The Blood of an Englishman

by James McClure

  Bradshaw came back in at that moment, carrying the tray so awkwardly that she hastened across to help him.

  “Thanks,” he said. “And thanks also for what you’ve just done to me. They’ll think I’m a proper old fool now.”

  “Do you realize,” flared Kramer, “that if we’d known this bastard had said, ‘You’re my first,’ then people could have been warned—Bonzo Hookham could be alive now?”

  “Hold on,” said Colonel Muller, grabbing his elbow. “That remark could fit a maniac doing it once and once only! He didn’t say, You’re the first.”

  “He’s done it twice, that’s all that I know!”

  “But how could we have—?” asked Colonel Muller.

  “My pattern was there from the night of the bloody social,” Kramer retorted. “But not having Hookham’s death to throw attention on—” True, there was nothing he could have done.

  Bradshaw slapped his good hand down hard on the desk top. “I’ve had enough of this!” he said. “Will you stop going on about that pattern? Even if I did hear a foreign accent—and I’m not bloody swearing to that in a statement even now!—who is to say that telephone call wasn’t genuine?”

  Kramer started for the door. There was something he could do about Ernie Wilson though, provided he hadn’t already wasted too much time.

  “Hey, wait for me, Lieutenant!” ordered Colonel Muller. “Now don’t worry,” he said quickly to the Bradshaws, patting Mrs. Bradshaw on the bare forearm. “You’re quite safe with young Schoeman to look after you, and, anyway, I personally feel there’s been no need for all this shouting. If you’d never been in the RAF, Mr. Bradshaw, the only ‘link’ would be the link there is already in the bullets—namely the link created with the killer when he turned his gun on you. Okay?”

  “Oh thank you,” said Mrs. Bradshaw, who had become a little tearful. “If I thought I could have prevented.…”

  “No, no, I’m sure you’ll find it’s my theory that proves right in the end,” added Colonel Muller, risking a reassuring wink. “Just give it a few days and you’ll see.”

  Zondi waited anxiously in the passageway beneath the stairs that led up to Colonel Muller’s office. The silence in the car all the way back from Kitchener Row had been deafening; it had pressed in on his eardrums until his brain had been fit to burst with wild speculation. One thing had been tacitly obvious, and this was that the Lieutenant and Colonel Muller had emerged from the Bradshaw house at complete loggerheads with one another. Given the Lieutenant’s present mood, which was as difficult to deal with as a friend infatuated by obviously the wrong woman, he could only hope that the outcome would not be too difficult to live with. Once or twice the Lieutenant had spoken of resigning, usually in situations like this one, and his streak of stubbornness might carry him over the brink this time. If the Lieutenant left the force, life would be—Zondi stopped thinking, lit a cigarette, and started to pace again.

  17

  “COMING?” SAID KRAMER, reaching the foot of the stairs. “Or have you better things to do?”

  Zondi fell in step with him, and they crossed the hall of the CID building together, took the steps down into Boomplaas Street and turned towards the vehicle park.

  “He’s given me one last chance, Mickey.”

  “To prove your theory is right, boss?”

  “He wasn’t so specific,” said Kramer, tossing over the car keys. “But I tell you my theory is right, and with a little luck I’m going to prove that to him tonight!”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I can’t be—that’s where the luck comes in. But the way I read it, the heat’s on now and this crazy bugger could be rushing to finish the job and get away before—as he thinks—the pattern becomes clear to us.”

  “The pattern, boss?”

  “The link between these bomber blokes. He’s had a go at Bradshaw and at Hookham, that leaves ex-Squadron Leader Ernest Wilson for the chop.”

  “We are being sent to warn this Boss Wilson?”

  “To protect him, Mickey,” said Kramer, waiting at his car door for it to be unlocked. “And, of course, to bring this bastard in if he shows up.”

  “Just you and me?” asked Zondi, surprised.

  “If you’re wondering where the rest of the police force has got to, they’re up to their necks in skipping ropes, bits of fluff and horse manure. Head out of town along the Ladysmith road.”

