The Blood of an Englishman (33 page)

“Hey?”

“They’re not talking, just sitting there. Meerkat is smiling, and Boss Darren is looking very frightened.”

“Christ, it sounds like a bloody duel! Are there any marks on Darren?”

“No marks I could see, Lieutenant.”

“Then what is Meerkat up to? Why has he let the kid have a gun? He’d never risk his own skin like that!”

“Shhh! Not so loud, boss.”

Kramer looked up into the pine tree to see if there were enough branches to bear his weight. Then he had another idea.
“Come, Mickey, if they’re so wrapped up in each other as you say, and if we keep low enough, we can get under the sitting-room windows without them noticing. But before we go, did you see any way we could enter the premises?”

Zondi’s teeth flashed a quick smile. “The front door is standing open, boss, and the door to the sitting room must be about three paces inside it to the right. Are we going to listen?”

“Uh huh. See what’s going on, then pick our moment. One last thing, Mickey: I don’t want any dead bodies, hey? These two have a lot of explaining to do before the night is over.”

“Check,” said Zondi.

By going down on all fours, and making good use of a long shadow thrown by one of the porch posts with the pressure lamp behind it, they crossed the remaining twenty yards between the pine tree and the cottage. It was something of a shock to hear Meerkat Marais’ voice hissing so close to them.

“But it can go on all night,” Meerkat was saying. “It won’t though, because your nerve will crack. For one of us, this is his last night on earth, hey? Who will it be? Who will be the faster?”

“It’s just a joke,” Darren Bradshaw blustered. “The same as me taking your gun was meant to be a joke.”

“Some joke,” Meerkat observed bleakly.

“Well, you weren’t in, as I’ve already explained a dozen times over. I had the cash with me then, honest! I was going to pay for it later, give the money to Silver Touch even, but my old man sent me back to Joey’s and—”

“You stole my gun, little rich boy. You didn’t leave any money in the fridge. You stole that gun which is lying in front of you. You tried to cheat me. That was a big mistake. Nobody does things like that to Meerkat. You ask anyone you like.”

“I was going to pay you this weekend for it!”

“You’re lying,” said Meerkat, unmoved.

Darren Bradshaw began to whine. “Please hear me out, hey? This bloke who wanted a small revolver never came back into the shop. It was my dad’s money I’d taken from the till to pay you, and when he didn’t come back—”

“I’m not interested in all this,” sighed Meerkat.

“But I’ve got you the gun again! It’s just as good as when I took it—it’s never been used!”

“I believe you, Darren.”

“You do?”

“But that doesn’t change things,” Meerkat went on. “You must still be punished for what you have done.”

“Be fair! Let’s stop this crazy—”

“But I am being fair,” said Meerkat. “I’m offering you a sporting chance,
Mister
Bradshaw. I’ve promised I won’t go for my gun until you do, and then let the best man win. Isn’t that what you were taught at that posh school of yours?”

Kramer nudged Zondi. He had been right, it was some sort of duel after all—although he’d never seriously considered the idea for a second. It didn’t fit in with Meerkat’s strong sense of self-preservation. Zondi raised his eyebrows, indicating that he was equally perplexed by the bizarre confrontation.

“Listen,” said Darren Bradshaw, hoarsely, “I don’t want to hurt you—I don’t want to
try
to hurt you! Isn’t that obvious? You can’t really want to hurt me either, not over a thing like this. Why don’t we—?”

“No, I don’t want to hurt you, Darren. I want to kill you.”

“But—but
why
, for Christ’s sake?”

“I hate you,” said Meerkat Marais.

Kramer shuddered involuntarily and the hairs at the back of his neck rose. Meerkat’s voice had sunk very low, it was purring and soft, and conveyed far more than even the terrible words he uttered. The psychopath was in the grip of a compulsion, and what made it worse was the hint of grim amusement,
as though he was enjoying a private joke which had still to reach its punchline.

There was despair in Darren Bradshaw’s voice when he began talking again, trying for the conciliatory tones of sweet reason. “You’re obviously very angry with me, and you’ve got every right to be, Mr. Marais—you feel I’ve made a fool of you. But don’t let that anger run away with you. If you kill me, then Sonja will be able to tell the police—”

“You must really think I’m a fool,” said Meerkat, almost inaudibly. “If I win then I’m going to shoot Sonja, put my pistol in your hand and make it look like a double suicide.”

“What?”

