Indecent Exposure (5 page)

“I’ve done that already,” said the Kommandant.

“Good. What we have to realize is that this incident is part of a nation-wide conspiracy to undermine the morale of the South African Police. It is vital that we should do nothing premature.”

“Extraordinary,” said the Kommandant. “Nation-wide, I had no idea there were so many Communists still at large. I thought we’d nabbed the swine years ago.”

“They spring up like dragon’s teeth,” Verkramp assured him.

“I suppose they must,” said the Kommandant, who had never thought of it quite like that before. Luitenant Verkramp continued.

“After the failure of the sabotage campaign they went underground.”

“Must have done,” said the Kommandant, still obsessed with the thought of dragon’s teeth.

“They’ve reorganized and have begun a new campaign. First to undermine our morale and secondly, when that’s done, they’ll start a new wave of sabotage,” Verkramp explained.

“Do you mean to tell me,” the Kommandant, “that they are deliberately trying to obtain facts that can be used to blackmail police officers all over the country?”

“Precisely, sir,” said Verkramp. “I have reason to believe that they are particularly interested in sexual indiscretions committed by police officers.”

The Kommandant tried to think of any sexual indiscretions he might have committed lately and rather regretfully couldn’t. On the other hand he could think of thousands committed by the men under his command.

“Well,” he said finally, “it’s a good thing Konstabel Els isn’t with us any more. The bugger died just in time by the sound of it.”

Verkramp smiled. “That thought had crossed my mind,” he said. Konstabel Els’ exploits in the field of transracial sexual intercourse were already a legend in the Piemburg Police Station.

“In any case I still don’t see what you’re going to do to stop this infernal campaign,” the Kommandant went on. “If it isn’t Els, there are still plenty of konstabels whose sex life could do with improvement.”

Luitenant Verkramp was delighted. “My own view of the matter,” he said and took Dr von Blimestein’s questionnaire out of his pocket. “I’ve been working on the problem with a leading member of the psychiatric profession,” he said, “and I think we’ve come up with something that may serve to indicate those officers and men most vulnerable to this form of Communist infiltration.”

“Really?” said the Kommandant, who had an idea who the leading member of the psychiatric profession might be. Luitenant Verkramp handed him the questionnaire.

“With your approval, sir,” he said, “I’d like to have these questionnaires distributed to all the men on the station. From the answers we get it should be possible to spot any likely victims of blackmail.”

Kommandant van Heerden looked at the questionnaire, which was headed innocuously enough “Personality Research” and marked “Strictly Confidential”. He glanced at the first few questions and found nothing to alarm him. They seemed to be concerned with profession of father, age, and the number of brothers and sisters. Before he could get any further Verkramp was explaining that he had orders from Pretoria to carry out the investigation.

“BOSS?” asked the Kommandant.

“
BOSS
,” said Verkramp.

“In that case, go ahead,” said the Kommandant.

“I’ll leave you to fill that one in,” said Verkramp, and left the office delighted at the turn of events. He gave orders to Sergeant Breitenbach to distribute the questionnaires and telephoned Dr von Blimenstein to let her know that everything was proceeding, if not according to plan, since he hadn’t had one, at least according to opportunity. Dr von Blimenstein was delighted to hear it and before Verkramp fully realized what he was doing he found that he had invited her to have dinner with him that evening. He put the phone down astonished at his good fortune. It never crossed his mind that the pack of lies about Communist blackmailers he had told the Kommandant had no reality outside his own warped imagination. His professional task was to root out enemies of the state and it followed that enemies of the state were there to be rooted out. The exact details of their activities, if any, were of little importance to him. As he had once explained in court, it was the principle of subversion that mattered, not the particulars.

If Verkramp was satisfied with the way things were going, Kommandant van Heerden, seated at his desk with the questionnaire in front of him, wasn’t. The Luitenant’s story was convincing enough. The Kommandant had no doubt that Communist agitators were at work in Zululand – nothing less could explain the truculence of the Zulus in the township at the recent increase in bus fares. But that saboteurs disguised as Gas men had infiltrated his own home indicated a new phase in the campaign of subversion, and a particularly alarming one at that. The Duty Sergeant’s report that the investigating team had discovered a microphone under the sink only went to prove how accurate Luitenant Verkramp’s forecast had been. Ordering the Sergeant to leave the investigation to the Security Branch, the Kommandant sent a note to Verkramp which read, “Re our discussion this morning. The presence of microphone in kitchen confirms your report. Suggest you take counteraction immediately. Van Heerden.”

