The Blood of an Englishman (30 page)

“Ja, I am as a matter of fact,” he replied. “Wild-goose chases are just his line. You and me were going to that new restaurant tonight.”

“Here’s your shirt, and your holster—by the way, you do realize you left your bullets in the bowl in the sitting room last night? Or this morning, rather?”

“I was that drunk again when we came home?”

“I’m afraid so. Now come on, you can’t leave Mickey to cope on his own.”

“He’s not even on duty himself,” said Kramer. “I’ll ring the duty officer and get him to turn someone out.”

Tish came and stood over him with her small fists on her hips. “You’re not a sleuth, you’re a sloth,” she said. “Do you seriously think Mickey would dare ring you here unless he felt he had an overwhelmingly good reason? Even to a layman, this sounds just as though—”

“Look,” said Kramer, sitting up and reaching for his trousers, “I honestly couldn’t care less about that case, it sort of sickens me with all the—”

“But what about this fresh angle?”

“Is it one, Tish? Or is this fight between Benson and Meerkat something else entirely? Mickey’s only guessing that Benson was involved in that silver deal, because we never got to the bottom of that one either.”

She shrugged. “But isn’t that how it’s done? By chasing up even the most unlikely possibilities?”

“While the answer lies under your nose all the time?” said Kramer, pulling up his zip. “Is that your advice?”

“I think you’d be very silly
not
to,” said Tish.

“Not to what?”

“Well, follow your nose,” she quipped feebly. “Just try not to think it all out in advance, and see where this leads you. I want to see how—”

Kramer smiled indulgently and tugged on his shirt. “Fine. I’ll compromise then,” he said. “We’ll drop in at Meerkat’s, have a quick look at the picture, and if I don’t think it’s worth taking up, then we’ll go on to that restaurant—okay?” He
strapped on his shoulder holster and gun, then did up his shirt collar. “Have you seen my tie?”

“You dropped it just inside the front door,” said Tish, looking pleased and excited. “Come, I’ll put it on for you—bring my handbag.”

Kramer followed her through, had his tie tightened and neatly adjusted, then stepped aside gallantly as he swung open the door. “After you, lady!”

“Thank you, my man,” said Tish, bowing slightly. “Mongoose Marais’ residence, if you please, and don’t spare the horses!”

Zondi had not wasted the time he had spent waiting for Kramer to arrive. He had cleared a space on the living-room floor, and had piled it with stolen goods that he’d recovered from a large number of poorly considered hiding places. There were boxes of shirts, cartons of Sellotape, half a dozen stereo systems, and a great many other disparate items, but most pertinent of them all were the forty-one cartridges for a 9 mm pistol that he had found in a cheese tray in the refrigerator.

“No gun anywhere to go with them?” asked Kramer.

“Not that I can see, boss. Nine from a box of fifty looks like a full magazine.”

“Uh huh. What’s he up to? Making a last stand like Banjo? Or is it something else?”

Zondi glanced down at Benson’s body. “If he had killed this man, he would not have left him lying here, Lieutenant. I don’t think he has any guilt to make him run. It must be the youngster he is after.”

Tish was also looking at the body, staring at it in morbid fascination.

“What youngster?” asked Kramer, rounding on Sammy Punjat, who jumped slightly. “What do you know of this matter?”

“Mere rumor, sir! Idle gossipings! Only that Boss Marais seeks some young fellow to exact justice for wrongdoings.”

“Is that all you know?”

Punjat nodded nervously, and Kramer marked him down as a man as honest as his lowly position in life would allow. It was amusing to note how like De Klerk he looked, were the latter to lose an eye and be given a good rub down with brown boot polish.

“But you said,” grunted Zondi, “that Meerkat had been spreading a description round among his intimates.”

“That is only my belief,” explained Punjat.

“Where’s the nearest intimate?” asked Kramer. “Fat Solly Wynberg?”

“There is still somebody at the back of the shop,” said Zondi.

“Fine, I’ll have a quick word.”

Tish hurried after Kramer. “I thought dead people were ghostly white,” she said, taking his hand. “That man is almost purple.”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s funny,” she went on, “but I don’t really
mind
him being dead, if you know what I mean. It didn’t frighten me. Too unreal.”

“Dead people are never the problem in this business,” said Kramer. “It’s the living.”

