The Artful Egg

by James McClure

  Kramer nodded, and imagined them as both having the figures of prop forwards. “I’m surprised, though, Mr. Coates, you didn’t think of trying to marry her off to someone, hey? That would have got her off your hands and—”

  “Jesus Christ, don’t you think we tried that? I mean, it was two years since Gary’d passed on—”

  “Oh, she didn’t come straight down here from Zimbabwe, then?”

  “No, she stayed with friends after it happened—Gary had no family—and waited for Bruce to get compensation from the Government for the farm. Denis had left it in his will that the farm was to go to both his kids together, you see, which would have left each of them bloody well off. I can’t explain to you the whys, hows and wherefores, but those bastards never paid one cent, not one bloody cent to them. Mugabe’s lot had taken over, of course, and the place had been allocated as a cooperative or some rubbish for natives to turn to wreck and ruin. Well, I suppose Vicki’s friends got the hell out, the same as us, and so she asked if she could come down to us, as we were her only relatives. Bruce hung on, trying to get justice done. But, as you know, the Scouts got themselves quite a reputation for what they did to any terr they found, so he never stood a hope. He just had to give up in the end, and I’ve fixed him a job at a shoe factory here in town. It’s a scandal what’s happening in Zimbabwe over compensation: some get it, some can whistle in the wind. But I was telling you …?”

  “About marrying her off.”

  “Not a chance, not with her attitude. Nobody was good enough for her. I don’t know how often Madge tried to point out, really nicely, that a woman with a child already isn’t going to find herself another husband so easily, and she would have to lower her sights a little. Once, just once, we thought we’d pulled it off. A divorcee, well off, educated, loved books and plays same as she did, a bloke missing his own kiddies, who tried really hard to get Amanda to like him. But, no, that little madam would turn down her lip whenever he came near, and that was it! With Vicki, it was Amanda who did the choosing! Madge had a talk to her about this as well, and warned her the child was getting too spoiled for its own good. You know what she said to my wife? ‘Don’t worry about us, Auntie Madge. When Amanda and me see the right father for her, we’ll see that we get him for ourselves.’ ‘Then he better be rich!’ Madge told her, and she said: ‘Oh, I’ll see that he is.’ Because that was something else. Vicki had told me she’d be getting compensation from the farm, and so I lent her money for clothes, over and above the pocket money I was already giving her for free. It was never, never enough. This made it my turn to talk to her, and what she said took my breath right away—shit, it really did. She said: ‘Uncle Arthur, I was born to money, I grew up with money, and I will marry lots of money—then I’ll pay back the measly amounts you’re making such a fuss about.’ Marry? By this stage, she hadn’t got a chance in hell! Her reputation as a spoiled, snobby little bitch was too well known, and all the blokes were giving her a wide berth, I can tell you. Despite, I should add, she was so over-sexed—at least, on the outside—with the way she walked, acted bold as brass, that even my brother, who’s a Born Again Christian, came round three nights running when she first arrived.”

  “How did she leave?” asked Kramer, folding up the print-out and stowing it inside his jacket. “You just said you told her you’d had a gutsful?”

  Coates glanced at his intercom and then back at Kramer. “Have I your word this won’t go any further—you won’t take action or anything?”

  “Hell, that wouldn’t be playing the game, would it, Mr. Coates?”

  The black sergeant slapped his left hand with the handle of his rhino-hide whip, showing every sign of impatience with how the interview was proceeding.

  “Will you stop making that noise, hey?” complained the man with a pipe just like Sir Sherlock Holmes. “You’re interfering with my co-ordination.”

  “Sorry, Colonel, sir, but if you want this man to—”

  “Hasn’t he talked enough? My head is spinning! Now, like I say, give me a chance to look through all these notes I’ve made.”

  Ramjut Pillay was very grateful to him for intervening, as he had found the sight and sound of that whip a grave distraction for a fellow bent on making a full and complete confession. This was something he had dreaded doing, but now that it was over it was as though a great weight had been lifted from his poor shoulders.

  “You know something, Shabalala?”

  “What is that, Colonel, sir?”

  “I don’t know if we should believe one word of what this loony’s been telling us. You know when I rang the Post Office just now? They say this man must be an impostor. A Mr. Jarman there agrees that they have a postman called Peerswammy Lal, but he also says that this postman is out on his rounds at this very minute.”

  “Hau, Colonel!”

  “Moreover—”

  “But, with humble respect, sir, that is elementarily explained—I am Ramjut Pillay, never Peerswammy Lal!”

  “Look, how many times must we go through the same thing? You can’t be Ramjut Pillay, either, because you don’t fit his bloody description!”

  “Then the description is wrong, most gracious sir. There is a simple way of supplying proof.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You are merely presenting before me Detective Sergeant Zondi. He has great admiration for me and my many degrees of learning, which he will vouchsafe for upon his arrival.”

  “Oh ja, and you think that getting Zondi on the bloody radio is simple?” growled the man whose name, Ramjut Pillay had gathered, was Colonel Moola.

