The Caterpillar Cop

by James McClure

  These were the discernible facts.

  Instantly Kramer confirmed his reflex decision by stamping on the pedal and careering into a tight spin just as the other driver glanced round in surprise at such an intrusion. He was that type. The sort who try to make combustion engines leap for dear life. The Land-Rover stalled. Kramer closed his eyes.

  Opening them again in a sudden quiet to find himself at rest, facing the way he had come. It was a relief, too, discovering the Chevrolet had followed him round. Everything seemed intact—especially the bulldozer. Kramer uttered a short, unorthodox prayer.

  But the Land-Rover driver did not linger to join him in it. All Kramer got was the registration number from the back plate. Crazy bloody farmer.

  Now that, thought Kramer, as he continued up through the wattles to the country club, was what got his goat about sex killings: they were hit-and-run jobs. Time and place were merely coincidental—the only link between the participants was a single, spontaneous act of violence. And so, with no history of emotional interaction to provide the x and y of an equation, his customary reliance on flashes of analytical brilliance became totally inappropriate.

  No less inappropriate, in fact, than asking the intimates of someone flattened by a rogue rhino if the deceased had ever quarreled with the beast.

  Oh, ja, little wonder game rangers were such an unsophisticated bunch.

  * * *

  Blood in moonlight looks black.

  Constable Hendriks had noted this on numerous occasions without ever making up his mind as to whether it contributed greatly to the overall effect. Sometimes it just reminded him of treacle. Other times—possibly because treacle was something you ate—it made him queasy. That was most often when there were flies about to confuse the issue, but thankfully it was long past their bedtime.

  As it was his own and presumably that of the kid at his feet.

  He yawned.

  Then stiffened into an attitude of ostentatious vigilance at the sound of footsteps approaching. They stopped just behind the perimeter of the glade.

  “All right, where do you want them?”

  “Hey? Who’s there?”

  “Sorry, mate, don’t speak the lingo—Station Officer Pringle, fire brigade, with the lights you wanted.”

  There were six firemen waiting at a respectful distance with Pringle; two carrying a portable generator, three juggling lamps, and the other draped in coils of heavy-duty flex. All of them trying to get a glimpse of what welcome tragedy had broken the monotony of grass fires and snooker.

  “I hear it’s a kiddie,” the shortest fireman said in Afrikaans.

  Hendriks shrugged but moved to his side.

  “What’s with this redneck?” he asked, hard-eying Pringle. “Another bloody English immigrant?”

  “Oh, no, he’s come down from the north. He’s all right.”

  Pringle must have recognized the apologetic, having heard it made for him before. He added helpfully, “Uganda.”

  “Ja, it’s very bad up there,” Hendriks replied with grave authority—and in English.

  Everybody smiled.

  There was a pause. Pringle wriggled a finger through his tunic and pajama top to scratch a heat rash. The pair with the generator grew impatient for orders and put it down where they stood. Pringle lifted an eyebrow, letting it go after a moment’s mature consideration.

  “And why not?” he said. “Us lads were told not to get too close because of footprints et cetera. Shall we string the floods round the trees here?”

  “Fine. Need a hand?”

  “Manage best on our own, thanks. Carry on, Viljoen.”

  “Sir.”

  “I’ll just prime the generator meantime,” Pringle said. And as he did so, he explained to Hendriks that his hometown was Margate. Hendriks said that Margate was not bad but the shark nets cramped his style. Pringle explained that his Margate was the other Margate although, of course, the one on the Indian Ocean was by far the prettier. Hendriks said that he preferred Umkomaas for his holidays anyway.

  It was not much of a conversation, still less a dialogue, but it succeeded in establishing an air of professional nonchalance. Mutual respect grew apace.

  In under five minutes the lamps were secured to the trees and connected to the generator. Pringle yanked on the starting lanyard and the small engine took first time, startling a wood pigeon out of the branches overhead with a loud clatter of wings. When Hendriks and the others, who all looked up at the noise, brought their gaze back to the glade, they gave a little gasp like children at a pantomime when the curtain rises.