  After fifteen minutes of hard driving, Kramer noticed that Zondi had slyly adjusted his rear-view mirror so that he could study his face. “What’s on your mind, kaffir? Besides all those nice nieces you’re missing out on?”

  “Are you David, Lieutenant, that you are sent all by yourself to fight a giant?”

  Kramer grinned. “So you’re not just an ugly face,” he said.

  “I’ve decided that Tromp needs a bit of a hand,” Colonel Muller told Lieutenant Frans de Klerk of the Housebreaking Squad, after calling him into his office. “He has been overdoing things lately in every sense of the word. It isn’t just the hours he puts in, but the effect this strain is having on his police-public relationships at certain sensitive levels. Only a few hours ago, for example, he went to town on a very lovely lady, and I think there is every chance that her husband will be sending in a written complaint.”

  “Oh ja?” said De Klerk, whose sole vice was his elusive prurience. “Anything I can do to straighten something out between us and this lovely lady?” He winked.

  “No, I’ve seen to that personally, thanks,” said Colonel Muller, reassured by the wink that De Klerk was prepared to be discreet. “What’s happening is this: I’m putting Warrant Officer Oppenheimer in charge of Housebreaking for a while, and I’m transferring you to Murder and Robbery on a temporary basis. I’m not asking you to take on more than one job, mark you! Your role is to be clear-cut and circumscribed.”

  “Ouch!” said De Klerk, crossing his legs and squirming. “Actually speaking, wouldn’t Solly Oppenheimer be better equipped for the job, sir?”

  Such modesty pleased Colonel Muller. “Let me be the judge of the best man to second to this investigation,” he said. “I’ve been watching you closely for some time, De Klerk, and I have yet to catch you out even once.”

  “It’s my lightning-fast zip, Colonel!”

  “It’s more than your zip, De Klerk—it’s the way you handle yourself. And don’t try smiling as if I don’t know what I’m talking about, because the statistics are there for all the world to see: a full three per cent rise in the detection rate for house-breakings since you took over. Now I want to apply that same eye for detail, that same love of hard facts, to the Bradshaw-Hookham case.”

  “Hell, you mean I’m to work on a major investigation? Not just fill in on the more minor—”

  “Now perhaps you see why I’m keeping you from the bosom of your family at this hour!”

  De Klerk quite forgot himself, missed a cue and said eagerly, “When do I start, Colonel?”

  “Right away,” replied Colonel Muller, nodding at the piles of reports in front of him. “I’ll give you a rough idea of the situation, and then Tromp can brief you fully in the morning, once he has had time to have a decent sleep for a change and has got rid of a stupid obsession of his.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean that I’ve sent Tromp back to that boarding house where he lives, with strict instructions to forget about squadron leaders, bombs, vendettas and all the rest of it. He’s to have two brandies, a hot bath and—”

  “But I thought I saw him and that Zondi—”

  “Correct,” said Colonel Muller. “I told Tromp to get Zondi off the premises as well, and to dump him down somewhere he can start nailing one Banjo Nyembezi. Shall we make a start now?”

  It was one of those all-night service stations that could no longer sell petrol after five because of the government’s Save Fuel policy, but the café attached to it was open for business. Kramer directed Zondi to park on the café forecourt, where they
made a careful check on who was about.

  A large and obviously farming family from the Orange Free State sat at four tables in the café, waiting for their food to be served. Over against the juke box, moodily twisting paper straws, slumped a hitch-hiker with the Israeli flag on his haversack, looking as though he wished he’d never wandered. The only other customer, a hefty, fair-haired man in a bush shirt, sat with his back to the road, dividing his attention between his newspapers, his cup of coffee, the clock on the far wall, and the pair of telephone booths halfway between the side entrance to the café and the petrol pumps. If Kramer remembered correctly, the café had a big-busted, black-haired manageress with a sultry appeal, so presumably a fifth reference point might be added to these at any moment.

  “All is quiet,” repeated Zondi.

  “If you want to back out, Mickey, I won’t think any the less, hey? I could be putting your head right in a noose if I’m wrong about all this, and the Colonel finds out where we’ve been tonight. I’m not guaranteeing this bloke will show, although it does stand to reason.”

