The Artful Egg (8 page)

“Any idea what it means?” murmured Kramer, watching him closely.

Kennedy shook his head, and then turned towards the door into the sun-lounge. “If she was changing at the time, that’s where it must have happened,” he said. “Is it all right for me to take a look?”

Which neatly defused the small bombshell Kramer had been about to drop by taking him through there. “Ach, there’s not much to see, sir,” he said.

“I’d still like to,” Kennedy insisted quietly.

Kramer let him go through alone. Bugger it, the man was genuine—he felt sure of this. Nobody could fake the pain in those eyes, the anguish in the way Kennedy was struggling to act casually, passing on nothing of what he was feeling. So what if—as Kennedy had himself revealed a few minutes ago—his mother’s death left him a rand millionaire? Plainly, to judge by the off-the-peg casuals he wore, and the inexpensive watch on his wrist, Theo Kennedy wasn’t someone who cared a great deal about money—most definitely not enough to kill for, and least of all his own mother. On top of which, if he’d been in need of money, surely he could have just asked her for it?

“She had that sun-lounge built onto the house specially,” said Kennedy, returning to the study. “Called it her second-favourite room.”

“What was her most favourite?”

“This one, the study. It has—well, a lot of her in it.”

“Oh, ja? Can you tell me if anything’s been disturbed?”

“No, I can’t, not really,” replied Kennedy. “It’s been ages since I last had a proper look around in here.”

“Why’s that?”

“Er, strained relationship—that sort of thing. Look, do you mind if …?”

Kramer caught his arm to steady him. “Hey, you’ve gone a bad colour,” he said. “Best you go through somewhere else and have a lie-down.”

“No, I’ve got to get out of here.”

“That’s what I was suggesting, so if you’ll—”

“
Right
out, if you’ve no objection,” said Kennedy, so pale now he looked on the point of collapse. “I don’t think I can take this house another minute.”

For a moment, Kramer stood undecided, uncertain whether he ought to make the most of this moment, while Kennedy was at his weakest, or to act as his instincts dictated. “I’ll run you home,” he said.

“Thanks, but there’s no need. I can drive myself quite—”

“Bullshit, man! You can’t even bloody stand properly!”

The trouble was, decided Ramjut Pillay, it was very difficult to feel like a private investigator, dressed up in your plastic raincoat, when just about everybody else on the streets of central Trekkersburg was also wearing a raincoat. The worst of the storm had passed, but now a steady downpour had set in.

Still, he did have something few other people had—a gold badge
(Issued Free with Every Diploma)
pinned to the underside of his jacket lapel—and that at least set him apart from the common herd. Turning his collar up even higher, he moved like a shadow along the inside of the pavement, pondering where to begin probing into the foul murder of Naomi Stride.

“Ats-zoo!” sneezed Ramjut Pillay. “God’s blessing me and dammit!”

A head cold was the last thing he needed, right at the start of
his first major case. Muttering about the changeable weather in Trekkersburg, he put his hand through the slit in the right-hand side of his raincoat and into his trouser pocket, groping for a handkerchief. He felt instead a wad of crumpled envelopes, and realised with a sickening lurch that not only had he forgotten to change out of his Post Office trousers, but he’d also somehow absconded with some of the mail.

The seriousness of his situation weighed so heavily on him that he was forced to find a place to sit down, and went into the public lavatory reserved for males of his race behind the city hall. There, bolted into the last cubicle in the line of four, he gingerly withdrew the mail from his pocket and looked to see what names and addresses were on it.

He should have guessed: every item had been destined for Woodhollow—and there was the new English stamp he had coveted.

“Oh, dearie me,” sighed Ramjut Pillay, now with a faint recollection of stuffing the envelopes into his pocket as he fled from the house in wild panic. “We are in a considerable pickling, are we not?”

And he shuddered as he pictured what would happen if he took these items of mail round to his superior at the Post Office. From the outset, Mr. Jarman had made it very clear that the worst,
the very worst
crime any postman could commit—no matter what his excuse—was pocketing mail instead of leaving it at the given address. Instant dismissal would be automatic, with instant arrest on a criminal charge of tampering to follow, Mr. Jarman had warned.