They descended the fire escape in silence, found the backdoor of the dry-cleaning depot slightly ajar to let in the cool night air, and surprised Fat Solly Wynberg at his desk. He had a plastic bag of rice pudding for a head, and through two puffy gaps in this pudding his wet, coal-black eyes looked out, alighting lecherously on Tish.

“Yisss, my dear?” he wheezed. “What can I do you for?” And he poked his fountain pen into his shirt pocket without fitting its cap first, so the ink spread suddenly like a premature ejaculation. “In fact, what wouldn’t I do you for!”

Kramer moved himself in front of her, sickened. “Murder and Robbery Squad,” he snapped. “Lieutenant Kramer.”

“Kramer?” Fat Solly’s eyes flicked momentarily in the direction of the flat above his head. “Of course, Lieutenant! Anything, anything! But who is this gorgeous young lady?”

“I’m asking the questions, Wynberg—one question, one damned fast answer required. I’ve got a table booked.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“This is it, Wynberg: I want to know all about this young bloke Meerkat has been looking for recently, his name and why. Got it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m afraid,” replied Fat Solly, breaking into a sweat. “I don’t have much to do with my tenants, you will appreciate, and so—”

“There’s a stiff lying dead upstairs,” cut in Kramer. “Am I going to have to bring you in as an accomplice?”

“For pity’s sake! I know nothing about it!”

“Then what
do
you know?”

Fat Solly squirmed as though he had the horns of a dilemma through each sagging buttock, and his sweat smelled sickly and fecal. “It isn’t I don’t want to be of service, believe me.…” he said hoarsely.

“Last chance, Solly. Let’s hear it.”

Still no reply. That was the trouble with Meerkat Marais’ friends, relatives and acquaintances: they all thought his anger was the most horrifying thing that could ever happen to them. So Kramer asked Tish to go out into the corridor, and to count up to sixty before coming back in again. When she returned, having heard not a sound, Fat Solly Wynberg was sitting bolt upright in his chair, whiter than a tea towel in a detergent ad, and talking nineteen to the dozen.

“N
OW
THAT
FRIGHTENED
me!” said Tish, as she and Kramer went back up the fire escape. “Whatever did you do to him?”

But Kramer was too preoccupied to reply. “Mickey!” he called out down the passage of Meerkat’s flat. “Send that Sammy bloke on his way, and then come and hear the latest.” He went into the kitchen and had a quick look at the refrigerator’s ice trays.

“The latest, boss?” asked Zondi, a minute later.

“Don’t ask me what this means,” warned Kramer, whose head was swimming with contradictory pieces of information. “But more than a month ago, according to Fat Solly, someone broke into this place and stole a thirty-two with a faulty barrel out of that fridge. This someone was allegedly seen by a cripple living in the weeds out there, and she gave him a vague description of a smartly dressed young white male. Meerkat swore revenge and has been out looking for this bloke ever since. Then this morning Fat Solly heard a ruckus going on up here, and did some eavesdropping from the balcony. From what he could make out, our late friend Benson had acted as a sort of middle-man, he’d tipped off a gun collector about the thirty-two Meerkat was holding, and something had gone wrong. He didn’t learn anything else until around five tonight, when Meerkat came down to the shop and asked to borrow fifty
rand. He told Fat Solly that he’d discovered who the thief was, and had plans for him.”

“So I was right, Lieutenant? That is where Meerkat has gone?”

“Uh huh, it certainly looks that way,” agreed Kramer, sitting down at the kitchen table. “But by the same token you are wrong in thinking this has anything to do with the shootings case. The thirty-two’s barrel was lethal, Fat Solly tells me, so it couldn’t have been used without the gunman blowing his own head off the first time he pulled the trigger.”

Zondi shrugged and smiled. “A feeling in my bones, boss. Can a barrel not be changed?”

“Why go to all that extra effort, man?”

“True, Lieutenant.”

“But what,” said Tish, stroking a friendly ginger cat with a white tail, “if Mongoose lied to Fat Solly about the barrel? You know, as a way of protecting himself? Making it seem impossible that his gun was used?”

“Uh huh, you could have something there,” conceded Kramer. “Marais comes home, finds the gun’s been pinched, puts two and two together, and decides to put himself in the clear.…”

“Meaning it could be the same gun as used on Boss Bradshaw and Boss Hookham and the little missus,” said Zondi.

Tish opened the kitchen cupboard and found a dusty tin of sardines. “This poor creature seems starving,” she said. “Well, what next? Surely you’ll have to establish things one way or another.”

“By getting hold of Meerkat Marais, you mean?” said Kramer.

