“Marlene’s! Marlene Thomas’s! That must be you again, Adrian. Didn’t I tell you to say ‘Where, please, Major?’ Next time, don’t forget your manners, or I won’t answer, you hear?”
And down went the phone, leaving Zondi with more than he’d hoped for, and an insight into the pathetic state of the man’s mind.
Twice, while working his way through “Improve Your Wordpower” in Nurse Chatterjee’s copy of Reader’s Digest, Ramjut Pillay had been sorely tempted to sneak a look at the correct answers. But he had resisted this urge steadfastly, knowing that it would jeopardise that most precious state of mind any man could aspire to—a perfectly clear conscience. His conscience had been clear for almost two hours now, and already he could sense something of the rather remarkable aura others would soon detect in him, making them want to come and sit at his feet.
Nurse Chatterjee looked over his shoulder. “My goodness, you are courageous to tackle such imponderables,” he said admiringly. “My personal knowledge of English would never be up to it. Have you received some special training?”
“A great deal,” admitted Ramjut Pillay. “Ask me anything from Algebra, Part One, to Zoology, Part Two.”
“English Literature included?”
“I have perused the works of Dr. Watson, concerning the great Sir Sherlock Holmes, much of Mr. Michael Spillane, and, of course, there is my daily dipping into Oxford’s Collected Aphorisms and Sayings in search of an uppermost—”
“Aha,” said Nurse Chatterjee and went off.
How rude, thought Ramjut Pillay, then realised that a new patient may have arrived, and looked up, anxious it wouldn’t be anyone too noisy or frightening. To his mild surprise, the tall doctor in the long white coat, whose name he’d gathered was Schrink, had returned to the ward and was sitting at the desk, reading something with lively interest.
“Remarkable, quite remarkable,” Ramjut Pillay could just hear him murmuring to Nurse Chatterjee. “That confirms my interpretation entirely. At first glance, of course, it purports to be the work of an almost complete illiterate. All these block capitals in the wrong places, the spelling, the grammar—or lack of it. But, as I said the moment I set eyes on it, sound habits die hard, they may even pass unnoticed! Or was it conceit, do you think, that compelled him to give the precise source of the quotation, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’? Most people would probably wrongly attribute it to the Bible or the Bard, and yet, unconsciously one assumes, he simply cannot allow himself to be counted among them. He makes a slight concession to his feigned illiteracy, I suppose, by placing the source before the quotation, rather than after it, but the unthinking arrogance endemic among lesser university intellectuals and their ilk is still there. The whole episode being triggered by this ‘slain by sword’ newspaper on your desk, wouldn’t you say?”
“My very self-same conclusion, Doctor,” said Nurse Chatterjee.
“We can thank God for that, Nurse. Had I merely been handed this note, without any notion of where it had come from, then I would have immediately informed the police. It is simply charged with paranoid delusions and, as for the fantasy represented by the sword in the quotation, I would be very much afraid there would be some attempt to fulfil it. What truly alarms me, I must admit, is that I doubt very much that I’d have pointed the police in the right direction. Most certainly not towards a—ah, a member of your race, shall we say?”
“Then what would your advice have been, Doctor?” asked Nurse Chatterjee. “I am meaning, who would you have suggested to the police to check over?”
“An intellectual, more than probably associated with a place of learning, someone who already displays paranoid tendencies—they could not be entirely supressed, running at this level—and a person, dare I say it, of Semitic origin? The spelling of ‘Jew’ must surely be familiar to even the least educated among us, but to deny this knowledge so vigorously, while having no trouble with a complex word like ‘Richelieu,’ is to deny too much, in my estimation. Or have I lost you there?”
“No, no, not in the least, Doctor! You are saying that by pretending to know nothing the man would hope nobody will suspect him of being the very thing he knows nothing about.”
“Precisely. You’ve a good mind, Nurse; see that you never miss a chance to use it. But back, I’m afraid, to the more mundane matter in hand. I see from these notes you’ve practically confirmed paranoid schizophrenic, what with these voices, et cetera. Anything else to add?”
