The Steam Pig (2 page)

Kramer stopped. It was an armpit. A small, hairy armpit. The girl had not used a razor, unusual but without significance.

“Now look again,” Dr Strydom urged, parting the tufts with a retractor.

“Flea bite?”

“All quite simple if you have the stomach for it,” Dr Strydom explained. “You take your spoke, nicely sharpened up on a brick, and slide it in here between the third and fourth rib. Your target's the aorta where it ascends from the heart.”

“Yirra, you call that simple,” Prinsloo scoffed.

“Oh, but it is. You just aim for the high point on the opposite shoulder. The artery is pretty tough so you know when you've hit it. An expert can do it first time, a novice may take a few shots—like trying to spear spaghetti round on a plate.”

Prinsloo backed off a pace. Big and paunchy, he looked a man who enjoyed his food.

“And then?” Kramer was engrossed.

“Man, the pressure in that aorta's fantastic,” Dr Strydom continued. “I've seen blood hit the ceiling with an aneurism that burst during an op. But as you withdraw a thin thing like a bike spoke, it seals off, see? All those layers, muscles, lungs, tissue, close up. You just wrap a hankie or rag round the spoke in the armpit and that takes care of any on the way out.”

Kramer straightened up, patted his pockets for cigarettes and took one the district surgeon proffered.

“Not bad, not bad at all, Doctor.”

Dr Strydom attempted modesty: “Of course I tracked it down from all the blood loose in the cavities. One can't really blame Matthews, I suppose.”

“Who's that?”

“Her doctor, a GP out Morninghill way. The visible signs were identical to certain types of cardiac arrest. She had a history, I'm told.”

That was a slip. In Kramer's experience death certificates never mentioned case histories. This meant that the DS must have already been in touch with Matthews. Pity, now he would have all his excuses off pat, but that was the medical brotherhood for you—more closely-knit than the Mafia and often as deadly. Still, he would let that pass, too. He had one or two questions to go.

“How long would it have taken her to die?”

“Ten minutes, fifteen at the outside; although if the shock itself was great enough I'd say almost immediately”

“Uhuh. Scream?”

“She could've but it'd only take a pillow to muffle it. There's no facial bruising. Anyhow, with her brain starved of blood she'd be out pretty quickly.”

“What about this bruising on her arm?”

“Can't be positive. Easily come by when you've been thrashing round in a convulsion.”

This association of violent action with the violently inactive Miss Le Roux had the subtle obscenity of a warm lavatory seat. Kramer decided he had had enough.

“She's all yours, Sergeant. When you've finished the ones for your private album, I'd like a set of six head-and-shoulders not looking too glum.”

Dr Strydom accompanied him from the room.

“Where's Abbott?” Kramer demanded in the passage.

“Here, officer,” came a meek voice from the chapel. And although Ma Abbott had gone, and Farthing was out doing a country removal, he insisted on being interviewed in his showroom, which had a soundproof sliding door.

At this point Dr Strydom took his leave, having suddenly remembered his daily appointment beside the triangle in the central prison. Those sentenced to strokes would already be lining up and waiting for him. He had to certify them fit for punishment, see the kidneys were properly protected, and keep an eye on responses. Buttocks are a common vehicle of abuse, but it is not prudent to abuse them overmuch.

“Okay, but I want the laboratory reports tonight,” Kramer said, turning abruptly away. He let Abbott see to the door while he chose the big chair behind the big desk. But he did not sit in it.

This caught Mr Abbott in a half-crouch as he was lowering himself into the sofa opposite.

Kramer smiled.

Mr Abbott tried to smile.

Then he straightened up with a little spring and went across to one of the coffins on display. He said: “Silly mistake.”

“A lulu,” said Kramer.

“Arabella,” Mr Abbott corrected, pointing to the easel card.

Kramer went round to inspect it. Then he leaned over to read the silver nameplate.

“False—I mean fictitious,” explained Mr Abbott.

“Uhuh.”

Kramer was pre-occupied with the reflection of his face in the highly polished lid. It was certainly a salutory experience to see how you would look some day. On second thoughts, though, death would not be able to make more of those sunken cheeks, deep-set eyes and protrudent front teeth. It was a hard face, an ugly face, a face which saved you a lot of beating about the bush. Kramer winked at it with his offside eye.

