The Caterpillar Cop kaz-2

by James McClure

  Pembrook yelled back: “Staring oo izzle!”

  So the car slithered to a halt for Pete to display his expertise by getting the top up in one minute flat.

  “Bloody quiet, isn’t it?” Pete said as he drove on.

  “Yes, pity about the rain-I was enjoying that.”

  “You were? Great! Fantastic!”

  “Buy this yourself?”

  “Parents did.”

  Imagine that, enough moola lying around to pay Pembrook’s salary for two years-or his old man’s pension for six, come to think of it. Some people…

  “I’ll have to get a radio,” Pete said. “Helps keep you awake on these straight stretches. What were you doing over at the Trubshaws’? Sally gone and done something naughty at last?”

  “You know her, then?”

  “Oh, sure. Had a pash for her big sister once.”

  “And was she?”

  “What?”

  “Passionate, too?”

  “Never got the chance to find out. That father of hers is a right bastard. Met her at Trubshaws’ one school holiday, you see, just before term. So when I got back to Durban, I whipped up to see her in the old jalopy. Man!”

  “Shall I light you one?”

  “Thanks. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I chickened out the second time he caught me bringing her back late. I was expecting a bit of a sesh, not the bloody Riot Act. Christ, and who does he think he is, the bastard?”

  “Here you are.”

  “Smoke Texan and-hey, it isn’t him, is it?”

  “Who?”

  “ Captain Jarvis-the one that’s in trouble with you chaps?”

  “Hell, no! The family are just providing background to a case.”

  “Pity.”

  “Uhuh?” More than colds were catching.

  “Well, he could come down a peg or two. He isn’t what he makes himself out to be, not by a long chalk. You should hear his ma-in-law, Granny Trubshaw, go on about him to my old lady. In the first place, that’s only a wartime commission he’s got. You can’t blame the regulars who finished up captain or major or colonel from hanging on to their rank, I mean it’s like calling yourself ‘doctor’ after years of hard graft. But our friend Jarvis was just a manager on a rubber plantation in Malaya until the Japs came. Whoever was in charge gave him some Malayan soldiers to boss around and that was how it happened.”

  “Did the Japs catch him?”

  “POW for a year-then he escaped.”

  “I thought that was impossible.”

  “You’re not the only one, my friend; Granny Trubshaw always avoids that part of the story. My dad-he was real army-has been heard to mutter dark things.”

  “Like?”

  “A bit of the old collab, with the enemy, y’know. Wouldn’t put it past him either, not after the streak of cruelty he dished me out with!”

  Pembrook laughed.

  “He could have you for slander, man. But what happened after the war?”

  “Usual thing with his type; bummed his way around the disappearing Empire, complaining the wogs weren’t grateful and they forgot to put ice in his drinks. Had a go at being DC-district commissioner-up in Kenya, spent a bit of time as a police chief somewhere else. I don’t remember it all. Then got his windfall-old biddy died in England leaving him thousands-and came down here to have his brandy the way he liked it.”

  “But why not go back to England? I hear his house-”

  “Servants? Tax? He wouldn’t recognize an Englishman today, I can tell you-I’ve been there.”

  “Why-how, I mean-did the Trubshaws get involved in this?”

  “Sylvia married him because he was the only white lay within forty miles-that’s what my old man says. Granny Trubshaw says she even tried to get a witch doctor to stop it!”

  “No, really?”

  “Of course not. But I’ll bet she spent some nights on her knees. Our Sylvia’s quite a girl on her own account-another of the old man’s dark hints, but he’s past it. Much younger than the Captain, of course, and not bad. Sure she gave me the eye once, while they were up here.”

  “You mean she…?”

  “Good God, no! Sylvia’s bloody petrified of him, everyone will tell you that; sometimes gets on her ear at parties and wham! confined to barracks. Forty days bread and water. None of the old slap and tickle either.”

  “You’re bulling me,” Pembrook chortled. “From what I’ve heard of the bloke, it could’ve happened between them only twice.”

