Indecent Exposure (4 page)

“I don’t know,” whispered the Kommandant. “There are two men out front and another in my back garden.”

“What are you whispering for?” the Sergeant asked.

“Because I’m being watched, of course. Why else should I whisper?” the Kommandant snarled sotto voce.

“I’ve no idea,” said the Sergeant. “I’ll just get this down. You say you’re being watched by two men in the front garden and one in the back. Is that correct?”

“No,” said the Kommandant who was rapidly losing patience with the Duty Sergeant.

“But you just said-”

“I said there were two men at the front of my house and one in the back garden,” the Kommandant said, trying to control his temper.

“Two … men … in … front… of… my … house,” said the Sergeant writing it down slowly. “Just getting it down,” he told the Kommandant when the latter asked what the hell he thought he was doing.

“Well, you’d better hurry up,” the Kommandant shouted, losing control of himself. “I’ve got a dirty great hole in the ceiling above my bed and my house has been burgled,” he went on and was rewarded for his pains by hearing the Sergeant inform somebody else at the police station that he had another nut case on the line.

“Now then, correct me if I’m wrong,” said the Sergeant before the Kommandant could reprimand him for insubordination, “but you say there are three men watching your house, that there’s a dirty great hole in your ceiling and that your house has been burgled? Is that right? You haven’t left anything out?”

In his bedroom Kommandant van Heerden was on the verge of apoplexy. “Just one thing,” he yelled into the phone, “this is your commanding officer, Kommandant van Heerden, speaking. And I’m ordering you to send a patrol car round to my house at once.”

A sceptical silence greeted this ferocious announcement. “Do you hear me?” shouted the Kommandant. It was clear that the Duty Sergeant didn’t. He had his hand over the mouthpiece but the Kommandant could still hear him telling the konstabel on duty with him that the caller was off his head. With a slam the Kommandant replaced his receiver and wondered what to do. Finally he got to his feet and went to the window. The sinister watchers were still there. The Kommandant tiptoed to his chest of drawers and rummaged in the drawer containing his socks for his revolver. Taking it out, he made sure it was loaded and then, having decided that the hole in his ceiling made his bedroom indefensible, was tiptoeing downstairs when the phone in his bedroom began to ring. For a moment the Kommandant thought of letting it ring when the thought that it might be the Duty Sergeant ringing back to confirm his previous call sent him scurrying upstairs again. He was just in time to pick the receiver up as the ringing stopped.

Kommandant van Heerden dialled the police station,

“Have you just rung me?” he asked the Duty Sergeant.

“Depends who you are,” the Sergeant replied.

“I’m your commanding officer,” shouted the Kommandant.

The Sergeant considered the matter. “All right,” he said finally, “just put your phone down and we’ll ring back to confirm that.”

The Kommandant looked at the receiver vindictively. “Listen to me,” he said, “my number is 5488. You can confirm that and I’ll hold on.”

Five minutes later patrol cars from all over Piemburg were converging on Kommandant van Heerden’s house and the Duty Sergeant was wondering what he was going to say to the Kommandant in the morning.

Luitenant Verkramp was wondering much the same thing. News of the fiasco at the Kommandant’s house reached him via Sergeant Breitenbach, who had spent the evening tapping the Kommandant’s telephone and who had the presence of mind to order the watching agents to leave the area before the patrol cars arrived. Unfortunately the microphones scattered about the Kommandant’s house remained and Luitenant Verkramp could imagine that their presence there would hardly improve his relations with his commanding officer if they were discovered.

“I told you this whole thing was a mistake,” Sergeant Breitenbach said while Luitenant Verkramp dressed.

Verkramp didn’t agree. “What’s he making such a fuss about if he hasn’t got something to hide?” he asked.

“That hole in the ceiling, for one thing,” said the Sergeant. Luitenant Verkramp couldn’t see it.

“Could have happened to anyone,” he said. “Anyway he’ll blame the Water Board for it.”

“I can’t see them admitting responsibility for making it, all the same,” said the Sergeant.

“The more they deny it, the more he’ll believe they did,” said Verkramp, who knew something about psychology. “Anyway I’ll cook up something to explain the bugs, don’t worry.”

