James McClure - The Caterpillar Cop

“Did the Japs catch him?”

“POW for a year-then he escaped.”

“I thought that was impossible.”

“You’re not the only one, my friend; Granny Trubshaw always avoids that part of the story. My dad-he was real army-has been heard to mutter dark things.”

“Like?”

“A bit of the old collab, with the enemy, y’know. Wouldn’t put it past him either, not after the streak of cruelty he dished me out with!”

Pembrook laughed.

“He could have you for slander, man. But what happened after the war?”

“Usual thing with his type; bummed his way around the disappearing Empire, complaining the wogs weren’t grateful and they forgot to put ice in his drinks. Had a go at being DC-district commissioner-up in Kenya, spent a bit of time as a police chief somewhere else. I don’t remember it all. Then got his windfall-old biddy died in England leaving him thousands-and came down here to have his brandy the way he liked it.”

“But why not go back to England? I hear his house-”

“Servants? Tax? He wouldn’t recognize an Englishman today, I can tell you-I’ve been there.”

“Why-how, I mean-did the Trubshaws get involved in this?”

“Sylvia married him because he was the only white lay within forty miles-that’s what my old man says. Granny Trubshaw says she even tried to get a witch doctor to stop it!”

“No, really?”

“Of course not. But I’ll bet she spent some nights on her knees. Our Sylvia’s quite a girl on her own account-another of the old man’s dark hints, but he’s past it. Much younger than the Captain, of course, and not bad. Sure she gave me the eye once, while they were up here.”

“You mean she…?”

“Good God, no! Sylvia’s bloody petrified of him, everyone will tell you that; sometimes gets on her ear at parties and wham! confined to barracks. Forty days bread and water. None of the old slap and tickle either.”

“You’re bulling me,” Pembrook chortled. “From what I’ve heard of the bloke, it could’ve happened between them only twice.”

“You could have something there,” Pete replied.

Then he suggested breaking the journey at Vryheid for a few beers. Pembrook, calculating he would still be back in the office before midnight, offered to pay for them.

This time Lisbet had eaten and stacked the washing-up ready for the girl without waiting for Kramer. And she answered the door with curlers in her hair and brown muck all over her face.

“Sabona umfazi, epi lo missus?” Kramer inquired in his best Kitchen kaffir.

“Ha ha,” she said. “You’re late.”

“Didn’t say I was coming. Got any plonk left?”

He went straight through to the living room and opened the drink cabinet.

“Want one?”

“No, thanks.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“ Ach, nothing. Take what you want.”

“Thanks.”

Something was very wrong. Lisbet was moving edgily around the room like a cat at the vet’s.

“Okay if I leave kissing you hello till later?” he said.

Lisbet ignored the remark. She sat down cross-legged plumb in the middle of the sofa, leaving too little room either side. Which meant Kramer had to drag over a stool to be near her.

“Where have you been, Trompie?”

“Seeing the biggest Jarvis girl. Man, now I’ve really got problems.”

And he listed, briefly, all that had been said. Then took it point by point.

Caroline did smoke the odd Texan; smoking was permitted, she thought, because her father liked to have some moral support considering the number he got through in a day. Caroline had used, and still used, Tasty Tangerine lipstick because the color was fashionable among teenagers. So if Boetie had tried to identify the smoker of a Texan stub smeared with Tasty Tangerine, she was the obvious choice in that household. Her mother, for example, occasionally took a puff, but wore magenta lipstick. Furthermore, Boetie had been poking about in Caroline’s dressing table, where her cosmetics were kept.

Clarification had also been brought to the question of the sock in the bed-more than likely it had come off with the trousers; and the Captain saying Boetie had never addressed him: it was Caroline’s belief the boy failed to get a word in edgewise when given his marching orders after the social gaffe. Nobody had ever succeeded in interrupting her father on such an occasion. Jarvis had verified this supposition as Kramer left.

From there on in, however, contradiction repeatedly banged together the halves of the brain, as what Boetie believed to be true collided with the actual truth of Caroline’s admissions. The only resort was to concentrate initially on the one other common factor involved.

Boetie had written down the words “sitting on him” and had used them again, in substance, on Caroline. Clearly this made her the subject of his incomplete sentence; demonstrably, she was not. The conclusion had to be that Boetie saw someone sitting on Andrew at the bath, but not Caroline.

“ Who, then?” Lisbet asked, momentarily upsetting the air of cool formality into which they had retreated.

Kramer shook his head.

“Funnily enough,” he said, “that’s not the question I’m most interested in at this moment. I want to know how Boetie, who was a smart cookie, made such a mistake. It would have been different if this was all based on one quick look-but he spent a month poking round Rosebank Road. Perhaps the best thing is to put ourselves in his shoes: start where he thinks he has seen Caroline doing something to Andy that ends up in a drowning. His proof of her being there is the cigarette stub he finds in one of those oyster shell ashtrays. Now he needs to discover the motive. He asks himself was the girl, Caroline, doing it with him? Sex is an obvious line to take.”

“Then we know he spent a month on it, don’t we? Caroline had nothing to do with Andy-apart from the bed incident she’s told you about-so there was nothing for him to find. In fact, he could have spent longer if it hadn’t been for what happened to him.”

“Very nice, Lisbet. I’m Boetie and I’ve spent a month getting nowhere-what do I try next? The old technique us blokes use: clobber the suspect with the knowledge you have and see what happens. He made his bid with this talk about fighting.”

“All he got was the reaction any decent girl would have given him.”

“Can he be sure?”

“No, but three days later he’s dead.”

“Naturally, if Caroline couldn’t understand what he meant, somebody else could-and they took steps to make sure he kept it to himself for good.”

“That makes sense of it all!”

“No, it doesn’t,” Kramer said, going over to refill his glass. “Firstly, why the hell did he persist for so long in thinking it was Caroline when he couldn’t find any evidence? The light couldn’t have been that good by the bath.”

“I’ll have a sherry, after all. What did you say? Oh, I suppose Boetie just couldn’t think of an alternative.”

“Why?”

“Maybe he didn’t know of any other girl to pick on.”

“Logical enough, but then we come to the really crazy part of his thinking. He said Caroline had nothing on when she was with Andy and that she was fighting him! Is that what any other boy would have thought? Come on, you’re supposed to be the psychologist around here.”

Lisbet took her glass from him carelessly, spilling some on a cushion and not noticing.

“After last night, that’s a funny question.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“It’s a commonly known fact that a child can mistake the act of intercourse for an act of violence. Some kids are scarred for life because they think they’ve seen pa knocking the hell out of ma.”