  “You could have something there,” Pete replied.

  Then he suggested breaking the journey at Vryheid for a few beers. Pembrook, calculating he would still be back in the office before midnight, offered to pay for them.

  This time Lisbet had eaten and stacked the washing-up ready for the girl without waiting for Kramer. And she answered the door with curlers in her hair and brown muck all over her face.

  “Sabona umfazi, epi lo missus?” Kramer inquired in his best Kitchen kaffir.

  “Ha ha,” she said. “You’re late.”

  “Didn’t say I was coming. Got any plonk left?”

  He went straight through to the living room and opened the drink cabinet.

  “Want one?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “ Ach, nothing. Take what you want.”

  “Thanks.”

  Something was very wrong. Lisbet was moving edgily around the room like a cat at the vet’s.

  “Okay if I leave kissing you hello till later?” he said.

  Lisbet ignored the remark. She sat down cross-legged plumb in the middle of the sofa, leaving too little room either side. Which meant Kramer had to drag over a stool to be near her.

  “Where have you been, Trompie?”

  “Seeing the biggest Jarvis girl. Man, now I’ve really got problems.”

  And he listed, briefly, all that had been said. Then took it point by point.

  Caroline did smoke the odd Texan; smoking was permitted, she thought, because her father liked to have some moral support considering the number he got through in a day. Caroline had used, and still used, Tasty Tangerine lipstick because the color was fashionable among teenagers. So if Boetie had tried to identify the smoker of a Texan stub smeared with Tasty Tangerine, she was the obvious choice in that household. Her mother, for example, occasionally took a puff, but wore magenta lipstick. Furthermore, Boetie had been poking about in Caroline’s dressing table, where her cosmetics were kept.

  Clarification had also been brought to the question of the sock in the bed-more than likely it had come off with the trousers; and the Captain saying Boetie had never addressed him: it was Caroline’s belief the boy failed to get a word in edgewise when given his marching orders after the social gaffe. Nobody had ever succeeded in interrupting her father on such an occasion. Jarvis had verified this supposition as Kramer left.

  From there on in, however, contradiction repeatedly banged together the halves of the brain, as what Boetie believed to be true collided with the actual truth of Caroline’s admissions. The only resort was to concentrate initially on the one other common factor involved.

  Boetie had written down the words “sitting on him” and had used them again, in substance, on Caroline. Clearly this made her the subject of his incomplete sentence; demonstrably, she was not. The conclusion had to be that Boetie saw someone sitting on Andrew at the bath, but not Caroline.

  “ Who, then?” Lisbet asked, momentarily upsetting the air of cool formality into which they had retreated.

  Kramer shook his head.

  “Funnily enough,” he said, “that’s not the question I’m most interested in at this moment. I want to know how Boetie, who was a smart cookie, made such a mistake. It would have been different if this was all based on one quick look-but he spent a month poking round Rosebank Road. Perhaps the best thing is to put ourselves in his shoes: start where he thinks he has seen Caroline doing something to Andy that ends up
in a drowning. His proof of her being there is the cigarette stub he finds in one of those oyster shell ashtrays. Now he needs to discover the motive. He asks himself was the girl, Caroline, doing it with him? Sex is an obvious line to take.”

  “Then we know he spent a month on it, don’t we? Caroline had nothing to do with Andy-apart from the bed incident she’s told you about-so there was nothing for him to find. In fact, he could have spent longer if it hadn’t been for what happened to him.”

  “Very nice, Lisbet. I’m Boetie and I’ve spent a month getting nowhere-what do I try next? The old technique us blokes use: clobber the suspect with the knowledge you have and see what happens. He made his bid with this talk about fighting.”

  “All he got was the reaction any decent girl would have given him.”

  “Can he be sure?”

  “No, but three days later he’s dead.”

  “Naturally, if Caroline couldn’t understand what he meant, somebody else could-and they took steps to make sure he kept it to himself for good.”

