The Steam Pig

by James McClure

  “I asked her that, sir. She said there had never been any mention of one but she had the impression her customer came from somewhere in the Cape.”

  “If she knew all this, why didn’t she come to us then?”

  “That was it, sir. She said she didn’t know about the report in the Gazette. She was quite surprised when I told her.”

  “Then what in God’s name was she doing in Abbott’s place?”

  “Well, she said she was just passing and had seen the funeral notice and couldn’t help wondering why a young girl like that had passed away so sudden. Those are her words, sir—they’re here in my notebook.”

  “Go on, Willie.”

  The familiarity heartened Van Niekerk.

  “So she just nipped in and tried to chat up Georgie. You know what old women are.”

  “She was an old woman then?”

  “Oh, yes, a nice old girl—about sixty-five, you know.”

  “Uhuh. Tell me, did she seem at all—er, frightened of speaking to you? Why do you hesitate?”

  “Because it’s difficult to say. People are funny when they talk to police. I’d say no more nervous than usual.”

  “Good. Then it seems you did a very good job. But I’d still like a word with her, might be something else I could get.”

  “Of course, sir, she gave me her name and address. A Mrs Johnson. Gladys Johnson.”

  “Fine—and where does she live?”

  “One-six-nine Biddulph Street.”

  Van Niekerk crossed confidently to the map and ran his finger along Biddulph Street to where one-six-nine was marked. Zondi took one glance and discreetly left the room.

  For, according to the map, Mrs Gladys Johnson was the old woman who lived in a shoe factory.

  10

  AS IT HAPPENED, there was no need for Kramer to say anything. Van Niekerk said it all, out aloud to himself, over and over again.

  “So she lied to you,” Kramer interrupted.

  “The bitch.”

  “Cut it out now, Sergeant. I want to get after her while there’s a chance. She didn’t lie to you anyway, she lied to us—the force. Why?”

  This stopped Van Niekerk taking ridiculous punches at the wall.

  “Well, because she was trying to hide something. Cover up a connection with the girl.”

  “Right. What gets me is this address she cooked up. How did she come out with it? Did she stutter or anything?”

  Van Niekerk closed his eyes.

  “No, it was pat enough. First the number. I wrote it down. Then the street.”

  “Biddulph Street. She knew the name but not much else about it.”

  “Most probably the first one that came to mind, sir.”

  “Or the only one she knew in Trekkersburg. Funny choice, I must say.”

  “You mean she could be a stranger here?”

  “Yes, I do and that’s what makes me feel we’ll have to move fast on this one even if she isn’t too good on her legs.”

  “We could put out a radio call to all the vans.”

  Kramer was in half a mind to do just that but the other half rebelled.

  “How long is it since you left her at Abbott’s?”

  “About ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “Not so long I can’t chance a call to him first then,” Kramer replied and began dialling the funeral parlour. “He might have picked up something.”

  Mr Abbott racked his brains. No, he didn’t ask her about where she lived. Never thought to. Kramer urged him to remember everything which had happened after Van Niekerk left. Negative. Wait a minute though, now he came to think of it he had seen her from his doorstep stop to ask the newsboy at the corner something.

  “Get going and ask him what she wanted,” Kramer ordered.

  Van Niekerk suddenly clicked his fingers, took out one of the reports and typed out a short list from it on pink paper.

  “Yes?” Kramer said as the other receiver was picked up again. “She asked the way to Biddulph Street? Boy, this is a lulu. Ta.”

  He went over to the map.

  “I’ve got it!” he exploded suddenly. “The Biddulph Street out-of-town bus terminus! Why the jesus didn’t we think of it before? It fits.”

  “I’ll say—shall I come with you, sir?”

  “Best you stay here to liaise with Zondi if he comes through.”

  “Then maybe you’d like to take this with you, sir?”

  Kramer took the pink slip and looked blankly at the figures on it.

  “Vital statistics,” Van Niekerk explained. “What every dressmaker should know.”

  There were other times when he excelled himself.

  Zondi had bought an ice cream for the urchin who had finally admitted, amid the jeers of his companions, to having looked after Shoe Shoe over the weeks before his disappearance. And Zondi had bought himself one, too.

  They sat together behind the war memorial and talked between licks. It had been a shameful confession, for even the most wretched Zulu hates to have it known he has had to accept women’s work, but a Vanilla Glory brought total absolution.

  “So old Shoe Shoe said he was going to get you some shoes, did he?” Zondi asked idly.

  “No, uncle, proper boots he said.”

  “And this was good?”

  “I could find work then.”

  Zondi winked. The child laughed. Of course he did not mean it. They were playing The Game.

  “When was he going to get these boots then?”

  “Oh, when he was rich like a white man.”

  “And all white men are rich?”

  “Yes.”

  The small pink tongue took off just a wetness of cream each time.

  “And how would he become rich? He could not work.”

  “Ah, perhaps not, but that Shoe Shoe was a clever one. He could get rich by just saying words—he told me so.”

  Zondi frowned in pantomime disbelief.

  “True’s God! I never lie to policemen.”

  They both laughed.

  “Did he say who he would speak these words to?”