  “You could be putting my head right in a coffin if you’re not wrong about all this, boss!” said Zondi. “So now you know the meaning of Black Man’s Choice, which is a saying among my—”

  “Bullshit!” said Kramer, and they both laughed. “All right, so you want to be stubborn. Let me give you a quick run-down. Do you see the dirt road going off down the side here?”

  “Check.”

  “Only about four hundred yards along it is Ernie Wilson’s smallholding. I’ve seen the layout dozens of times, because it’s that place you glimpse as you’re traveling towards Trekkersburg round that top bend back there, and—”

  “One shed,” said Zondi, confidently. “One garage, two thatched rondavels, one with a lean-to kitchen—he must sleep in the other hut. Also a chicken run.”

  “Check,” confirmed Kramer. “What is strategically on our side then?”

  “No trees, hedges or bushes, boss. The homestead is almost totally exposed.”

  “Not easy for a ‘giant’ to approach unnoticed, would you say?”

  Zondi smiled. “Not easy for anyone, Lieutenant—except, perhaps, a small dark man.” He was right out ahead.

  “Good, you’ve got the picture, Mickey. The only place for me to hide is in the main hut with Wilson. That’s fine, it’ll give us odds of two against one, but the essential thing is we get warning of his attack. When did you last—?”

  “Share a perch with a chicken, boss?”

  “Ach no! But there must be an irrigation ditch or something you can get into. I’ll go now and you can follow five minutes after.”

  Zondi stroked his chin. “How do you know this person isn’t already at this place, boss?”

  “Because I’ve checked on all the cars here, and they’re accounted for by the people we can see sitting around. My bet is that this is where he’ll leave his own vehicle, because any car or truck stopping near Wilson’s small-holding at night is bound to attract his attention. Any more objections?”

  “One more question, Lieutenant. How long are we going to lie in wait? If there is so much doubt about—”

  “Not too long, I hope! See you, old son, and keep your fingers crossed.”

  Then Kramer was gone, striding away through the slant of shadow thrown by the big truck abandoned under the KWIK SNAX sign, and without anyone in the café noticing a thing.

  The two Zulu waiters appeared, heavily laden with fried eggs, salad and rump steak. They served the family from the Free State and stood back in polite astonishment while a white-bearded patriarch first said Grace. The hitch-hiker unfolded a limp road map, yawned, and looked at the clock. The fair-haired man with big shoulders looked away from the clock, down at his newspaper, and then out at the pair of telephone booths, which were flimsy affairs standing side by side. He ordered another coffee.

  Zondi looked at the clock. Sixty seconds.

  If only he still shared that feeling with the Lieutenant which placed the RAF at the heart of this mystery. But it had been crushed out of him by the weight of too many assumptions, and every atom of his being was convinced that no killer would appear that or any other evening at Ernie Wilson’s smallholding. Even so, when the time came, Zondi opened his car door and stepped out, closing it again quietly.

  Colonel Muller washed his face and hands, dried them thoroughly and returned refreshed to his office, where he had left De Klerk sorting out the various reports on his desk. They were already in a number of smaller piles, clearly arranged according to some rather clever system.

  “You’ve been amusing yourself, I see!” he said heartily. “That’s the style, Frans—just carry on and don’t mind me.”

  “Sorry?” said De Klerk, cupping a hand behind his ear.

  Colonel Muller smiled indulgently. “Didn’t catch what I said? There’s concentration for you! I must say you picked up the main points of the case remarkably quickly, and as soon as—”

  “Sir?” said Detective Sergeant Bateman from the doorway.

  “Ja, what is it, man? Lieutenant De Klerk and I are—”

  “There’s just been this weird phone call, Colonel. It came in on the duty officer’s phone a minute ago, and I thought that in the light of—”

  “Out with it, Bateman!”

  The detective sergeant took a pace into the office. “Er, it was this bloke with a strange sort of accent, Colonel. He asked if this was the CID, then all he said was, ‘Don’t worry, I get my third and last tonight, then I’ll be happy.’ ”

  Colonel Muller looked at De Klerk, who snatched up a pad and pencil.

