The Caterpillar Cop

by James McClure

  “Sir?”

  “You must learn to read, man. Then maybe you would have seen what the synod is asking the government to do. There’s a whole list but two are enough: it wants to have all Sunday papers banned—you know bloody well what I mean about their back pages, all those film star bust-ups—and it wants living in sin made a criminal offense. All right, so that was this week, but I bet you the Dominee’s been preaching that stuff for years. Ever since Boetie was big enough to come out of the babe-in-arms room at the back. All in dark hints, mind you, that only the grownups properly understand. So what did he know of what went on in the world? Only one thing: you mustn’t do anything to a girl until you’re both married and the Lord gives his blessing.”

  “A good world to grow up in, I suppose.”

  “Boetie was very lucky. But in freak circumstances like this, it cost him his life.”

  The Chev slithered off the main road, clattered over the cattle grid, and started up the last stretch through the wattles, making a brace of guinea fowl catapult into the undergrowth. An approaching Mercedes and then a Peugeot pulled over to allow them to pass.

  “Ach, no,” said Pembrook, “even then I find it hard to believe. He must have heard somewhere that married women fool around.”

  “But is that how he saw Mrs. Jarvis? That’s the crux of it. Whose statue stands outside the Voortrekker Monument? A mother’s. Heroic mothers fill the history books in primary schools. And when you are still a kid, what woman is the one you can least imagine doing wrong?”

  “Your mother?”

  “And what was Mrs. Jarvis?”

  “Sally’s mother,” Pembrook responded, very peeved with himself.

  “Unthinkable.” Kramer chuckled and stopped the car.

  He had parked again above the third and last hole of the pitch-and-putt course. Straight across the other side were the trees in which Boetie had been found; to their left, and cutting off their view of the rest of the golf course, was a windbreak of firs.

  “Maybe that was staring me in the face, sir,” Pembrook said, “but do you know more?”

  “We can guess. Here is Boetie; a month gone by, no corpse left to prove anything different from what Strydom found, and Caroline giving him a hard time. So, like we said, he challenges her and ends up on the carpet in Jarvis’s study. Gets the balls chewed right off him and is told to get the hell out and not come back. Note, Jarvis did not know at this stage what Boetie had said to his daughter.

  “Right; by now, I reckon, Boetie has had enough. Kids can fight bloody dirty when you push them and Jarvis’s patronizing attitude towards Afrikaners no doubt got a showing. Also Boetie’s personal investigation has been brought to an end: he had to hand the matter over to us or forget it. What would be more natural than for him to hurl the lot in Jarvis’s face? Tell him what he saw his daughter doing. Tell him about the Midnight Leopards. Threaten him with what was to come when he got down to the station.”

  Pembrook, plainly pained to disagree once more, drew in the dust on the dashboard.

  “If he’d done that, sir, Jarvis would have more than chewed the balls off him.”

  “Right.”

  This time Zondi’s excuse for an exit was seeing a butterfly settle on a distant arum lily. He darted off after it.

  “You must ride two horses at once, Pembrook,” Kramer said, surprisingly mildly. “Jarvis knew that despite the fact Boetie had the wrong female, the substance of what he said was correct. The real police would not necessarily make such a mess of it.”

  “Hell, sir, but then why let him go?”

  “Because silencing there and then could have led to a lot of suspicion—and have been very difficult. This man was once a police chief, your friend said. However ropey the force he was in, he would know how a detective’s mind works: two fatal accidents so close together, well …”

  “Accidents happen—”

  “In the best-regulated families,” Kramer said, continuing in English. “He also knew that a sex-killing investigation is generally conducted differently….”

  “I don’t see why Boetie didn’t tell us, though. How could he have kept him quiet in between?”

  “You gave me the idea with what Sally overheard. The one when Jarvis said he’d help Boetie find another girl. Don’t you see? Probably dragged out an old picture of himself in his police gear and offered to lend a hand. He could even claim to having been investigating quietly on his own. It couldn’t have been difficult to convince Boetie he was barking up the wrong tree. And that’s also how he could get him to meet secretly in the woods—by playing up to a twelve-year-old’s sense of melodrama, especially this one’s.”

  Kramer got out and beckoned Zondi over.

  “I know what you’re going to say next, Pembrook. You’re going to say that he was mad to do it up here at the country club—he could have gone to any number of places in the bush.”

  They began walking towards the club entrance. The secretary, Pipson, who had been chattering to a member, sidled indoors. It was a wonder he did not take the welcome mat in with him.

  “I think I’ve got the answer to that,” Pembrook said suddenly. “He was banned from driving. He couldn’t go anywhere unless his wog took him.”

  “Or his wife. But she wasn’t to know anything about this, and he couldn’t take the chance of being found driving—or having an accident himself—on the way back from the deed. This was the simplest, cleverest solution. There is only one thing left to decide.”

  “Sir?”

  “If it was possible.”

  The inquiry was adjourned at the Colonel’s request and he hurried to the radio room to get through a call to Kramer. Having already failed to get him on the phone in the CID building, his only hope was the car.

  “Sorry, Colonel, but there is no response,” the chief radio operator told him.