  Small bony shoulders shrugged.

  “He never said, but I know.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “This very small sucker is nearly finished.”

  “Look in your pocket.”

  “Hau!”

  “Yes, so you see you are not the only one who is clever with pockets, little tsotsi.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you. The white men, of course—who else can make you as rich as they are?”

  He had a point there.

  Zondi caught sight of Kramer’s car flashing by and jumped up. Too late—it was a foolish notion anyway.

  What the young scruff had had to say was interesting but did not really lead them any further. Nor had what he discovered from his chief informers. While they all readily agreed there was definitely always room for a new gang on top, not one of them had ever heard of the Steam Pig.

  The bus terminus in Biddulph Street was practically deserted.

  After a quick look round, Kramer went to the supervisor’s office to learn that most buses left on the hour. It was just after one.

  “And I can’t honestly say if there was or wasn’t an old lady in a black cotton dress and a flowery hat on any of them,” the supervisor said. “You could ask the ticket staff.”

  The ticket staff referred him to the ticket collectors and then he interviewed the Bantu porters who loaded the luggage. No one would commit themselves—the fact that Mrs Johnson was also carrying a large yellow tartan bag should have been a clincher but it was not.

  Kramer began bitterly to regret he had not brought Van Niekerk with him. Suddenly the description seemed so inadequate.

  He dithered on the forecourt, fighting the logic which would drive him ultimately to calling in help. God, he abhorred the thought. The Colonel would love it.

  Then an idea struck him. He went back to the supervisor’s office and asked if he could borrow one of the g
irl clerks for five minutes.

  She giggled nauseatingly when he asked her to search the women’s lavatories but she went. And came back giggling her failure to discover any little old ladies—although she had spied what she was certain were an old gentleman’s boots under the door of one cubicle. Kramer dismissed her without thanks.

  This was it. He would have to go back to the car and put out a general call. He also had a list of the buses which had left at one and headquarters could arrange for checks to be made along their routes and at their destination.

  Kramer cut diagonally across the non-white area of the terminus, which was crowded as always, and got into his car at the kerb. He switched on the radio. There was someone on the air calling for an ambulance, which gave the message priority.

  Oh, well, another minute or two could not hurt, it was such a balls-up already. Pity about that lavatory idea getting nowhere. He had liked that one. Just look at the mob around the black bogs.

  “Jesus!”

  A little old lady was making her way from the entrance marked non-white females. She walked unsteadily, tacking into the breeze which bellied out her black dress and made the sad roses bob on her hat. She came to rest not fifteen yards away with a bump of her yellow tartan bag against the back of a bench.

  Kramer was at her side in seconds. He took her thin arm in two hands like a rudder and was steering her to the Chev before she recovered from her surprise.

  “What’s happening? Where are you taking me?”

  “Not far, madam. Just to this car.”

  “But who are you?”

  “A policeman.”

  “But what have I done?”

  “Contravened a municipal by-law for one,” Kramer answered. “Get inside, please.”

  He depressed the hidden lock and then closed the door firmly. He went round and slid into the driving seat.

  “What by-law are you talking about?”

  “Mrs Johnson, is it?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “That was pretty clever of you, Mrs Johnson, hiding from me over there. How did you know what I was?”

  “Hiding? Where?”

  “In the non-white lavatory.”

  “Is that what you think I was doing?”

  And she began to laugh, not for long but it was horrible. It surprised him.

  Mrs Johnson dug deep into her bag, extracted a crumpled tissue and dabbed her nose with it.

  “Do you really think I’d go into one of those awful places if I didn’t have to?”

  Surprise was one thing, shock was another. It was such a rare experience for Kramer that he gaped like a cartoon character. The effect was very comical but Mrs Johnson did not smile.

  “I suppose I could get away with it,” Mrs Johnson added softly, “but it just isn’t worth the risk.”

  “No,” Kramer said, automatically.

  His mind was battling to regain its equilibrium. So the old woman was a Coloured, a person of mixed race. This took a lot of adjusting to—she certainly did not look like one. Or sound like one. Still, stranger things happened.

  “Look at me,” Kramer ordered.

  Mrs Johnson turned her head towards him slowly. He noticed she was trembling. How much older she suddenly seemed.

  Kramer started at the top. The hat was limp black straw, decked in velvet roses which had long since abandoned any pretensions to natural representation. The hair beneath was very white, very fine and curiously free of any kinking. The face was broad but not remarkably so. What was striking was the mute pain which showed in the deep brown eyes—the whites of which had none of the usual yellow cast—and in the lines cut deep about the kindly mouth. By contrast, the neck was swan-smooth. The hands, clasped tight in the black lap, were strong yet delicate, with a faint cornflake mottling on the back. The feet were small, too.

  It was plain that her Coloured blood confined itself to the arterial system. And that Mrs Johnson must have been a rare find for Mr Johnson.

  “You’re frightened,” Kramer said.

  Mrs Johnson nodded, maintaining her elusive dignity with difficulty.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Well, if you go around telling lies, then you’ve got to expect it, Ma.”

  She nodded again, vaguely.

