The Steam Pig (9 page)

“Yes, but he swears they're blue. Although I bet he never looked before yesterday.”

“How extraordinary! Old Georgie Abbott does, too.”

Kramer stopped short.

“It's more than that then, it's bloody peculiar. Now I just took a look through the slits and saw brown—did you open them properly?”

“Yes, in the prescribed manner.”

“Which is?”

“Are you doubting my word, Lieutenant?”

“No, man, don't get in a knot. I just wanted to know.”

“Like this then; fingertips on the temples, thumbs facing in on the eyelids, a gentle push up.”

“I see.”

“Where does that get you?”

“Nowhere, I'm sorry.”

“It's all right, man.”

Kramer kicked at a stone.

“How about that stained-glass of Georgie's? Could that have affected observation?”

“The theatre light was on. I don't know, it might I suppose. But isn't this a rather trivial point?”

“Yes, but strange.”

“Let's have another look, shall we? I've got time before punishment.”

“What's it, four o'clock?”

“Twenty past.”

“That's pushing it. Like you said, it's a small point.”

“Please yourself.”

Kramer helped him off with the apron as Zondi came over smelling his hands gingerly.

“Perhaps you have some tissues in your bag for my sergeant,” Kramer asked.

Dr Strydom looked a little surprised but began to rummage about.

“He's driving my car, you see.”

“Ah, of course. What about some TCP? That should do the trick. And spirits to dry it off.”

“Ta,” Kramer said, leaving the effusive thanks to a dutiful Zondi.

Then the meat wagon took a short leap at them. Van Rensberg leaned across the front seat and bawled his farewells over and under the roar of the engine. Kramer caught a line about working office hours and returned the salute. That got rid of him. Off he hurtled, clearing the traffic for them all the way back into Trekkersburg.

“I'll take you up on that offer, Doctor,” Kramer said suddenly. “Come on Zondi, don't bugger about, man. It'll stop you picking your nose.”

They detoured to pass the Market Square, with Dr Strydom still tailing them, and confirmed that the yellow Dodge had left it.

“This shouldn't take long but I want to see Farthing if I can,” Kramer explained. “So I want you to leave the car with me and get down to Trichaard Street on foot. Don't do too much or get too close. You could ask Maisy if Gershwin's mob have been in for extra booze lately.”

“Okay, boss.”

“If I finish early, then I'll drive down Trichaard Street once, fast, and you meet me in Buller's Walk.”

“Got it.”

“And if not, then come back to the office by seven.”

“Yes, boss.”

Zondi got out at the next traffic light and Kramer drove the rest of the way cursing himself for not thinking of radioing headquarters earlier and asking them to warn Mr Abbott they were coming.

But there he was, scrubbing away at his palm in the yard doorway to the mortuary. He looked somewhat perplexed by the sudden arrival of the law. And a little concerned. Poor Georgie.

“Well, what can I do for you this time?” he asked.

“Tell me the colour of Miss Le Roux's eyes.”

“Hey? Blue of course.”

“Why: Of course?”

“Because her hair's such a lovely blonde.”

It was not very pleasant when a man in his profession spoke of the dead in the present tense. It could be just a slip of the tongue though, just as thinking a blonde had blue eyes could be a mere slip of the mind.

“Thank you, Georgie. Now our friend Dr Strydom would like another look at the person in question.”

“Certainly, certainly, come through, gentlemen. Please don't mind the mess.”

The mess he referred to was a very orderly arrangement comprising a trolley of embalming instruments, two arterial drains on stands and an enamel bucket of viscera. At the centre of them a small, shrivelled man of about eighty lay on the table with his shroud pulled up.

“Nice neat sutures,” Dr Strydom said, casting a professional glance over Mr Abbott's work.

“He's an American,” Mr Abbott confided in almost a whisper. “Poor chap only just got off the ship for a tour. Stroke. I've got to have him on a plane in Durban tomorrow early.”

That explained the extra care taken with the sutures—it was a matter of national pride.

