The Artful Egg (34 page)

“I suppose going to England this week was a deadline, hey?”

“But how would an outsider know that, either? Christ,
I
didn’t realise, until she came round and told me, that she was intending to work on the book all the hours God sent, right up to the very last minute.”

“Then, did you tell someone?” asked Kramer, before he could think of a less blunt way of putting it.

Kennedy flinched. “No, I’m certain I didn’t. I never talk about my mother or her work to anyone, in the ordinary course of events. In fact, the only time I’ve discussed the matter at all—until now—was with her, out there by my Land-Rover last Saturday morning.”

“Who was with you?”

“Nobody. Bruce had been working alongside me, but he’d gone inside for a Band-Aid before Mum arrived. Then Vicki nipped out to call Amanda and switch Bruce’s radio off, and then we were completely on our own. That’s when this discussion about burning the midnight oil took place—I remember feeling relieved we were on our own, because the rows me and my mother always ended up having were, well, a bit strong-worded at times. I sparked it off by saying she was overdoing
things, and would be a gibbering wreck by the time she reached London. I wish now I’d had a chance to introduce Vicki to Mum, but I’d barely said more than ‘hello’ to her at that stage and.… Oh, well.”

“Ja, that’s life for you, hey?”

“Or death,” said Kennedy quietly.

“Theo, you mustn’t dwell too much,” warned Kramer. “To go on with what we were saying, if there was nobody out there on the carpark, except your ma and you, what about above you?”

“Sorry, I don’t quite follow.…”

“There’s a balcony running along just above this window, isn’t there? So the people upstairs can get to their flats?”

“Oh, I get you. Someone could’ve eavesdropped from there, you mean?”

“Correct. Can you remember seeing anyone?”

“No, I don’t think so. They could’ve been ducked down behind the balcony wall, I suppose, but that sounds a bit melodramatic.”

“Even so, who lives above you?”

“I’ve no idea. People come and go a lot from these flats; they’re often just a stepping-stone in their lives. We’ve had construction workers, bohemian intellectuals of different sorts, varsity students, young marrieds, divorcees—God, do you realise what I’ve just said?”

Kramer nodded. “Do you know the names of any of the students?”

“No, but Vicki might, or we could try—”

“Theo, you leave this just to me, OK?” said Kramer, starting to leave. “And don’t say anything to the others at this stage. I don’t want things going wrong because a suspect feels he is being stared at or anything like that—are you with me?”

“All the way, Tromp. I’d much prefer it if the others didn’t get involved.”

They walked outside, and Zondi came up.

“Ja, Mickey, what is it?”

“Radio message from the Colonel, sir. He wants us to go and fetch a suspect, Peerswammy Lal, from Garrison Road Mental Hospital, reference Ramjut Pillay. The matter is now very urgent—a letter on blue paper.”

“A letter on blue paper?” Kennedy said, his voice catching, as Vicki Stilgoe moved protectively towards him.

“Ach, take no notice,” said Kramer. “That’ll have bugger-all to do with this case, let me promise you.”

“But surely.…” began Vicki Stilgoe.

“You don’t know the officer behind it, Vicki, or you’d agree with me, hey? See you all later maybe.”

“But, boss,” whispered Zondi, as they neared the car, “that lady is right. A blue letter and the postman who—”

“Sod Ramjet Pillbox, Mickey, I’ve just come up with a bloody good lead of my own that—”

“Lieutenant, you have made this kind of mistake before, and we have been in much, much—”

“What do you want to do? Change places with Gagonk?”

“Ermph,” said Zondi, and tossed him the car keys.

C
OLONEL
M
ULLER
’
S NEW
briar was in danger of having its mouthpiece bitten off. “What the hell do you mean?” he stormed at Control, managing to snatch his pipe from his teeth just in time. “Lieutenant Kramer hasn’t acknowledged yet? That’s
three times
my order has gone out!”

“Ja, Colonel, I know,” said the radio operator, standing to attention beside his desk. “Twice his Bantu’s taken the message, but since then nothing.”

“How often have you tried?”

“Every two minutes, Colonel.”

“I don’t believe you, Hedge!”

“But it’s true, Colonel—just look in my log.”

“Then, why aren’t they answering?”

“Maybe they’re not in the vehicle, Colonel.”