“I tell you, Darren, this is for keeps hey? But to make it easier for you I’ll put my hands on my knees. That way you’ll stand a better chance of grabbing and aiming before I do.”

Kramer motioned Zondi to take up a position where he could train his Walther PPK on Marais. Zondi gestured back, concerned that he would not be able to see Darren Bradshaw from that angle. That was all right, explained Kramer, with a zigzag movement of his hand, because he would be coming through the passage door behind Marais, and he’d have the youngster in full view.

“When?” mouthed Zondi.

Kramer tapped an ear, and mimed turning a door knob. Then he gave Zondi a light touch on the arm and made for the porch.

From inside the room, Meerkat’s voice could just be heard saying. “I’m tired of waiting, little rich boy. I’m going to start counting up to ten.”

He had reached three when Kramer, tugging his magnum from its holster, twisted the door knob and stepped suddenly into the room. Zondi came into sight at almost the same instant, with his pistol pointing at Meerkat’s head.

“Freeze!” barked Kramer. “Police! Don’t try anything!”

Meerkat froze, but Darren Bradshaw made a move to grab up the .32 revolver lying in front of him.

“Hold it, Darren—or you’re dead, hey?”

The hand remained poised an inch above the weapon.

“You first, Meerkat,” said Kramer. “Bunch your fist and knock that gun off the table. Zondi’s got you covered from the window.”

“I can’t see anyone.”

“Do it!”

Meerkat’s narrow shoulders shrugged in contemptuous indifference. He clenched his fist and sent the pistol clattering under a sideboard.

“Now you do the same,” Kramer ordered.

Darren Bradshaw looked back at him, white-faced and panic-stricken, gulping hard.

“There’s only you here,” said Meerkat.

“Shut up! Come on, Darren—take it easy now.”

“Get him, Darren!” shouted Meerkat.

Kramer pulled his trigger as Darren Bradshaw snatched up the .32 Smith & Wesson. It went click.

He pulled it again as the muzzle of the .32 Smith & Wesson leveled with his chest. It went click.

Darren Bradshaw was grinning.

Click, click, click!

Kramer saw his cartridges lying forgotten in a glass bowl on the shelf above the record-player in Tish’s flat, and was certain he would never count daisies again. Even so, in that same frantic second, he tried to throw himself sideways, but collided with the open door.

The .32 went off with a hell of a bang.

Kramer felt nothing, although it had been pointing straight at him. He stood stunned. Then Zondi came rushing through the doorway behind him, and stopped and stared too.

Darren Bradshaw was crouched at the far end of the table, looking in astonishment at where his right hand had been only a moment before. The hand had been blown apart, leaving only a tatter of tissue, bone splinters and a spurting stump. Then the .38 Smith & Wesson’s hammer, which protruded from a small hole in his skull above the right eyebrow, sagged and fell out, and he followed it to the floor, stone dead.

How Meerkat Marais laughed. “You can’t say that
I
did a thing to him!” he gasped, and then delivered the punchline of his terrible revenge. “You see, Lieutenant Kramer, there was no way I could lose! That bloody thirty-two was
lethal
.”

T
HEY TOOK OFF
again an hour after dawn, climbing slowly into a dull gray sky as leaden as Zondi’s mood.

Kramer finally twisted round in his seat beside Robert du Plooi and demanded to know what was eating him. “Is it because I was proved right after all?” he added. “That wasn’t even a wild-goose chase—it was a hunt for a bloody red herring!”

“Maybe I am just tired, boss,” murmured Zondi, yawning.

“But you can’t dispute how wrong you two were, hey? I knew from the start that Meerkat wasn’t involved in those shootings, and now we have proof positive. Not only couldn’t that have been the gun used, but Darren was nowhere near Trekkersburg at the time his father was shot. Furthermore—”

“How do you know that?” interrupted Du Plooi, who had spent the night swapping flying stories with the helpful farmer.

“The girlfriend told me,” explained Kramer. “She’s been going steady with him for two months, and he was at her parents’ place in Jo’burg when he received the news of his old man having been shot.”

“What sort of state is she in?”

“Shock like a rape case. She’s talking calmly and coldly, but tonight I reckon she’ll really crack up.”

“Poor kid.…” said Du Plooi, leveling out.

“Ja, they’d only just arrived at the cottage, and had opened all the windows to air it properly, when Meerkat arrived in that
hired car. Darren went out to see who it was, and came back with a gun in his back. The rest you must know.”