“Won't keep you long,” Dr Strydom said, pulling out Miss Le Roux's tray. “Can we have a bit of extra light here, do you think?”

He waited until Mr Abbott had supplied it before he drew back the sheet.

“Christ, what's happened to her face?” Kramer said.

“Nothing to worry about, just a touch of mottling,” Mr Abbott assured him. “I can get rid of it quite easily with talc.”

“I haven't come to bloody take her out,” Kramer responded.

“Steady, man,” Dr Strydom cautioned. “We've had a bad day, Georgie—a bloater out on the veld.”

“I understand.”

Nevertheless, he backed away hurt.

“Now let's see the eyes,” Kramer snapped.

Dr Strydom placed a hand on either side of the face and pushed up on the eyelids with his thumbs. The irises were brown, deep brown with no little flecks of hazel or yellow.

“You pressed down very hard,” Kramer muttered.

“One doesn't have to be gentle! Besides, they're apt to be a bit sticky.”

“I thought you needed pennies … ?”

“Not always. Depends.”

Kramer took a deep breath.

“Can I have a go?”

“Georgie, get us some more gloves, will you?”

Kramer and Mr Abbott made their peace as they struggled with the gloves which were a size too small. Then Kramer adopted exactly the same procedure as Dr Strydom.

God, her head felt hard. The lids, however, moved easily, like grape skins. His stomach knotted.

“Well?” There was more than a hint of challenge in Dr Strydom's tone.

“Just a minute.”

Using his fingertips now, which were much more sensitive than the edge of his thumbs, Kramer felt all the way up each lid to the edge of the eyesocket.

“Doctor, do you have little lumps up here?” he asked very quietly.

“Tear glands. No, not there—closer to the nose.”

“Here is where I mean.”

“I shouldn't think so.”

“Feel for yourself.”

Dr Strydom reached out with confidence and drew back again plainly shaken.

“I'd like to take a look underneath if I may?”

“You may,” replied Kramer, doing what the Widow Fourie hated him to do with his mouth. He shuddered involuntarily as he removed the borrowed gloves.

Mr Abbott brought a small tray over from one of the wall cabinets and Dr Strydom shakily selected a slender probe. Kramer looked away and studied the American visitor's face; he had a moustache just like Wyatt Earp.

“Here, Lieutenant.”

Dr Strydom's voice was barely audible. In his hand lay two tiny glass dishes. And they were a deep blue, except for a circle in the middle which was clear.

“Contact lenses!” exclaimed Mr Abbott. “My goodness, they don't half give us trouble.”

“I—I must have shoved them up there—pushed a little too hard, perhaps—they were sort of wedged—probably slipped up before my thumbs reached them—there's this bend where the eyeball presses against the bone, the superior helix, I …”

“Forget it,” Kramer said.

“Please, Lieutenant, allow me to explain.”

“Look, Doctor, I've got what I wanted now so I don't give a stuff about your excuses.”

Then the dizzy pleasure of having a hunch come off softened him.

“We all make mistakes, you said so yourself.”

“But what will the Colonel say?”

“None of his bloody business, don't you worry.”

“I appreciate this.”

“You'd better.”

“If there's anything I—”

“Yes, tell me who makes these things around here.”

Dr Strydom gulped.

Then Mr Abbott spoke up on his friend's behalf, he owed him a favour: “The wife wears contacts herself. There's a specialist who does them, Mr Trudeau.”

“Hey?”

“It's a French name, but he lives in Trekkersburg.”

“Where?”

“He might still be in his rooms,” Dr Strydom said. “Let me try and track him down for you. I know the ropes.”

Dr Strydom was gone for three minutes. He came back looking glum.

“Not in his rooms and not at home,” he reported. “His wife says he isn't on call, so she hasn't any way of contacting him. But she is expecting him home for dinner at eight.”

“Address?”

“47 Benjamin Drive, Greenside.”

Dr Strydom was now very much on the ball and determined to stay there.

Kramer wrote it down.

“Good,” he said.

Mr Abbott cleared his throat. “Care for a sundowner, Lieutenant?”

