The Artful Egg (7 page)

“I’ve just heard on the radio,” he said, “that my mother’s been murdered. What the hell are they talking about? That can’t be true!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kennedy, but for once they’ve got their facts right.”

“Rubbish! Next of kin would have to be informed first, and nobody’s—”

“We’ve been trying to get hold of you, sir. We rang your place of work just as soon as we knew where to contact—”

“But—”

“As for the press and radio, there’ll be an enquiry into who told them, and—”

“I don’t give a shit about that! My only—”

“Hey, come inside,” said Kramer, motioning him into the house. “You tell me where your ma kept the brandy, and I’ll get you one—hell, I’ll even have some, too.”

Kennedy half-smiled, let his shoulders drop, and led the way, walking like a man who finds the floor a long, long distance beneath him. They went into a large living-room furnished in a mixture of skinny wooden drinks-tables and plump easy chairs covered in a floral pattern. Kramer directed him to sit in one of the chairs, and crossed over to the mahogany cabinet to the right of a huge fireplace. The cabinet was well stocked, containing no less than four different brandies. Choosing the Oude Meester, Kramer poured two double tots, handed Kennedy his glass and sat down on the arm of the sofa.

Nothing was said for a while. They just sipped their brandy and found something to stare at. Kennedy stared at a brass poker, propped beside the grate. Kramer stared at a round, bulging kind of mirror, which gave him an interesting view of the dead woman’s son. Shortened by the mirror’s distortions, which took about twelve inches off his six-foot-two, Kennedy looked a lot like her in a way, having the same dark hair, neat build and high forehead.

“I can’t believe this is happening, that it’s true.…”

“It’s true,” said Kramer.

Kennedy looked up at him.

Unlike the mother, there were laughter-lines on the son’s deeply tanned face—not that he was using any of them right now.

“How?” he asked brusquely, forcing the word out.

“A stabbing,” said Kramer. “Just the once. She died instantly.”

“Jesus.…”

“In the early hours of this morning. She had been in for a swim and was changing back out of her costume. It was on the floor and her clothes were—”

“You mean she was—not dressed?”

Kramer nodded. “But there’d been no sexual interference, if that’s what you’re thinking. More brandy?”

Kennedy didn’t seem to notice the glass being lifted from his grasp. He was staring at the poker again, nibbling gently on his lower lip. Turning from him, Kramer went back over to the drinks cabinet, hiding a frown. He was puzzled by his own behaviour, by the way he’d not attempted to see whether Kennedy had known how many times his mother had been stabbed, when she’d been stabbed, what her state of dress—or undress—had been. It was often amazing, the way even the cleverest killers could let something slip right at the start, before their nerves had steadied and they’d grown accustomed to being questioned. Yet Kramer had played no games with him, had simply given the main facts to him straight, just as though it’d never crossed his mind that Kennedy, being the deceased’s closest relative, should be treated as a major suspect.

Carefully, he poured another double tot, still frowning.

A major suspect? Christ, he hadn’t regarded the man as a suspect at all, not from the first moment of setting eyes on him. He had liked the bloke; it was as simple as that—an intuitive response based on God knows what. On top of which, Kennedy’s reactions had since struck him as entirely genuine, reinforcing the same feeling—but of course this nonsense now had to stop.

“Look, sir,” he said, turning with the refilled glass, “it is necessary for me to ask some questions.”

Kennedy did not appear to hear him. He went on staring at
the brass poker, his teeth clamped hard on his lower lip and a trickle of blood running down his chin.

“God in Heaven,” muttered Colonel Muller, glancing at the proffered press card, “how did you get here so fast?”

“I lucked out, I guess, sir. Flew down from our Johannesburg bureau on another assignment and—”

“But why should
Time
magazine want to poke their noses into this as well? Why not stick to writing about clocks and watches, for Pete’s sake? They’re much nicer things than murders—and more useful, too.”

“Pardon me, sir, it seems we have a communications failure.
Time
is a major news—”

“No communications failure,” interrupted Colonel Muller, handing the card back. “I think I’ve communicated things quite clearly, young man: the answer is no—
no
exclusive interviews,
no
further information for the present.”

Then he went into his office and closed the door firmly.