Then he returned to the big chair and sat down. This time Mr Abbott compromised by perching himself on the sofa's arm rest.

“A lulu,” Kramer repeated sternly. “Colonel Du Plessis doesn't know what to do with you—throw the book or pin a medal.”

Mr Abbott squirmed.

“I'm really most dreadfully sorry,” he whispered.

“Save it,” Kramer snapped. “I'm only interested in Le Roux.”

“But what about Miss Bowen?”

“For a court to decide, if it gets that far. She wasn't much. Maybe you'll be lucky.”

“Thank God.”

Mr Abbott slid down into the plush cushions.

“See it my way, Lieutenant,” he pleaded. “Farthing did both removals so I had nothing personal to go on. I thought I'd looked at the labels, but we then were rushed. It never occurred to me she was on the Trinity's books.”

“Why not?”

“At her age? You could almost call it morbid.”

“Why?”

“You must have seen Trinity's adverts, officer. They cater for the elderlies and the not-so-well-off. She was young and you could tell from the toes she had money.”

“Hey?”

“I know it's a bit of a cheek, but I must say I'm a bit of an expert on toes. Just the length of the nails can tell you a lot. In her case it was the toes not being all scrunched up by shoes not made exactly for her. Most shoes have quite a gap between their sizes you know, and it's only measured lengthwise.”

“Come on man, what's this all about?”

“Well, I must admit it had me puzzled at first, then it struck me: either she had her shoes made by hand, or—and this was more likely—she could afford Clarks' or some other expensive kind that come in widths as well. Most important, widths. Obviously, either way, she had money.”

Kramer was in no mood to audition for Dr Watson, but he managed to sound impressed.

“You must have spent quite a time on the body.”

“Oh yes.”

“Just the toes?”

“Well … there were the routine checks for rings, jewellery.”

“Yes?”

“Didn't find any.”

“And you didn't notice on the label she was a Trinity?”

“No.”

“I see,” said Kramer. “So you spent most of your time on the toes. Funny that, because I think she must have been quite a dolly before your friend got his knives to her.”

Mr Abbott shifted nervously.

“In fact, I would say there's more to all this than you're telling me,” Kramer added, his voice made sinister by a sudden intuitive insight.

And he watched with satisfaction as Mr Abbott blanched. He preferred him that shade. It went better with the furnishings. It ensured that there would be no more idle chatter.

“What exactly do you want to know, Lieutenant?” Mr Abbott managed to say at last.

“How come Doc Strydom didn't check out the body for himself? Is he often filleting your customers by accident?”

“Have you asked him that?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Good, because I must take the blame,” Mr Abbott declared manfully. “All I said to him on the phone this morning was that there was a white female and I'd have it ready and waiting as usual.”

“But he has forms to fill in, right?”

“Normally we do the names and that afterwards—together, so to speak.”

“Uhuh?”

“You see, he comes in here and I provide particulars while we—”

“Yes?”

“Have a glass or two.”

The poor little sod, you would have thought Ma Abbott had the room bugged from the way he dropped his voice almost to nothing for the awful revelation. Kramer tried the drawer with the key in it and scored first time.

He poured a large one for himself and another, in a glass already suspiciously fragrant, for Mr Abbott. It was cheap medicinal brandy, no doubt a stock-in-trade in the event of graveside collapse. A quick calculation indicated somebody must have been spreading tales of mourners going down like ninepins out on Monument Hill. They sipped slowly and in silence.

But only for a minute.

“Let's get this straight from the start,” Kramer said. “Farthing did the whatsits.”

“Removals, officer. The old woman from the State morgue—Sergeant Van Rensburg was up to his eyebrows after the derailment—and the girl from her home.”

“Go on.”

“Then he had the morning off. I was rather rushed so—”

“Yes, yes!” Kramer interrupted.

“What happened was we left for the crematorium before Dr Strydom arrived.”

“But there must have been forms.”

“Mrs Abbott always saw to that.”

“Who had them?”

“Farthing. That was it, you see. Miss -er, she was covered up with a sheet and the Trinity doesn't allow for an inscription plate—that's an ordinary Arabella over there. Farthing just saw a coffin.”

“Both women were about the same size?”

“Yes.”