  First, a slow fade up on the fairy grotto, as the generator’s coil worked up to maximum revolutions, and then each twig, leaf, and stalk of grass was finally revealed with a vivid, artificial brittleness against the black flats of the deep forest. All wire and paper and paint, it looked. The lights pulsed to the quick beat of the two-stroke, investing the unreality of the scene with a flickering life of its own.

  And in the center sprawled a naked fairy. It had to be a fairy because, as everyone there could see, it was sexless.

  If only very recently so.

  Kramer found Sergeant Bokkie Kritzinger waiting for him in the car park at the country club, indulging in an unseemly personal eccentricity.

  “Still chewing it then, Bokkie?”

  The big fellow spat out the end of his tie.

  “Sir? Just feeling a bit jumpy, that’s all.”

  “But why come outside?”

  “I wanted a word with you before you saw them—there’s something really funny going on.”

  “Who’s this you’re talking about?”

  “That boy and girl who say they found the kid. They’ve got blood on them.”

  “So you said over the phone.”

  “I don’t just mean the hands now. I’ve had a better look—it’s underneath.”

  “What?”

  “Their clothes.”

  “But—”

  “On their bodies, sir!”

  Kramer reached out and tucked the damp tip of Bokkie’s tie into the bulging blue shirt front. The sergeant grinned, hiding fists behind his back.

  “In there you mean, Bokkie?”

  “Sir.”

  “Then we’d better start again with their story. Here, we can sit in this thing.”

  They filled the front seat of the fire department’s emergency tender. Kramer lit up a Lucky Strike and found the multipurpose contraption had everything save an ashtray for his match.

  “Well, sir, it’s the same as before really. The bloke is a Transvaal junior tennis champion by the name of Jonathan Rogers. Age seventeen, last year at school, and English-speaking. The girl’s Penelope Jones, sixteen years of age, doing her matric, and she comes from over Greenside way.”

  “What have they said happened?”

  “The boy claims he left the dance—a Trekkersburg Tennis Club do for the visiting teams—at approximately eleven. He and the girl wanted to look at the city at night.”

  “From inside a plantation?”

  “His story, sir. Anyway, I asked him the same question and he said he thought there was a little hill down there where you went for the lights.”

  “ Uhuh.”

  “They were going along when they saw this boy who seemed to be watching them. He had his head in the fork of a tree, like so, with his arms out either side and sort of leaning on it.”

  “And then?”

  “Rogers says he asked the boy what he was doing there. When the boy didn’t say anything, did nothing, they went up to him. They then thought he’d slid down the tree and got caught in it. That he was hurt. Rogers says they tried to lift him off and he toppled backwards on top of them and they fell underneath. That’s when they realized he—”

  “Took them long enough!”

  “What I thought, sir.”

  “Blood?”

  “Plenty.”

  “And how long do you think the boy’s been dead?”

&
nbsp; “He was still pretty warm when I got there around midnight.”

  “I see. And what does the girl have to say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Hey?”

  “Shocked out of her mind. In the club secretary’s office just sitting. You can’t get her to open her mouth. When she looks at you, your arse goes tight. I tell you there’s something bloody weird about all this, sir. That’s why I’ve kept her father away so far.”

  “Good man. Who’s with her now—and the boy?”

  “Constable Williams. He’s having a hell of a job keeping them out.”

  “Who?”

  “The secretary, Pipson; Mr. Jones, the father; and the Transvaal coach, Freddie Harris.”

  “What the hell?”

  “Really doing his nut, this Freddie. Says his chances of the singles championship are ruined—doesn’t think the rest of the team will be up to much in the morning either; all too upset.”

  “Bugger me, and there’s a kid…. Any identification yet?”

