Snake by James McClure Read Free Book Online Page B

self-recrimination. “But I didn’t bother with times when I interviewed Ngcobo! I’m sorry, but it seemed—”
    “No longer it isn’t. But you got times from Stevenson?”
    “Under oath.”
    “And Ngcobo’s address? Bantu Men’s Hostel?”
    “That’s right, sir.”
    “The night is young,” Kramer observed lightly.
    Sergeant Kloppers and his clipboard barged into Strydom in the post-mortem room, almost dashing a jar of lungs to the floor. His night was over.
    “I’m for home!” he declared defiantly.
    Strydom looked round at the clock over his bifocals and frowned. “You were off most of the afternoon, so what nonsense is this? You can’t expect every week to run smooth as the last. We’re having a heavy run, that’s all—and that’s why I took the trouble of offering you a break while I was detained at Peacevale. You were gone three hours.”
    “Peacevale I heard about!” snapped Kloppers.
    “We can’t all spend our day worrying to tell you—”
    Kloppers began to stab rudely at his list.
    “The Peacevale coon, okay. But then? White female in a G-string. A white abortion. A—”
    “Term miscarriage!” Strydom corrected, goaded into uncharacteristic pedantry.
    “A whatsit. But then? A coon full of glass. And now—”
    “ Ach , for crying out loud, who said we were going to try and get through them all tonight?”
    “Ah,” said Kloppers, “ah, but you just come and see what else I find in my fridge!”
    Strydom stalked through into the other room. “That happens to be mine,” he said coldly. “And I agree, you had better go home. What’s more, tomorrow I’m having a word with your superiors—you’re not fit for the job!”
    “Suits me fine!” Kloppers shouted from the door.
    And Nxumalo, who had taken the python in his stride, wondered if Sergeant Van couldn’t possibly come back soon.
    Gardiner laid the prisoners’ sole prints and his originals on the desk in front of Kramer, who had just made a start on Stevenson’s statement.
    “One fits,” he said, “the other doesn’t. Could have been one of Lucky’s biggest boys. I could—”
    “Whoa, there! What’s the prisoners’ story?”
    “Real skelms , those two. Saw a chance and took it. Zondi had been held up by an informer ringing, so he gave them the brush and they admitted. He’s handed the case over to Sithole and told him to ask for a remand to keep the thing quiet meantime.”
    “And the prints in the till?”
    “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but the one that wasn’t Lucky’s belongs to one of these. Him.”
    “And we don’t keep sole prints on file.”
    “Some, but this other one doesn’t match. We forget them?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Bet you the gang will hit again tomorrow,” Gardiner offered as a parting remark. “I would, if I was that good but only got myself peanuts.”
    It did not help to have the obvious put into words. Kramer was plunged into bleak thought so overwhelming that he almost missed hearing what Marais returned to report.
    “The cleaner Ngcobo was himself early this morning,” he told Kramer. “And he went into the club actually with Stevenson before ten. Wine bottles are for the Indian waiters to collect when they come on. He isn’t paid to clean the passage. But he did say one thing: in his belief, the boss has been bluffing all along that he didn’t know Zulu, because when Ngcobo went to tell him about the sick missus, for once the boss knew straight away what he meant.”

4
    S O T UESDAY BEGAN with the prospect of a certain good and a particular evil being done in Trekkersburg.
    While it also began as the day that Mickey Zondi and the lieutenant had mutually agreed to take off so that they would be free to help the Widow Fourie with her move.
    No changes of plan were made, however, despite the threat of a clash of interests later, and all was to proceed as arranged.
    Which meant a very early start at 2137 Kwela Village on the outskirts of the city. Or two starts, really, as Zondi