Dismissing the Sergeant, he drove to the police station and sat up half the night concocting a memorandum to put on the Kommandant’s desk in the morning.

In fact there was no need to use it. Kommandant van Heerden arrived at the police station determined to make someone pay for the damage to his property. He wasn’t quite sure which of the public utilities to blame and Mrs Roussouw’s explanation hadn’t made the matter any clearer.

“Oh, you do look a sight,” she said when the Kommandant came down to breakfast after shaving in cold water.

“So does my bloody house,” said the Kommandant, dabbing his cheek with a styptic pencil.

“Language,” retorted Mrs Roussouw. Kommandant van Heerden regarded her bleakly.

“Perhaps you’d be good enough to explain what’s been happening here,” he said. “I came home last night to find the water cut off, a large hole in my bedroom ceiling and no electricity.”

“The Water Board man did that,” Mrs Roussouw explained. “I had to give him the kiss of life to bring him round.”

The Kommandant shuddered at the thought.

“And what does that explain?” he asked.

“The hole in the ceiling, of course,” said Mrs Roussouw.

The Kommandant tried to visualize the sequence of events that had resulted from Mrs Roussouw’s giving the Water Board man the kiss of life and his falling through the ceiling.

“In the attic?” he asked sceptically.

“Of course not, silly,” Mrs Roussouw said. “He was looking for a hole in the cistern when I turned the electricity on …”

The Kommandant was too bewildered to let her continue.

“Mrs Roussouw,” he said wearily, “am I to understand … oh never mind. I’ll phone the Water Board when I get to the station.”

He had breakfast while Mrs Roussouw added to the confusion in his mind by explaining that the Electricity man had been responsible for the accident in the first place by leaving the current on.

“I suppose that explains the mess in here,” said the Kommandant, looking at the rubble under the sink.

“Oh, no that was the Gas man,” Mrs Roussouw said.

“But we don’t use gas,” said the Kommandant.

“I know, I told him that but he said it was a leak in the mains.”

The Kommandant finished his breakfast and walked to the police station utterly perplexed. In spite of the fact that the patrol cars had been unable to find any evidence that his house had been watched, the Kommandant was certain he had been under surveillance. He even had an uneasy feeling that he was being followed to the police station but when he glanced over his shoulder at the corner there was no one in sight.

Once in his office he spent an hour on the phone haranguing the managers of the Gas, Electricity and Water Boards in an attempt to get to the bottom of the affair. It took the efforts of all three managers to convince him that their men had never been authorized to enter his house, that there was absolutely nothing the matter with his electricity or his water supply, and that there hadn’t been a suspected gas leak within a mile of his house and finally that they couldn’t be held responsible for the damage done to his property. The Kommandant reserved his opinion on this last point and said he would consult his lawyer. The Manager of the Water Board told him that it wasn’t the business of the board to mend leaks in cisterns in any case and the Kommandant said it wasn’t anybody’s business to make large holes in the ceiling of his bedroom, and he certainly wasn’t going to pay for the privilege of having them made.

Having raised his blood pressure to a dangerously high level in this exchange of courtesies, the Kommandant sent for the Duty Sergeant, who was dragged from his bed to explain his behaviour over the phone.

“I thought it was a hoax,” he told the Kommandant. “It was the way you were whispering.”

The Kommandant wasn’t whispering now. His voice could be heard in the cells two floors below. “A hoax?” he yelled at the Sergeant. “You thought it was a hoax?”

“Yes, sir, we get half a dozen every night.”

“What sort of hoaxes?” the Kommandant asked.

“People ringing up to say they’re being burgled or raped or something. Mostly women.”

Kommandant van Heerden remembered when he had been a Duty Sergeant and had to agree that a lot of night calls were false alarms. He dismissed the Sergeant with a reprimand. “Next time I call you,” he said, “I don’t want any argument. Understand?” The Sergeant understood and was about to leave the office when the Kommandant had second thoughts. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” the Kommandant snarled. The Sergeant said that since he’d been up all night he was thinking of going back to bed. The Kommandant had other plans for him. “I’m putting you in charge of the investigation into the burglary at my house.” he said. “I want a full report on who was responsible by this afternoon.”

