It was all very simple. He was given a box of. 38 blanks, a program annotated to show him from which side each event began, a whistle to impose silence, and a pat on the shoulder for luck. He was also entreated to keep things moving, as there was a lot to get through.
A starter using a firearm is always regarded with some awe by children in bathing suits. There is something about that chunk of ruthless metal being carried so casually between their unprotected bodies that induces respect. A boy’s fascination for weapons plays its part as well, as does a girl’s dislike of loud bangs. With all this on his side, and his innate ability to have commands obeyed instantly, Kramer himself set an unofficial record.
Mr. Marais made a feeble joke about it over the loudspeaker. And then he explained that as it was only four o’clock, the ice cream had not yet arrived for the party after the prize-giving. Therefore there would be a short interval of fifteen minutes’ duration.
Lisbet had already pointed out to Kramer where her class sat in a block on the grass. He wandered down there, reloading his gun.
Although the first boy to speak was a good six years older than Mungo Nielsen, his response was the same.
“Let’s have a look, sir!” he pleaded.
Kramer made a show of reluctance.
“Come on, sir!” said some others.
He sat down.
“Don’t touch,” he warned. “You must never play with guns.”
“Blanks can’t kill you, can they, sir?”
“The wad would hurt, all right. You’d get a bad burn, too. Anyone know what kind of gun this is?”
“Smith amp; Wesson. 38 service revolver, six shots, muzzle velocity of four tons.”
“Not bad! How did you know that?”
“The police have them.”
“Oh, yes?”
“He’s a Midnight Leopard! Big show-off.”
The black-haired boy with a harelip frowned at the girl who had spoken.
“I’m not,” he said. “You know I’m not anymore. Nobody is.”
She stuck out her tongue at him and then smirked at Kramer.
“I know what you are, too!”
“What?”
“Our teacher’s boyfriend.”
The whole class giggled-except for a sulky-looking miss out on the fringe. From the description he had been given, he was sure this was Hester Swart, Boetie’s romantic lead.
“So what? I bet you’ve got a girl friend!”
Kramer flicked a pebble into the lap of the boy who had stopped him.
“Me?” he hooted.
“That’s her there,” said the cheeky girl.
“All right, then here’s your darling little Dirk Botha!”
Accusation and counteraccusation rent the air like a dozen premature domestic disturbances rolled into one. Finally, however, the whole group had been paired off, with Hester again the exception.
“But what about this little lady?” Kramer asked, as guilelessly as he knew how.
“She’s-”
“Go on?”
The speaker glanced at his fellows. They all looked away, very uncomfortable.
“What’s the matter, kids?”
They all turned to Hester.
“I’ve never been anybody’s girl friend!” she declared fiercely.
Harelip appeared as horrified as the others yet managed to speak.
“You can’t say that, Hester! You even put his initials on your desk.”
“Rubbish. I hate him!”
“Hester Swart!”
“I don’t care! I hate him. I’m glad Boetie’s dead. Glad.”
Dear God, not another.
Seated on cane chairs in the Colonial Hotel’s courtyard, Kramer and Lisbet compared notes. The tall glasses of lager were a great help.
“Man, you got to her just in time,” Kramer said. “I thought she was going to have hysterics.”
“She did. In the staff room.”
“Slap her face?”
“No, let her have a go at mine. When she realized what she’d done, she was so startled that she shut up like that.”
Kramer laughed. He hoped it would be infectious. It was. How edible she was.
“Well, it gave me the chance I’d been waiting for, anyway,” he said. “I got Harelip-”
“Jan?”
“Yes, Jan-to one side and bought him an Eskimo Pie. Chatted him up about the Midnight Leopards. I think we can definitely rule the others out now-they packed up when the new sergeant put his foot down. And Boetie kept all his secrets to himself, too.”
“Not from Hester, though.”
“I gathered that. Hell hath no fury?”
“You’ve said it.”
“I thought so. But even then, why the big reaction?”
“The new girl was English.”
“Hey?”
“English-speaking, I mean.”
“God Almighty! No wonder she took it badly.”
Lisbet waved over an Indian waiter and ordered two double brandies with orange juice.
“It’s my turn to pay,” she said softly, pushing across the money when the waiter had gone. Kramer stopped her by placing a hand on hers. And left it there. The rest of him was miles away.
“I want to pay,” Lisbet repeated. “Now that we’re sharing things together, Trompie.”
That brought him back with a bump.
“Sorry, Lisbet! I don’t know what happened. Just all of a sudden this whole case seemed…”
“Do you want to know her name?”
“Please.”
“Sally Jarvis.”
“ Jarvis? Why does that ring a bell?”
“It does?”
“Somewhere. Go on, meantime.”
“I’ve had to put it together from all sorts of bits and pieces but the main gist of Hester’s story was that Boetie gave her the boot without warning last month.”
“When exactly?”
“On Tuesday the eighteenth. She went to the dentist that day so she had the date fixed in her mind long before.”
“I interrupted you.”
“It seems this was a terrible shock for her. They’d been going to the bioscope to see cowboy films on Saturday morning ever since the middle of last year. He’d also written her letters that she’d shown her friends. Maybe it’s hard for a man to understand the disgrace, but I can tell you it’s very real.”
The brandies arrived.
“What did she do?”
“What any woman would: asked him who her rival was. He denied this was the case. There were exams coming and his parents were pushing him. Hester didn’t believe this-her Boetie was much too clever to have to swot. So she waylaid Bonita outside the high school two days later and discovered, without giving anything away, that Boetie was allegedly seeing her, Hester, most evenings. That really made her mad and she challenged him again.”
“Did he tell her about Sally then?”
“Oh, no, he claimed Bonita was a spiteful liar, a typical big sister. Hester had to find out the hard way.”
“How?”
“By being told what was happening by someone else. And not someone she liked: a self-satisfied young lady called Doreen West who lives in Railway Village but, because of her parentage, goes to the English medium school in town. Doreen stopped Hester outside the sweet shop and asked when she was going to take up ballroom dancing, too.”
“No, this I can’t take! You’re not going to tell me that Boetie was going to dancing classes?”
“Why not?”
“Because-well, it’s an English custom, isn’t it? You don’t get hundred-percent Afrikaners like Boetie going in for that bloody nonsense; long trousers, jockstraps, and quiffy hair styles!”
“Jockstraps?”
“Never you mind about the worries a young boy has-just tell me where this fits in.”
“Sally was English, wasn’t she?”
“ Ach, I can see it must have been there he got pally with an English girl-where else? But what made him go in the first place?”
“There is a simple answer to that.”
“Uhuh?”
“To meet Sally. Specifically. As you say: where else?”
The ice had melted away, ruining the taste of the brandy.
“You’re a proper schoolmarm, do you know that?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to squash you. I’ll give you marks for neatness, though.”
“Oh, yes?”
“I know you weren’t thinking when you asked the question. You were off wondering just how much of a liar Boetie really was. He could have lied to Hennie, too, about those patrols he claimed to have been making up in Greenside-just to cover up the fact he’d been fooling round with an English girl. It also fits very nicely that he might have been going to see her that night for a secret meeting in the woods.”