  “That makes sense of it all!”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Kramer said, going over to refill his glass. “Firstly, why the hell did he persist for so long in thinking it was Caroline when he couldn’t find any evidence? The light couldn’t have been that good by the bath.”

  “I’ll have a sherry, after all. What did you say? Oh, I suppose Boetie just couldn’t think of an alternative.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know of any other girl to pick on.”

  “Logical enough, but then we come to the really crazy part of his thinking. He said Caroline had nothing on when she was with Andy and that she was fighting him! Is that what any other boy would have thought? Come on, you’re supposed to be the psychologist around here.”

  Lisbet took her glass from him carelessly, spilling some on a cushion and not noticing.

  “After last night, that’s a funny question.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “It’s a commonly known fact that a child can mistake the act of intercourse for an act of violence. Some kids are scarred for life because they think they’ve seen pa knocking the hell out of ma.”

  “Christ, you can be sick.”

  “It’s true!”

  “I don’t doubt that-it’s the reference to last night I don’t think is funny.”

  “What about this afternoon, then?”

  Kramer stared at Lisbet, aware for the first time that she had been drinking before his arrival. She was slurring her words. His stomach hollowed out with foreboding.

  “You tell me,” he challenged.

  “Have a nice lunch with your mistress? I know all about her-and how you’ve been double-crossing me, you bastard. I suppose she badly needed a rest.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Don’t ask me who, because I won’t tell you. Anyway, you should know by now that Trekkersburg is a small place when it comes to this sort of thing. They say you had her down three solid hours.”

  “I’ll-that isn’t true!”

  “You weren’t in the tea shop at one?”

  “Only to tell her about you and me.”

  “I bet.”

  “Don’t you believe me, Lisbet?”

  “Course I do, lover boy! You told her all about me and my supple young body and made the old bag so jealous she took you and-”

  “What the hell do you think I am?”

  They were both on their feet and Kramer close to becoming his own customer.

  “To be frank-my, look at those wrinkles! — a dirty old man.”

  “Like your father?”

  Lisbet slapped him across the throat, being that much shorter. Another glass went to waste. Then she froze.

  “The eyes in the mirror,” Lisbet whispered.

  “You’re pissed.”

  Giggling, she collapsed back on the sofa, letting her skirt ride right up.

  “My father image. Don’t argue, I’m the psychologist around here. And don’t go-your little girlie wants tickle-ickles!”

  “Miss Louw,” said Kramer, “I’d like to help, but incest is an indictable offense. Sorry, but you understand.”

  The ward into which Argyle Mslope had been moved was foul with the smell of a soiled bed. Zondi had asked him about it, astonished by such laxity.

  “I regret that the staff nurse…” Argyle was a man who evaded speaking ill of his betters.

  “Mbeta? The one who talks like a white churchwoman?”

  Argyle found the description so apt that he laughed out loud and so did his neighbor, a factory worker minus a leg. It was he who explained to Zondi that Staff Nurse Mbeta was far more concerned about the welfare of the doctors than the patients. Right at that moment she would be trimming the crusts off tomato sandwiches for the houseman to enjoy in the duty room. Unless there was a critical case, the chances were he would no more than glance into the ward. Staff Nurse Mbeta could be totally engaging.

  “Where are the ordinary nurses, though?” Zondi asked.

  “Very few at night,” said the neighbor. “The staff nurse calls them from the other ward if she needs help.”

  Zondi squeezed his way between the beds and went into the passage, intending to have a word with the slut. But, from what he could overhear, the houseman must have arrived early and that required a change of plan. He stood undecided for only as long as it took him to spot a wheeled stretcher left abandoned outside an operating room while its former occupant was inside being hurriedly stitched together. He carefully lifted from it a sheet.

  The factory worker and Argyle saw him return with it and go to a patient near the door who was sonorously asleep. Zondi spread the sheet over the one already covering the bed, tucking it in all around in the approved fashion.

  “Good night, my friends,” said Zondi. “You tell me tomorrow what happens.”

