick look at Strydom’s postmortem report.

  “I did not know the meaning when I saw it, boss.”

  “You’re forgiven. But why didn’t these women come forward?”

  “They thought it was Shabalala who killed him, boss. This is what everyone was thinking; the policeman had said so.”

  Damn Van der Poel and his pimp’s bloody soul; his chatter and preconceptions had screwed the case right at the start.

  “What about the man you brought in?”

  “A friend of the man Shabalala, who works on the other side of the road. He gets off at seven and sometimes he went in to help with the washing up so it was finished quickly.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “He can swear that Shabalala put the key under a brick by the back door when he left the house after work.”

  “Did Swart know this?”

  “How can I tell, boss? But it is what many servants do, for their masters do not like to trust them with a key, not so?”

  Kramer was familiar with this commonplace of crazy logic and could only be mildly surprised that Swart subscribed to it. Probably he had just never checked on a habit Shabalala had picked up elsewhere. Many householders failed to make the most elementary checks on the security of their homes. Often the worst offenders, in this respect, were single persons, like Swart, who thought they had nothing to lose.

  But this was going off at a tangent.

  “And now tell me, Zondi,” said Kramer, noting the time, “what was it Shabalala told you about that you wouldn’t tell Miriam?”

  “Hau, Boss, two very strange things!”

  “Go on.”

  “First there is this blue VW that tries to kill me! Two friends of the boss Swart, Shabalala says. He—”

  “But what else?”

  “Shabalala had a mad job sometimes, boss. His master makes him go to the boots of cars that are parked in the street and take from them parcels.”

  “Parcels? What of?”

  “That he did not know—but they were very light weight, like paper.”

  Kramer ran all the way.

  The head librarian tried to interfere but was thrust aside by two words, one of which he never allowed in any book on his shelves. Kramer did, however, say it very softly and disturbed no one else; not even the unwholesome old man casting an eye over the seductive covers New Fiction had to offer. As for Samantha Simon, she turned merely at the sound of his voice.

  “You?”

  “Me. Another little chat, please. Okay?”

  She took a step toward him, faltering.

  “Here?”

  The girl who faced him now was very different from the defiant little miss last confronted in the tearoom. Her face was the color of mealie porridge, and her eyes as lusterless as farm eggs. While her mouth, her most attractive feature before, was slack, ugly, awkward with words, as though the effect of a dentist’s injection had yet to wear off. Certainly it all had to do with the deadening of pain.

  “No, Miss Simon. I think up on the gallery would be more private.”

  For an instant something flashed in those pinked eyes, then, with a shrug, she started for the staircase. The ascent was excruciatingly slow until about halfway up, when she began taking the steps two at a time. Kramer hurried after her and was at her side when she broke down.

  “No need to talk actually,” he said, handing her a khaki handkerchief, then daring an arm around her shoulders. “Just show me where it was that Mark was standing when he said he saw a man watching you two. It’s for his sake I ask you. Honest.”

  Samantha moved to the spot without a word, then reined in her sobs with one great heaving breath.

  “There,” she said, pointing.

  The label on the nearest bookcase bore the legend chemistry—which, in hasty translation into Afrikaans, could easily emerge as “chemicals.” Kramer had trouble with his own breathing as he crouched to examine the underside of the shelf at waist height. Yet there they were: three small punctured holes. Not woodworm, or even bookworm, but the mark of that truly uncommon species, the three-legged bug.

  All the brass—Scott, Du Plessis, and Muller—turned up at the mortuary at five sharp that evening for Samantha Simon’s identification of the body.

  “Ach, sorry, but she’s not here yet,” Kramer apologized, arriving at ten past and finding them gathered expectantly in the small hallway. “Zondi will be bringing her down when she’s ready.”

  Or, to be precise, Zondi would be bringing her down when the Widow Fourie decided the girl was ready—but he kept this to himself. Going around to the flat had been pure bloody genius; the Widow Fourie had taken Samantha under her wing immediately and sent Kramer packing, just as he had hoped. Which freed him, of course, to make a number of edifying calls, and to reach certain gratifying conclusions.

  His elation showed.

  “Out with it, man,” snapped Scott, not amused at having been kept in the dark since lunchtime. “Where did you get with the car numbers from the Missal?”

  “Far enough, sir—but I’d prefer to wait until we get a positive ident on Swart.”

  “Sod that for a start. My men checked out those car owners, not a single one even capable of being a subversive. I want to know what you found.”

  “Victims.”

  “Hey?”

  “Blackmail victims.”

  “All of them?”

  “Just the two, Wallace and a schoolteacher. But there must have been others, because he had about forty thousand stashed away under—”

  “Just a minute,” Scott interrupted. “You’re not saying a bloke of mine was extorting funds?”

