James McClure - The Caterpillar Cop

“I don’t think so, sir, thanks. But wait-there is one: here’s a registration number I’d like Traffic to check for me before I forget. I’ll give them a statement about it later. A bloody fool farmer tried to kill me with his Land-Rover near the bottom of the hill tonight.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Came out of his place and right across the dual highway. Maybe you saw where I mean-there’s a bulldozer parked by the side of the road.”

“Man, I saw the tire marks. But that track doesn’t go to a farm-it’s for the wattle lorries. What time was this?”

Kramer almost flustered.

“After midnight. Twelve-thirty, perhaps. Half-past twelve.”

The Colonel looked at his watch.

“Hmmm. A long time to hang around, I agree. But suppose I get Traffic to follow this one up straightaway?”

“If they don’t mind, sir.”

“I’ll ask them to do it as a special favor-from you.”

Hell, the Colonel was a bloody good bloke. But one oversight was all that you were ever allowed and Kramer had a sudden, unpleasant feeling that his score was two.

Hendriks was on the verge of joining the Trekkersburg Fire Department. From what Fireman Viljoen told him, as they shared a log in the now deserted glade, the pay and conditions compared more than favorably with his own. You spent twenty-four hours on fire duty, twenty-four on ambulance duty, and then had the next twenty-four all to yourself. With a set rota like that, the dollies at the post office could take you seriously when you asked for a date. On top of which, you got a decent room of your own (to take them back to), your own washbasin with hot and cold, and proper meals at a private hotel down the road. This, too, was an excellent source of female company, he was vividly assured. Oh, and another thing: it was perfectly natural to appear only half-dressed at the machines when the bells went down, so there was no need to limit yourself to one night in three. All this and an extra twenty rand a month.

“How are you off for blokes?” Hendriks asked, attempting merely polite interest and failing.

“Three vacancies.”

“Really, hey?”

Hendriks wandered across to the generator. Viljoen watched him uneasily.

“Of course, it’s not the same as the police,” he said quickly. “Different regulations and all that.”

“Jesus, you’re not telling me it’s tougher, are you?” Hendriks scoffed. “You should have been at police college.”

“No, but different.”

“How?”

“Little things-heights, and so on.”

“Huh! When I was so big I used to hang by my hands from the top of my pa’s windmill. You just ask him sometime-he nearly took the backside off me with his belt when he caught me. Said I’d have all the kaffirs laughing at him if I fell off.”

Viljoen made no reply.

“Isn’t that good enough for you lot?”

“Fine! Only, you see, I meant heights this way.” The fireman put his hand on his head. “Five foot eight.”

He said it as nicely as he could but Hendriks reacted as if to a raucous jeer. He reddened and stumped off behind a tree, where he took oblique pleasure in urinating on a toad.

So that was it. But if the South African Police thought five foot six inches was man enough, then he knew where he belonged. And he decided to keep an eye on these fire brigade bastards; men with such amoral standards were capable of anything.

Certainly it was safe to assume that Dominee Pretorius never used notes for a sermon. Man, he could talk. He did for mole-hills what hormone advertisers claimed to do for flat chests. And the truth of the matter was that Kramer had long since ceased listening.

“Pardon?”

“Boetie won the hundred yards in the swimming gala last year.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yes, and he was going for the record this very week. The ways of the Almighty-”

“Sorry, Dominee, but I think this man has a message for me.” The hovering constable proudly announced he had discovered what appeared to be the boy’s bicycle down at the bottom of the plantation, just off the footpath, and hidden outside the fence. Kramer noted the position on the map then dismissed him.

“Well, that’s something,” he said. “Boetie presumably met up with whoever it was at this spot. Tempted into the plantation-perhaps the bloke promised to show him a rare animal or the like-they headed up this way. Then, sensing trouble, Boetie made for the clubhouse. That’s why he was killed there-it’s just out of earshot; another fifty yards and you’re on the pitch-and-putt course.”

What he did not say was that the bicycle had been found very near to the point where the Land-Rover emerged in a manner so precipitate it seemed now the kind of thing a man with other things on his mind might do. Murder, for instance. Kramer silently cursed Traffic for taking all night to trace the owner.

The Dominee sighed.

“Beats me how you fellows work these things out,” he said.

“Ah, but so far it’s just guesswork. Would you agree with the reason I gave for Boetie going into the trees?”

“He always had an inquiring nature.”

“Too inquiring?”

“But what do you mean?”

“I’m trying to ask a question you won’t like but his parents would like less: have you ever had any reason to suppose that Boetie wasn’t-shall we say a normal, healthy boy with normal, healthy interests?”

“Lieutenant,” replied the Dominee most gravely, “as God Himself is my witness, this boy was all that is pure and divinely inspired about the Afrikaner people. Let me tell you-”

Again Kramer cut him short.

“No, it’s best I try to recap and you can check if I’ve got the main facts right. I’m pleased to hear what you say about Boetie, by the way; it’s just we must know as much as we can.”

“I understand. Please proceed.”

“Boetie went around to his friend Hennie’s house after school and the two of them went out shooting. They came back after five. Boetie said he’d better get home for supper, leaving on his bike. The parents were not at home, having left early to go to a meeting in the church hall. When the servant girl had waited up until eight without him returning, she imagined he’d stayed at Hennie’s for a meal. It was not until midnight that Mr. and Mrs. Swanepoel returned and found him missing. Normally he always informed them of his movements and this was why they contacted the police.”

“Correct. It was a very long meeting on the Synod resolutions.”

“Yet how do you explain him finishing up over on this side, a mile from his house that was just around the corner?”

“Very simple, I would think. The boys like to cut across the stream and take the footpath round here because it makes an exciting ride. That’s probably what Boetie was up to. There was still plenty of time for him to get home for his meal. He knew it was just the servant girl waiting.”

“Hmmm. How do they get back, then?”

“They push their bikes over the railway bridge. As a matter of fact, that’s why I know about this practice of theirs-some parents are very concerned about the hazards involved.”

“Understandably.”

“With the trains, I mean.”

Kramer got up to stretch.

“Boetie was a good pupil, a regular churchgoer, and a credit to his parents.”

“They trusted him implicitly.”

“Then this must have happened out of the blue. That’s basically what I needed to know.”

Sergeant Kritzinger was beckoning with a piece of paper from the far side of the hall. Traffic had finally surfaced.

“Thanks a million for your help, Dominee. I must go now-sorry.”

But the minister insisted on the last, pompous word.

“I would that it had only happened to an old sinner like myself,” he intoned. “Don’t smile, Lieutenant. I have known them all-and vanquished them, every one.”