Ramjut Pillay just went on staring at them, hearing every word being said, but finding himself so devastated he could neither move, utter, nor blink.
“Good God, Nurse Chatterjee, look! Now we appear to have become catatonic!”
16
IT WAS SEVEN o’clock exactly when Kramer arrived at Azalea Mansions, parked beside the zebra-striped Land-Rover belonging to Theo Kennedy, and went to knock at his front door. He noted the time while waiting for an answer, and wondered how Zondi was progressing. So far, his own efforts to achieve anything had been abortive. He had tried every house in Sweethaven Avenue, asking if anyone knew exactly where the Geldenhuys family at Number 24 had got themselves to, and had ended up none the wiser.
He was about to turn away from yet another door, and to try the Stilgoes’ instead, when Theo Kennedy opened up, looking delighted to see him.
“Sorry about the delay,” he said, “but I went to the bedroom window to see who it was first. Come right in, and I’m sure Vicki’ll be just as—”
“Ach, I’ve got just a quick question I could ask you out here.”
“Wouldn’t hear of it, Tromp,” said Kennedy, glancing back over his shoulder and lowering his voice before adding: “Got a lot to thank you for, you know. Without Vicki—and Amanda—I don’t think I could’ve handled the last few days.”
“That’s what neighbours are for, hey? They’d probably have offered—”
“Listen, I’m still grateful, OK? Vicki’s been marvellous, even encouraging me to have a good cry when I’ve needed it, and that’s helped as well.”
Kramer hoped for his sake it’d been more than a weep in the arms of a willing woman. Death, he had always found, was best encountered by its opposite, by the act which began life. To be sure, it included its own little death, but not until there had been a joyous affirmation of what being alive could mean—and even what a soul was, although he generally left that side of things to the Widow Fourie, while he lit a Lucky.
“No, we haven’t—not yet,” said Kennedy with a smile, having picked up something in his expression. “Vicki’s keeping me at arm’s length; she says I’m still too vulnerable. There’ll be time enough.”
“Oh ja? So it’s like that, is it?”
“It’s—well, I’m not even bothering to think about it. I’m just glad it’s happening and, if we’re wrong, that’ll be an end to it, before anyone gets hurt.”
Amanda won’t see it that way, thought Kramer, as he followed Kennedy through into the living-room. That’s the little lady you should be watching out for.
“Hello, again,” said Vicki Stilgoe, “although we really only just saw each other by the pool this afternoon. Were you very busy?”
“Like a buffalo with its bum on fire,” said Kramer, noticing with some relief that she appeared to have eyes only for Kennedy. “I did come out later to say ‘How goes it,’ but by then you’d pushed off before the circus properly started.”
She laughed. “Theo, isn’t that how I described it? That incredible colonel making those divers rehearse and rehearse, so you wouldn’t need to get mixed up in it!”
“And so there wouldn’t be too much egg on our face,” Kramer pointed out to her. “Uniform were meant to have searched every inch of the place. Still, as Zondi—”
“What a nice, gentle man he is. Amanda adored him.”
“Oh ja, he’s saved my life a few times.”
“How many?” asked Kennedy, tapping an invitation on the Scotch-bottle he was holding.
“
I’ll take a dozen—or do you mean how many times Zondi’s pulled the trigger?”
Kennedy laughed, and poured a large tot. “You’re being evasive.”
“Not really. Nine times.”
“Good God, he’s killed nine people?” said Vicki Stilgoe.
“Nine occasions, I should have said, because sometimes the bastards were in batches. Ach, if you want a head-count, around fifteen.”
“Fifteen?”
“You realise what that means, don’t you, Tromp?” said Kennedy, handing him the Scotch. “There’s an old saying to the effect that, if you save a man from death, you’re responsible for him for the rest of his life. Something tells me I’d hate to be responsible for what you get yourself—”
“Actually, Mickey and me are quits, hey? There’s about fifteen on my side, too.”
