The Caterpillar Cop

7

Zondi tried to oversleep. But when the fourth person left his bed, fought the others over the clothing strewn around it, and ended up chanting multiplication tables, he knew Wednesday had begun for him, too.

He forced open an eye.

His wife, Miriam, was through in the living-room-cum-kitchen spreading sweetened condensed milk on wedges of bread. She piled them on an enamel plate and then poured six mugs of black tea. It would have been seven if she was expecting her husband at breakfast, so he had a chance of at least staying where he was for a while.

The twins, being the eldest, were also trying to oversleep on their mattress unrolled beneath the window-and having as little success.

Zondi grunted at them.

“Good morning, Father,” they said together.

“Up!” he ordered. “What do you think I pay all that money to the teacher for?”

“So he will not beat us, Father,” one of them answered.

“So he will give us good reports,” said the other.

It was too early in the morning for that sort of thing. Zondi pressed one ear into the pillow and covered the other with his forearm. This did not cut out all of the noise, but kept it down to a minimum until it was obvious that the children had left to attend the first shift at Kwela Village school.

Shortly afterwards, Miriam came in and told him there was a municipal policeman waiting to see him.

“Bring him to me,” he said.

In marched Argyle Mslope, who halted with a great thump of boots on the rammed earth floor. He saluted.

“Greetings, Detective Sergeant Zondi!”

“Greetings, Argyle.”

“Your wife is a buxom woman, Detective Sergeant Zondi.”

“I thank you, Argyle.”

“She will bear you many brave sons.”

“She has done that already.”

“God bless you,” said Argyle.

One of the old school and no mistake about it; mission-educated, a stretcher-bearer with the white soldiers in the deserts of North Africa, a perfect Zulu gentleman, and-at times-a fearless fighter. It was a great pity, though, that Argyle had not progressed very far at the mission or he might have been an asset to the South African Police itself. However, he seemed happy enough in the municipal force, guarding beer halls, hospitals, clinics, hostels, and townships. He played the bass drum in its band and put a shine on his brass buttons that contrasted as strongly with the tatty-quality uniform as fresh blood on a stray’s fur.

Zondi could see himself stretched out and elongated in the belt buckle just three feet away.

“Why have you come, Argyle?”

“Your superior officer desires you to use the telephone.”

“Straightaway?”

“I regret that is the case.”

So did every God-fearing passer-by within hearing of Zondi as he hurried up the dirt roads to the township manager’s office.

The African clerks there were quick to smile and greet him-and had an outside line ready waiting. Zondi glared at the number the manager had noted down. It was to a call box and that was always an ominous sign.

But ten minutes later he was back telling Miriam that he had been given the day off.

The lieutenant was taking his gun up to the boy’s school, he had been told. In the meantime, he was going to sleep where he was calling from-the bird sanctuary. Mystifying.

“That is good, my husband,” said Miriam. “Now you will have the time to put a plank across the bottom of the lavatory door outside. How does the corporation think a modest woman likes to be on that squat pan with everyone looking in under?”

“I have heard,” replied Zondi with a leer, “that the corporation thinks it is part of our culture.”

He artfully lowered the door eight inches.

Probationer Detective Johnny Pembrook stood outside the Colonel’s office making sure he had no wind left to break. His gut had been in an uproar all night through sheer nerves. The order to report to the divisional commissioner had reached him in the barracks as he was turning in after a long, fruitless search for an old woman’s purse. The awful thing was that only the time had been stated and he had no idea what he had done. Not specifically, that was. It had really churned him over. A probationer detective makes a lot of mistakes. One too many and he goes back into blue for the rest of his days. And Pembrook wanted to join CID more than he wanted to play for the A team-although he would never admit it. That was the worst mistake he could make. God, how his stomach fluttered.

Then, having almost fired a live round, he decided to quit playing Russian roulette with himself and find out what it was all about.

The Colonel was surprisingly cordial.

“At ease, Pembrook,” he said in English. “How are things in CID?”

“First class, sir.”

“Good! You’re making nice progress.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“It is time you did some paper work, though.”

