“What’s Glen got to do with Andy?” she asked.
“Routine-corroboration of your statement.”
“Please don’t ask him! I’d rather tell you myself.”
Kramer sat down and stretched out his legs. He signaled for her to proceed.
“You see, I wasn’t being truthful about the night of Andy’s accident. I wasn’t here-I sneaked out again when Daddy thought I’d gone to my bedroom. Glen was waiting in his car in the road. There was this party for Tracey- Sally let me in the back door.”
“And that’s the truth?”
“Yes, I promise. Honestly.”
“Suppose I ask Sally?”
“You can, she’ll say the same thing. I woke her up by chucking stones up at her window at about three and-”
“I believe you, Caroline.” Kramer sighed and meant it. “Forget what I said about telling your father anything. Your secrets are safe with me.”
Poor bloody kid. He tried to reach the door before gratitude engulfed him.
“Just a moment, Lieutenant,” she called.
“Uhuh?”
“Weren’t you going to ask me about my lipstick? That’s what Daddy said.”
“Oh, that.”
“Mine did disappear that night because I wanted to wear it at the party. But it couldn’t have been the burglar because I missed it before supper.”
13
Everything was working out perfectly for Pembrook. No sooner had he dropped off the statement for Telex transmission to Trekkersburg than he was traveling there himself in a flashy new sports car.
Thanks to old Mrs. Trubshaw, of course, a real lady for all her frills and fancies; one whose claim to being a “born arranger if nothing else” was entirely justified. First she arranged his interview with Sally so tactfully the little pudding showed no reluctance to talk, then she arranged a seat for him at the supper table because she realized what ages these things took, and finally she arranged-having heard a graphic account of the flight-for her neighbors’ son to give him a lift back that very night.
This bloke, by the name of Pete Talbot, had agreed so readily to the idea that Pembrook experienced an attack of cringe, suspecting he was being offered a demonstration rather than a favor. And he was right: Pete, an engineering student at Durban University, had made the midweek trip up only to complete the running-in mileage and intended, on the way down, to really let rip. But Kramer was probably spitting buckshot and that had settled it.
“Fan-as-ic!” bawled Pete, having his t ’s torn away by the wind as they side-swept into another tight bend.
Pembrook yelled back: “Staring oo izzle!”
So the car slithered to a halt for Pete to display his expertise by getting the top up in one minute flat.
“Bloody quiet, isn’t it?” Pete said as he drove on.
“Yes, pity about the rain-I was enjoying that.”
“You were? Great! Fantastic!”
“Buy this yourself?”
“Parents did.”
Imagine that, enough moola lying around to pay Pembrook’s salary for two years-or his old man’s pension for six, come to think of it. Some people…
“I’ll have to get a radio,” Pete said. “Helps keep you awake on these straight stretches. What were you doing over at the Trubshaws’? Sally gone and done something naughty at last?”
“You know her, then?”
“Oh, sure. Had a pash for her big sister once.”
“And was she?”
“What?”
“Passionate, too?”
“Never got the chance to find out. That father of hers is a right bastard. Met her at Trubshaws’ one school holiday, you see, just before term. So when I got back to Durban, I whipped up to see her in the old jalopy. Man!”
“Shall I light you one?”
“Thanks. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I chickened out the second time he caught me bringing her back late. I was expecting a bit of a sesh, not the bloody Riot Act. Christ, and who does he think he is, the bastard?”
“Here you are.”
“Smoke Texan and-hey, it isn’t him, is it?”
“Who?”
“ Captain Jarvis-the one that’s in trouble with you chaps?”
“Hell, no! The family are just providing background to a case.”
“Pity.”
“Uhuh?” More than colds were catching.
“Well, he could come down a peg or two. He isn’t what he makes himself out to be, not by a long chalk. You should hear his ma-in-law, Granny Trubshaw, go on about him to my old lady. In the first place, that’s only a wartime commission he’s got. You can’t blame the regulars who finished up captain or major or colonel from hanging on to their rank, I mean it’s like calling yourself ‘doctor’ after years of hard graft. But our friend Jarvis was just a manager on a rubber plantation in Malaya until the Japs came. Whoever was in charge gave him some Malayan soldiers to boss around and that was how it happened.”
“Did the Japs catch him?”
“POW for a year-then he escaped.”
“I thought that was impossible.”
“You’re not the only one, my friend; Granny Trubshaw always avoids that part of the story. My dad-he was real army-has been heard to mutter dark things.”
“Like?”
“A bit of the old collab, with the enemy, y’know. Wouldn’t put it past him either, not after the streak of cruelty he dished me out with!”
Pembrook laughed.
“He could have you for slander, man. But what happened after the war?”
“Usual thing with his type; bummed his way around the disappearing Empire, complaining the wogs weren’t grateful and they forgot to put ice in his drinks. Had a go at being DC-district commissioner-up in Kenya, spent a bit of time as a police chief somewhere else. I don’t remember it all. Then got his windfall-old biddy died in England leaving him thousands-and came down here to have his brandy the way he liked it.”
“But why not go back to England? I hear his house-”
“Servants? Tax? He wouldn’t recognize an Englishman today, I can tell you-I’ve been there.”
“Why-how, I mean-did the Trubshaws get involved in this?”
“Sylvia married him because he was the only white lay within forty miles-that’s what my old man says. Granny Trubshaw says she even tried to get a witch doctor to stop it!”
“No, really?”
“Of course not. But I’ll bet she spent some nights on her knees. Our Sylvia’s quite a girl on her own account- another of the old man’s dark hints, but he’s past it. Much younger than the Captain, of course, and not bad. Sure she gave me the eye once, while they were up here.”
