James McClure - The Caterpillar Cop

“I think it’s horrible. An innocent child like that.”

“Is that how he struck you?”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Just that: what did you think of Boetie?”

Miss Louw frowned. She handed Kramer his coffee and stirred her own slowly.

“Then the paper isn’t giving all the details?”

“We are having to be very careful. This could happen again.”

“To whom?”

“Hennie.”

“My God!”

“Or to any of his classmates, probably.”

She went on stirring, staring at Kramer.

“Can I know why?” she asked finally.

“Miss Louw, you answer my questions first and then I’ll tell you. If we do it the other way around, what you say could be affected, if you know what I mean.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“First, describe Boetie to me as you knew him.”

The coffee was just the way he liked it.

“He-was a nice kid. A bit on the serious side with definite ideas about right and wrong. If, for example, some child was cheating in a test, Boetie would tell me right then and there. This is what made him different to any other boy I’ve come across in five years of teaching.”

“Why did you stress ‘boy’ and not say ‘kid’?”

“Because girls sometimes are like that, although in their case it’s generally spitefulness.”

“Was he perhaps…?”

“I’d say not! Whatever gave you such an idea? Anyway, he’s got a girl friend he dotes on. Little Hester Swart.”

“Sorry.”

“This is worse than filling in reports; you can’t get a proper idea of Boetie from all this.”

“What are his best subjects?”

“Mathematics, English, and art.”

“English?”

“Unusual, isn’t it? He’s got a thing about English, speaks it better than me. He says-said, I mean-it was essential if you want to do well because all the big business in this country was run by English-speakers.”

“He sounds a very bright lad.”

“Only in some ways. In others he was naive.”

“For example?”

“I know the others teased him about dirty jokes because he hardly ever got the point. This wasn’t his being serious so much as ignorant.”

“Or innocent, like you said.”

“Yes.”

“The strong church background.”

“Everything very sacred-marriage and all that. The Ten Commandments.”

“I notice you speak a bit impatiently, Miss Louw?”

“You would if your father had been a minister-and a damned hypocrite at that. Dirty old man.”

The bell rang. Miss Louw closed the living-room door behind her before answering it. Kramer really liked her for that. In fact, he liked her for many reasons.

“But what about your job?” he asked, when she returned with his clothes. “Aren’t you expected under Christian National Education to be a practicing one yourself?”

“What about you, Lieutenant?”

“At weddings and funerals.”

“Huh! And yet who swears on the Bible in court that everything he says is true?”

“Touche. You must scare blokes away with a brain like that.”

“Of course. I like to pick and choose. But this isn’t anything to do with Boetie.”

“One last question, then: Have you noticed any change in his behavior over the last month, going right back to the beginning of November?”

“He could have done better in his exams, that’s all.”

“Thanks very much, then.”

Kramer took his things and made for the bathroom.

“But you said-” she exclaimed.

“Why not finish this in a quiet corner over at the Tudor Tavern? I noticed you hadn’t cooked your supper yet, Miss Louw, and I can’t talk any more until I eat.”

And so he made her pick him-even if it was only to satisfy the curiosity he had aroused over Boetie’s death. But she did not hurry back home afterwards. By then they were coconspirators with an ingenious plan for the morrow.

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.