  And he made for the ground floor. Relishing every step of the way the severity of the shock awaiting Staff Nurse Mbeta when the horrified houseman pointed to a man apparently bleeding to death by the bucketful. That borrowed sheet had received a spectacular soaking.

  Kramer induced catharsis by imagining, in excruciating detail, just what he would do to the bandy-legged-yellow-faced-apparition-of-a-pox-struck-whore who had lost him Lisbet. It almost made his fingers ache.

  This gave him back his reason and he had to concede that perhaps it was all just as well: the girl was sick-he should have realized that when everything happened too quickly, like in banned books. Someone had simply done him a favor for the wrong reason. He would leave it at that.

  A couple of blocks further on, he was still thinking about her-now in the strictly business sense of her observations with regard to Boetie’s insistence he had witnessed fighting. It was a great pity they had not first finished that part of the conversation because she knew a lot about the twelve-year-old mind. He seldom, if ever, came across one.

  The Chev knew otherwise. Without any conscious direction from him, it turned off at the next traffic lights and took the road leading to Hibiscus Court.

  “Well, I’m buggered!” Kramer exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of Marie before?”

  But the Widow Fourie had a disappointment in store for him: all four of her children, including Marie, were long since asleep. She caught hold of his sleeve and inquired very gently if this was not, perhaps, merely an excuse he dreamed up to explain his visit. And reminded him that she had never required excuses on previous occasions.

  Kramer hesitated a moment before stepping inside. At least here was the mother of a twelve-year-old and, as such, she might know something useful. He was also able to lay before her all the salient facts relating to Boetie without fear of his confidence being betrayed.

  Afterwards, she made coffee and brought through bone-dry rusks to dip in it.

  “If you want my opinion,” she said, “then I don’t think what Marie might make of two naked people rolling about would help much. I’ve always been very straig
ht with her in these matters. She’d know like a shot. But from what you tell me about Boetie and his background, I can see he might not be so well informed. His parents sound the sort who’d run a mile before they’d say the word ‘sex.’ They wouldn’t have any juicy books in the house either-and you said he didn’t seem to understand dirty jokes.”

  “I know, I know,” answered Kramer, dunking his rusk with enjoyment. “Yet it still seems impossible he could not have guessed. It is out of character for him to be so certain of something if he had any doubts.”

  “Maybe he did ask someone then-and got the wrong answer. A schoolmate, perhaps. Some of these kids have the craziest theories.”

  “He wouldn’t have placed his faith in someone his own age.”

  “Who could he ask, then? Some other adult he knew? Can you think of anyone, Trompie?”

  “Hey, how about the Dominee?”

  “Ring him and find out.”

  Kramer did just that.

  And came back from the phone to dance a small jig with the Widow Fourie. She pulled him down with her into an armchair.

  “Come on, Trompie! Tell me what he said!”

  “He invited me to the funeral tomorrow afternoon-the whole school’s going to be there. The cadets from the high school are going to fire a salute.”

  She punched him in the stomach.

  “Talk! Or there’ll be trouble!”

  It was a bloody hard punch, too.

  “A whole load of humming and hawing to start with and then he admitted that about three weeks ago Boetie had come to him to ask about the birds and the bees. Seems he’s quite accustomed to these requests. Anyway, he took Boetie through it all from start to finish-ovaries, little seeds with tails, the lot. Then the Dominee pulled up short again and I had to work hard on getting the rest out of him. You could see it was the sex killing behind his worries.”

  “Go on!”

  With a right jab like that they could do with her on the squad.

  “Seems Boetie shocked the good man by asking him exactly in what position it was done. He had to do a drawing which he assures me he burned afterwards.”

  “How sweet.”

  “Wait for it. Boetie then, and I quote, ‘asked me a very strange question about the female taking the dominant position. Was this possible?’ That’s when the Dominee got very excited on the phone and said, ‘I soon put him right about that! What could have put such a diabolical and absurd idea into his head?’ ”