shall be brought to a place also appointed by him
Mrs. Sophie Pritchard, the late Alice Hookham’s dearest friend, was also there, having testified that on countless occasions the dead woman had described the coward who had looked up at her bedroom one day, pointed, and then had been led away by a friendly, chattering group of Gestapo officers.
and that there you be hanged by the neck
Classina Marie Baksteen was there, loving every minute of it. A busty girl with frizzy hair sat beside her balding fiancé.
until you are dead
“Thank you, my lord,” said the prisoner.
Oddly enough, Dr. Christian Strydom and Sergeant Van Rensburg were not there. Kramer found them engrossed in a corner of the post-mortem room at the mortuary when he called in just after five. They had scores of test-tubes, flasks, beakers and lengths of glass tubing arranged about them, and were communicating in pleased little grunts.
“My God,” said Kramer, stopping short. “What is this? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
“Ah, Tromp!” said Strydom, turning round with a test-tube of blood in his hand. “You’ve solved the one with the keys?”
“No, I’ve just been in court to hear your friend the jolly green giant being sent for the chop.”
“Oh,” said Strydom. “Was that today?”
“Shall we show him, Doc?” whispered Van Rensburg.
“Show me what?” asked Kramer.
“What we can do with our extract of slime,” replied Van Rensburg, proudly. “Man, it’s like a miracle! For instance, what color of blood do you think that is in Doc’s hand?”
“Red,” said Kramer.
Van Rensburg frowned. “Ach no! Is it white blood, or is it black blood? If you found that at the scene of a crime, would you know?”
“I’d taste it for purity,” said Kramer, grinning and moving over to the bench where they were working. “Is this what all those bloody snails were for?”
“Let me show you!” enthused Van Rensburg. “It’s a question of a protein action, hey? You just put a drop of our extract in the sample, and then it precip—er, precipitates according to whether the blood is white or not.”
“Hey, Doc! That’s not bad!”
Strydom flushed slightly. “Not entirely original, I should point out. Pioneer work in this has been done in Port Elizabeth, using the snail Helix—”
“No, don’t start being too scientific with me, please!” begged Kramer, looking round him. “I’m just a layman, remember?”
“Ja, Doc, we must make allowances,” said Van Rensburg.
“Have you lost something, Tromp?”
“Uh huh, an unopened letter I brought in here this morning in the mad rush before court. It’s got ‘air mail’ on it and English stamps.”
“Oh, of course, I picked it up and I’ve been keeping it for you,” said Strydom, fishing the envelope out of his apron pocket. “Where will you be tonight? The farmhouse?”
“Uh huh.”
“Only I’ll be able to give you some results on the Bantu midget job.”
“Fine—well, keep up the good work, hey?” said Kramer from the doorway. “There’s just one thing: what happens if you find a sample of Cape Colored blood? Mixed blood—you know?”
“Yirra!” said Van Rensburg, turning in alarm to his mentor.
Zondi discreetly stayed outside the car, chatting to Nxumalo and sharing a cigarette with him, while Kramer read the letter he had opened with some trepidation.
Dear old Tromp,
Excuse the handwriting, but I’m doing this in the waiting room of Southampton General matern’ty section—need you ask. Tish is having to have special tests or something. She wanted me to let you know how well everything has worked out since we got home, and to pass on her best wishes. You really taught us both a lesson, you know. I never thought I’d get her back—day after day I begged and pleaded with her. I even dragged old Smorgasbord along from the gym to swear blind we hadn’t been having it off in the sauna room. No more of that for me. Not only that but as Trish says, there’s no place like home in the end, and the hell with la dolce vita, matey! By the way, you may be interested to know that I’ve Gone Straight with my new salon. I have my reasons of course. What if a few months from now a very butchy babe is born in Southampton town, screaming for its bottle in Afrikaans? I suppose I’ll have to learn the lingo and in the meantime, old pal, there’s something for you to think about. Many thanks!
Yours sincerely, Jonty Hayes
“Hayes!”
“Yes, Lieutenant?” asked Zondi, coming to the window. “You’re ready to go?”
Kramer nodded, laughing and looking again at the letter, which had a lot between the lines. “Now there’s a typical example of how prejudice doesn’t help in this job,” he said, as Zondi got behind the wheel and started up. “You never stop to think that a poof hairdresser might have a second name, do you?”
“Boss? Have you slipped up somewhere?” Zondi said with concern in his voice. “Is this letter—?”
“No, it was just as well, I suppose,” said Kramer, putting the letter in his pocket for the Widow Fourie to read. “Kwela Village, please, Mickey, through the park, and don’t spare the horses.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Sailor Malan, Dr. LeMoyne Snyder, the Texan and all but one of the epileptics are or were real people; the blood test is also quite genuine. All other characters are fictitious, although the names of two South African policemen have been used as a reminder to them that they are not forgotten. Finally, I would like to thank Joe Connolly for his part in the initial stages of this book.