Pembrook’s chin came up.

“Sir?”

“We want you to take some statements. These are the addresses-Swanepoel, Steenkamp, it’s all there.”

“What case is this, sir?”

“Oh, something of Lieutenant Kramer’s.”

“ Murder Squad, sir?”

“He’ll be the one to brief you.”

Pembrook could not help it.

“Why me? ” he blurted.

“I’m buggered if I know, Pembrook.”

The deputy headmaster usually acted as starter for the races at the annual interhouse gala because he had an old revolver left over from the war. So, with him away ill, it had been one less thing for Mr. Marais to worry about when Miss Louw’s friend offered to take his place.

But having now come face to face with the volunteer, and having been introduced, Mr. Marais was no longer too sure about that.

“This is very kind of you, Lieutenant Kramer,” he said in his smoothest headmaster’s voice, “yet is it very wise?”

“How do you mean, Mr. Marais?”

“Well, it might just cause an-er-awkwardness. As you can see out there, most of the parents are here this afternoon and some of them are very upset about what happened to Boetie. We even thought of canceling but we’ve got the inter-schools next week and this is how we choose our team. Also, it could make the children nervous.”

“Oh, I’m sure nobody will know who Trompie is-they’re all railway folk,” said Miss Louw.

Mr. Marais took off his rimless spectacles, polished the lenses, and replaced them over his rimless eyes.

“I’m held responsible for everything,” he said plaintively. “Bad language… Smells… You’ve no idea.”

“Look, if you don’t want me here, I’ll go. Only I can’t leave the gun behind for you because it’s government property.”

“Please don’t take that attitude, Lieutenant! We’re very, very happy to have you. An honored guest, you might say. I just needed to think a moment. No, I’m sure Miss Louw is right: nobody will know who you are.”

“That’s the beauty of it, man,” Kramer murmured, as he acknowledged the wave Mr. Marais gave him from the French windows opening out on the pool. Then he turned to Miss Louw.

“Why did you suddenly call me Trompie just now?”

“You forget-I told him we were old friends.”

“ Ach, of course. And you may just have something there, Lisbet. Now what must I do?”

It was all very simple. He was given a box of. 38 blanks, a program annotated to show him from which side each event began, a whistle to impose silence, and a pat on the shoulder for luck. He was also entreated to keep things moving, as there was a lot to get through.

A starter using a firearm is always regarded with some awe by children in bathing suits. There is something about that chunk of ruthless metal being carried so casually between their unprotected bodies that induces respect. A boy’s fascination for weapons plays its part as well, as does a girl’s dislike of loud bangs. With all this on his side, and his innate ability to have commands obeyed instantly, Kramer himself set an unofficial record.

Mr. Marais made a feeble joke about it over the loudspeaker. And then he explained that as it was only four o’clock, the ice cream had not yet arrived for the party after the prize-giving. Therefore there would be a short interval of fifteen minutes’ duration.

Lisbet had already pointed out to Kramer where her class sat in a block on the grass. He wandered down there, reloading his gun.

Although the first boy to speak was a good six years older than Mungo Nielsen, his response was the same.

“Let’s have a look, sir!” he pleaded.

Kramer made a show of reluctance.

“Come on, sir!” said some others.

He sat down.

“Don’t touch,” he warned. “You must never play with guns.”

“Blanks can’t kill you, can they, sir?”

“The wad would hurt, all right. You’d get a bad burn, too. Anyone know what kind of gun this is?”

“Smith amp; Wesson. 38 service revolver, six shots, muzzle velocity of four tons.”

“Not bad! How did you know that?”

“The police have them.”

“Oh, yes?”

“He’s a Midnight Leopard! Big show-off.”

The black-haired boy with a harelip frowned at the girl who had spoken.

“I’m not,” he said. “You know I’m not anymore. Nobody is.”

She stuck out her tongue at him and then smirked at Kramer.

“I know what you are, too!”

“What?”

“Our teacher’s boyfriend.”

