Glittering Gallows

Chapter 9

73 C Chapter 9 alf an hour later Lerato sat on a dining chair wrapped in a blanket courtesy of her neighbours standing around her in their yard. Not completely recovered from the terror and the panic, her eyes were on her house. Four flashing police vehicles, which brought about a score of police officers, and an ambulance, were parked around the house. Their red, blue and orange revolving lights were like a fresco discotheque in mute mode. Her yard was alive with the officers and plainclothes policemen, all restless from inaction. Some paced the yard and tried to peer into the house through gaps in the curtains. If an intruder was in the house, thought Lerato, he could see that there was no escape for him and might hang himself with the noose in the passage, or he would go to jail for housebreaking, intimidation and attempted murder, which was what a sergeant in charge of the deployment had told her. In a cautionary move, the sergeant made sure no one, including the officers and detectives, entered the house. Snakes, especially agitated cobras, could find several hiding places in a simple house. About fifty curious onlookers, some in pyjamas and bathroom robes, stood outside the police’s yellow tape condoning the house. All the incriminating evidence against the intruder–the two snouted cobras, the python and the noose–were in the house. But who could it be? What was his motive? Did someone really wish her dead or simply wanted to scare her stiff? It terrified her that while she worried herself insane about her husband’s illness, someone was plotting against her. Not long after, a bearded Indian man she guessed was Sikh from his black headscarf neatly wound in a cone on his head, buffalo-horn moustache, flowery waistcoat and a loose, long-sleeved shirt flapping in the wind, and a white napkin brushing against his ankles and shinhigh sandals, arrived in a hearse-like car. His eyes were peering and he was very tall and thin. H 74 “The haematologist is here now,” the sergeant announced, steeping forward to meet the Indian. The arrival took out two reed baskets from the backseat of his vehicle. “He’ll lead under my command until all the snakes are captured!” As the sergeant debriefed the haematologist, some police officers drew their pistols in preparation for action. While the sergeant apprised the Indian, Lerato saw the officer pointing at her and her house and sticking out three emphatic fingers in the specialist’s face. The Indian walked towards the main door of the house, placed the two baskets on the threshold and entered the house without the slightest hesitation, four officers at his heels. Lerato shifted her weight on the chair and waited. She expected to hear gunshots in the house, but no disturbance ensued. Twenty minutes later the Indian and the four officers stepped outside. Lerato jumped to her feet. The four had tucked their weapons in their holsters and were as empty-handed as the Indian. “No snakes in the house,” she heard the haematologist announcing to the sergeant. The specialist had the disappointment of a man unnecessarily roused from his sleep in the middle of the night. “You didn’t look everywhere!” Lerato shouted. He snarled at her. “I was called to catch snakes, ma’am. Nothing in your house looks like a snake or a reptile for that matter. Go check for yourself if you think I did shoddy work.” She pointed at her eyes. “I saw the snakes, sir!” “I don’t know about that,” he said curtly. “There aren’t snakes in your house but cockroaches. You need a pest controller, not a haematologist.” Confused, the sergeant looked at her and then at the Indian. He turned to the four policemen. “What about the noose?” “Sir,” one of the four answered, “there’s no noose in the house. We searched every room. We moved furniture.” “I’m not a psychologist, but there’re chances the lady was seeing absent things,” the Indian said, picked his two baskets and walked towards his car. Lerato looked in disbelief at her house and at the Indian. What was happening? Nothing was delusional about what she had seen. 75 She couldn’t have been dreaming about the serpents. The snakes and the noose were real. The python was cold when she rubbed against it under the...