“There was a minister at the crematorium? Didn't he say the name?”

“I'd gone out again to park the hearse, they were expecting another right on our tail.”

“And this bloke Farthing?”

“In the crematorium office still, signing the book.”

“So it wasn't until you got back here you knew you had made a mistake?”

“No.”

Ambiguity exercised its single virtue and a subtlety escaped Kramer. Mr Abbott finished his glass in a gulp.

“Okay, if you weren't there at the start, were you inside at any stage?”

“The whole of the latter part.”

“Ah, then can you describe any of the mourners? Anyone that struck you as—”

“There weren't any.”

Kramer put his glass down. This was unexpected. According to the medical evidence, there should have been at least one. A forlorn male wondering where his next was coming from.

Mr Abbott continued hastily: “I assure you it was advertised in the local papers as is required by Trinity under its policy, but not a soul turned up. And that's another reason I didn't expect anything was wrong: elderlies, especially the ones on Trinity's books, often have no one. That's why they join.”

Now came the moment that Kramer had been trying to avoid.

“Have you got Miss Le Roux's papers handy?” he asked.

Mr Abbott pointed to a ledger emblazoned
Trinity Records
beside the telephone. Kramer began to leaf slowly through it.

“I see what you mean,” he murmured, “half these old crones have got one foot and a cornplaster in it already.”

Finally he reached the entry he was after and found it revealed nothing but the name, the policy number, the date and means of disposal, and the coding. He noted down the latter and then unfolded a document which had been tucked into the page.

It appeared to be the official go-ahead from the local branch of Trinity Burial Society, and there were a few details above a mass of small print about expenditure.

Name: Le Roux, Theresa

Date of birth: December 12, 1948

Race: White

Address: 223B Barnato Street, Trekkersburg

Status: Single Occupation: Music teacher

Next-of-kin: None

Instructions: Disposal as convenient

Well, that solved something. Or did it? Even orphans generally have someone to weep over them. And what about the people living at 223A? And—most significantly of all—what about the pupils? A teacher dying posed parents a problem they would be only too eager to smother under a mountain of wreaths. There was the time factor, of course; the Press notice had only run one day—the day of the funeral.

“No flowers?” Kramer asked.

“None,” replied Mr Abbott, pausing a moment to think visibly as he refilled his glass.

Very, very strange. For a single, unguarded moment, Kramer felt intense, almost affectionate, respect for whoever had set up this killing. For once a murderer had attempted to do a proper job. Most never bothered to give their deed any constructive thought—Nkosi had been a good example of this. With them it was a case of deplorable self-control followed by instant action with whatever weapon was handiest. Nkosi had snatched up a cane knife, slashed Gertrude thirty-two times in front of the neighbours, and then stood around wiping the blood from his hands on the seat of his trousers while the police were called. Some did try a little harder. They were usually whites or sophisticated wogs who had gone to mission schools. In either case, he was sure it was a question of reading. Do-gooders, who saw to stocking mission libraries, always seemed to have limitless private sources of second-hand Agatha Christies. This type of murderer felt a social responsibility to adopt the key role in an intricate game of skill—some would call it mischance. They were careful with alibis and fingerprints. They had answers for everything. They often took tremendous pains to eradicate the body. In the final analysis, though, they saw themselves ranged against the police—whether in the open or watching from a thicket of deceit. They knew that the very act of concealing their connection with the murder had incriminated them. They were committed to a battle of wits. Even if they succeeded in setting up a “missing person” situation, they never knew when the bugle might suddenly sound as a pet dog unearthed a delectable but forbidden bone. A perfect murder, however, owed nothing to this outlook. Its perpetrator made no attempt to disassociate himself from his deed—simply because he was totally confident his deed would never be recognised as such. He shed clues without a care because no one would ever seek them. He did not give the police any more thought than they an unfamiliar name in the
Gazette
's Deaths column. His way was Nature's Way. A pedant might insist that some element of risk remained: a husband impregnating his wife could not be certain a mongol would not result. Yet in both cases only the odds were what mattered. And the odds against having a mongol would be considerably lower than those against a doctor doubting his own opinion on the demise of a known cardiac case—and astronomically lower than those against a professional undertaker switching bodies in the heat of some unspeakable passion. Yet the battle had begun.