The Artful Egg

by James McClure

  But who could have used it on her was another matter. The simplest answer—and the one most likely to prove correct—lay in the idea of an intruder having stumbled across her. Most whites, even of her class, tended to be early risers, and could be expected to have been in bed long before midnight. The intruder had probably imagined he had the whole ground floor to himself, and then, hearing noises from the sun-lounge, had taken down a sword from a wall display and had gone to explore. Or had he already armed himself with the sword as a precaution? Ja, that did seem more likely. Burglars, as a breed, tended to be very nervous people.

  An Indian urchin darted into the traffic at an intersection, taking advantage of the red light to sell copies of the afternoon paper to waiting drivers. Reminded of Colonel Muller, hiding behind his first edition back in the mortuary, Kramer had to smile. Marriage had certainly softened the old bastard up and no mistake, even allowing for the fact his new bride would be about the same age as the late Naomi Stride.

  The light changed to green, giving the driver in the car ahead an excuse to accelerate off with the afternoon paper without paying for it.

  Perhaps, thought Kramer, the intruder theory was a trifle simplistic: a crime is discovered, and automatically the assumption is that a criminal must have committed it. Yet the world was filled with evil bastards, with scum who wouldn’t think twice about cheating a ragged kid out of his profit on fifty papers—or, if it seemed worth it to them, somebody out of their three score years and ten—while maintaining every outward appearance of the model citizen. On top of which, murder was a rather unusual type of crime in that, the chances were, the victims generally knew their killers, and it always paid to take a close look at those closest to them at the start of any investigation.

  The bunched traffic reached the dual carriageway and spread out. He moved over into the fast lane.

  Motive, that came next. The woman had been rich, she’d been famous. Greed could have provided one reason for wanting her dead, jealousy another. Perhaps patriotism had had something to do with it, if she’d been writing about South Africa in a subversive manner—but he wasn’t sure yet whether her books had been banned for that or for being too sexy. And then of course, on a more basic level, motivations like hatred had to be considered, because being rich and famous didn’t exempt a person from the passions which made so many of the humblest citizens kill each other. The best idea was simply to start collecting information and to allow it to produce its own patterns; this sort of theorising without proper facts wouldn’t get him anywhere.

  The turn-off to Morningside was coming up, so he slapped down the sun-visor on his passenger side, bringing into view a notice clipped to it that read polisie-police, held his hand on the horn, and forced the car travelling in front of him to draw over sharply to the curb. As he got out and walked back, the startled driver emerged, tugging a driver’s licence from an inside pocket.

  “Look, I don’t know what this is about,” he said, smiling and politely deferential. “I’ve only driven two blocks and I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t jump the lights, I wasn’t speeding.”

  Kramer looked at him blankly. What a mother’s joy the man was: a winsome, open face; clean teeth and fingernails; a freshly laundered pale-green safari suit and beneath it, without a doubt, an impeccably clean pair of underpants which would uphold the family’s honour in the event of an accident.

  “Ach, I’m sorry,” the man apologised, switching smoothly from English into Afrikaans, “it’s just I’m forced to speak the bloody language most of the day because of my job—software, you know. The name’s Hennie Vorster, sir. Here, you can see it on my licence, and it’s clean.”

  Kramer took the licence, then glanced over the car.

  “A beauty, isn’t it?” the man went on. “I’m afraid, if this is one of those spot checks, you’re not going to find a thing to give me a ticket for—I only took delivery on Monday. Oh, thanks very much.”

  And he reached for the licence which Kramer had just held out to him, giving a sharp little cry as the handcuff snapped over his wrist.

  “Jesus Christ!” he gasped, in English. “You can’t be arresting me! Whatever for?”

  “Theft of one newspaper,” said Kramer. “But don’t worry,” he added, attaching the other handcuff to the man’s steering-wheel. “I’ll leave a little note for the next patrol van coming by, explaining all about it.”

  4

  ZONDI HAD THREE things to tell Kramer when he arrived back at Woodhollow and went into Naomi Stride’s study. The first concerned what he had learned from Cyclops Security.