“Except for the bit about how the gun ended up in—”

“Ach, Darren chucked it in the dam the night he came to fetch his father,” said Kramer. “Meerkat insisted he got it out again, and that was what they were doing when we flew over.”

Du Plooi shook his head. “Stupid little idiot getting mixed up in things like that,” he said.

“I think he must have needed the extra cash. You should have seen the girl, this Sonja—very expensive piece of goods. The temptation must’ve been too great when the offer was made for a small revolver.”

“Not specifically a thirty-two?”

“No, Zondi and I heard Darren use the words ‘small revolver’—but they’re not much use under a thirty-two anyway.”

“All nice and neatly tied up then?”

“Uh huh, except I’ve got to do the informing of next-of-kin.”

Du Plooi pursed his lips sympathetically. “Rather you than me, friend! Darren may have been a proper little bastard in many ways, but he was the light of his mother’s life, you know. I bet she was behind him getting that brand-new sports car recently. And Archie’s going to take this pretty hard as well. They may have had their rows, but that’s only because they were as alike as peas in a pod those two. Don’t like the look of that cloud up ahead.”

Kramer saw what he meant, and looked at his watch. “How much longer to go round it?”

“Why?” chuckled Du Plooi. “Are you thinking of the welcoming arms of your lovely lady friend?”

“Ach, no,” said Kramer. “It’s just I’m knackered.” And his smile lingered for quite a while.

The plane began to wallow and make complaining noises with its engine. Du Plooi altered course, steering thirty
degrees further to the south, and kept checking the map on his knees. The plane settled down again.

“Another twenty minutes,” he said. “Sorry, but it can’t be helped.” His eyes were red-rimmed, and his shoulders sagged a bit.

“That’s fine,” said Kramer, growing weary himself.

For ten of those minutes, nobody spoke.

“I suppose what’s giving the glooms to our black friend back there is the fact you’re back at the start again. Must be very disappointing.”

“I’m not with you, Du Plooi.”

“Who
did
do the shooting and all that.”

“Ach, life’s too short for that, hey?” replied Kramer, lighting a cigarette.

“But doesn’t it annoy you to think he’s out there somewhere? Laughing at you up his sleeve?”

“He can laugh all he likes, man, just as long as he doesn’t interfere directly with my life.”

There was a sound of stirring in the back seat, and Zondi sat upright to look out of his window. “Hau! Where are we now, boss?”

“On the approach, Mickey—relax.”

They were banking slowly to the left and losing height over the yellow thorn scrub which stretched to the southeast of Trekkersburg. Kramer found no difficulty in picking out the bungalow and garden where Mrs. Westford lived with her big son Timmy: it looked like a green trading stamp stuck to a sheet of creased brown paper. He looked away again.

“May the twenty-seventh,” mumbled Zondi.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, Lieutenant. Soon, you say?”

“Very soon!” said Kramer, and skipped his visit to the Bradshaws, imagining instead the shower he would take first.

Trekkersburg was becoming real, and no longer seemed no more than a collection of pebbles and parsley in a hollow. Houses stood out, trees, street lamps, people.

Du Plooi sighed. “Pity it had to work out like this,” he said. “Is it true that the most you can hit Meerkat with is a couple of assault charges and possession of a stolen weapon? I would have thought that the fact he shouted at Darren to shoot made a difference.”

“It did,” agreed Kramer. “But what does Darren become if Meerkat is an accessory before the fact? A co-accused? I think Mrs. Bradshaw will have suffered enough. I’ll get Meerkat another day, don’t you worry.”

“He’s certainly a sly one.”

Zondi leaned forward against the back of Kramer’s seat. “Boss,” he said, “I think that is what’s worrying me: why did the young master try to shoot?”

“Because he was urged to in the heat of the moment!” Du Plooi retorted. “You were there, for Christ’s sake! You don’t think he’d do it off his own bat, do you?”

“The boss misunderstands me,” said Zondi, politely. “As the Lieutenant first reported to me, Boss Darren tried to grab his gun before Meerkat said anything.”

“Instinctive if someone comes barging into a room waving another gun around,” commented Du Plooi, lining up for his landing.

“Yet the Lieutenant shouted at him that he was from the police, Boss Du Plooi. Would not a policeman be his rescuer in such a predicament? It was not as though he didn’t know that the Lieutenant was truly a police officer—he had been introduced to him at his parents’ house.”