The whole class giggled-except for a sulky-looking miss out on the fringe. From the description he had been given, he was sure this was Hester Swart, Boetie’s romantic lead.

“So what? I bet you’ve got a girl friend!”

Kramer flicked a pebble into the lap of the boy who had stopped him.

“Me?” he hooted.

“That’s her there,” said the cheeky girl.

“All right, then here’s your darling little Dirk Botha!”

Accusation and counteraccusation rent the air like a dozen premature domestic disturbances rolled into one. Finally, however, the whole group had been paired off, with Hester again the exception.

“But what about this little lady?” Kramer asked, as guilelessly as he knew how.

“She’s-”

“Go on?”

The speaker glanced at his fellows. They all looked away, very uncomfortable.

“What’s the matter, kids?”

They all turned to Hester.

“I’ve never been anybody’s girl friend!” she declared fiercely.

Harelip appeared as horrified as the others yet managed to speak.

“You can’t say that, Hester! You even put his initials on your desk.”

“Rubbish. I hate him!”

“Hester Swart!”

“I don’t care! I hate him. I’m glad Boetie’s dead. Glad.”

Dear God, not another.

Seated on cane chairs in the Colonial Hotel’s courtyard, Kramer and Lisbet compared notes. The tall glasses of lager were a great help.

“Man, you got to her just in time,” Kramer said. “I thought she was going to have hysterics.”

“She did. In the staff room.”

“Slap her face?”

“No, let her have a go at mine. When she realized what she’d done, she was so startled that she shut up like that.”

Kramer laughed. He hoped it would be infectious. It was. How edible she was.

“Well, it gave me the chance I’d been waiting for, anyway,” he said. “I got Harelip-”

“Jan?”

“Yes, Jan-to one side and bought him an Eskimo Pie. Chatted him up about the Midnight Leopards. I think we can definitely rule the others out now-they packed up when the new sergeant put his foot down. And Boetie kept all his secrets to himself, too.”

“Not from Hester, though.”

“I gathered that. Hell hath no fury?”

“You’ve said it.”

“I thought so. But even then, why the big reaction?”

“The new girl was English.”

“Hey?”

“English-speaking, I mean.”

“God Almighty! No wonder she took it badly.”

Lisbet waved over an Indian waiter and ordered two double brandies with orange juice.

“It’s my turn to pay,” she said softly, pushing across the money when the waiter had gone. Kramer stopped her by placing a hand on hers. And left it there. The rest of him was miles away.

“I want to pay,” Lisbet repeated. “Now that we’re sharing things together, Trompie.”

That brought him back with a bump.

“Sorry, Lisbet! I don’t know what happened. Just all of a sudden this whole case seemed…”

“Do you want to know her name?”

“Please.”

“Sally Jarvis.”

“ Jarvis? Why does that ring a bell?”

“It does?”

“Somewhere. Go on, meantime.”

“I’ve had to put it together from all sorts of bits and pieces but the main gist of Hester’s story was that Boetie gave her the boot without warning last month.”

“When exactly?”

“On Tuesday the eighteenth. She went to the dentist that day so she had the date fixed in her mind long before.”

“I interrupted you.”

“It seems this was a terrible shock for her. They’d been going to the bioscope to see cowboy films on Saturday morning ever since the middle of last year. He’d also written her letters that she’d shown her friends. Maybe it’s hard for a man to understand the disgrace, but I can tell you it’s very real.”

The brandies arrived.

“What did she do?”

“What any woman would: asked him who her rival was. He denied this was the case. There were exams coming and his parents were pushing him. Hester didn’t believe this-her Boetie was much too clever to have to swot. So she waylaid Bonita outside the high school two days later and discovered, without giving anything away, that Boetie was allegedly seeing her, Hester, most evenings. That really made her mad and she challenged him again.”

“Did he tell her about Sally then?”

“Oh, no, he claimed Bonita was a spiteful liar, a typical big sister. Hester had to find out the hard way.”

“How?”

“By being told what was happening by someone else. And not someone she liked: a self-satisfied young lady called Doreen West who lives in Railway Village but, because of her parentage, goes to the English medium school in town. Doreen stopped Hester outside the sweet shop and asked when she was going to take up ballroom dancing, too.”