“Ah!” exclaimed Ramjut Pillay, having a sudden bright idea. “There is no difficulty here. I am delivering these tomorrow, just as if—”

But how could he, now he was under suspension? A prickle of icy sweat broke out on Ramjut Pillay’s brow. He was trapped, forced into a corner from which there could be no escape. Unless.…

He counted the envelopes—six were missing, if he remembered correctly. Six letters and a circular he must have dropped in the room where he’d discovered the deceased lady. Good, then those would account for why he had called at the house, and the rest he could destroy, claiming he’d never seen them. None was registered, none had been recorded in any way.

And he was about to begin tearing them up into very tiny pieces, for flushing down the contrivance upon which he sat, when he had another sudden bright idea. What if a vital clue to the murder lay in one of the letters he held in his hand? Shouldn’t he first take a look before destroying possible evidence? After all, he had been trying to think of a good place to begin his investigation.…

You’re right, said another side to Ramjut Pillay, filling him with that same cool detachment as before. Go on, take a look—I dare you.

But he hesitated, intimidated by the sound of someone coming in to use the cubicle next to him. The someone, however, soon proved to be beset by severe flatulence problems, and made such a noise, what with his loud sighings and the rest of it, that it seemed impossible he’d overhear a few envelopes being carefully opened. With trembling fingers, Ramjut Pillay set to work, and moments later he was unfolding the first of the letters, turning it the right way up.

What he saw written on that sheet of blue notepaper made his eyebrows leap in horrified amazement. “Phee-
eeeew
!” exclaimed Ramjut Pillay.

“No need to be so rudely personal,” grumbled the someone next door.

W
ITH
T
HEO
K
ENNEDY
at his side, and Zondi following behind in the zebra-painted Land-Rover, Kramer drove across town to Azalea Mansions.

“Have you got a girlfriend?” he asked Kennedy.

“Not any more. Why?”

“You’re going back to an empty flat, man—that’s why.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Or maybe there’s some bloke you could go and stay with. The press and television won’t take all that long to find out where you live, and then—”

“The hell with them!”

“Then, at least take your phone off the hook, hey?” said Kramer, switching off his windscreen wipers.

Azalea Mansions was made up of five two-storey blocks of flats set at odd angles on an uneven slope of untidy brown lawn. Over the road, where Charlton Heights housed the better-off in an imposing high-rise, the lawn was green, weeded and watered. The sign outside it said,
KEEP OFF THE GRASS—NO BALL GAMES
, while the chipped enamel notice, askew at the foot of Azalea Mansions’ potholed drive, warned:
KIDDIES AT PLAY—DRIVE CAREFULLY
.

Not that there were any about, as the rain had only just stopped, and Kramer hardly slackened speed on his way up through the puddles.

“My flat’s over there,” said Kennedy, “but this is far enough, so just—”

“Hold on, my sergeant has to know where to park your jalopy, hey? Which number is it?”

“That one, Number 3.”

Kramer took him almost to his front door, and moments later Zondi drew up beside them.

“Well, Mr. Kennedy, I’m not sure you’re doing the right—”

“No, I’ll be fine, but thanks anyway,” he said, opening his car door and getting out. “It’s just I need—”

“T’eo, why aren’t you in zebby car?” demanded a little girl, running up to him. She was immaculately dressed, fair, dimpled, and looked like something straight off a chocolate-box. “Why’s there a boy in zebby car? Did you let him?”

Kennedy forced a smile. “It’s all right, Amanda—and how are you today?”

“Been to the shops and to the slide!”

“That must’ve been nice,” said Kennedy, adding in an aside to Kramer: “Er, this is a young lady who comes out and watches me when I’m working on my ‘zebby car,’ as she calls it. The zebra stripes fascinate kids.”

“Ja, I bet.”

“T’eo, why are your eyes red?” asked Amanda, frowning.

“Look, maybe—” began Kramer.

“Amanda! What are you doing out in the wet?”

“But, Mummy, you said—”

“
Amanda
—and you’re making a pest of yourself again!”

“No, she’s not,” said Kennedy, “really she’s not.”

Kramer watched the approach of the child’s mother. She was a slim woman of about twenty-six in slacks and a jumper and a red headscarf patterned with horseshoes. Her manner was shy, over-anxious.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve so much to do, and no sooner do I turn my—”

“Please, Mummy,” broke in Amanda, “
please
can I sit in T’eo’s zebby car? He says I can’t unless my mummy says so.”

