James Mcclure - Snake

“Right, charge him with obstruction,” Kramer said to a pale-cheeked constable who had just heaved himself into view. “And get the rest out onto the street. What the hell are they doing here?”

Before pausing to hear another word from anyone, he shoved his way through and went down into the club. The main area, with its tatty decor of supposedly Red Indian origin, which included headdresses made with fowl feathers, hinted at a midnight massacre. All the chairs had their legs in the air, and there was a lingering stink of smoke and the armpit war.

But no actual body.

Kramer picked up an empty wine bottle and rattled a spoon against it for attention.

“Who’s that?” a sharp voice challenged from somewhere.

“The bloody cavalry, man-what do you think?”

The red curtains at the back of the small stage parted and a proportionately small man, the color and consistency of an unbaked bun, made his entrance in the neatest way possible. His casual clothes were so formally pleated they probably still had a pin left in them, and his curly black goatee looked like a graft from the groin.

Kramer felt a prejudice forming.

“Get this straight: I’m Mr. Monty Stevenson and I’m the manager of this club. These are my premises! And if I’ve told you once, the Sunday News has the exclu-”

“Kramer, Murder and Robbery Squad.”

Gulp, went the silk cravat.

“The lieutenant?”

“Uh-huh.”

Stevenson advanced hesitantly across the boards, his built-up shoes clicking loudly.

“I do apologize, but I thought they were going to tell you not to bother after all. I let them use my phone in the office.”

“Why’s that? Is this a hoax?”

“Heavens, no! But your doctor said-”

“The DS? Is he here?”

“Er, yes. In the dressing room, the scene of the tragedy. Would you like me to show you the way?”

“You’d better!” growled Kramer.

He followed after him past a notice warning NO ADMITTANCE TO MEMBERS – STRICTLY PRIVATE and soon saw the reason why. The dim passage beyond the velvet hangings was a disgrace of squashed cockroaches and splintered floorboards. They clattered up a short flight of steps, took a left turn, and halted at a closed door with a paper star stuck to it.

Stevenson raised a hand to knock, but Kramer pushed him aside.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Now you get back to your office and see that if there’s a call for me from Peacevale, I get to hear about it.”

“Gladly,” the manager said, and tip-tapped off.

Then the door was opened from the inside and Dirk Gardiner, a warrant officer from Fingerprints, stuck his crew cut out to see what the noise was about.

“Oh, sh-sugar,” he said.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, you bastard!”

“Look, Lieutenant, I was on my way when I got called here. Haven’t even been to the mortuary yet.”

“You’re boasting, or what?”

“Be with you in a tick,” replied Gardiner, as good-naturedly as ever. He had enough muscle under his blue safari suit to treat the world in the way he expected it to treat him. And somehow it worked.

“Guess who’s arrived?” chuckled Strydom from within. “But don’t start yelling at us, hey? We got a message for you not to come out to the duty officer soon as we could. You see him about it.”

Kramer’s brow creased.

“Ja, it’s just a fatal,” Gardiner explained, winding on another frame in his Pentax. “Stevenson, the stupid bastard, reported he’d found a girlie strangled. Didn’t explain properly, says he was in a hell of a state. All shocked and-”

He stepped placidly aside to avoid being trampled underfoot.

Strydom, as gnomelike as ever, was kneeling in his new plastic apron-from which his wife had cut the frilly bits- beside a python with its head bashed in, making careful use of his tape measure. At his elbow was a corpse with red eyeballs, speckled skin, and arms folded demurely on its chest under a dressing gown.

“Oh, her,” said Kramer.

“Sonja Bergstroom, alias Eve. Got careless and had an accident. Put up a hell of a fight, though. Should see the grazes she got from the concrete.”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“Sergeant Marais,” said Gardiner. “Gone to the bog a moment.”

“And he’s happy?”

“Should be by now.”

“Hey?”

“Sorry, sir. Yes, quite satisfied.”

“Fascinating,” murmured Strydom, taking another prod at the broad marks on the corpse’s neck. “I must see if I can’t put a little paper together. Get the snake park in Durban to help me.”

“Ja, must be a moral in it, too, Doc.”

“Wam-bam,” suggested Kramer. The novelty had worn off.

“What’s that, Trompie?”

“Mr. Gardiner here has urgent business in Peacevale. Tell Marais I’ll see him later. Okay?”

“Sounds ominous,” Strydom said, smiling somewhere in his Santa Claus beard, and beginning to coil the snake into a white plastic bag. “What a shambles today has been.”

Which proved an understatement once Kramer got back to Lucky’s store. There two very distressed Bantu constables were obliged to inform him that while they had been keeping the onlookers at bay round the front, two youths had sneaked into the premises from the back.

“It was I who observed these tsotsis making off with their ill-gotten gains,” chipped in the minister from the tin church next door. “Naturally I gave chase.”

“And?”

“They dropped everything in their wake, so effecting their escape.”

“The building was in the way for us to see this,” explained one constable.

“But Christ, man, didn’t you see them in the shop?”

“My back was like this to look at the people.”

“Didn’t they say anything?”

Kramer glared round at the crowd, which was now standing much farther back but still maintaining a lively interest. No, they wouldn’t have said anything. In fact, some of the sods were smiling from ear to ear and nudging one another.

“Stuff looks like it was taken from storage,” murmured Gardiner, tapping the corner of a cornflakes carton with his fingerprint case. “Maybe they stayed in the back. Let’s take a look.”

The minister, whose white collar and black bib were all that he was wearing under his sagging tweed jacket, made a self-important bid to accompany them, but was motioned back.

Gardiner scored half a mark. Just inside the rear door, a relatively clean rectangle in the dust on a packing case indicated where the carton had stood. The other half went to Kramer when they discovered that the till was now quite empty.

“Can you remember which divisions the coins were in?” asked Gardiner helpfully.

“Hell, no. They’d been scattered about by the first lot. Worth trying still?”

“Even though the others must have worn gloves, I don’t see why not.”

“Hey, just a minute-why’s there no mud? Lucky’s tracked it all over the place. Come, I’ll show you.”

Kramer led Gardiner back to the rear door and pointed out the big puddle immediately outside it, which had been caused by the constant dripping of a tap standing nearby. The storekeeper’s teapot and chipped cup were inverted on a half brick beneath it.

Gardiner dusted his brush over the wooden doorstep coated in green enamel.

“Thought so,” he said. “Got a sole print for you-and another. Didn’t want to get their feet wet so they jumped it. I’ll lift them in case they come in useful.”

Of course, they had only been youngsters. Kramer felt he was beginning to lose his grip. And petty theft wasn’t his job anyway. Jesus.

No, his first instinctive reaction had been right. “Ja, you do that. Could help us nail the buggers if we need them for elimination on the till. A big hope-and a lot of bloody extra work. Look, I’m just going across to see if Zondi has had any joy.”