“I suppose you boys are going to have one?”

“I
need
one,” Dr Strydom laughed, showing he was still smarting over his clumsiness.

“Let's go,” Kramer said, and they trooped through to the showroom, took their glasses and sat in a ruminative silence broken only when Farthing rang to say he would be late.

Dr Strydom left at five to five for the prison but Kramer stayed on. Georgie had been out and bought a really good brandy now the hellcat was away. There was nothing for him to do that he could not do right there until seven o'clock. And that was think.

Think about Miss Le Roux. Order the facts and analyse them. Georgie would not interrupt because Georgie was far too intent on savouring each sip.

But before he could begin, the known was again overwhelmed and brushed aside by the unknown—like the tape and the contacts. Yes, those blue lenses suggested something far more significant than dowdy frocks over naughty knickers. He wished he could see the damned specialist right away.

Kramer took out the stray card on which he had written the man's address and glanced at it idly. He was looking at the other side—at the jeweller's reminder to Miss Le Roux. God, he had forgotten clean about it.

What the article was he had no idea for it simply stated: “Adjustment”. Jewellery: that rang a bell. Of course, Georgie said she had none when he looked her over. Not even a ring. Which was very odd because even nuns wore rings. Wait a minute, maybe you could call making a ring larger or smaller
adjusting
it. Every Afrikaner knew English was a hell of a language.

“Hey, Georgie, have you ever heard about adjusting a ring?”

“Is this a funny story?” Mr Abbott asked hopefully.

“No, a straight question. Can you or can't you?”

“Quite all right, I should say.”

“Good.”

“That's all?”

“Well, what sort of ring would you have adjusted?”

“We pass a lot on to relatives, they have them changed to fit.”

“Of course.”

“And—”

“Yes?”

“I was just going to say, engagement rings. Sometimes they are bought by the chap in another town or something.”

Mr Abbott was gratified, if startled, to note the effect his words of wisdom had upon Kramer.

“Christ, that's it! He doesn't live here!”

And Kramer was gone.

The prissy little man behind the clocks counter was not at all eager to serve a customer who pushed aside the boy as he was closing the doors on the many strokes of five-thirty.

Kramer put down the card and asked: “Please let me have this.”

“Hmm, you're not Miss Le Roux,” sniffed the assistant.

“No, but—”

“You understand we can't have just anybody walking off with expensive goods for the price of the repair work. Have you a note from this lady?”

“No.”

“Then I can't let you have it.”

“Come on, please, it's late.”

“If you don't mind me saying so,
sir,
that could be one of the oldest dodges in the book.”

“What?”

“Coming rushing in here at closing time and hoping to catch the assistant off his guard.”

Kramer had purposefully refrained from identifying himself. Whenever he came across this sort of snivelling misery, he made it his job to make him even more miserable. Safeguarding property was one thing—being bloody rude was another. He was never in too much of a hurry for an object lesson.

“You'll pay for that remark.”

“Oh, I'm sure I will. Now get out.”

“Or you'll call the police?”

“Yes.”

The assistant snatched up the card as Kramer undid his jacket button and leaned across.

“Now, little man, tell me very politely what you see in there.”

The assistant had no need to be told where to look. As the jacket fell open his eyes had fixed on the .38 Smith and Wesson stuck in the waistband. He clutched the counter and his heart went tock-tock. Then he began to sway.

“What seems to be the trouble, Finstock?”

Kramer turned and smiled affably at a portly old gentleman approaching in pinstripes.

“Careful, he's got a gun, Mr Williams!” warned Finstock, scurrying to his side.

Mr Williams put his keys behind his back and looked very solemn.

“He has, I saw it in his trousers!”

“Good evening, sir, I'm from the CID—here's my warrant card.”

Mr Williams read it from where he was standing and then turned to Finstock.

“Your nerves again, I suppose, Finstock? That will be all for today.”

“Funny bloke,” Kramer said a moment later.

“Very, very trying at times,” agreed Mr Williams. “I've been meaning to speak to him. Now, officer, can I be of any assistance?”