“Or the smoothy who stole it,” suggested Tish. “Which amounts to the same thing, I suppose, if Meerkat—is that how you pronounce it?—is after him. Wouldn’t it be marvelous
catching the two of them together? Then you’d be bound to get the whole story!”

Zondi moved restlessly.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Kramer. “You’re worrying we’ll be too late, and Meerkat will have taken care of any evidence.”

“It is two hours’ start he’s got, Lieutenant.”

“Ja, and we haven’t the faintest where he’s gone. You see what I mean about wild-goose chases, Tish?”

She was shaking the sardines into a saucer. “There, kitty! Try those for size.…” The saucer was placed on the floor and immediately pounced upon. “If you could work out who the smoothy is, then you’d at least know what direction to go in.”

“Some chance! The description doesn’t ring a bell with anyone I’ve ever set eyes on.”

“Are you sure? What about Sergeant Zondi?”

Kramer turned to him. “It’s as vague as hell, Mickey. The suspect is aged between eighteen and thirty, tall, has a noticeable spring in his step, and wears good clothes—a dark suit. He was carrying a briefcase, and had darkish-brown hair. Oh ja, and his tie had stripes on it a bit like a school tie or one of those rugby club things.”

“Fat Solly also said that Meerkat had proof he was a nervous type, probably unused to breaking into people’s homes,” added Tish.

“Hmmm.” Zondi closed his eyes.

“He’s checking his memory bank,” said Kramer, winking at Tish. “Any moment now, the first bit of rubbish he can think of will pop up. Once we were—”

“That tie, boss,” Zondi interrupted. “Like a school tie maybe?”

“Ja, only I don’t—”

“ ‘And an Old Boy of Trekkersburg High,’ ” quoted Zondi. “Don’t you remember? The article in the
Gazette
?”

Kramer went tense for a moment and then relaxed with a scornful laugh. “Ach no, you’ve got Bradshaws on the brain, man! And besides, there’s millions of kinds of striped ties you can get.”

“Darren Bradshaw?” said Tish, catching her breath.

“Yes, madam,” confirmed Zondi. “Do you know what the young boss looks like?”

“Look, I’ve—” began Kramer.

“Yes, he’s tall, darkish-brown hair, goes in for Old Boys’ ties and good suits to impress the customers when he’s helping with the family business—and God, yes! Once you come mention it, he does have a slightly unusual way of walking: a bouncy, cocky sort of step.” She turned to Kramer. “Why no reaction? You’ve seen him too, haven’t you?”

Kramer nodded slowly. To be sure he had met Darren Bradshaw, only he’d been swimming not walking, clothed in no more than bathing trunks, and his height had been distorted by the refraction of the water. Apart from the darkish-brown hair, he had no personal observations to corroborate her claim—nor to deny it.

“Boss?” prompted Zondi.

“He was in the pool at their house.”

“Hau! Getting sunburnt?”

Tish clapped her hands. “Marvelous! That pink stuff on the tights you found in that forest.”

“Not tights, stockings,” corrected Kramer, pedantically, wary of how quickly everything was fitting together.

“Stockings?” said Tish. “That’s interesting! They must have been thrown away by an older woman. I’d imagine. His mother?”

Zondi grunted his approval.

“Ja, his nose was red and it was beginning to peel a bit,” recalled Kramer, getting to his feet. “But this is crazy! Why shoot his father? Why Hookham? Why Classina?”

“Detective Constable Schoeman told me that they had many arguments while he was guarding Boss Bradshaw,” said Zondi.

“Yes, and his father had banished him, remember,” Tish went on. “With two nasty pieces of work like that, who knows what bad blood there was between them?”

“But Bonzo Hookham?”

“Perhaps.…” said Zondi, pausing to find an answer. “Perhaps Boss Hookham was down at the racecourse with the dogs that night, and Small Bradshaw feared he’d seen him!”

“And the same with the schoolgirl,” blurted out Tish. “She might have noticed something without realizing it, but Darren didn’t want to take any chances.”

“Opportunity?” objected Kramer. “So far as I know, he was up in Jo’burg at the time of the first shooting.”

“Which
is
only as far as you know,” Tish pointed out.

“Ring the Kritzinger Business Studies College, boss, and see if he was registered there that day,” suggested Zondi.

“What, at this time of night?”

“Then try and find out where he was the other two nights,” urged Tish, moving forward to stand beside Zondi.