With renewed confidence in the ability of his second-in-command the Kommandant decided to tackle the questionnaire Verkramp had given him. He filled in the first few questions happily enough and it was only when he had turned the page that there dawned on him the feeling that he was being led gently into a quagmire of sexual confession where every answer only dragged him deeper down.

“Did you have a black nanny?” seemed innocuous enough, and the Kommandant put “Yes” only to find that the next question was “Size of breasts. Large. Medium. Small.” After a moment’s hesitation not unmixed with alarm he ticked “Large,” and went on to consider “Nipple Length. Long. Medium. Short.” “This is a bloody funny way to fight Communism,” he thought, trying to remember the length of his nanny’s teats. In the end he put “Long” and found himself faced with “Did black nanny tickle private parts? Often. Sometimes. Infrequently?” The Kommandant looked desperately for “Never” and couldn’t find it. In the end he ticked Infrequently and turned to the next question. “Age at First Ejaculation, Three years, four years…?”

“Don’t leave much to chance,” thought the Kommandant, indignantly trying to make his mind up between six years, which was quite untrue but which seemed less likely to undermine his authority than sixteen years, which was more accurate. He’d just put eight years as a compromise based on a nocturnal emission he’d had when he was ten when he saw that he’d walked into a trap. The next question was “Age at First Wet Dream?” This time the list started at ten years. By the time he had rubbed out his answer to the previous question to make it consistent with a Wet Dream at eleven years, the Kommandant was in a thoroughly bad temper. He picked up the phone and called Verkramp’s office. Sergeant Breitenbach answered the phone.

“Where’s Verkramp?” the Kommandant demanded. The Sergeant said he was out, and could he help? The Kommandant said he doubted it. “It’s this damned questionnaire,” he told the Sergeant. “Who’s going to read it?”

“I think Dr von Blimenstein intends to,” the Sergeant said. “She drew it up.”

“Did she?” snarled the Kommandant. “Well you can tell Luitenant Verkramp that I have no intention of answering question twenty-five.”

“Which one is that?”

“It’s the one that goes ‘How many times do you masturbate every day?’” said the Kommandant. “You can tell Verkramp that I think it’s an invasion of privacy to ask questions like that.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sergeant Breitenbach, studying the possible answers on the questionnaire, which ranged from five times to twenty-five times.

The Kommandant slammed down the phone and locking the questionnaire in his desk went out to lunch in a filthy temper. “Dirty bitch, wanting to know things like that,” he thought as he stomped downstairs, and he was still grumbling to himself when he finished lunch in the police canteen. “I’ll be up at the Golf Club if anyone wants me,” he told the Duty Sergeant and left the police station. He spent a fruitless couple of hours trying to hit a ball down the fairway before returning to the Clubhouse with the feeling that this was not one of his days.

He ordered a double brandy from the barman and took his drink out to a table on the terrace where he could sit and watch more experienced players drive off. He was sitting there absorbing the English atmosphere and trying to rid himself of the nagging conviction that the even tenor of his life was being undermined in some mysterious way when a crunch of gravel in the Clubhouse forecourt made him glance over his shoulder. A vintage Rolls-Royce had just parked and the occupants were climbing out. For a moment the Kommandant had the extraordinary sensation that he had been transported back to the 1920s. The two men who emerged from the front seat were dressed in knickerbockers and wore hats that had been out of fashion for fifty years, while their two women companions were attired in what appeared to the Kommandant to be fancy dress with cloche hats, and carried parasols. But it was less the clothes or the immaculate vintage Rolls than the voices that affected the Kommandant so profoundly. High-pitched and languidly arrogant, they seemed to reach him like some echo from the English past and with them came a rush of certitude that all was well in the world in spite of everything. The kernel of servility which was Kommandant van Heerden’s innermost self and which no amount of his own authority could ever erase quivered ecstatically within him as the group passed him without so much as a glance to indicate that they were aware of his existence. It was precisely this self-absorption to the point where it transcended self and became something immutable and absolute, a Godlike self-sufficiency, that Kommandant van Heerden had always hoped to find in the English. And here it was before him in the Piemburg Golf Club in the shape of four middle-aged men and women whose inane chatter was proof positive that there was, in spite of wars, disasters, and imminent revolution, nothing serious to worry about. The Kommandant particularly admired the elegance with which the leader of the foursome, a florid man in his fifties, clicked his fingers for the black caddie before walking over to the first tee.