  “Central are looking after that; nothing so far. I’ve asked for the dogs and the extra men and everything, like you said. The district surgeon is on his way now.”

  “ Uhuh. What about the rest of the dance?”

  “All gone home or back in their hotels.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you agree there’s some …?”

  “Look, Bokkie, I never agree until I have facts that agree. Maybe there is something strange, maybe not. You go back and keep those two quiet and I’ll take a look-see in the trees. I can hear they’ve got the lighting going.”

  With the sigh of the subordinate who is so often right yet never heeded by his superiors, Bokkie slid off the seat and landed heavily on the tarmac. He paused to hitch his button-down holster round to its correct position.

  “Bokkie,” Kramer murmured, “has it perhaps not occurred to you it might be her blood?”

  As the father of two preadolescent girls, Sergeant Kritzinger understandably appeared shocked.

  It was true, the body was warm to the touch. Very warm although several hours must have passed for blood to congeal like that. Most peculiar.

  Kramer rubbed his fingers in the sand and stood up.

  “Good-looking kid,” he observed.

  Hendriks gaped incredulously at the swollen features and pair of staring blue eyes. Somewhere there was a face.

  “Got a nice smile,” he replied gamely.

  Which made it Kramer’s turn to wince and cast an odd look.

  “Come on, man. When you’ve finished poking your brains about, we’ll get the rest of the notes down.”

  Hendriks removed the pencil from his earhole.

  “Right. We’ve been once over the surrounding area and found bugger all. Now for the body—write ‘one’ in the margin.”

  “Body One.”

  “Boy strangled by wire twisted eight times at back of neck. No defensive wounds or bruises on arms, suggests he was attacked without warning from behind and that other injuries were sustained afterwards. Description of wire: ten-gauge baling wire as found round fruit boxes, soft, bends easily. No sign of rust and it has kinks in it at approximately four-inch intervals, which suggests it was carried to the scene of crime.”

  Kramer lit a Lucky Strike and waited for Hendriks to catch up.

  “Two: Severe grazing under chin and on either side of jaw with fragments of Tree A’s bark adhering to wounds. This is consistent with description given by witness Rogers that he found the body semierect against Tree A with chin wedged in fork. This is backed up by pool of blood at base of Tree A.”

  “And the blood on the tree, sir.”

  “How fast can you write? Okay, put it down, too, and add pressure mark along torso. Now Number Three …”

  Squatting down, Kramer made another examination of the body before going on.

  “Three: Multiple stab wounds in and around groin, genitals severed, later recovered beside Tree A. Wound characteristics suggest curved knife used while body was upright.”

  “How come, Lieutenant?”

  “He’s not big, man. When these bastards get worked up they’ve the strength of a bloody ox. Easily hold him up against the tree with one hand. More notes now: Mutilations consistent with frenzied attack by pervert—more misses than hits. Bleeding limited, but a smear indicates area handled after death. Got it?

  “Then Number Four: Back marked by long cuts, three across shoulders, another bisecting them and traveling from nape of neck to left buttock. These wounds suggest a ritual killing.

  “And lastly, Number Five: Brown birthmark on right shoulder.”

  A Bantu constable appeared shyly at the edge of the light, holding his knobkerrie as if he did not know what to do with it in polite company.

  “What is it, man?”

  “Sergeant Kritzinger says I must come for the clothes, my father.”

  “Got the plastic bags?”

  Kramer took them and packed away the white T-shirt, khaki shorts, and Y-front underpants found near the forked tree. He put the contents of the pockets—a khaki handkerchief, pencil eraser, three bubble gum wrappers, and single-bladed penknife—in a separate container.

  “There you are. Tell the sergeant that the body has a brown mark like a spoon on the right shoulder, if he doesn’t know that already. And say there are no shoes because the little boss was going barefoot.”

  “Doctor coming now, sir.”

  “Bugger off then.”

