Mrs Johnson turned her head towards him slowly. He noticed she was trembling. How much older she suddenly seemed.
Kramer started at the top. The hat was limp black straw, decked in velvet roses which had long since abandoned any pretensions to natural representation. The hair beneath was very white, very fine and curiously free of any kinking. The face was broad but not remarkably so. What was striking was the mute pain which showed in the deep brown eyes-the whites of which had none of the usual yellow cast-and in the lines cut deep about the kindly mouth. By contrast, the neck was swan-smooth. The hands, clasped tight in the black lap, were strong yet delicate, with a faint cornflake mottling on the back. The feet were small, too.
It was plain that her Coloured blood confined itself to the arterial system. And that Mrs Johnson must have been a rare find for Mr Johnson.
“You’re frightened,” Kramer said.
Mrs Johnson nodded, maintaining her elusive dignity with difficulty.
“Why?”
“I don’t want any trouble.”
“Well, if you go around telling lies, then you’ve got to expect it, Ma.”
She nodded again, vaguely.
“Haven’t you got another tissue?”
Mrs Johnson rummaged obediently in her bag, tipping it up so as to reach to the bottom. A newspaper cutting fluttered out on to the seat between them.
Kramer tweaked it up and held it so that she could read the headline: MYSTERY DEATH OF A MYSTERY GIRL.
“See what I mean?” he said. “You told one of my men that you had no idea Miss Le Roux was the subject of an inquiry.”
“He wouldn’t tell me what sort of inquiry.”
“Never you mind. You also said that you lived here in Biddulph Street.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sorry? Who sent you?”
Mrs Johnson frowned.
“Nobody sent me. I just came.”
“From?”
“Durban.”
“Why?”
“I told the other policeman.”
“That you were a dressmaker and all that rubbish?”
“I am one.”
“And you knew Miss Le Roux personally?”
“She was once a customer.”
“So she used to live in Durban?”
“Yes.”
Kramer stared hard and long at Mrs Johnson. She moved uncomfortably, but kept her chin firm.
“All right then, Ma-why did you come?”
“Something just made me. She was a lovely girl, Miss Le Roux. It seemed so terrible, something happening to her like that. I read about the foul play thing and it all preyed on my mind so I couldn’t think straight. She had such a lovely skin.”
“What the hell’s that got to do with it?” Kramer snapped, losing patience.
“I-I don’t know, sir. It’s just what kept going through my mind.”
“Why did you lie to the sergeant?”
“Because I was afraid of telling the truth to him, sir, being… A Coloured person hasn’t the right to go poking their noses into things.”
Mrs Johnson seemed altogether too conscious of her race. This, and the other unsatisfactory aspects of her story, had Kramer wondering if he had not been right after all-she had taken refuge in a non-white bog to evade him.
“Have you got any papers on you to prove what you are and where you live?” he asked.
“No, sir, I haven’t. I’m sorry.”
Kramer frowned. But he was not altogether displeased. Mrs Johnson was the first strong link they had had with Miss Le Roux and there was obviously a great deal they could learn from her. The main problem, however, was the time factor. From the moment this Press report had been published, a race had begun. Every hour that passed was an hour to the killers’ advantage. The way things were going, it would take until nightfall to extract what Mrs Johnson really had to say. Pity she was so old and frail.
Kramer knew what sort of mood he was in. There were days when he thoroughly enjoyed a long symphonic interrogation, with its different movements, its moments of sweet counterpoint, and that final triumphant surge to the climax. And then there were days when all he wanted was the truth and nothing but the truth, the way the judges got it. Gershwin knew what he meant.
And Mrs Johnson seemed to have sensed something of it, too. She had pulled her bag up protectively before her and was regarding the silent figure beside her with mounting anxiety.
Suddenly Kramer’s face lit up with an inspired idea.
“The body has not yet been formally identified,” he said. “You say you know a Miss Le Roux-let’s see if it is the same one.”
After a long pause, the old woman nodded once.
Kramer flicked on the radio. Central Control answered almost immediately.
“Lieutenant Kramer here. I want an urgent message phoned through to Abbott’s funeral parlour. Message to read: Prepare Le Roux for formal identification in ten minutes. Request slab is used. And tell them it came from me. Okay?”
Central Control acknowledged and went off the air.
A formal identification was routine, no shock tactics involved there. But using the slab instead of the tray would allow the full extent of Dr Strydom’s ministrations to be abruptly displayed under the merciless light. It would shock all right.
Farthing took the call from Central Control as Mr Abbott was at his Rotary luncheon. It made him very indignant.
So indignant, in fact, that he put his feet back on the desktop and resolved to do nothing about it until his lunch-hour was over. After all, it was not as if he was idling his time away: studying was no easy matter when you worked on a round-the-clock basis. Life was often as trying now as it had been when he was a male nurse.
Besides which, his manual had just arrived from the British Institute of Embalmers and the chapter on bacteriology was utterly absorbing. He would have to warn the boss about the risks they were taking with some of their hospital jobs.
Then his conscience began to get the better of him, so he skipped quickly to the section on surgical reconstruction for a glance at the illustrations. They were beautiful.
“Well, well, well,” he said to himself as he strolled down to the mortuary, “so they said you would never do it, with your education, Nurse Farthing. We’ll see.”
He had just opened the refrigerator when Kramer entered the room, escorting Mrs Johnson.
Kramer did not like what he saw. He did not like having his orders disobeyed and he did not like the look of this young man. He was too young and too intimate in the way his gaze touched you.
Then things went totally out of control.
Farthing pulled out the tray. Mrs Johnson moved with astonishing speed across to him. Farthing drew the sheet gently off the head. Mrs Johnson sighed very softly.
It was the look on her face that kept Kramer standing where he was. He was aware that he had seen it somewhere else on someone else but he could not make the connection; a curious resignation that hinted at things so profound it hollowed your belly.
Farthing saw she was trying to ask him something.