  Still a little stunned, Kramer related to Zondi everything he had been told by Arthur Coates, the uncle of Vicki Stilgoe and Bruce Newbury, Theo Kennedy’s new-found friends from next door.

  “And that’s something else, Mickey,” he said. “After Coates found she had been using his daughter’s credit cards, and got rid of her by putting her up in Azalea Mansions, she came back to him with a complaint. She said that being in an upstairs flat wasn’t safe for Amanda, and she wanted to change places with a tenant on the ground floor. She actually told him which flat—it was the one she’s in now—and made him move the people out and into her old one.”

  “Hau, boss!” said Zondi, just allowing the car to take whatever road it pleased. “She has a big, big cheek, that young madam! Why did this Boss Coates just do what she told him to? It is like she had some kind of blackmail to use.”

  Kramer nodded, lighting them each a Lucky. “My thought exactly, then I remembered him saying she was ‘over-sexed, at least on the outside’ and I had him then. It was obvious he’d made some pass at her, and had got her knee in his whats-it. Not that he’d admit it, but, Christ, I thought I’d have to give him mouth-to-mouth.”

  “Not nice, Lieutenant,” agreed Zondi, mirroring his expression of revulsion, and accepting the Lucky between his lips. “And so?”

  “Well, doesn’t it all add up, hey? Vicki gets kicked out, moves to Azalea Mansions, and Amanda finds herself this nice man downstairs, who’s often out mending his bloody ‘zebby car.’ Vicki hears whose son he is, and a plan starts to form. She gets herself moved down beside him, but keeps a low profile. She knows what her aunt says is true, she’s maybe not much of a catch with a kid, and perhaps she’s seen Liz Geldenhuys with Theo. Right, so the first thing she does is get rid of Liz. She pays a call to the shop, sizes her up—”

  “But how does she know she’s at the shop, boss?”

  “Ach, because she must have eavesdropped on them, or maybe Amanda met Liz and she told her. That part wouldn’t be difficult. She tries the game with the telephone, using her real ‘over-sexed’ way of speaking, and soon Liz isn’t coming round to the flat any more, so she knows this side of her plan has worked. Now she mustn’t allow Theo time to find another woman in his life, and so she has to work fast. My guess is that she sends for Bruce to do the dirty work—Jesus, you must’ve heard what a homicidal bunch of psychos those Selous Scout
s were—and boom-boom, he sticks the sword in Ma Stride, she kicks the bucket, and Vicki has the son at his most vulnerable.”

  Kramer smashed his fist into the dashboard, making Zondi glance across sharply.

  “Hau, what is the—?”

  “Who was it that threw the poor bastard into that bitch’s arms, hey? Who made it all so easy for her she must’ve been pissing herself with laughter behind his back?” Kramer hit the dashboard again, even harder. “You don’t know how I—”

  “But if this theory is all true, boss, she would have got Boss Theo without your help, just with the child going out to him, and her asking him round for a coffee maybe, like a neighbour at that time would.”

  “What do you mean by ‘this theory’? Can’t you see how everything fits, right down to her copying Liz Geldenhuys’s shy manner, guessing that quiet, shy ladies were Kennedy’s type? Later, of course, once she had the wedding ring on her finger, that could all change, but—”

  “And it also fits,” agreed Zondi, “that if she liked plays and books she would know how to use the Hamlet trick to make it look like some person at the University was behind the killing. But, boss, what I do not understand is why the brother would be willing to help her in—”

  “Ach, Mickey, I’m surprised at you!” said Kramer, sucking his knuckles. “He had bugger-all money but, if he did what his sister asked, soon she’d be married to a millionaire, man! Kennedy could be made to set him up, perhaps give him a partnership in Afro Arts if he was going to keep it—all sorts.”

  Zondi took a dual carriageway leading out of town. “And so,” he said with a long sigh, “although it pains us very much, we must admit that Lieutenant Jones was right at the very beginning. Mrs. Stride was killed for her money.”

  “Bastard! But it was also for her son—he was just as much a legacy, hey? Shocked out of his head, in a bad dream, clutching onto a kid with big dimples, clutching her bitch mother, too, thinking God was trying to say sorry for what—”

  “Boss, boss, boss,” Zondi remonstrated quietly, “you are hitting yourself with a stick that has not yet grown from the seed.”

  “What else do we have to work out? It’s all as—”

  “We still do not know the big ‘how’ concerning Boss Kennedy and his mother being overheard.”

  “Bruce was up on the balcony.”

  “No, boss, you said he was inside, getting a bandage.”

  “Vicki eavesdropped when she came out to—”

  “No, boss, they spoke of working late after that.”

  “Then, I don’t know how, old son. But I do know who and bloody why, and I’m going to nail those two bastards, somehow or other—and quick.”

  “Quick will be—”

  “Bloody Jones,” grunted Kramer, flicking his cigarette out of the car window, half-smoked. “What makes it worse is that, if I’d used my head, I would have caught on to all this a lot sooner. Christ, it was staring me in the face—literally!”

  “Boss?”