“But there have been two messages already!”

Hedge shrugged. “They could’ve been in a crash, sir. CID’s always—”

The briar dug deep into his belly. “You, Hedge,” hissed the Colonel, “are a funny man, a proper comedian. Consider yourself forthwith on transfer to Namibia.”

“Jesus, Colonel, I was only—”

“They tell me things are very serious there, so what they need is a joker. Hedge! Ja, and try telling your jokes to SWAPO; see if they laugh more than me, hey?”

Then, turning about, Colonel Muller stamped out of the room, grabbed Tims Shabalala by the arm, and commanded him to go straight down to Garrison Road Mental Hospital and bring back Peerswammy Lal for immediate interrogation.

“Hau, most gladly, Colonel, sir,” said Shabalala, slipping his thick wrist through the thong of the rhino-hide whip he always carried.

Azalea Mansions, as Kramer had noted when glancing at Theo Kennedy’s rent bill, was owned by A.K. Coates & Son, which had its offices in a new building opposite Trekkersburg General Hospital. As though to rival its neighbour in providing an air of brisk, clinical efficiency, Coates & Son had opted for white walls, green rubber tiles, metal furniture, a rude receptionist and a pile of the oldest magazines on offer outside an outpatients’ waiting-room.

“No, Mr. Coates, senior, cannot see anyone without an appointment,” said the receptionist, browsing through a bridal catalogue.

“He’s disabled, hey? Carries a white stick?”

“That’s nice,” the receptionist murmured to herself, pausing at a colour plate of a honeymoon négligé.

“But where’s the bag he’s going to need to put over your head, lady?”

She looked up then, for the first time. “
What
was that you said?”

“Mr. Coates.”

“All right, you’ve asked for it.…” She leaned towards her intercom and pressed down a switch. “Mr. Coates, there is a very abusive man out here. I think I need some assistance.”

“You see,” Kramer said to her, as the door marked
A.K. Coates, Snr
. was yanked open and a big man came hurrying out, “it never fails.”

*   *   *

Zondi had decided to keep well away from the car, and certainly out of earshot of its radio. He crossed the street and paused to look over the bank of flowers arranged outside the entrance to the hospital. The flower-seller ignored him; Trekkersburg General took no Bantu patients, making it immediately obvious he wasn’t a customer.

Curious to see inside the building, Zondi went back to the car very briefly to pick up one of the large manila envelopes that lay scattered on its rear shelf, and then walked past the flower-seller and into the air-conditioned reception area. A black hospital guard in a khaki uniform immediately barred his way.

“Messages at the side door, brother,” he said.

Zondi turned the envelope round and pointed to its printed markings. “SAP,” he said. “Important documents that I must deliver personally.”

“To what person?”

“Lieutenant Jones.”

“You have proof of identity?”

Zondi flipped open his jacket to allow the guard a glimpse of his Walther PPK in its shoulder holster and the knife in his waistband.

“Hau, brother, I do not know what to do. Will you come with me?”

They went over and stood to one side at a large counter where five white women snapped at people who asked them questions. From time to time, looking awkward and anxious, black deliverymen would hurriedly approach the counter from the street, place cellophane-wrapped bunches of flowers at the far end of the counter, and hasten away again. Eventually one of the white women came over to the guard.

“What do you want?”

“This is a policeman, madam. He has here important papers for his boss. He says he must give these to him by his own hand.”

“Rubbish. We can’t have him wandering everywhere with ladies just in dressing-gowns. Tell him to put his boss’s name on it, and we’ll see he gets them—nothing ever gets lost here. Well, go on.”

So the guard said in Zulu: “My apologies, brother, for the rudeness of this ignorant person. Can you do as she said?”

Zondi addressed the empty envelope and had it snatched from him. But, just as he was leaving, he had an idea and said to the guard: “Brother, there is one other item to go to Lieutenant Jones. If I bring it here in ten minutes, will you place it on the counter for me?”

Mr. Coates, senior, was a man who liked to talk rugby, and as the sport was considered so important by the police that rugby training was carried out during duty hours, he not unnaturally expected Kramer liked to talk rugby, too.

“Now, let me guess what position you played,” he said, knitting together two huge hairy hands and placing them behind his shiny bald head. “Wing?”