Lieutenant Jones was waiting for him. “I’ve got something highly significant to show you, Colonel,” he said smugly, hugging a docket to his chest. “I hope you have no objection to me exercising a bit of initiative?”

“Huh!” grunted Colonel Muller, seating himself at his desk and reaching for his pipe-cleaners. “What’ve you got there? Plane tickets to send all these bloody reporters to bloody Timbuktu, I hope. I want them banned from the building.”

“I’ll see to that in a sec, Colonel. But first, if it’s OK, I’ll explain how I’ve already made a breakthrough. Do you remember there was a story in the local paper not long ago, to the effect that Naomi Stride had agreed to settle out of court in a libel case? You know, when that person accused her of—”

“No,” said Colonel Muller.

“Well, anyway,” Jones hastened on, “I remembered there was some sort of statement made by her lawyer, and so I
looked up the paper to see what his name was. When I’d got that, I went round to his offices, had a few words with the right person, and here, in this docket, is a photocopy of the deceased’s last will and testament. It will amaze you.”

“No, never,” said Colonel Muller.

But it did. The woman had been worth a million rand or more, made up partly of what her husband had left her, and partly of her own earnings as a best-selling writer.

“Which isn’t counting,” Jones pointed out, “the royalty money her books will go on making, especially now there’ll be such good publicity. And do you see where it nearly all goes to?”

“To the son.…”

“That’s right, Colonel. I bet he’s happy, hey? The spoiled young bugger won’t need to put in another day’s work for the rest of his life.”

Zondi glanced upwards. Another fat drop of rain fell, splashing on his cheek. He cursed softly under his breath, and then began to edge his way out of the hydrangea shrubs in which he’d been hiding, right below an open window to the living-room. A storm had been inevitable that afternoon after the heat earlier on, but it could have held off for half an hour or so; Theo Kennedy had only just started talking, and all he’d done so far was to declare himself as a white adult male, aged twenty-four, living at an address on the far side of town.

Momentarily at a loss to know what to do next, Zondi sprinted round to the rear of the house and found shelter in the sun-lounge. He wasn’t the only one with this idea. A young Bantu constable from the local police station, brought in to guard the property against invasions by the press and other sensation-seekers, was standing just inside the sliding windows, wiping the rain from his face with a khaki handkerchief almost a metre square.

“Hau, Sergeant!” the constable exclaimed guiltily, surprised by his sudden appearance. “My intention was not to—”

“Your intention,” said Zondi, “was to stay here undercover as long as possible—correct? It’s what any sensible man would do.”

The constable chuckled. “My name,” he said, “is Hopeful Dumela.”

“Dumela? Did your father work CID five—six years ago?”

“It is a common name, Sergeant, but, yes, that was my father. He always spoke of you with great respect.”

“I do not remember that he owed me money.…”

Dumela grinned from ear to ear.

Outside, the rain became heavier, sweeping at almost forty-five degrees across the lawns and making the surface of the swimming-pool dance. Lightning flashed, but the thunder was faint and distant.

“Would the Sergeant like a drink of tea?” offered Hopeful Dumela.

“You know where to find the kitchen?”

“I have found it many times before,” replied Dumela, displaying a certain dry humour of his own. “This is my beat.”

Excellent, thought Zondi. There was nothing quite like a thick stew of cook’s gossip for information, and the spicier it was, the better.

Kramer waited, black ballpoint poised above his notebook.

“Yes, I know why my mother put off going to London on Sunday,” said Theo Kennedy. “She’d been fighting this writer’s block thing—couldn’t get a word down for days—and then she suddenly could. Well, she didn’t want to stop again until she absolutely had to, so she—”

“And when did you speak with her last?”

“On … on Saturday. She came over to where I live and told me she’d postponed her flight. Yes, it must’ve been Saturday,
because I had the Land-Rover in bits and couldn’t hear the phone from outside. She’d rung me originally, you see, and not getting an answer she thought she’d drop me a note. Then she saw me fixing the shocks, and … well.”

“It was a good visit?”

“Sorry? Not sure what you mean.”

“You parted on good terms, Mr. Kennedy?”

“As good as we ever do.”

