and not just one big thorn. He also preferred even a tasteful vase of plastic flowers to an old wine bottle with dead grass stuck in it at all angles.
Mr Trudeau stepped warily across the waxed parquet flooring with a drink for him. Kramer took it and went on looking out over Trekkersburg through the picture window. The storm had passed and it was a fine moonlight night. He saw the glint of a large swimming pool below on the lawn.
“Like it, Lieutenant? We do. Wonderful view; all those lights like necklaces on black velvet, or so Susan always says.”
“It’s a nice house,” said Kramer.
“You think so? We’re pleased with it. Got ourselves an excellent cook-boy now-he was the gardener before, funnily enough. Wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world.”
“Very nice,” said Kramer, downing his brandy in one.
“Thought you chaps-er, didn’t on duty?”
“We don’t.”
“Ah, I see. Well, what has brought you careering out here then? Susan says it sounded important.”
Kramer told him and Mr Trudeau’s whisky-and-soda voice went flat.
“Murdered, you say?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I cannot divulge any details at this stage.”
“No, no, quite right. You just want me to say what I can about the contacts. You’ve got them on you?”
Kramer handed over the envelope.
“Good Lord, these are unusual little chappies.”
“Why so surprised, sir?”
“Never thought I’d come across a pair outside a film studio. You see, they are simply cosmetic cornea lenses, no optical qualities at all. Worn just for effect.”
“Never medically?”
“Well, we do have a version of this type of thing for certain conditions involving hypersensitivity, but these aren’t them.”
“I see, sir. Where would someone get a pair like this?”
“Overseas, I should think. The States, Germany-possibly London. Did she travel much?”
“Not in the Republic?”
“No demand I’ve ever heard of before. It would be possible to send the prescription over, I suppose.”
“This would have to be done by an eye specialist like yourself?”
“Oh, no. Any proficient optician can take a cast of the eyeball-a little local anaesthetic and there’s nothing to it.”
“In Trekkersburg?”
“Quite possibly. Yes, I don’t see why not.”
“Any names spring to mind, sir?”
The specialist became wary-professional ethics and all that. “Sorry, Lieutenant, not one, I’m afraid.”
“Can you tell me any more about these then?”
“Hmmmm. Handpainted of course-you can see how it’s done, just leaving the pupil area translucent. The pupil’s quite small, actually, showing it was made for use in bright sunlight. That’s the trouble with these things, doesn’t allow the wearer’s eyes to adapt to conditions. You’d need a hole about four units larger in poor light.”
“Like a cat’s eyes get bigger?”
“That sort of thing, Lieutenant.”
“And what would they cost-a lot?”
“Around fifty guineas. Perhaps fractionally more, what with postage and so on.”
“Nothing else?”
“What more can I say? If it wasn’t for the painted iris they would be the same as any other contact. They have their advantages and disadvantages. Some people take to them, some don’t.”
“Oh?”
“I mean some eyes get so irritated, the things have to be discarded. While with others, after a little practice, they can be worn for up to eight hours a day-even longer.”
“Very interesting.”
“Oh, yes, practice is most important. Everyone has tears streaming down their face to begin with. The old eye thinks it has a foreign body to dislodge. Some learn, others don’t.”
He was beginning to repeat himself-and this was what Kramer had hoped for: some sign he had come off guard again.
“No doubt science will find a way round it sooner or later, sir. Just one other thing: have you a patient called Theresa le Roux?”
He lobbed the name carelessly across. Mr Trudeau met it with a smashing backhander.
“Don’t try that sort of trick with me, Kramer. There’s a good fellow.”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“You’re very certain.”
“Yes.”
“Le Roux’s not an uncommon name-you must have a lot of patients on your books.”
“Hardly rare, as you point out. It was my mother’s maiden name, I have always been particularly sensitive to it.”
“So I see,” Kramer said, thanked him, and left through the french windows.
Zondi had gone to sleep in the car.
First things first. There was an old wog saying that it was better to fill your belly with the meat of a bushpig before seeking out the buck whose droppings were dry. They would start by running Gershwin Mkize to ground.
Kramer had rejected Zondi’s suggestion that they radio headquarters and initiate the search right away. He wanted to see to it himself-that way it would be done properly, or, more exactly, his way. Give the Colonel half a chance and the Republic would be roadblocks from Skeleton Coast to Maputoland. He had a somewhat more subtle plan in mind. Of course he had lost an hour but that could not matter much.
Anyway, they were already back at the central police station and making for the charge office to get the name of the duty officer.
They went in on the white side and the place seemed deserted. So Kramer looked around the high partition plastered with Wanted notices and bilharzia warnings and found Sergeant Grobbelaar leaning on the non-white counter, reading a newspaper. He ignored their arrival and went on sucking his pencil over the children’s crossword.
“Bloody English,” he said suddenly, scoring the puzzle across. Every time he patted the blond crown of his crew-cut head like that, Kramer expected it to bounce like a tennis ball. He wished it would. He hated the slob’s guts.
“Busy, Grobbelaar?”
“Always. How’s it, Friday?”
Zondi looked away.
“Not so busy you can’t listen to serials on Springbok, hey?”
The transistor set was poorly concealed between the files above the fireplace.
“What do you want, man?”
Some of the blokes in uniform were like this. They resented the CID so strongly that it was as if they believed all that pulp in their lockers about randy blondes and racing cars. They overlooked the long hours which made a two-to-ten shift sound like a sinecure for pensioners. And they overlooked the fact that most of them had attempted to join the CID, only to fail on probation. Sergeant Grobbelaar was a case in point. He had panicked when a manacled suspect had tried to escape from the interview room. The bullet had put him back into blue.
“The duty officer-who is it tonight?”
“Captain Johns.”
“Then ring him.”