“That’s thirty,” said Vicki Stilgoe, staring at him. “Thirty people—almost a busful!—between you.”
“Not counting the ones who didn’t surprise us, of course, Mrs. Stilgoe.”
“Not more! Well, you’ve certainly surprised me, Tromp—and, please, it’s just ‘Vicki.’ ” She got up and reached the drinks cabinet before Kennedy could intercept and take over. “Don’t be silly, Theo; I hate feeling one of those helpless women!”
“I wouldn’t mind feeling a—”
“Now, then! I think I may have to call a policeman!”
But Kramer only half-heard that. He, too, had been surprised by his disclosures, and was wondering what on earth had prompted him to make them. Not even with Zondi had he ever started totting up before, and he had only just stopped himself from going on to give the number they’d sent to the gallows. Then he noticed that, when Vicki Stilgoe sat down again, she did so a good metre further away than before, and that’s when he smiled. His instincts had, presumably, been making sure he’d not attract another of her tingling looks, not now or at any time in the future when it might ruin a good thing for a good bloke like Theo Kennedy.
“Is this just a social call?” she asked, a little stiffly but trying to sound friendly.
Kramer took a sip of his drink. “First of all,” he said, “let me tell you what I found out up at the University this afternoon.”
“Lieutenant Kramer’s not back yet?” asked Colonel Muller, entering the office a moment after Zondi slipped the copy of Hamlet under a docket. “Come, I want to show you something.”
Zondi followed him down into the courtyard.
“There,” said the Colonel, pointing. “What’s that on the new rose-bush?”
“One yellow rose, Colonel?”
“Right, a rose! Which Gagonk Mbopa had the cheek to tell me you couldn’t get already growing when you bought a rose-bush. I had to go to a lot of trouble today to get it exchanged, and I want you to tell him that when you visit him in hospital.”
“In hospital, Colonel?”
“He’s been in a traffic accident, but it’s mainly just bruises and concussion. Lieutenant Jones is the one in a bad way—multiple lacerations.”
“Hau, shame!”
“A terrible shame,” agreed Colonel Muller. “Where am I supposed to get two new vehicles from? They don’t grow on trees, hey? And certainly not on rose-bushes!”
Zondi laughed at his joke and, taking advantage of the change in mood, risked putting a question that was bothering him. “Colonel, sir,” he said, “on a point of information, can you tell me what sort of a name ‘Rosencrantz’ is?”
“Rosencrantz? Rosencrantz? Where have you come across that?”
“Just in a book I was reading, sir.”
“Ach, if it’s ‘Rosen’ with a ‘crantz’ added on for swank, then I’d say it was definitely Jewish.”
Kennedy shook his head hard, as if to clear it. “Rosemary and pansies, Laertes’ sword—I can’t keep up! And what precisely is the relevance of ‘Act II, scene ii’?”
“I’ve got Doc Wilson working on that, seeing as he’s the Hamlet expert.”
“Now I’m lost, too,” said Vicki Stilgoe. “Why Hamlet in particular?”
“I see what you mean,” agreed Kennedy. “That could have been an allusion to any play with a second act and a second scene.”
“Ja, but as everything else is Hamlet it stands to reason,” said Kramer.
“Not necessarily, surely,” said Vicki Stilgoe. “Whoever this is seems to be someone with a—well, literary bent, I suppose you’d call it—and that could mean the link is with some other.… Are you sure you’ve got nothing else to help you pin it down?”
Kramer shrugged. “Nothing we’ve come across so far, hey? There’s a chance we’d know more if Theo’s ma had kept some letters she had recently, but she went and burned them.”
“Oh, what sort of letters?”
“All we know is they were written on cheap blue writing-paper with lines, Vicki. Tess Muldoon saw her reading one of them two Saturdays ago, and looking a bit upset. The pity of it is, Theo’s ma didn’t tell her what was in it.”