  “A look in her eyes, Mickey. Twice I got it, and it sent a bloody tingle right down to my—Jesus, a hell of a look, I can tell you. My mistake was getting it mixed up with flirting, with that special sort of laughing look that makes you feel the hunter and that the woman is your prey. Have you any idea of what I mean?”

  Zondi, who seemed to be concentrating unnecessarily hard on an open stretch of road, nodded very slightly.

  “But, of course, the look meant I was the hunter that my real prey was playing games with, running circles around, only I didn’t realise it! Why the laugh?”

  “Oh, nothing, Lieutenant,” said Zondi. “Boss, to change the subject a little, how are you going to catch these two quick? It is still all theory that has to be tested before an arrest can be made.”

  “Then we’ll just have to think of a quick test, hey?”

  “Maybe I have done so, boss.…”

  “Then, why the hell are we—?”

  Zondi grinned. “It’s all right, we are already travelling in the right direction. Have you not noticed which road this is?” Tims Shabalala brought the car to a halt at the entrance to Trekkersburg General Hospital and Colonel Muller got out, carrying with him the sheaf of very confusing notes he had made during his interview with the mental patient known for administrative purposes as Peerswammy Lal.

  His temper was hardly improved by having to wait at the reception counter for someone to notice him, and he spoke very sharply to the woman who eventually came up and said, “What?”

  But things improved a great deal almost immediately after that, when a very pretty young nurse arrived in no time at all to show him up to Lieutenant Jones’s ward on the sixth floor.

  “Tell me, how is the Lieutenant this morning, miss?” Colonel Muller asked in the lift. “Has he got enough blood now?”

  “Still a little pale, and not very cheerful, I’m afraid, Colonel.”

  “But Jones is usually like that, hey? Maybe the doctors ought to know.”

  “I’ll see that I tell them. By the way, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but Sister insists you’re not with him for too long. You seem to have an awful lot of things with you to show him.”

  “Ach, no, he doesn’t have to go through all of it. I just want to try to find out exactly what he was hoping to get from a certain Peerswammy Lal. There could be a mix-up of suspects’ identities, you see, and perhaps I’m really supposed to be talking to a postman.”

  The nurse looked up at the floor-indicator lights. “Almost there,” she said. “When you come out of the lift, you’ll find Lieutenant Jones in a side ward on the right, two doors down.”

  “Ta, and thanks very much, hey?” said Colonel Muller, raising his hat gallantly to her as he backed out of the lift into a food-trolley.

  “Oops, that was nearly your pipe broken!” she said, picking it up for him. “You won’t smoke in here, will you? Sister’s terribly strict about that.”

  “No, I promise not to light it,” said Colonel Muller. “Many thanks again.…”

  Then he went to the second door down, and peered in. Something like an Egyptian mummy turned to look at him from the bed. It made Colonel Muller think of a very bad film he had once seen, filled with screaming women and police inspectors he would not have given two cents for to have on his staff.

  “Morning, Jacob. All right if I come in?”

  Jones nodded.

  “Well, it’s good to see you awake anyway,” said the Colonel, moving a chair over to his bedside. “And they tell me Mbopa was discharged from Peacevale Hospital late last night, which you will be glad to hear. What I have to query you on won’t take long. My, these are nice arum lilies, hey? Who sent them to you?”

  “My ma, Colonel.”

  “Are the chocolates from her, too?”

  “My landlady, Colonel, but they say I can’t have any yet. Would you like one?”

  Colonel Muller glanced at them, conscious of Mrs. Muller’s view of grown men who spoiled their figures with too much sugar, and shook his head. Then he noticed another present, just behind the chocolate box.

  “Now, that’s very pretty! Who sent you the yellow rose?”

  “Just arrived, before I woke up.”

  “But who’s it from?”

  “Can’t reach, Colonel.”

  “Ach, then I’ll read the card for you—just a sec.”

  There was a clatter, which left Colonel Muller’s new pipe snapped in two where the black plastic mouthpiece met the briar of the stem.

  “Colonel, sir! What’s the matter? What does it say?”

  The get-well card had only two words written inside it:

  Love, Gagonk.

  19

  SIMON AND GARFUNKEL were once again building a Bridge over Troubled Waters when Zondi nosed the car up behind the zebra-striped Land-Rover at Azalea Mansions. All that could be seen of Bruce Newbury was a pair of feet sticking out from under the grey Ford pick-up. Nobody else was about.

  “Bang goes half our
script,” murmured Kramer. “But tell me, Mickey, where did you get this crazy idea from?”

  “Act II, scene ii, boss.”

  “Ja, I bloody thought as much. You ready?”

  “Almost, Lieutenant.” So saying, Zondi took a pin from his lapel, drew its point hard across the back of his left hand, and then slapped the scratch it had made. “One more minute, and it will look very very serious.…”

  “Uh-huh, that’s a neat trick.”

  “Long, long ago, I worked three months at the city hall. There was a big wrestling match every Friday night. The wrestlers would put a pin in their towel and cut their foreheads before the last round. The other man knew this, and would hit them there. Then the blood would come and the crowd would go mad.”