“No, this I can’t take! You’re not going to tell me that Boetie was going to dancing classes?”

“Why not?”

“Because-well, it’s an English custom, isn’t it? You don’t get hundred-percent Afrikaners like Boetie going in for that bloody nonsense; long trousers, jockstraps, and quiffy hair styles!”

“Jockstraps?”

“Never you mind about the worries a young boy has-just tell me where this fits in.”

“Sally was English, wasn’t she?”

“ Ach, I can see it must have been there he got pally with an English girl-where else? But what made him go in the first place?”

“There is a simple answer to that.”

“Uhuh?”

“To meet Sally. Specifically. As you say: where else?”

The ice had melted away, ruining the taste of the brandy.

“You’re a proper schoolmarm, do you know that?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to squash you. I’ll give you marks for neatness, though.”

“Oh, yes?”

“I know you weren’t thinking when you asked the question. You were off wondering just how much of a liar Boetie really was. He could have lied to Hennie, too, about those patrols he claimed to have been making up in Greenside-just to cover up the fact he’d been fooling round with an English girl. It also fits very nicely that he might have been going to see her that night for a secret meeting in the woods.”

“You’re psychic, Lisbet.”

“A little.”

“But only half a mark for me, I think-for effort. Because it doesn’t tie everything up. There’s the toffee tin and the papers inside it, for a start.”

“And the fact that Boetie was not a natural liar. If he lied at all, I would think it would have to be for a very good reason.” “Yes, that’s an important aspect of all this; he does seem to have been behaving out of character.”

“Or was he?”

“I think the whole thing rests on that. Another drink?”

Lisbet nodded and a snap of the fingers activated the waiter, who stood, motionless between orders, like some kind of robot conserving its batteries, against a far pillar. He glided over.

“Brandy and telephone directory, Sammy.”

The waiter’s name was not Sammy, but his race had been divided by the whites into Sammy units and Mary units to facilitate friendly relationships.

“Horange juice last time, master,” he intoned carefully.

“That’s right-the directory’s separate.”

Kramer made his reply poker face and was rewarded when Lisbet smiled. If only the damn case could be set aside for the rest of the evening. Perhaps-

“Come on,” she said. “Where had we got to? And what’s the phone book for?”

“That, too, has a simple answer. Boetie went to the dancing classes because he wanted to meet someone, namely Miss Jarvis. Right?”

“Yes…”

“Therefore there was a connection between them beforehand. He must have come across her-heard of her even. Where, though? And why couldn’t they meet there?”

“What we’ve already decided-it depends on where she lives. Normally Afrikaner and English kids don’t mix.”

“Exactly.”

Kramer took the directory off the tray and flicked through to J. There were nine Jarvises listed. Two had Miss in front of their names. Another two were businesses. Leaving five, of which no less than three were in Greenside.

“Greenside!”

Kramer jumped up. Lisbet grabbed her handbag and ran after him.

“What’s the panic, Trompie?”

“I’m going round to that dancing school!”

“How do you know which one?”

“They’re only two-we’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of being right first time.”

“But why not just phone all the Jarvises and ask if there’s a Sally?”

“Because, my girl, I like to keep myself downhill when I’m stalking.”

“You mean…?”

“Nothing. It’s a matter of principle.”

It was exhaustingly boring just sitting there in the lieutenant’s office hour after hour. There was nothing to look at, nobody to talk to, not even a shortwave radio Johnny Pembrook could tune across to Lourenco Marques for some pop.

Yet he dared not leave it. His orders had been explicit: get the statements, get back to headquarters, stay put.

Well, he had got the statements, all right, and felt rather proud of them. He was sure that the various parties concerned had been most surprised to find so young a man entrusted with their solemn declarations. Probably his age had had a lot to do with it. The adults had acted as though they had detected his anxiety to do well.

Johnny began reading their words once again. Midway through Bonita’s recollections-God, she had frightened him, that one! — he realized he knew it all by heart.