“Wing,” said Kramer to save argument, having an antipathy to all games that weren’t played for real. “But you say your brother-in-law took on the Lions for Rhodesia?”

“That’s right—and scored the first and last tries of the game, I’ll have you know! Now, there was a hard man for you—truly hard. His natives on the farm were terrified of him, worked like niggers even when he wasn’t around. One day, you see, his induna gave him some cheek, so he picked the old bugger up, held him in the air, and he dropped him, right on this harrow. Luckily for the coon the tractor wasn’t pulling it at the time, or he really would have had some wounds to lick. Well, from then on, so they tell me, that induna was almost as hard as he was, really drove the boys under him, and Denis never had any trouble bringing in the biggest tobacco crop in the whole district. Of course, this
was some years back, before Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and the whole place went to—”

“That list of tenants, Mr. Coates,” said the receptionist, coming in and glaring at Kramer as she handed it over. “Mr. Jeffery says it’s fully up to date, and when you’ve finished with it could he have it returned to him, please?”

Coates gave her a leer, which restored the smugness to her face, and a moment later the door was closed behind her. Then he slid a computer print-out across the desk.

“Help yourself to anything you want on it,” he said. “And don’t take any bloody notice of Jeffery; he’s a proper old woman, never passed a ball in his life. If you’d like that to keep, you keep it; I can always get another one done.”

Kramer, partly distracted by the thought that he was grateful never to have passed a ball, either, as it sounded agonising, glanced across the column headings. Flat number; name; marital status; occupation; income; deposit; rent; number of other occupants; period of lease; service charge; arrears; garage number, if applicable. He could not have wished for more.

“There are a few students, like I said, aren’t there?” asked Coates, getting out from behind his desk to practise a golf swing. “Mind you, I’ve got a strict policy as far as letting to kids at the varsity goes. The only ones I’ll take are sportsmen—you know, forestry, agriculture, chemistry.… I certainly don’t want a lot of arty-farty ones with the long hair and girlie complexions smoking Christ-knows-what on my premises and having their multi-racial orgies. If they say Fine Arts or English, they are
out
. Even History can give you trouble.”

“Ja, there are a few students, very few,” murmured Kramer, disappointment setting in, “and they’re all women.”

“Every one of them plays a sport, though!”

“Couch rugby?”

Coates barked a laugh. “That, too, I wouldn’t be surprised!
Now, you know, that reminds me of the time after I’d played against East Griqualand—”

“Just a sec, sir,” said Kramer, noticing something. “One of your tenants doesn’t seem to pay any rent, hasn’t any occupation, no income, didn’t put down a deposit—in fact, the name’s the only part that’s filled in.”

“Ah, yes, I know which one you mean,” said Coates, suddenly looking ill at ease, almost embarrassed. “But her, I can vouch for personally. It’s, er, what you might call a bit of a private matter.”

Kramer raised an eyebrow, while he also tried to picture this great heap of slackening muscle lowering itself onto the petite form of Vicki Stilgoe, lying back with her eyes closed and thinking of the rent bill. But somehow, adept as he was at turning his gut with insights of this kind, the trick wouldn’t work this time.

“Nothing like that!” exclaimed Coates, returning hastily to the dignity conferred on him by his big leather swivel-chair. “Denis’s daughter.”

“The bloke who played for Rhodesia?”

“Denis Newbury, that’s right—wife’s sister’s late hubby. And she’s gone, too, of course, the wife’s sister. Bastards butchered the lot of them. Vicki and little Amanda were the only two to come out of it. That induna I told you about? Somehow he got them up into the rainwater-tank on the roof before the terrs had fought their way past Denis and young Gary—Vicki’s husband, the farm manager. That’s where the police found them the next day, still in bloody water up to Vicki’s neck, the dead induna floating round—Denis’d spied him up there, and blasted him between the eyes, naturally thinking he was up to something—and, well, that was it. A terrible sight, it must’ve been, and all the bloody tobacco-sheds up in smoke, which is typical terr thinking.”

“But what about Bruce, if you say only two—”

“He was in the Selous Scouts, fighting the terrorists in the north. But how would you know his name?”

“Ach, I know him and Vicki, Mr. Coates. They’re next-door neighbours to—”

“Of course! That poor young sod Kennedy—a bit soft to look at, but a good business head. How’s he coping with it?”