“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-