  “Haven’t you got another tissue?”

  Mrs Johnson rummaged obediently in her bag, tipping it up so as to reach to the bottom. A newspaper cutting fluttered out on to the seat between them.

  Kramer tweaked it up and held it so that she could read the headline: MYSTERY DEATH OF A MYSTERY GIRL.

  “See what I mean?” he said. “You told one of my men that you had no idea Miss Le Roux was the subject of an inquiry.”

  “He wouldn’t tell me what sort of inquiry.”

  “Never you mind. You also said that you lived here in Biddulph Street.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Sorry? Who sent you?”

  Mrs Johnson frowned.

  “Nobody sent me. I just came.”

  “From?”

  “Durban.”

  “Why?”

  “I told the other policeman.”

  “That you were a dressmaker and all that rubbish?”

  “I am one.”

  “And you knew Miss Le Roux personally?”

  “She was once a customer.”

  “So she used to live in Durban?”

  “Yes.”

  Kramer stared hard and long at Mrs Johnson. She moved uncomfortably, but kept her chin firm.

  “All right then, Ma—why did you come?”

  “Something just made me. She was a lovely girl, Miss Le Roux. It seemed so terrible, something happening to her like that. I read about the foul play thing and it all preyed on my mind so I couldn’t think straight. She had such a lovely skin.”

  “What the hell’s that got to do with it?” Kramer snapped, losing patience.

  “I—I don’t know, sir. It’s just what kept going through my mind.”

  “Why did you lie to the sergeant?”

  “Because I was afraid of telling the truth to him, sir, being … A Coloured person hasn’t the right to go poking their noses into things.”

  Mrs Johnson seemed altogether too conscious of her race. This, and the other unsatisfactory aspects of her story, had Kramer wondering if he had not been right after all—she had taken refuge in a non-white bog to evade him.

  “Have you got any papers on you to prove what you are and where you live?” he asked.

  “No, sir, I haven’t. I’m sorry.”

  Kramer frowned. But he was not altogether displeased. Mrs Johnson was the first strong link they had had with Miss Le Roux and there was obviously a great deal they could learn from her. The main problem, however, was the time factor. From the moment this Press report had been published, a race had begun. Every hour that passed was an hour to the killers’ advantage. The way things were going, it would take until nightfall to extract what Mrs Johnson really had to say. Pity she was so old and frail.

  Kramer knew what sort of mood he was in. There were days when he thoroughly enjoyed a long symphonic interrogation, with its different movements, its moments of sweet counterpoint, and that final triumphant surge to the climax. And then there were days when all he wanted was the truth and nothing but the truth, the way the judges got it. Gershwin knew what he meant.

  And Mrs Johnson seemed to have sensed something of it, too. She had pulled her bag up protectively before her and was regarding the silent figure beside her with mounting anxiety.

  Suddenly Kramer’s face lit up with an inspired idea.

  “The body has not yet been formally identified,” he said. “You say you know a Miss Le Roux—let’s see if it is the same one.”

  After a long pause, the old woman nodded once.

  Kramer flicked on the radio. Central Control answered almost immediately.

  “Lieutenant Kramer here. I want an urgent message phoned through t
o Abbott’s funeral parlour. Message to read: Prepare Le Roux for formal identification in ten minutes. Request slab is used. And tell them it came from me. Okay?”

  Central Control acknowledged and went off the air.

  A formal identification was routine, no shock tactics involved there. But using the slab instead of the tray would allow the full extent of Dr Strydom’s ministrations to be abruptly displayed under the merciless light. It would shock all right.

  Farthing took the call from Central Control as Mr Abbott was at his Rotary luncheon. It made him very indignant.

  So indignant, in fact, that he put his feet back on the desktop and resolved to do nothing about it until his lunch-hour was over. After all, it was not as if he was idling his time away: studying was no easy matter when you worked on a round-the-clock basis. Life was often as trying now as it had been when he was a male nurse.

  Besides which, his manual had just arrived from the British Institute of Embalmers and the chapter on bacteriology was utterly absorbing. He would have to warn the boss about the risks they were taking with some of their hospital jobs.

  Then his conscience began to get the better of him, so he skipped quickly to the section on surgical reconstruction for a glance at the illustrations. They were beautiful.

  “Well, well, well,” he said to himself as he strolled down to the mortuary, “so they said you would never do it, with your education, Nurse Farthing. We’ll see.”

  He had just opened the refrigerator when Kramer entered the room, escorting Mrs Johnson.

  Kramer did not like what he saw. He did not like having his orders disobeyed and he did not like the look of this young man. He was too young and too intimate in the way his gaze touched you.

  Then things went totally out of control.

  Farthing pulled out the tray. Mrs Johnson moved with astonishing speed across to him. Farthing drew the sheet gently off the head. Mrs Johnson sighed very softly.

  It was the look on her face that kept Kramer standing where he was. He was aware that he had seen it somewhere else on someone else but he could not make the connection; a curious resignation that hinted at things so profound it hollowed your belly.

  Farthing saw she was trying to ask him something.

  “Yes, dearie?” he prompted.

  “Was she—was she marked in any way?”