Perhaps that made it one “mummy” too many for Kennedy, his having so recently joined the ranks of the motherless. He mumbled an apology, pulled his latchkey out of his pocket, and made for his front door.

“Goodness,” said Amanda’s mother, looking at Kramer. “Is there something the matter?”

He nodded. “Mickey,” he said, “scoot after Mr. Kennedy and give him his car-keys—tell him we’ll be in touch.” And then Kramer murmured very softly, trying not to let the child hear: “The ‘something’ is that his mother was murdered last night.”

“His
mother …
?”

“Ja, and so he’s naturally a bit—”

“Oh God, how dreadful! Are you the police, then?”

“CID. We’ve just brought him back from the scene. Tell me, how well do you know Mr. Kennedy, Mrs.… er?”

“Stilgoe, Vicki Stilgoe. I’m afraid I’ve hardly ever exchanged more than the odd word with him. It’s been Amanda, you see, and of course Bruce, but as far as—”

“Bruce?”

“My brother. He and Mr. Kennedy both tinker with their engines out here at the weekend, and—”

“Does Bruce know him well enough to drop in tonight, maybe take him a few cans of beer? I’m a bit worried about—”

“Him being left on his own? Oh, I agree! Don’t worry, we’ll—well, Bruce will know what to do. He should be home any minute.”

“Excellent,” said Kramer, noticing that Amanda had become all ears.

“But if only I’d
known
. There was me, carrying on as if—”

“A bloke in his position,” said Kramer, “needs normal things happening around him more than anything, I promise you, Mrs. Stilgoe. Can I have your phone number?”

“Pardon?” she said, as though startled by sudden propositioning.

Kramer smiled. “Ach, no, it’s just that I’ve advised him to take his phone off the hook—I suppose you know his ma was a famous writer?”

“Oh, yes, everyone in the flats knows that.”

“Then the press and television will get here all the sooner, and I’d like some way of being able to contact him after the siege begins. I’m not asking you to go to too much trouble?”

“Don’t be silly! Our number’s 444893.”

It wasn’t until a few minutes later, while Zondi was driving him back to CID headquarters, that Kramer began to question the purity of his inspiration regarding Trekkersburg 444893. There had been something about Vicki Stilgoe that had excited him in an oblique, tantalising way and, on reflection, he was sure he’d sensed a reciprocal excitement, hidden behind that timorous exterior.

“That will be two rand fifteen cents,” said the bored brunette behind the cash register. “You don’t want a bag for them, do you?”

Ramjut Pillay did want a bag for his purchases, being somewhat sensitive about their nature, but obligingly shook his head as he paid over the money. He could always find himself a suitable container in the litter-bin down the street.

“Your change,” she said, placing it on the counter for him to pick up, avoiding any chance of their fingers touching.

And yet, mused Ramjut Pillay, as he returned to the street, had she the slightest idea of what was pinned under his jacket lapel, then it would have been a very different story. One touch of his hand, and she’d probably not have washed for a week. Poor common shopgirl, he went on to think kindly, how drab and dull your life must be, when compared with the glamorous, excitement-filled world of the private detective. Which somehow led him on to wonder exactly how often the average
common shopgirl
did
wash in a week, and he finally came to a conclusion which, while charitable enough, still had a deeply depressing effect on him.

So much so that he walked right by the first litter-bin in the street, his eyes downcast, and he might have missed the second one had it not been directly in his path.

“Ouchy ow.…” said Ramjut Pillay, rubbing at his barked shin.

Then he picked out a crumpled shopping-bag, used a screw of newspaper to wipe the melted ice-cream off it, and carefully stowed away the labels, lemon, pen nibs, notebook and twelve plastic sandwich-bags he’d just bought, before catching the bus back to Gladstoneville.

At six o’clock that evening, Colonel Muller was waiting where he said he’d be, seated in the far corner of the officers’ mess on the first floor of divisional headquarters. He was smoking a new briar pipe, and had two large Scotches on the table before him.

“What will you have, Tromp?” he asked, waving a hand at the bar. “Just tell young Vermaak your pleasure, and I’ll pay for it later.”

Kramer brought back a lager.