“How absolutely priceless,” shrieked one of the ladies about nothing in particular as they followed.

“I’ve always said Boy was a glutton for punishment,” said the florid man as they passed out of earshot. The Kommandant stared after them before hurrying in to the bar to consult the barman.

“Call themselves the Dornford Yates Club,” the barman told him. “Don’t ask me why. Anyway they dress up and talk la-di-da in memory of some firm called Bury & Co which went bust some years back. Red-faced fellow is Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon. He’s the one they call Bury. The plump lady is his missus. The other bloke’s Major Bloxham. Call him Boy, of all things, and he must be forty-eight if he’s a day. I don’t know who the thin woman is.”

“Do they live near here?” the Kommandant asked. He didn’t approve of the barman’s rather off-hand attitude to his betters but he desperately wanted to hear more about the foursome.

“The Colonel’s got a place up near the Piltdown Hotel but they seem to spend most of their time on a farm in the Underville district. It’s got a queer name like White Woman or something. I’ve heard they have some pretty queer goings-on up there, too.”

The Kommandant ordered another brandy and took it out to his table on the terrace to wait for the party to return. Presently he was joined by the barman who stood in the doorway looking bored.

“Has the Colonel been a member here long?” the Kommandant asked.

“A couple of years,” the barman said, “since they all came down from Rhodesia or Kenya or somewhere. Seem to have plenty of spending money too.”

Aware that the man was looking at him rather curiously, the Kommandant finished his drink and strolled over to inspect the vintage Rolls-Royce.

“1925 Silver Ghost,” said the barman who had followed him over. “Nice condition.”

The Kommandant grunted. He was beginning to tire of the barman’s company. He moved round the other side of the car, only to find the barman at his elbow.

“You after them for something?” the man asked conspiratorially.

“What the hell makes you think that?” the Kommandant asked.

“Just wondered,” said the barman, and with some remark about a nod being as good as a wink which the Kommandant didn’t understand, the man went back into the Clubhouse. Left to himself, the Kommandant finished his inspection of the car and was just turning away when he caught sight of something on the back seat that stopped him in his tracks. It was a book and from its back cover there stared impassively the portrait of a man. High cheek bones, slightly hooded eyelids, impeccably straight nose and a trimmed moustache, the face looked past the Kommandant into a bright and assured future. Peering through the window, Kommandant van Heerden gazed at the portrait and as he gazed knew with a certainty that passed all understanding that he was on the brink of a new phase of discovery in his search for the heart of an English gentleman. There before him on the back seat of the Rolls was portrayed with an exactitude he would never have believed possible the face of the man he wanted to be. The book was As Other Men Are by Dornford Yates. The Kommandant took out his notebook and wrote the title down.

By the time Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon and his party returned to the Clubhouse, the Kommandant had left and was making his way to the Public Library in the certain knowledge that he was about to learn, from the works of Dornford Yates, the secret of that enigma which had puzzled him for so long, how to be an English gentleman.

By the time Luitenant Verkramp left the police station that evening and returned to his flat to change he was a supremely happy man. The ease with which he had allayed the Kommandant’s suspicions, the results he was getting from the questionnaires, the prospects of spending the evening in the company of Dr von Blimenstein all contributed to the Luitenant’s sense of well-being. Above all, the fact that the Kommandant’s house was still bugged and that he would be able to lie in bed and listen to every movement the Kommandant was indiscreet enough to make in his home lent a piquancy to Verkramp’s sense of achievement. Like the Kommandant, Luitenant Verkramp felt himself on the brink of a discovery that would change his whole life and transform him from merely second-in-command into a position of authority more suited to his ability. As he waited for his bath water to run, Luitenant Verkramp adjusted the receiver in his bedroom and checked the tape recorder connected to it. Before long he could make out the Kommandant shuffling about his house and opening and shutting cupboards. Satisfied that his listening device was functioning properly, Verkramp switched it off and went and had his bath. He had just finished and was climbing out when the front-door bell rang.