James Mcclure - The Sunday Hangman

“Captain Theron here. Your answer is no.”

“That’s all? What about those other connections I asked you blokes to-”

“No,” Theron repeated.

Kramer looked, at Willie, who was standing with Zondi on the far side of the desk, and asked, “I have a few questions about hanging techniques I’d like to have verified, if possible. Could you tell me what procedure is followed?”

“Exactly as laid down.”

“Uh huh?”

“The judge says, ‘You will be hanged by the neck until you are dead,’ and we do it.”

Theron put his phone down.

“Bugger me,” said Kramer, “that was a great help. What have you to report? Zondi?”

“Dorothy Jele says many white bosses spoke to her about the sighting of Izimu. It would be impossible to-”

“But I’ve got something, sir!” blurted out Willie. “I was talking to my landlord-old Mr. Haagner-just casually, like you said I must do it, and he mentioned that Mr. de Bruin had been among those who were away during the war. He knows it wasn’t fighting, but it had something to do with the government.”

“You didn’t push it too hard?”

“Hell, I hope not, sir. Also, I’ve been down to Spa-kling and all the committee’s there already. De Bruin, Van der Heever, Swanepoel, Crowe, Wantenaar, Fouche-the whole lot of them. They’re making up games for the kids, and George said it would take all afternoon.”

“Piet?”

“Er-he isn’t back yet.”

Kramer got up and adjusted the wall clock to synchronize with his own watch: it was now one o’clock exactly. He turned and was stricken to see Zondi’s leg shuddering in spasm-this had been hidden by the desk before.

“We move in one hour, so get Mamabola and Luthuli on standby. Show them your drawing. Is there anyone who can mind the shop?”

“Nyembezi, who’s on nights. Actually, he’s more use than old Goodluck.”

“Wake him and swap them round. Try the hotel and see if Piet’s back.”

“But I’ve only just-”

“Ring him, damn it! And you, Sergeant-outside.”

Zondi’s exit was painful to watch. Once in the area behind the charge office counter, Kramer steered him into the half-empty storeroom, closed the door behind him, and raised a fist.

“This is what you deserve, Mickey!”

“For, boss?”

“For behaving like a half-witted kaffir, you stupid bastard! What the hell are you doing to yourself? I’m phoning the DS at Brandspruit and Mamabola’s taking you in-and I don’t want any arguments. I don’t want to know . Got it?”

They looked at each other.

Kramer said, “All right, but here you’ll stay until this thing is over. I’ll get them to fix it up for you before we go. More brandy?”

“Hau, please not for me!”

“It’s no trouble.”

“You would not think that, boss,” Zondi murmured slyly, as he slid slowly down the wall, “if you had my headache.”

With a lopsided smile, Kramer left the room and gave instructions to Luthuli for a mattress and some blankets to be found somewhere. And then, realizing there’d be no red tape involved, he also told him to send for a good witch doctor.

“Sir?” interrupted Willie, displaying agitation. “Piet isn’t back and his barman wants to know about closing time.”

“Why ask me, for Christ’s sake?”

“Well-um-Sarge is on the committee, too, see? And when all the blokes have to be there for the afternoon, he sort of tends to look the other way, if you-”

“Fine,” said Kramer. “I’m not looking.”

Not there at any rate, and the happier the committee stayed for the afternoon, the better.

Zondi knew he was dreaming. He’d meant to say many things to Dorothy Jele, and now he was saying them. He chided her for thinking that a careless mother was necessarily an uncaring one. He reminded her of the sweet fever turning to delirium as the search had drawn closer. He laughed at her virtues as a true Christian woman, a woman who couldn’t be made to tell a lie. She shrieked back that it wasn’t her, wasn’t her. She shrieked and shrieked and coughed and whispered and there was someone standing over him.

He had still to be dreaming. The man wore a lounge suit and there were inflated pigs’ bladders in his hair. His squint transfixed you, his breath was aromatic. Herbs. He was gone again.

Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy Jele.

Someone else in the room.

“Have I woken you?” whispered Goodluck Luthuli, “Are my eyes not closed?” Zondi snapped, noticing he’d succumbed to the peevishness of an invalid. “I am sorry, my brother. What time is it? Is the Lieutenant-”

“They have been away the whole afternoon, Sergeant. There is no sign of their return yet. I heard you were restless, so I brought you this.” Luthuli held out a small horn with a wooden stopper. “It is the medicine left by Jafini Bhengu. He was most painstaking in its preparation, and ground up the ingredients to a special fineness. He says it would be better if you went to the nuns’ clinic, but this will bring you relief until then.”

Groggily, Zondi took the horn, uncorked it, and saw that it contained a gray powder. “All afternoon, you say? Then the sun is going down?”

“Soon. Is there anything else you would have brought to you?”

Zondi’s attention had been taken by the way Luthuli was tamping down the tobacco in his cheap black pipe. He glared at the pipe, annoyed by the insistence of its detail: it was the kind with a perforated metal cap which fitted over the bowl, and there was a little silver chain, attached at one end to the pipestem, to keep this cap from getting lost. When he began to hate the pipe, his own delirium seemed not far off.

“A farm is not hard to search. The workers will know all the far corners, and they will also know where they have been forbidden to go. If I-”

“Mamabola is helping your boss, and he is a bright one,” Luthuli said, replacing the silver cap. “Perhaps they visit many farms.”

“Mamabola! That puppy!”

With a grunt, Zondi tried to rise-only to discover he hadn’t the strength to take a grip on the ammunition box beside him … His head reeled and he slumped back.

“You must sleep,” Luthuli coaxed gently, pulling up the blankets again. “I will be in the charge office.”

The door closed. Zondi felt for his gun; it had been taken from him. He went limp. He thought about Dorothy Jele, and remembered how thin the walls of her room had been. Soon he was dreaming again, hopping frantically, seeing his children running fleet down a straight path to the barricades.

“Lieutenant!” shouted Zondi, this time waking himself up.

He fumbled for the medicine horn, tipped the whole lot into his mouth, and turned to the wall. Then his mind became lucid and he began to smile. A moment or two later, he was laughing.

His sophisticated taste buds had just revealed to him the secret of Jafini Bhungu’s success. That gray powder was nothing other than wood ash and aspirin.

“I don’t get it,” said Kramer, as he and Willie finally boarded the Land-Rover. “That place definitely had a feel to it that wasn’t natural.”

“Where’s Nyembezi?” Willie asked Mamabola, who was sitting on the floor in the back.

“He is coming now, boss; he just sprung a leak.”

“Did you get the same impression, Willie?”

They looked back at the wide, low bungalow, at the barn and tractor shed and scattering of outbuildings. The large disused water tank had caused a brief flutter of hope. So had the milking parlor, with its pit between the machines, but by then things had been verging on the ridiculous.

“Can’t say I did, sir. That old cookboy was a bit funny, but otherwise it seemed normal to me. I don’t think he believed we were looking for an escaped prisoner.” And Willie laughed. “How did Mrs. de Bruin take to you going inside?”