  Kramer paused to wonder if there was not something else he should pass on to Kritzinger. Then he turned to Hendriks again and frowned: he was sick of being lumbered with pimply youths who put in every spare moment on their pus crop. Hendriks was working his way along a row just above the back of his collar, reaping the golden harvest on a corner of his handkerchief. It was enough to turn any man’s stomach.

  “What are you planning to do with that thing?” Kramer snapped. “Pour water on it like a tea bag?”

  Hendriks blushed—he was young enough to do that, too, the backveld clown. You could see that he was beginning to remember things he had said about present company. So much to the good.

  Kramer picked up one of the long torches the firemen had brought down before being ordered away with mutters to wait at the tender. The beam was so strong it seemed solid enough to tap the twigs off the trees. Another, just as powerful, was tossed across to Hendriks.

  “Right. I’m going to take a look at where this bloke says he and the girl first saw the kid from. You stay here and go over the glade again.”

  “But, sir—”

  Kramer was just stepping out of the light when he spun round and caught Hendriks in midgrimace.

  “Maybe you’ll make a better job of it if I tell you there is something for you to find,” he said.

  “How do you know, sir?”

  “Because I planted it there. It’s my cigarette stub, a Texan. Okay?”

  And Kramer permitted himself a smirk as he moved carefully into the bracken. Hendriks should have noticed something wrong about that brand name.

  But the joke was short-lived. Kramer had hardly made the most of a patch of curiously flattened vegetation before there came a triumphant cry.

  “I’ve found it!”

  “Hey?”

  “Your Texan, sir.”

  Jesus.

  “But have you done it all yet?”

  “Almost. I’ve got two other blokes helping me now and Dr. Strydom’s come.”

  Kramer sighed. He had just begun to enjoy himself discovering things about a young tennis star who should know better than to tell such lies. It was also a shame that his ruse, planned to inspire a feverish search, had been nipped in the bud.

  He began to move back along a path someone had forced through the undergrowth while traveling on one foot; a normal footfall made no impression on the messy carpet of compost, but a body’s full weight concentrated on a single heel was something else. By holding a torch almost flat on the ground, a s
eries of depressions was thrown into relief. Hmmm. Interesting.

  Dr. Strydom was already at work; crouched like a tubby garden gnome in civvies, complete with gray goatee, but flicking an anal thermometer instead of a fly rod. He slipped it in and smiled at Kramer.

  “Hello, there, Lieutenant. The lad’s got a bit of a temp. We’ll soon see to that.”

  “He seemed very warm.”

  “Yes. Of course, it’s quite common in cases of asphyxia due to constriction of the neck.”

  Hendriks and a couple of other constables, whom Kramer recognized from the Central, drifted across.

  “Ach, really?” asked the one with his first mustache, which was longer than any hair on his scalp.

  “Oh, yes, and cerebral hemorrhage produces much the same results now and then. Had a woman not long ago who hanged herself in jail and she was pushing the mercury up over the hundred mark three hours later.”

  “How about that?” Hendriks remarked, the marvels of science driving from his mind any thought of his own discovery.

  “This young fellow filled me in on your conclusions with regard to the injuries, Lieutenant. They seem pretty fair to me: the usual sex killer’s workout. Talk about circumcision …”

  Dr. Strydom rummaged in his bag for cotton wool. He wiped the thermometer and tilted it to catch the light.

  “There you are, my boys, let’s see what this tells us.”

  Kramer snapped his fingers and pointed to the stub. Hendriks handed it over with a grin and then, like his colleagues, gave his full attention to medical matters.

  The stub was a Texan and it was fresh and that was not all.

  “Almighty God, but this isn’t an easy one to guess, Lieutenant.”

  Kramer glanced up.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You see, if we go on the usual average of the body cooling at about two degrees an hour over the first twelve, it’s easy. But here you have a naked body, that cools half as fast again. Got that? But—ah, another but—it’s a hot night, which slows things down. On top of which, you were right—the body temp is above normal.”