  “They said, boss, Mrs. Stride rang up last Friday to inform them she had changed her plans and would be leaving for London tomorrow, Wednesday, and they were not to worry about guarding this place until then. They were not very clear why she was leaving later, but it had something to do with her being at a point in her latest book where she did not want to stop until the chapter was finished.”

  “Uh-huh, and what else?”

  “The son’s secretary has phoned. He is on his way here, should be arriving any time now.”

  “Does he know his old lady has—?”

  “No, just that the police want to contact him.”

  “Fine. What was the third thing?”

  Zondi did a three-quarter turn in the swivel chair and pointed to the sheet of paper in the typewriter. “I have been looking at that last line, boss.”

  “Oh ja? Something about ‘two, comma, two’—didn’t make any bloody sense to me, unless it’s just that two and two make four. But, then, the whole book seems to be so bloody strange that—”

  “Boss, I don’t think this Naomi Stride missus wrote that. Take another look.”

  Kramer took another look, leaning low to view the paper at an angle to the light coming in through the window. “The pressure used on the keys is the same as with the lines before it—which is only logical, since this is an electric typewriter. What’s there to tell apart?”

  “Here,” said Zondi, taking down at random a novel from the bookshelves. “Have you ever noticed that in books, when they show the words people speak, they don’t always use double inverted commas for quotation marks, they just use one?” And he held out a page for Kramer to inspect. “Ordinary people, though, use the double quotation mark, because that’s what they learn at school.…”

  “Wait a minute,” said Kramer, taking up some sheets of manuscript from the wire tray. “Ja, but Naomi Stride actually typed the same way as the printers, with one mark.”

  “And suddenly there are double quotation marks around that last line.…” murmured Zondi. “I don’t think that someone who typed so much would break a habit just once in more than two hundred pages.”

  “You’ve looked?”

  Zondi nodded. “I can’t find any other place she has used double marks.”

  Kramer walked over to the window and stared out of it for a while. Then he turned and nodded. “You’re right, Mickey,” he said. “It can’t have been her, and so it had to be—well, bugger it, the murderer? Leaving us some kind of message? Having a little joke?”

  “It seems so, boss.”

  “But ‘two, comma, two’ means nothing to you, either?”

  “No idea, boss,” replied Zondi, shrugging.

  Ramjut Pillay was exhausted by the time he reached Gladstoneville, a sprawling shanty town set aside for Asiatics on the north-western edge of Trekkersburg. Normally, he had permission to use his Post Office heavy-duty bicycle for getting to and from work, but now that he was under suspension this privilege had been withdrawn from him. Barefoot, too, because his boots had been retained for forensic examination by the police, and because he was in no position to requisition another pair, his progress had been slow and painful, especially over the last three kilometres, a dirt road down from the asphalt highway skirting Gladstoneville. The heat hadn’t helped, either, seeming to become more intense each weary step he took.

  “Ten thousands five
hundred and ninety-one, ten thousands five hundred and ninety-two,” he murmured, reaching the corner of Apricot Street, “ten thousands five hundred and—ah, jolly good!—ninety-three.”

  He was home.

  “Ramjut?” his mother croaked from her wicker chair on the slanting porch. “Where have you been, you shameful son of respectable parents? Your poor aged father is out looking for you, begging news of a fully grown-up boy who should have returned from his work many hours ago. What have you to say to your—?”

  “Mother, would you like to know how many pacings it is from the Post Office to—?”

  “Pah!” she said, dismissing him with that familiar wave of her fly-whisk.

  Which, for once, pleased Ramjut Pillay immensely, because all the way back to Gladstoneville he had been turning over in his mind the most exciting thought he’d entertained in years, not excluding several associated with brahmacharya experiments.