  “Then I want a call put out every five minutes to him, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Make it two-minute intervals.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him I have information to do with the conversation I had with him at eight this morning.”

  The operator wrote it all down.

  “You wait till I get hold of those buggers in Housebreaking,” the Colonel said, apropos of nothing.

  Or so the operator thought.

  Pembrook preoccupied the club secretary with perplexing questions—his instructions were simply to ask any nonsense that came into his head—while Zondi tracked down the African caddy who had carried the Captain’s clubs on the day Boetie died.

  It was not a difficult job, as the Captain was notorious for favoring an old-fashioned, heavy leather bag. Kramer watched them talking from the terrace in front of the clubhouse. The view of Trekkersburg was truly magnificent and the air so clear he could pick out the mosaic of white headstones on the farthest hill. He wondered how the funeral had gone off and if someone should not have been there to note any odd behavior. He still had nothing but theories.

  The caddy came across, dragging his heels behind Zondi.

  “He says Boss Jarvis was here middle of the afternoon and played all the way round the course,” Zondi said.

  “Did he play well?”

  It was translated, mainly for effect.

  “Not very, boss. This kid says he can do much better. He just play by himself for practice. There are few people on Monday.”

  “When did he finish?”

  “Half-five,” the caddy replied in English.

  “Half-past five,” Zondi informed Kramer.

  “Then did he go into the clubhouse or home?”

  There was a long conversation in lisped Zulu, a subdialect Kramer had never mastered.

  “No, he was very angry that he had not played well. He went on to play on this little course here.”

  “Pish-n-putt,” prompted the caddy.

  “And did you carry his bags?” Kramer asked.

  “No, suh. Boss meningi angry. No tip.�
��

  “Uhuh!”

  The caddy whispered something and giggled.

  “He says Boss Jarvis never wants them to take his bag up to the club because then people can see he gives no tip. He always does it himself.”

  “No time for jokes, Zondi man! Did he see him playing on the pitch-and-putt?”

  More giggling.

  “It seems, boss, that he had a bit of an argument with the chief man of this place before he started.”

  “The secretary?”

  It was a relief to be spared the comedy and given a neat nod.

  “No tip,” said Kramer and stalked off.

  Pembrook rose from the cane chair on the veranda and held out a long glass of lager.

  “Yours, sir.”

  “With the club’s compliments,” added the secretary.

  “Mr. Pipson? Yes, we should have met the other night. Just a few questions, please.”

  The drawn little man sighed silently.

  “I believe, sir, that last Monday afternoon you played a round of pitch-and-putt?”

  “Oh, God,” Pipson replied. “I’m beginning to think—”

  “Did you?” Kramer demanded, slamming his fist down on the tabletop. His foot was agony.

  “I—er—always do of an evening, before the rush in the bar starts. Just a quick three holes with my nine iron—the committee don’t mind. Yes, I played on Monday.”

  “Was there anyone else on the course?”

  “That’s difficult to say. I mean …”

  “Have an argument with anyone?”

  “Definitely not. Our members are—Do you mean the few words I exchanged at the first hole?”

  “Who was that with?”

  “Captain Jarvis.”

  “Who’s he then?”

  “One of these retired military wallahs. A bit of a rough diamond, but a good enough chap if you want a reliable partner in a foursome. See him here often, has shares, you see. Wonderful couple of girls he’s got. Pretty wife.”

  “Why did you have words? Just as a matter of interest.”

  “Damn silly really. I was teeing up when he arrived and insisted I let him play through. Something about having to pick his family up. But I had my bar to get to. It was over in a second.”

  “I suppose you let him through?”

  “One has to, hasn’t one?”

  “See anyone else on the course?”

  “Just the Captain. I had to wait for him to hole first, of course. Same thing again on the second. Rather irritating. The obvious answer was to play two-up but it wasn’t my job to suggest it.”

  “So you followed him right to the end?” Kramer asked casually, adding with a sympathetic laugh, “How was his game on a liver like that? Pretty rough?”

  “First two weren’t bad. As I said, he—”

  “What about the third?”

  “You’ve never played here, I suppose, Mr. Kramer?”

  “That hasn’t been my pleasure.”

  “Ah, well, the third is up the terrace through the windbreak. You can’t see a damn thing from the second. I arrived just as he was walking off the last green. I called out to offer him a drink—you know how important good relations are—but he just waved and went up the steps to the car park.”

  “As you’re facing the windbreak, is the wattle plantation off to the left there?”

  “Butts on to it actually.”

  “And the last you saw of Captain Jarvis from the second was him going up through the firs?”

  “Heavens no. He was lugging this ridiculous golf bag of his, so he went the way the ladies do—steady the Buffs! What are you getting at?”

  Kramer pressed him back into his seat with just the tip of his right forefinger against the checkered waistcoat. Pembrook went round behind him.

  “I’m not getting at you, Mr. Pipson,” Kramer soothed. “That’s all you have to worry about. Now tell me about the way the ladies go.”

  Pembrook cracked his knuckles dramatically.

