James McClure - The Caterpillar Cop

“There’s a good Rugby match at the Station Ground,” he advised. “Go and get some fresh air.”

“I will,” Pembrook answered, heading straight for the car pool and cadging a lift to 39 Woodland Avenue, which turned out to be the biggest house he had ever been inside.

Not that he was allowed further than the hall until the mistress had been summoned by a Bantu maid of infuriating superiority. The black bitch had given him the very distinct impression he should have presented himself at the back door, and he deeply resented that.

But she must have been new and not the usual carbon copy of her employer, because Sally Jarvis’s grandmother, Mrs. Trubshaw, was exceptionally hospitable-despite her natural concern that he should call. She ushered him into the drawing room and sent another maid for her granddaughter, adding an order for tea. “And now,” she said, taking up her embroidery, “ do tell me about yourself. It’s so unusual to come across one of us in your profession.”

She had to be joking.

The girl lying demure and dainty between the candy-striped sheets might have made it a lasting impression if Kramer had not noticed the hockey stick and shin guards under the window. She had to be tough, to play goalie. For the rest, she was-her head at any rate-a typical adaptation of the current debutante ideal now the State President had permitted such things: shoulder-length blond hair, plucked eyebrows, pert nose, and arrogant chin. The eyes were green and unabashed. The mouth ever so slightly sorry for itself.

“Hello, Caroline, I’m Lieutenant Kramer of the CID.”

“Hello.”

“How are you feeling-any better?”

“It only hurts a little, thank you.”

“Uhuh. Mind if I sit here? I’ve got just a couple of questions to ask you.”

“Daddy told me.”

She was nervous despite appearances-it showed in her voice. But curiously, not as much as he anticipated.

“What did your father tell you, then?”

“You know, about Andy. Something to do with a burglar.”

Kramer opened his notebook and wrote her name at the head of the page.

“The medical evidence suggests that Andy was drowned somewhere around eleven o’clock-where were you at this time?”

“I’ve already-”

“Please, miss. It’s best we start from scratch again. Just answer my questions.”

“I was here, asleep in my bed. I got in just before ten, had a shower and listened to pop on Springbok Radio. I must have dropped off before the advertisements because I don’t remember hearing them.”

“Say about ten-thirty, then?”

“Yes.”

The old, old story: much too glib, much too swiftly phrased, much too earnest. She was lying. Gold dust at the first turn of his shovel. And the ready means to assay it.

“But what if I told you there wasn’t any pop on Springbok that night? If you remember, it was the day of General Marais’s state funeral-all stations were playing solemn music.”

“Then it must have been Lourenco Marques. I didn’t really notice. Does it matter?”

He put a tick in the margin.

“ Ach, no! Us blokes just get in a habit of examining the facts. So you were asleep here. Did anything wake you? Did you hear any sounds?”

“Nothing at all until Jackson brought in my orange juice in the morning.”

“Dead to the world,” Kramer said, as he made a note.

“Pardon?”

“I said, Did you like him?”

“Who?”

“The American. Did you like him? Yes or no?”

“No,” she said spontaneously, and then looked appalled at herself.

“Don’t worry, your father’s already said he was a bit of a you-know-what.”

“Hell’s bells!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Daddy’s a jolly sight cleverer than I thought. Me and my friends thought Andy was effeminate until we found out.”

Kramer played for time by demonstrating his nasty smoker’s cough.

“But surely he wasn’t as bad as that?” he croaked.

“He was, though! A proper sex maniac with hands like hairy spiders running all over you.”

“I don’t believe it, miss.”

Which made it his turn to lie; Caroline sounded entirely, perplexingly genuine about her allegation. He began to share the confusion of a snake in a tuba.

“It’s true!”

“Then prove it. Tell me some more.”

“Are you going to write this down, too?”

“No, and I won’t repeat it either if you like. But it’ll help to give me a picture.”

The way she regarded him was probably the same as when she summed up a school friend before parting with a piece of juicy gossip. Even Lisbet had not managed to make him feel as young.

“Well,” she said, “promise not to let my parents know, but one night I even found him waiting in my bed! Honestly, I’m not bluffing. And what was really awful was that I’d started to undress before I noticed him. I’d come in rather late and I didn’t want to put on the light in case Daddy saw it under the door and there was a row. He’s terribly strict about being in bed by ten-none of my friends have to be. It’s really unfair.”

“But what happened when you saw him?”

“You’d never guess. He pulled his trousers out from under the bedclothes and asked me to hang them over a chair!”

“Did you?” Kramer chuckled, showing willing.

“I’d jolly well think not! I clouted him as hard as I could with a hanger-that made him scoot. I had to throw his pants after him, he went out of the door so fast.”

They both laughed.

“But why didn’t you tell your parents, Caroline? He sounds like he was dangerous.”

“You don’t know them, obviously. There would have been a terrible scene. Worse than that, they’d have gone mad at what people would think if we got rid of Andy without an explanation. My father’s spent half his life thinking about the Regiment and the other half about the Family Name. He can’t see a difference. He said ‘Welcome to the mess’ on Andy’s first night here and this made him a guest. Oh, something very special. It would have been a disgrace to the Family Name if he had gone, because people would think the thing was really our fault.”

“So you didn’t feel too bad when he drowned?”

She gasped.

“What a horrible thing to say! Of course I was upset-although it still doesn’t seem real and I forget when I’m talking.”

“My apologies.”

“You see, he was much better when he knew where he stood with me and my friends. And, in some ways, you couldn’t really blame him. America’s so different to us. He got a letter one day from Puerto Rico and in it was a picture of his girl friend pregnant in a bikini! ”

“Hey?”

“Yes, his mother, no less, had taken her down there for an abortion.”

“What about the girl’s ma?”

“Andy said she was too fed up to bother. It had happened once before.”

“These Americans.”

“Oh, they’re not all like that. Tracey Williams, she’s staying with the Flints, is quite different. She doesn’t go in for free love and smoking dagga and all that; in fact, she said Andy wouldn’t have had anything to do with her set at home.”

“How was he chosen to come?”

“I think there was a bit of a mistake.”

“I’ll say.”

But this was getting a little too cozy for Kramer not to have his suspicions. He put down his notebook and went over to the window. Jarvis was out there on the lawn, remonstrating with a garden boy.

“You don’t seem to have had much luck with your guests,” he murmured casually.

“You mean?”

The voice was apprehensive again.

“Boetie Swanepoel. He seems to have made a real pest of himself.” Kramer swung round in time to see an expression of cold indifference on her face. “Your father also had a few words to say about him.”