  “Have you any idea where the person was ringing from?” asked De Klerk, quickly copying down the message. “Private line or call box?”

  “Call box, sir, but it was all over too fast for me to—”

  “That’s all right, Bateman,” said Colonel Muller, cutting him short. “The fact he said ‘get’ and not ‘got’ is the vital part. We’d better get some men out there fast, Frans—where do you think would be our best bet to stop something happening?”

  De Klerk hesitated for only a moment before placing his finger on the wall map, and then describing a tight circle around the area where Archibald Meredith Bradshaw had been shot.

  “I agree,” said Colonel Muller. “I’ll start by telling the Six Valleys patrol to hurtle down there, and then we’ll have Uniform and dogs seal off the entire racecourse. Let’s hope our guess is good and we’re in time, hey?”

  Former Squadron Leader Ernest John Wilson was not the easiest of men to convince that his life could be in mortal danger. He sat in open-toed sandals in a deckchair, sipping rather than smoking his briar pipe, and now and again he wiggled his gray mustache from side to side like a mildly astonished rabbit.

  There was quite a lot of rabbit in Wilson, Kramer had decided, if the old bugger’s main rondavel was anything to go by. He had filled it with so many books, articles of unused furniture, magazines, bags of fertilizer, cardboard boxes, fencing poles and egg trays that, in order to be able to move about, he’d had to burrow out a warren of narrow paths through which, by stepping sideways, a man could just fit. His deck-chair was placed to the rear of all this, in a small semicircle of uncluttered floor space. The wall above him was decorated with photographs, the one in the middle was a group portrait taken beneath the wing of a Lancaster bomber, while around it were a dozen or so snapshots of smiling women, some with modern hairstyles and others typical of the forties. This display served to encapsulate the paradoxical quality of the rabbit which also seemed to lurk within him: although his broad face was gentle, his manner charmingly vague, and his gaze so innocently steady, he could no doubt pack a nasty kick in those hind legs of his, and as for lady rabbits, well, they had a surprising lot of fun. But it was not an analogy to be taken to extremes, because as Kramer could see for himself, looking like a frightened rabbit just wasn’t Ernie Wilson’s style at all—and never would be.

  “Jolly
decent of you, old boy,” the veteran airman said to him, “popping out all this way to give me the gen. Like to offer you a spot of something—or must you dash?”

  “Nothing right now, thanks,” said Kramer. “I was wondering, sir, if we could move this cupboard across the window?”

  “Interesting,” murmured Wilson, relighting his pipe.

  “What is, sir?”

  “All this. What sparked it off?”

  “You mean the idea? The basis I’m working on? I thought I’d explained that already.”

  “Formed a notion of my own, y’know. Listening to you; turning things over in the old noggin. Weak link somewhere.”

  Kramer moved the cupboard, then started picking up the avalanche of things that had fallen off it. “I notice you don’t seem to keep a watchdog, Mr. Wilson.”

  “He left me, old boy. Not much to watch, I suppose—went off with a family of gadabouts he met up with at the garage.”

  “Where do you keep your gun?”

  “Good God, haven’t the foggiest. Somewhere under all that clobber, but I doubt anyone would ever find it. Can’t see old Bonzo upsetting a soul, y’know. Weak link that.”

  “Bradshaw reinforces it though!” retorted Kramer.

  “Poor old Bradders.… You do rather base everything on the sort of anti-feelings the chap produces in strangers. Touch of prejudice there.”

  “Not just my prejudice,” said Kramer, giving up his hunt for the gun and leaning against a wash-stand out of line of the door. “In fact the only thing most people like about that man is his nun joke.”

  Wilson wiggled his mustache. “There you go, you see! No attempt to get under the skin. Great friend of mine was in the same show—terrible business. Shot the lot of ’em bar Trigger Stevens and old Archie, who has the luck of the devil, y’know. Take what happened to him last week: if that’d been a few other chaps I know, wallop! a bullet straight through the head. Not easy to live with, that kind of luck, y’know. Keeps a fella wondering what the price will be.”