“Yes sir,” said the Sergeant wearily and left the office. On the stairs he met Luitenant Verkramp, who was looking pretty jaded himself.

“He wants a full report by this afternoon on the break-in.” the Sergeant told Verkramp. The Luitenant sighed, went back upstairs and knocked on the Kommandant’s door.

“Come in,” yelled the Kommandant. Luitenant Verkramp came in. “What’s the matter with you, Verkramp? You look as though you’d spent the night on the tiles.”

“Just an attic of colack,” spluttered Verkramp, unnerved by the Kommandant’s percipience.

“A what?”

“An attack of colic,” said Verkramp trying to control his speech. “Just a slip of the foot… er… tongue.”

“For God’s sake pull yourself together Luitenant,” the Kommandant told him.

“Yes sir,” said Verkramp.

“What do you want to see me about?”

“It’s about this business at your home, sir,” said Verkramp, “I have some information which may be of interest to you.”

Kommandant van Heerden sighed. He might have guessed that Verkramp might have his grubby fingers in this particular pie. “Well?”

Luitenant Verkramp swallowed nervously. “We in the Security Branch,” he began, spreading the burden of responsibility as far as possible, “have recently received information that an attempt was going to be made to bug your house.” He paused to see how the Kommandant would take the news. Kommandant van Heerden responded predictably. He sat up in his chair and stared at Verkramp in horror.

“Good God,” he said, “you mean…”

“Precisely, sir,” said Verkramp. “Acting on this information, I put your house under twenty-four hour surveillance…”

“You mean-”

“Exactly, sir,” Verkramp continued. “You have probably noticed that your house has been watched.”

“That’s right,” said the Kommandant, “I saw them there last night…”

Verkramp nodded. “My men, sir.”

“Across the road and in my back garden,” said the Kommandant.

“Exactly, sir,” Verkramp agreed, “We thought they might return.”

The Kommandant was losing track of the conversation. “Who might return?”

“The Communist saboteurs, sir.”

“Communist saboteurs? What the hell would Communist saboteurs want to do in my house?”

“Bug it, sir,” said Verkramp. “After the failure of their attempt yesterday I thought they might return,”

Kommandant van Heerden took a firm grip on himself.

“Are you trying to tell me that all those Gas men and Water Board officials were really Communist saboteurs…”

“In disguise, sir. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of my counter-agents, the attempt was foiled. One of the Communists fell through the ceiling…”

Kommandant van Heerden leant back in his chair satisfied. He had found the person responsible for the hole in his bedroom ceiling. “So that was your fault?” he said.

“Entirely,” Verkramp agreed, “and we’ll see that repairs are carried out immediately.”

The news had taken a great burden off the Kommandant’s mind. On the other hand he was still puzzled.

“What I don’t understand is why these Communists should want to bug my house in the first place. Who are they anyway?” he asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t disclose any identities yet,” Verkramp said, and fell back on the Bureau of State Security. “Orders from
BOSS
.”

“Well what the hell is the point of bugging my house?” asked the Kommandant, who knew better than to question orders from
BOSS
. “I never say anything important there.”

Verkramp agreed. “But they weren’t to know that sir,” he said. “In any case our information suggests that they were hoping to acquire material which would allow them to blackmail you.” He watched Kommandant van Heerden very closely to see how he would react. The Kommandant was appalled.

“God Almighty!” he gasped, and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. Verkramp followed up his advantage swiftly.

“If they could get something on you, something sexual, anything a bit kinky.” He hesitated. The Kommandant was sweating profusely. “They’d have you by the short hairs, wouldn’t they?” Privately Kommandant van Heerden had to agree that they would but he wasn’t admitting as much to Luitenant Verkramp. He raced through the catalogue of his nightly habits and came to the conclusion that there were several he would rather the world knew nothing about.

“The diabolical swine,” he muttered and looked at Verkramp with something approaching respect. The Luitenant wasn’t such a fool after all. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked.

“Two things,” said Verkramp. “The first is to allay the suspicions of the Communists as far as possible by ignoring this affair at your house. Let them think we don’t know what they are up to. Lay the blame on the Gas… er… Water Board.”