“This is all a big mistake, Sergeant,” he said very calmly. “The Boeing lost cabin pressure and made me sick because I’ve got a cold. It was late-ask the control tower. As far as the address goes, I stupidly didn’t bring it along and was working from memory. It was 39 Woodland Avenue I wanted, I’m sure.”
“I asked if you had any papers.”
“If you’d let my arm go, I’ll give you my driving license.”
“Careful, Sergeant,” warned one of the constables, “I can feel a gun through his jacket.”
“Did you hear that? A gun! ” the taxi driver announced excitedly to the crowd of motorists that had gathered.
“Hold him nice and tight and I’ll help myself,” said the sergeant, taking a wad of documents from Pembrook’s inside pocket. He turned to read them in the beam of his riot van’s headlights.
The crowd went up on tiptoe.
“Is he a saboteur, Sarge?” asked the taxi driver, adding, for the benefit of late arrivals, “It was me who caught him!”
“Are you really this?” the sergeant asked, turning on Pembrook and holding out his identity card.
The probationer detective constable said good-bye to all that, brought himself back into the present, and nodded.
“What’s he?” begged the crowd.
“I’m entitled to know!” demanded the taxi driver, grabbing the sergeant’s arm.
“A policeman, sir. Do you want to leave your name? For a medal?”
Even Pembrook found a smile to go with the ignominious retreat by a citizen who might still have won praise for vigilance if he had not gone about it with the gusto of a vulture.
Well satisfied, the crowd discreetly withdrew.
Leaving Pembrook very much alone.
“ Ach, you are all done in, son,” said the sergeant. “I think I’ll leave my questions for later. Best we get you to a doctor.”
Kramer read the label upside down because he was loath to change his position.
The Ultimate in Comfi Sleepware — Summer Cloud — the Mattress that Makes your Night.
It also made one hell of a fine haystack.
His body, partially supported on cantilevered elbows over a dozing Lisbet, was entirely relaxed, emptied of striving, and no longer nagging for a piece of action. His mind was experiencing a state of tranquil detachment like having the moon for a head.
So he serenely surveyed what had come to pass on an earthly plane and accepted it amounted to very little. His only achievement being the establishment of a nebulous link between Boetie’s murder and the death of an American student. No more than that because his theories so far had been based on assumptions rather than deduction. While the decoded message went a long way to confirm them, there was still the possibility they could apply equally well to some other situation-or to nothing at all, being merely part of a kid’s wild imaginings. What was needed was one tangible something that tied the two cases together, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Kramer slipped out of Lisbet and rolled over on his back. She cuddled up.
Everything rested now on what Pembrook could discover from the younger daughter in the morning. She was the sole member of the Jarvis family they could approach without arousing suspicion and, with the contents of the toffee tin exhausted of information, their sole source of fresh fact. Kramer hoped to God the Telex statement would come through before midday as the press would soon start getting restive. When that happened, bigger brass than the Colonel would dictate how the investigation was run-maybe take charge themselves. And as Zondi said, a man should share nothing but his bed.
Such thoughts broke his mood, making him restless again. Lisbet, however, had fallen deeply asleep. He decided to have a smoke.
What a gorgeous sight she made from the doorway. It was worth dwelling on-toasting, even, with the dregs of the demijohn.
He found enough to rinse out his mouth and, after another pause, went in search of his Lucky Strikes. They were there in the jacket with his other clothes stacked on the phonograph. It had been a ritual as solemn as any church ceremony. Then had come the extraordinary business with the jazz record. He had soon put a stop to it by teaching her instead a few healthy games.
The match flared brightly, hurting his eyes. He waited for them to readjust before going over to the drinks cabinet to pour something special. He opened the doors and looked in.
To see himself reflected dimly in the mirror that backed the cabinet’s interior. Hell, this was how that tennis player champ must have looked that night; a naked, muscled body in semi-darkness with a cigarette tip glowing like an illuminated boil.
“Jesus!”
Kramer let go of his tumbler where he thought a table stood and it shattered on the floor. A startled sound came from Lisbet’s bedroom. He was on his way over when she staggered into his arms.
“What’s happening, Trompie?”
“ Ach, I’m sorry, my poppie! It’s just I’ve suddenly realized…”
“Oh, yes?”
“You’re still asleep, though. Let me take you back.”
“Please tell me.”
“Come over here, then. That’s right, sit. I’ll put the little light on because I’ve got something to show you.”
Lisbet battled to keep her head up as she watched him hurriedly sort through the junk from his jacket pockets. He bulged open an envelope.
“See this?” Kramer said gleefully. “It’s the stub of a Texan found at the scene of the murder. I discounted it before, thinking it had been dropped in the glade by the young bloke who found the body. He told me he had one to steady his nerves after dressing and before going for help. What I overlooked was that his clothes were in the other glade-like mine were in this room.”
She beat off a yawn with her fist.
“Couldn’t he have gone back with it?”
“I’ll check, of course, but under the circumstances, that’s very unlikely. The girl with him had flipped her lid and I’m sure he’d seen enough of the body.”
“Now you’re bleeding on my carpet,” she groaned.
So he was, having rushed in bare feet across broken glass without noticing.
12
The report Kramer received from the laboratory at eleven o’clock the following morning enabled him to be philosophical about Pembrook’s misfortune.
“Jo’burg CID say he should be all right by tomorrow,” he told Zondi, “so I said not to trouble themselves with the matter. Anyway, once we’ve seen where this lipstick thing leads, we might get a lot more out of that interview with Miss Sally.”
“But what were you laughing at, boss?”
“Some cock-and-bull story about him being arrested. By the way, he’ll be coming back by bus this time and so we’ll have to fix for a van to pick him up at the station.”
“When?”
“Late tomorrow night.”
“Okay. You were going to tell me what was in the report.”
Kramer opened it with a flourish.
“It says here that the sample of lipstick I took from the girl at the dance-Penny Jones-was a cheap brand on sale at bazaars, shops, and most chemists. Now, the lipstick on the cigarette looks the same color in artificial light, but is a much more expensive make and you can see the difference in daylight. It’s called Tasty Tangerine. The
