James McClure - The Caterpillar Cop

“Christ, you can be sick.”

“It’s true!”

“I don’t doubt that-it’s the reference to last night I don’t think is funny.”

“What about this afternoon, then?”

Kramer stared at Lisbet, aware for the first time that she had been drinking before his arrival. She was slurring her words. His stomach hollowed out with foreboding.

“You tell me,” he challenged.

“Have a nice lunch with your mistress? I know all about her-and how you’ve been double-crossing me, you bastard. I suppose she badly needed a rest.”

“Jesus.”

“Don’t ask me who, because I won’t tell you. Anyway, you should know by now that Trekkersburg is a small place when it comes to this sort of thing. They say you had her down three solid hours.”

“I’ll-that isn’t true!”

“You weren’t in the tea shop at one?”

“Only to tell her about you and me.”

“I bet.”

“Don’t you believe me, Lisbet?”

“Course I do, lover boy! You told her all about me and my supple young body and made the old bag so jealous she took you and-”

“What the hell do you think I am?”

They were both on their feet and Kramer close to becoming his own customer.

“To be frank-my, look at those wrinkles! — a dirty old man.”

“Like your father?”

Lisbet slapped him across the throat, being that much shorter. Another glass went to waste. Then she froze.

“The eyes in the mirror,” Lisbet whispered.

“You’re pissed.”

Giggling, she collapsed back on the sofa, letting her skirt ride right up.

“My father image. Don’t argue, I’m the psychologist around here. And don’t go-your little girlie wants tickle-ickles!”

“Miss Louw,” said Kramer, “I’d like to help, but incest is an indictable offense. Sorry, but you understand.”

The ward into which Argyle Mslope had been moved was foul with the smell of a soiled bed. Zondi had asked him about it, astonished by such laxity.

“I regret that the staff nurse…” Argyle was a man who evaded speaking ill of his betters.

“Mbeta? The one who talks like a white churchwoman?”

Argyle found the description so apt that he laughed out loud and so did his neighbor, a factory worker minus a leg. It was he who explained to Zondi that Staff Nurse Mbeta was far more concerned about the welfare of the doctors than the patients. Right at that moment she would be trimming the crusts off tomato sandwiches for the houseman to enjoy in the duty room. Unless there was a critical case, the chances were he would no more than glance into the ward. Staff Nurse Mbeta could be totally engaging.

“Where are the ordinary nurses, though?” Zondi asked.

“Very few at night,” said the neighbor. “The staff nurse calls them from the other ward if she needs help.”

Zondi squeezed his way between the beds and went into the passage, intending to have a word with the slut. But, from what he could overhear, the houseman must have arrived early and that required a change of plan. He stood undecided for only as long as it took him to spot a wheeled stretcher left abandoned outside an operating room while its former occupant was inside being hurriedly stitched together. He carefully lifted from it a sheet.

The factory worker and Argyle saw him return with it and go to a patient near the door who was sonorously asleep. Zondi spread the sheet over the one already covering the bed, tucking it in all around in the approved fashion.

“Good night, my friends,” said Zondi. “You tell me tomorrow what happens.”

And he made for the ground floor. Relishing every step of the way the severity of the shock awaiting Staff Nurse Mbeta when the horrified houseman pointed to a man apparently bleeding to death by the bucketful. That borrowed sheet had received a spectacular soaking.

Kramer induced catharsis by imagining, in excruciating detail, just what he would do to the bandy-legged-yellow-faced-apparition-of-a-pox-struck-whore who had lost him Lisbet. It almost made his fingers ache.

This gave him back his reason and he had to concede that perhaps it was all just as well: the girl was sick-he should have realized that when everything happened too quickly, like in banned books. Someone had simply done him a favor for the wrong reason. He would leave it at that.

A couple of blocks further on, he was still thinking about her-now in the strictly business sense of her observations with regard to Boetie’s insistence he had witnessed fighting. It was a great pity they had not first finished that part of the conversation because she knew a lot about the twelve-year-old mind. He seldom, if ever, came across one.

The Chev knew otherwise. Without any conscious direction from him, it turned off at the next traffic lights and took the road leading to Hibiscus Court.

“Well, I’m buggered!” Kramer exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of Marie before?”

But the Widow Fourie had a disappointment in store for him: all four of her children, including Marie, were long since asleep. She caught hold of his sleeve and inquired very gently if this was not, perhaps, merely an excuse he dreamed up to explain his visit. And reminded him that she had never required excuses on previous occasions.

Kramer hesitated a moment before stepping inside. At least here was the mother of a twelve-year-old and, as such, she might know something useful. He was also able to lay before her all the salient facts relating to Boetie without fear of his confidence being betrayed.

Afterwards, she made coffee and brought through bone-dry rusks to dip in it.

“If you want my opinion,” she said, “then I don’t think what Marie might make of two naked people rolling about would help much. I’ve always been very straight with her in these matters. She’d know like a shot. But from what you tell me about Boetie and his background, I can see he might not be so well informed. His parents sound the sort who’d run a mile before they’d say the word ‘sex.’ They wouldn’t have any juicy books in the house either-and you said he didn’t seem to understand dirty jokes.”

“I know, I know,” answered Kramer, dunking his rusk with enjoyment. “Yet it still seems impossible he could not have guessed. It is out of character for him to be so certain of something if he had any doubts.”

“Maybe he did ask someone then-and got the wrong answer. A schoolmate, perhaps. Some of these kids have the craziest theories.”

“He wouldn’t have placed his faith in someone his own age.”

“Who could he ask, then? Some other adult he knew? Can you think of anyone, Trompie?”

“Hey, how about the Dominee?”

“Ring him and find out.”

Kramer did just that.

And came back from the phone to dance a small jig with the Widow Fourie. She pulled him down with her into an armchair.

“Come on, Trompie! Tell me what he said!”

“He invited me to the funeral tomorrow afternoon-the whole school’s going to be there. The cadets from the high school are going to fire a salute.”

She punched him in the stomach.

“Talk! Or there’ll be trouble!”

It was a bloody hard punch, too.

“A whole load of humming and hawing to start with and then he admitted that about three weeks ago Boetie had come to him to ask about the birds and the bees. Seems he’s quite accustomed to these requests. Anyway, he took Boetie through it all from start to finish-ovaries, little seeds with tails, the lot. Then the Dominee pulled up short again and I had to work hard on getting the rest out of him. You could see it was the sex killing behind his worries.”

“Go on!”

With a right jab like that they could do with her on the squad.

“Seems Boetie shocked the good man by asking him exactly in what position it was done. He had to do a drawing which he assures me he burned afterwards.”