  And so, indifferent to his limp, he went through the house and out to the corrugated lean-to in which he lived at the back. It was like stepping into an oven, save for the fact that few ovens held such a pungent odour of warm horsehair mattress, and for several seconds he was tempted to leave the door ajar. But, no, that would be wholly unprofessional, so he closed it firmly and did up its seven bolts and two chain locks. Then, feeling a little faint, he edged his way between his divan and the bookshelves he had constructed out of orange-crates, and drew aside the faded curtain in the far corner. Behind it, hanging from a sagging length of string, was his entire wardrobe: shirts, trousers and a couple of jackets, motor mechanic’s overalls, a chemist’s white coat, an advocate’s black gown, a loincloth, a Scout uniform, a grey plastic raincoat, a tracksuit, nineteen ties in various designs, and a pillowcase containing hats, caps, helmets and a gas-mask. From a termite-proof tin box hidden beneath all this he selected a diploma and pinned it to the edge of one of the orange-crates. He stepped back to admire it, collided with his divan and had to sit down suddenly.

  Ramjut Pillay, said the diploma, in beautifully curly writing, Has Passed With Distinction All The Exacting Requirements Of This Course & Is Henceforth Qualified To Practise As A Private Investigator.

  Theo Kennedy, only child of the late Naomi Stride, arrived at Woodhollow in a Land-Rover painted black and white in wavy stripes to resemble zebra hide.

  “ ‘Afro Arts,’ ” murmured Zondi, reading aloud the sign-writing on the cab doors. “ ‘Wholesale and Export.’ ”

  “You’d best bugger off and find yourself a good place to listen from outside the window,” suggested Kramer.

  “On my way, boss!”

  Kramer walked out on to the front veranda at much the same moment as young Kennedy started up the steps. He looked angry, very pale.

  “I’ve just heard on the radio,” he said, “that my mother’s been murdered. What the hell are they talking about? That can’t be true!”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kennedy, but for once they’ve got their facts right.”

  “Rubbish! Next of kin would have to be informed first, and nobody’s—”

  “We’ve been trying to get hold of you, sir. We rang your place of work just as soon as we knew where to contact—”

  “But—”

  “As for the press and radio, there’ll be an enquiry into who told them, and—”

  “I don’t give a shit about that! My only—”

  “Hey, come inside,” said Kramer, motioning him into the house. “You tell me where your ma kept the brandy, and I’ll get you one—hell, I’ll even have some, too.”

  Kennedy half-smiled, let his shoulders drop, and led the way, walking like a man who finds the floor a long, long distance beneath him. They went into a large living-room furnished in a mixture of skinny wooden drinks-tables and plump easy chairs covered in a floral pattern. Kramer directed him to sit in one of the chairs, and crossed over to the mahogany cabinet to the right of a huge fireplace. The cabinet was well stocked, containing no less than four different brandies. Choosing the Oude Meester, Kramer poured two double tots, handed Kennedy his glass and sat down on the arm of the sofa.

  Nothing was said for a while. They just sipped their brandy and found something to stare at. Kennedy stared at a brass poker, propped beside the grate. Kramer stared at a round, bulging kind of mirror, which gave him an interesting view of the dead woman’s son. Shortened by the mirror’s distortions, which took about twelve inches off his six-foot-two, Kennedy looked a lot like her in a way, having the same dark hair, neat build and high forehead.

  “I can’t believe this is happening, that it’s true.…”

  “It’s true,” said Kramer.

  Kennedy looked up at him.

  Unlike the mother, there were laughter-lines on the son’s deeply tanned face—not that he was using any of them right now.

  “How?” he asked brusquely, forcing the word out.

  “A stabbing,” said Kramer. “Just the once. She died instantly.”

  “Jesus.…”

  “In the early hours of this morning. She had been in for a swim and was changing back out of her costume. It was on the floor and her clothes were—”

  “You mean she was—not dressed?”

  Kramer nodded. “But there’d been no sexual interference, if that’s what you’re thinking. More brandy?”