“Were any family problems discussed?”

“No.”

Kramer raised an eyebrow fractionally. “You said that fast,” he remarked.

“No quicker than I could have said ‘yes,’ Lieutenant.”

The note that Kramer made in his notebook was
Shampoo
. Then he asked: “Did anything your mother say—or hint at—suggest to you that she had reason to fear for her life?”

“No, nothing at all. She was in a very good mood, as her writing was going so well.”

Kramer wrote down:
Toothpaste
.

“In fact,” Kennedy added, “I can’t remember her ever suggesting she felt in any danger.”

Blades
.

“Never ever, sir?” queried Kramer.

Kennedy shrugged. “Once or twice, after she’d got some really disgusting hate mail—people threatening her with acid, that sort of thing.”

Coffee
.

“Oh, really? Was there a recent one, sir?”

“Not that she told me about.”

“I don’t suppose she kept any of them?”

“Hell, no! Had them destroyed immediately.”

Sardines
.

“Did any of this hate mail seem to be coming from one person, sir?”

Kennedy shrugged. “I’d not heard of that happening.”

“And so,” said Kramer, jotting down
Sugar
, “we can’t say your ma was afraid of anyone, but she did have enemies.…”

“Lots. She’d become a celebrity, a public figure of a kind.”

“Uh-huh.”
Rent
. “Go on, sir.”

“Automatically, that starts upsetting people. First, there are the straightforward cranks, and then come the buggers who don’t like what you do to be called a celebrity. You know, some don’t like your actual writing, with others it’s the sex scenes—or, as happens more often, it’s what is called the ‘subversive slant.’ ”

“There was lots of politics in the stories your ma made up?”

“Obliquely, yes. Her settings were always South Africa.”

“And she was anti-Government?”

“Anti-suffering.”

“Uh-huh. Now, what about plain jealousy? Greed? Things like that?”

“Sorry …?”

“Your ma was famous, right?”

Kennedy smiled wryly. “
Rich
and famous.”

New chequebook
, wrote Kramer.

Hopeful Dumela made a fine pot of tea, and he knew how to sweeten it properly with condensed milk, scorning the sugar-bowl. Zondi took his mug over to the window. There had been a pause in the storm, but now the thunder and lightning were back, crashing down much closer.

“So tell me,” he said. “Why do you say this murder is no surprise to you?”

“Hau, many strange things have already happened in this place.”

“Such as?”

Dumela scratched vigorously at the side of his head. “There was once a naked coloured woman here, and the
people sat around her and made pictures of her on big sheets of paper.”

“What people?”

“Friends of the missus. Would you believe it if the cook told you that some of these people were black men, just the same as you or me?”

“Hau!”

“Oh, yes,” went on Dumela, suitably encouraged. “There have been parties, too, all races—many bad men.”

“How could the cook tell that?”

“Because she saw them laughing behind the back of her missus, sometimes it was only their eyes. These men would come to the house carrying a piece of polished wood one day, maybe a stone with holes in it the next day, and they would ask much money for them. The cook swears to me she would pay it.”

Zondi glanced away, distracted by lightning striking close by. “What has the cook told you of the son?”

“A good man, always polite when asking for anything. But him and his mother—it was always fight-fight-fight-fight, the cook says.”

“What is the reason for their quarrelling?”

“Mainly, it is money. The mother says her son thinks of money too much.”

“He has wanted her to give him some also?”

Dumela shrugged. “That I do not know, Sergeant. But let me tell you another of the strange things that has happened here.”

The storm clenched the house in its fist, darkening rooms, rattling windows, shaking it to its foundations. There was a brilliant flash and then a tremendous bang; a piece of chimneypot clattered down the tiles. Leaping to his feet, Theo Kennedy took a step, paused and looked foolish.

“Christ,” he muttered, “my nerves must be all shot to hell.”

“Come,” said Kramer, rising from the sofa’s arm.

This seemed an excellent moment to test the suspect’s reactions to the scene of the crime. He led the way through the gloom of the long corridor with mats on its walls and into the study.

Kennedy’s attention went immediately to the sheet of paper in the typewriter. “What a strange line.…” he remarked, touching a fingertip to ‘
II
,
ii!’