OTHER TITLES IN THE SOHO CRIME SERIES
Quentin Bates
(Iceland)
Frozen Assets
Cold Comfort
Cheryl Benard
(Pakistan)
Moghul Buffet
James R. Benn
(World War II Europe)
Billy Boyle
The First Wave
Blood Alone
Evil for Evil
Rag & Bone
A Mortal Terror
Death’s Door
Cara Black
(Paris, France)
Murder in the Marais
Murder in Belleville
Murder in the Sentier
Murder in the Bastille
Murder in Clichy
Murder in Montmartre
Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis
Murder in the Rue de Paradis
Murder in the Latin Quarter
Murder in the Palais Royal
Murder in Passy
Murder at the Lanterne Rouge
Grace Brophy
(Italy)
The Last Enemy
A Deadly Paradise
Henry Chang
(Chinatown)
Chinatown Beat
Year of the Dog
Red Jade
Colin Cotterill
(Laos)
The Coroner’s Lunch
Thirty-Three Teeth
Disco for the Departed
Anarchy and Old Dogs
Curse of the Pogo Stick
The Merry Misogynist
Love Songs from a Shallow Grave
Slash and Burn
Garry Disher
(Australia)
The Dragon Man
Kittyhawk Down
Snapshot
Chain of Evidence
Blood Moon
Wyatt
Whispering Death
Port Vila Blues
David Downing
(World War II Germany)
Zoo Station
Silesian Station
Stettin Station
Potsdam Station
Lehrter Station
Leighton Gage
(Brazil)
Blood of the Wicked
Buried Strangers
Dying Gasp
Every Bitter Thing
A Vine in the Blood
Perfec
t Hatred
Michael Genelin
(Slovakia)
Siren of the Waters
Dark Dreams
The Magician’s Accomplice
Requiem for a Gypsy
Adrian Hyland
(Australia)
Moonlight Downs
Gunshot Road
Stan Jones
(Alaska)
White Sky, Black Ice
Shaman Pass
Village of the Ghost Bears
Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis
(Denmark)
The Boy in the Suitcase
Invisible Murders
Graeme Kent
(Solomon Islands)
Devil-Devil
One Blood
Martin Limón
(South Korea)
Jade Lady Burning
Slicky Boys
Buddha’s Money
The Door to Bitterness
The Wandering Ghost
G.I. Bones
Mr. Kill
Joy Brigade
Peter Lovesey
(Bath, England)
The Last Detective
The Vault
On the Edge
The Reaper
Rough Cider
The False Inspector Dew
Diamond Dust
Diamond Solitaire
The House Sitter
The Summons
Bloodhounds
Upon a Dark Night
The Circle
The Secret Hangman
The Headhunters
Skeleton Hill
Stagestruck
Cop to Corpse
Jassy Mackenzie
(South Africa)
Random Violence
Stolen Lives
The Fallen
SeichÅ Matsumoto
(Japan)
Inspector Imanishi Investigates
James McClure
(South Africa)
The Steam Pig
The Caterpillar Cop
The Gooseberry Fool
Snake
The Sunday Hangman
The Blood of an Englishman
Jan Merete Weiss
(Italy)
These Dark Things
Magdalen Nabb
(Italy)
Death of an Englishman
Death of a Dutchman
Death in Springtime
Death in Autumn
The Marshal and the Madwoman
The Marshal and the Murderer
The Marshal’s Own Case
The Marshal Makes His Report
The Marshal at the Villa Torrini
Property of Blood
The Innocent
Vita Nuova
Stuart Neville
(Northern Ireland)
The Ghosts of Belfast
Collusion
Stolen Souls
Eliot Pattison
(Tibet)
Prayer of the Dragon
The Lord of Death
Rebecca Pawel
(1930s Spain)
Death of a Nationalist
Law of Return
The Watcher in the Pine
The Summer Snow
Qiu Xiaolong
(China)
Death of a Red Heroine
A Loyal Character Dancer
When Red is Black
Matt Beynon Rees
(Palestine)
The Collaborator of Bethlehem
A Grave in Gaza
The Samaritan’s Secret
The Fourth Assassin
John Straley
(Alaska)
The Woman Who Married a Bear
The Curious Eat Themselves
Akimitsu Takagi
(Japan)
The Tattoo Murder Case
Honeymoon to Nowhere
The Informer
Helene Tursten
(Sweden)
Detective Inspector Huss
The Torso
The Glass Devil
Night Rounds
Janwillem van de Wetering
(Holland)
Outsider in Amsterdam
Tumbleweed
The Corpse on the Dike
Death of a Hawker
The Japanese Corpse
The Blond Baboon
The Maine Massacre
The Mind-Murders
The Streetbird
The Rattle-Rat
Hard Rain
Just a Corpse at Twilight
Hollow-Eyed Angel
The Perfidious Parrot
Amsterdam Cops: Collected Stories