  Kennedy didn’t seem to notice the glass being lifted from his grasp. He was staring at the poker again, nibbling gently on his lower lip. Turning from him, Kramer went back over to the drinks cabinet, hiding a frown. He was puzzled by his own behaviour, by the way he’d not attempted to see whether Kennedy had known how many times his mother had been stabbed, when she’d been stabbed, what her state of dress—or undress—had been. It was often amazing, the way even the cleverest killers could let something slip right at the start, before their nerves had steadied and they’d grown accustomed to being questioned. Yet Kramer had played no games with him, had simply given the main facts to him straight, just as though it’d never crossed his mind that Kennedy, being the deceased’s closest relative, should be treated as a major suspect.

  Carefully, he poured another double tot, still frowning.

  A major suspect? Christ, he hadn’t regarded the man as a suspect at all, not from the first moment of setting eyes on him. He had liked the bloke; it was as simple as that—an intuitive response based on God knows what. On top of which, Kennedy’s reactions had since struck him as entirely genuine, reinforcing the same feeling—but of course this nonsense now had to stop.

  “Look, sir,” he said, turning with the refilled glass, “it is necessary for me to ask some questions.”

  Kennedy did not appear to hear him. He went on staring at the brass poker, his teeth clamped hard on his lower lip and a trickle of blood running down his chin.

  “God in Heaven,” muttered Colonel Muller, glancing at the proffered press card, “how did you get here so fast?”

  “I lucked out, I guess, sir. Flew down from our Johannesburg bureau on another assignment and—”

  “But why should Time magazine want to poke their noses into this as well? Why not stick to writing about clocks and watches, for Pete’s sake? They’re much nicer things than murders—and more useful, too.”

  “Pardon me, sir, it seems we have a communications failure. Time is a major news—”

  “No communications failure,” interrupted Colonel Muller, handing the card back. “I think I’ve communicated things quite clearly, young man: the answer is no—no exclusive interviews, no further information for the present.”

  Then he went into his office and closed the door firmly.

  Lieutenant Jones was waiting for him. “I’ve got something highly significant to show you, Colonel,” he said smugly, hugging a docket to his chest. “I hope you have no objection to me exercising a bit of initiative?”

  “Huh!” grunted Colonel Muller, seating himself at his desk and reaching for his pipe-cleaners. “What’ve you got there? Plane tickets to send all these bloody
reporters to bloody Timbuktu, I hope. I want them banned from the building.”

  “I’ll see to that in a sec, Colonel. But first, if it’s OK, I’ll explain how I’ve already made a breakthrough. Do you remember there was a story in the local paper not long ago, to the effect that Naomi Stride had agreed to settle out of court in a libel case? You know, when that person accused her of—”

  “No,” said Colonel Muller.

  “Well, anyway,” Jones hastened on, “I remembered there was some sort of statement made by her lawyer, and so I looked up the paper to see what his name was. When I’d got that, I went round to his offices, had a few words with the right person, and here, in this docket, is a photocopy of the deceased’s last will and testament. It will amaze you.”

  “No, never,” said Colonel Muller.

  But it did. The woman had been worth a million rand or more, made up partly of what her husband had left her, and partly of her own earnings as a best-selling writer.

  “Which isn’t counting,” Jones pointed out, “the royalty money her books will go on making, especially now there’ll be such good publicity. And do you see where it nearly all goes to?”

  “To the son.…”

  “That’s right, Colonel. I bet he’s happy, hey? The spoiled young bugger won’t need to put in another day’s work for the rest of his life.”

  Zondi glanced upwards. Another fat drop of rain fell, splashing on his cheek. He cursed softly under his breath, and then began to edge his way out of the hydrangea shrubs in which he’d been hiding, right below an open window to the living-room. A storm had been inevitable that afternoon after the heat earlier on, but it could have held off for half an hour or so; Theo Kennedy had only just started talking, and all he’d done so far was to declare himself as a white adult male, aged twenty-four, living at an address on the far side of town.

  Momentarily at a loss to know what to do next, Zondi sprinted round to the rear of the house and found shelter in the sun-lounge. He wasn’t the only one with this idea. A young Bantu constable from the local police station, brought in to guard the property against invasions by the press and other sensation-seekers, was standing just inside the sliding windows, wiping the rain from his face with a khaki handkerchief almost a metre square.