  “Too right, Colonel. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it was.”

  Du Plessis gasped, then turned a dangerous red.

  “You’d better be able to explain an allegation like that, lieutenant—and quickly!”

  “Call it a supposition at this stage, Colonel, but I think you’ll see I’m proved right by Miss Simon. It all fits.”

  “Just tell us,” Muller urged him quietly.

  This was different.

  “Okay, sir, for what it’s worth. Best we start right back when Swart first got mixed up in this church. You’ll remember the Colonel here said the reports were negative, then Swart got the idea of putting a bug into the confessional. Very ingenious and an obvious weak spot. But did he get results straightaway, Colonel?” />
  Scott shook his head.

  “No, a little time went by before the first report. Now think about those reports very carefully: they were all vague, the names in them were names well known to the public, never mind us blokes. And note, too, that when you hauled them in last night, they all denied any knowledge of what Swart had said about them.”

  “Well, so what?” Du Plessis asked scornfully. “It’s just a matter of tune.”

  “Sir, you think they are lying. I’ve got an idea that Swart was the liar. He lied because he had to keep Colonel Scott’s lot happy or they’d have pulled him out of there—and out of his nice comfy house in Skaapvlei. Could be his first reports were just to keep him in business until he could think of a way of keeping up the good life.”

  “Christ,” said Muller.

  “Sir? You see what I’m driving at? All the time we’ve been overlooking the main point about that confession box. We’ve been thinking in terms of political secrets being the only secrets that might be heard in there. What about all the others? Maybe they couldn’t threaten the fatherland but, to the people involved, they’d be enough to destroy their own lives if they got out. Little, sordid, disgraceful secrets—ah, but with something in common with the others, as far as Mr. Hugo Swart was concerned: cash value.”

  “Impossible,” snorted Du Plessis.

  “Not for an intelligent man,” Kramer relished saying, “and Swart was intelligent, up to a point. The trouble was he didn’t hear many secrets like this because, whatever your personal opinion, these were God-fearing folk he was eavesdropping on. But any group has a few deviants, buggers with personality problems they hate but can’t get away from, and also a few blokes like Wallace, who fall off the straight and narrow. Who knows? Maybe Swart found up to a dozen in the congregation itself, and took them to the cleaners. Then he had to look further afield. He comes across Wallace and a schoolteacher who is crazy for women’s underwear.”

  “What’s this?” Du Plessis asked. “Fact or more of your bloody fantasy?”

  “Fact. He was one of the car owners on the list from the Missal. I interviewed the poor sod this afternoon and confirmed the pickup method using the hired car, et cetera. Also that Swart made his threats by phone.”

  “And the other car owners?”

  “Swart used them for a cover-up.”

  “Used us, you mean!” flared Muller.

  “Yes, sir, very cheeky, but an easy way of getting the names and addresses he wanted. He bargained on the Colonel’s inquiries being discreet and purely political.”

  Scott still said nothing.

  “This teacher had to sell his car to get enough to buy silence, you see, and then he was finished. But with Wallace, Swart saw he could probably do a lot better. I checked with Wallace’s wife this afternoon, by the way. She says he ‘lapsed’ about the time I reckon Swart heard his sad little story.”

  “Which means, Tromp?”

  “That he stopped going to church. The priest wouldn’t help me on this, but he did agree that sometimes a man comes to him in a position like Wallace was in and expects to be told it’s all right, very innocent, and he can carry on the good work. The priest also agreed he tells them it’s not—they must give up the dolly right away. And he agreed that sometimes the man in question gets very angry and buggers off. Between the lines, I think he was giving us a hand there.”

  “Very nice. I’m with you,” Muller said.

  “Call it corny, if you like, but when a bloke thinks he’s in love, he can be bloody stupid,” Kramer said, mainly for Du Plessis’ benefit. “But to get back to Swart: he phones Wallace and demands so much. Wallace hits such a panic, he gets that money to him right away—again a time factor you can check on later, through the insurance office’s headquarters. Aha, thinks Swart, this could be worth a bit more.”

  “But why doesn’t he give up the girl, Tromp? That would be only sensible.”

  “Why should he? He’s finished with the church, the damage is done, and the blackmailer has promised to lay off. Everything in his world has gone very sick; the only good thing left is the girl. See what I mean? Personally, though, thinking about it now, I reckon that Wallace did intend chucking her—he talked to McDonald, his colleague, about it—but was trying to do it the nice way, slowly and gently and all that crap. But before this can happen, Swart decides to have another try. And to hit Wallace with maximum force, the best way is to use very personal information, to make him feel there’s nowhere—”

  “So he puts the bug into the library!” said Muller. “He puts the bug there and has another go. Careless, though, letting Wallace see him there.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. Wallace hadn’t connected him then, of course. Anyway, Swart overhears their conversation and clobbers the poor sod again. This time, after he’s paid up, Wallace gets rid of Samantha. Everything is going to be all right. I borrowed a library book from his place so I’d have—ach, never mind that—but I had another look at it this morning and got the date of their parting from it. This date was the same day as Wallace surrendered his other policy.”