  “Don’t do that, it’s a nasty habit.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “It’s not so steep, you see, Mr. Kramer. You go round the edge of the terrace, so to speak. Just a few yards into the wattles and out again on the top level. Quite a natural thing to do with a weight to carry.”

  “And did you see Captain Jarvis on his way through the wattles?”

  “I couldn’t have. There are a lot of saplings there; they tend to swallow you up.”

  “But you saw him again on the last green, after he’d gone round this way. How much later was that?”

  “Let me see … Three, four minutes, I suppose. The second’s the shortest hole and I managed it in two. I give myself about quarter of an hour to get round.”

  “If it’s the shortest hole, weren’t you surprised to see Captain Jarvis had already finished? His hole should have taken longer and left you waiting like before.”

  “That didn’t strike me. My handicap’s very poor and he could have had a lucky drive right up to the flag. Hole-in-ones are common enough anyway.”

  “Okay, back to the time element again. Captain Jarvis was out of sight for a maximum of four minutes—right?”

  “Perhaps five.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, the time I took to get up through the firs. Although I suppose it would take him even longer round the other way. Say four.”

  “Got a nine iron handy, Mr. Pipson?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Fine, I’d like you to do the second hole in two for me. Have as many tries as you like.”

  Central Control were receiving complaints from every car and van within a ten-mile radius.

  “I’m sorry, Major,” the chief operator apologized. “These are Colonel Muller’s orders. The call must go out every two minutes. I’ll see the ambulance is sent immediately.”

  He swiveled around in his chair and called over a subordinate.

  “Dawie, you have a turn now, I’m bloody sick of all the trouble this is causing. Come on, man, I’m going for a pee.”

  “What is the Colonel’s message, sir?”

  “Don’t try that one! If you’re stuck, just call in any one of them; they know it off by heart by now. Get Major Dorrell if you prefer it loud and clear. Won’t be long.”

  What a sod the chief operator was. He was gone until long after Major Dorrell had come all the way in to make a personal matter of it.

  * * *

  Kramer’s foot gave him a perfect right to make Pembrook do all the running under the hot noon sun. Zondi had been disqualified in the first heat for having too short a stride. But the man really suffering was the secretary, who, he confessed, always played damnably badly on an empty stomach.

  In the end, however, it was established that the secretary took five minutes to complete the second hole in two and reach the trees for the third. And Pembrook proved that it took a total of five to reach the glade, wait there two minutes, and then walk to the final green. He did it in four on one occasion but was sent back for moving too fast, without making allowance for a load. Which was all very surprising, as the distances themselves seemed quite considerable until Kramer realized that five minutes from a cigarette machine on a wet night was a very long way.

  “Well, sir, where does that leave us? Any good?”

  “Manners, please, Pembrook. Thanks very much for your help, Mr. Pipson.”

  “I can go?”

  “You’re a free man in a free country.”

  The secretary made sure Kramer knew he was amused. They shook hands in a most friendly way.

  “Ah, one thing, though, Mr. Pipson. Please keep our little game to yourself. I don’t think Captain Jarvis would care to be told about it.”

  “I wasn’t going to phone him, if that’s what you mean!”

  “Hey? That didn’t enter my head. I just meant when he next came up. Just cause needless trouble, perhaps.”

  The secretary beamed with relief.

  “I see,
” he said. “I’m so pleased. The club’s suffered enough as it is. You must come up for a proper game sometime. Cheers.”

  Pembrook grinned as he watched him retreat with a spring in his step.

  “That was neat, sir,” he said.

  “But I meant what I said,” Kramer replied grimly. “Jarvis is out of the running.”

  “Oh, bloody hell, no! Why’s that?”

  Zondi moved in closer.

  “Did you think,” Kramer asked, “that Jarvis took advantage of the secretary for a nice little alibi? I did at first. But the problem is that he just didn’t have enough time to get it all done and be certain of being in sight afterwards. Not unless he knew, down to almost a split second, how long it would take to have Boetie dead, mutilated and in the right place for the ritualistic touch. The bloke who did this wanted the job to look right—he couldn’t take the risk of a rush job. Strangle, slice with the sickle, and prop in the tree? He’d never have tried it unless he did a test run.”

  “A practice, sir?”

  “No, a test, I said. And if he had, there’d be two bodies on our plate, not one.”

  15

  SQUARE ONE WAS an appalling prospect—coming, as it did, so soon after Kramer’s heady exposition. They stood about the flag on the third green like three mountaineers who had planted it on the wrong peak.

  “Sodding bloody hell,” said Pembrook after much deliberation.

  “Too right,” Kramer concurred.

  Zondi said nothing.

  “Anyway, would two minutes have been enough for the killing, sir?”

  “Huh? Well, there was that lift murder down in Durban.”

  “Oldroyd?”

  “The same. He got in with the tart on the ground floor, escaped at the fifth, and the people buzzing from the sixth couldn’t believe she was dead already.”

  “Then couldn’t—”

  “Ach, man, for Christ’s sake! Oldroyd wasn’t setting anything up, he wasn’t trying to fool anyone. A crime of passion and he was caught the same night. The only relevance is the time factor.”