“Bloody hell!” he said.

How silly that sounded.

But the whole setup was ridiculous.

Only a probationer detective would tolerate it-any other rank would have long since left a note and buggered off to the mess, lieutenant or no lieutenant. Johnny Pembrook suddenly had his first, perhaps second, insight into why Kramer asked for him.

The ever so gentle English gentleman, a real Londoner no less, who owned the Sadlers’ School of Dancing, positively writhed at the implication that he taught the tango to teenagers. Or any other such vulgar step to anyone, for that matter. He would have none of that. Things had changed enormously since he had taken over the lease at the beginning of November. Absolutely enormously. What a reception the city’s wonderfully artistic people had given him! So starved of culture, poor creatures. It made him so happy. But now, of course, his whole evening had been totally, utterly ruined. And he had such dear friends in. How thoughtlessly cruel.

“Jesus, I don’t know how they get into the country,” Kramer said loudly to Lisbet as they turned away in the hall.

“Probably come in those crates marked ‘British Made,’ ” he quipped on the stairs. Phonetically, the pun was viable in both languages-the Afrikaans word meid meaning “maid,” too, if you had to spell it all out. But Lisbet did not show any sign of amusement.

“I felt sick the way he was looking at you,” she said quietly.

“Oh, yes? How was it different to the way you look at me, then?”

“It wasn’t,” she said.

Kramer pondered deeply all the way round to the Trekkersburg Academy of Dance and Deportment. Where, to his considerable relief, they were received by a slant-eyed, fierce little woman in a black mantilla.

“Lat Am tonight,” she said at the door.

“Pardon, lady?”

“Latin American, and you’re not coming onto my floor in those shoes.”

“Cha, cha, cha,” Kramer replied, handing her his identification card and walking in.

Lisbet hesitated a moment and then followed them into the small office wallpapered with photographs of knob-kneed little girls in tutus, seedy Valentinos fully extended, and an incongruously obese Pekingese. There was a roll-top desk, two chairs, a coat stand; paper, mostly sheet music, lay everywhere.

“Name, lady?”

“Madame Du Barry.”

“Uhuh. I’m Holmes and this is Dr. Watson.”

“Mrs. Baker, then. Priscilla. Nothing immoral goes on in my studio.”

“That’s nice. But how about the ballroom classes held here on Friday nights?”

“It’s enough trouble getting the spotty little sods down from their end of the room to the girls! I’d never need to tear that lot apart, I can tell you. Here, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Inspecting your receipts.”

“What for, may I ask?”

Kramer tore out a page and handed it to Lisbet. She read: “To: Sally Jarvis, 10 Rosebank Road, Greenside. R4 with thanks.” Then Mrs. Baker snatched it away.

“So that’s it!” she said, moving round them like a boxer. Kramer was reminded of that wog Cassius he had seen on a newsreel-only then they had called him a dancer. His mind would do these things at critical moments.

“What?” he asked.

“Old Calamity Jane again. You’re working on the sex killing. He was also a pupil of mine, as you no doubt know. A nice boy, Boetie, quite a surprise considering he was an-”

Nearly a nasty blunder. Mrs. Baker sat down and made herself look very cooperative.

“Was he here long?”

“It’ll be in my register. Just a mo. Here we are: Boetie enrolled on the twenty-first of last month. That means he’s been here four times in all. A real little romance that was.”

“Him and the Jarvis girl?”

“Calf love at first sight. Took one squint at her and he was across in a flash.”

“How about the competition, though? From the other boys?”

“For Sally? You must be joking! If ever there was a plain Jane, she’s it, poor kid.”

Kramer frowned, then began a smile Lisbet finished for him. Quite obviously Sally had an appeal for Boetie that set aside all normal prejudices. One that must have been very strong indeed.

“May I ask you a question, Mrs. Baker?”

“Please do, miss.”

“You say Sally’s a plain Jane. Why did you also call her ‘Calamity Jane’?”

“Did I? I suppose because this is the second boy she knew who’s died in a month. Both right here in Trekkersburg, too.”