  “How did he connect then, if that’s what you’re trying to say?”

  “When Swart got too bloody clever and tried a third time. He sent Wallace a Christmas card and signed it ‘Samantha’—but he also underlined the word ‘prosperous.’”

  Du Plessis blinked.

  “And so?”

  “Well, this word had been used quite a lot by Samantha that time in the library when Swart was listening. It was a word that must have been ringing still in Wallace’s ears. Before Swart had obviously been careful not to give away how he knew things, but this was a clear indication that a certain conversation had been overheard. I’d say Wallace remembered the man he saw, had his memory jogged by the Jesus on the card, remembered Swart from the church—he always sat near the confessional—and put two and two together. Maybe he even had his suspicions before—who knows?—but this did it. He had forked out everything he could, he had given up the girl, he had tried to get back to normal and then, right at Christmas, it all blows up again. Notice that ‘prosperous’ could also be a threat of more demands. Anyway, he takes his firm’s car up to the church because it won’t be recognized, follows—”

  “Wouldn’t he have to be in the house already?” Muller broke in.

  “The priest helped me there again. Seems Swart went home to fetch something before the Mass; that’s when Wallace must have tailed him. Wallace waited for him to push off, found the key in the obvious place under the brick, and went inside the house. What he had in mind then, we can’t really say, but he must have been in one hell of a state. If murder was his plan, then you’d think he’d have taken a weapon. Anyway, Swart comes home and Wallace sees him in the kitchen with the radio on and the hearing aid off. Maybe they have a few words, who knows? Swart plays it cool, makes himself a drink, doesn’t offer one to Wallace. Or maybe Wallace just goes bloody berserk at the sight of him, grabs up a knife from the table, and uggh!”

  The three colonels exchanged a round of glances and then looked back at Kramer. Muller was impressed, Du Plessis bewildered, Scott inscrutable.

  “When an ordinary, decent bloke like Wallace does a thing like this,” Kramer said after a pause, “he can act very cool.

  The head shrinkers have a word for it—dissociated something or other. They kill and they walk away calmly; it isn’t real for them. They can also want to tell somebody about what they have done—like that woman who reported killing her kids with plastic bags. Which is why I think that Wallace went to the Comrades’ Club to see McDonald, only McDonald was too busy singing songs about bloody shepherds watching their flocks by night. So Wallace drank up and set off home, came to that corner, and thought what the hell—he knew, right inside, he was a dead man already.”

  This time the pause lasted some minutes. Then Scott finally broke his long silence.

  “All I can say is that Swart’s lucky he is a dead man, my friends, very lucky!” />
  “Hear, hear,” growled Muller.

  “The bastard! I gave him a position of trust and what does he do with it? Takes advantage of people at their weakest, exploits his—”

  “She’s here!” whispered Du Plessis.

  They turned as one man. Samantha Simon, wearing dark glasses and smelling sweetly of gin, came through the screen door all on her own.

  The mortuary sergeant, Van Rensburg, who had no doubt been doing a bit of eavesdropping himself, emerged from his office, harumphed, and stepped forward with due solemnity.

  “This way, please, miss. It won’t take a second.”

  When Samantha reappeared, it was without her glasses. The eyes were bright again, bright and gleaming and horrible to look at.

  Scott approached her, his manner very formal.

  “Was that the man you saw in the library while you were in the company of Mark Clive Wallace?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You are certain of that, Miss Simon?”

  “Yes.”

  “You would swear to it in a court of law?”

  “Oh, God!” she choked. “Yes, yes, yes! It’s him! The bastard who played gooseberry on us! Do you want it in blood?”

  Then she fled between them before anyone had a chance to explain how necessary it was to be sure of things. The screen door clattered open and banged shut.

  “Of course, there are still a few details—”

  Scott spun on Du Plessis.

  “Don’t talk crap, man! If Swart was around, we’d have more than enough for a conviction!”

  Du Plessis scowled peevishly.

  “Well, I thought at least someone would thank me. After all, if I hadn’t made the coincidence happen, then—”

  “Coincidence? Is that what you call it? This morning it was a different story. Wallace’s death was a consequence, you bloody idiot. The only coincidence was there wasn’t another violent death that night—get it?”

  Hurt deeply, Du Plessis slunk away to his proper place in bureaucratic obscurity. Muller tactfully led Van Rensburg into the office and closed the door, leaving Scott alone in the hallway with a very happy man.