“Huh, that doesn’t surprise me,” said Kennedy.
Kramer turned to him. “Why’s that? I thought Tess and your ma were in cahoots?” And then, mindful of his conspiracy theory, regarding the ousting of Liz Geldenhuys by a woman with a sexy voice, he added less than truthfully: “I got the impression from Tess that they shared secrets, and would be willing to sort of do anything to help each other out.”
Kennedy threw back his head and laughed. “Secrets perhaps, but the rest isn’t Tess!”
“Sorry?”
“Tess Muldoon, let me assure you, Tromp, is the sort of person who never gets involved with anyone else’s problems. She’s like a sleek, green-eyed cat: beautiful to look at, lovely to stroke, I’d imagine, but totally ‘bugger you’ in her attitude when it comes to humans demanding anything more of her. My mother often said she’d have liked to unburden herself on occasion to Tess, ‘but it would’ve been like asking one’s Siamese if one could borrow a Kleenex.’ ”
Vickie Stilgoe giggled, and Kramer, who needed time to think, said: “I didn’t know your ma made jokes, hey? They say her books were always so serious.”
Kennedy nodded. “We had rows about that, too—it spoiled some of her best writing. She’d put everything into, say, a scene in a Bantu males’ hostel, and then forget it was only because they found things to laugh at that they didn’t go stark raving crackers. I used to become very restless, reading them, and not know quite why, until I spotted what the mistake was. Mum’s answer to that was ‘Don’t you realise, Theo, I weep when I write those bits.’ She bottled up a lot.”
“Although, where Liz Geldenhuys was concerned, your ma didn’t exactly bottle up what she thought of her table manners and how she kept saying ‘Ach’ in front of her sentences.”
“Mum didn’t say a word about that to her!” Kennedy went pale. “How the Jesus—? Oh, I see, Tess again! Well, that’s that bitch written off!”
“Not Tess, another source,” said Kramer. “But, while we’re on the subject, do you think your break-up could’ve had anything to do with—?”
“Look, Tromp, I know I might be a bit touchy about my mum at the moment, but I still think I’ve every right to resent what you seem to be implying. She could have a very wicked tongue in private, just as she could in her books, but she wasn’t the sort of person to go hurting someone like Liz. And, besides, my mother’s never tried to interfere directly in my life, however much she may have—”
“Ja, I’m sorry, Theo, but I have a job to do, hey? And you can’t deny, man, that somebody has interfered in your life until very recently. I’m talking about the ‘sexy voice’ phone calls.”
“God, you leave no stone unturned! What has all this to do with anything?”
“These calls, Theo, can you tell me if—?”
“Look, I’ve not heard that bitch’s voice since the day before Liz walked out, and so what relevance—?”
“Winny Barnes says the last one was only last week.”
“Yes, an
d I was away. I’ve been away every time she’s phoned since Winny came to work for me. I still can’t see what the hell you’re driving at, Tromp!”
But Kramer suddenly saw something then. He saw Winny Barnes lift the receiver in her father’s boring photographic shop and begin a series of telephone calls. He saw Winny taking over as assistant to Theo Kennedy, a man she plainly idolised, and he even saw her pause outside a jeweller’s window, her eye caught by a tray of wedding rings.
“If I might interrupt,” said Vicki Stilgoe, “time to pop next door.”
Nurse Chatterjee had stayed on after his shift ended in an effort to placate Ramjut Pillay, and because his relief, Nurse Mooljum, could hardly be expected to pick up the pieces single-handed. But Ramjut Pillay was in no frame of mind to give anybody his due, not even the Devil himself.
Ever since regaining his voice and the ability to move, he had been loudly denouncing Garrison Road Mental Hospital as an institution filled with traitors and unspeakable cads, while prancing about, exposing himself, on the top of the ward cupboard. Nothing would make him listen to reason. Nothing would make him come down again, and the rest of the patients were becoming over-excited.
“Look here, Peerswammy, kindly replace your pyjama trousers and—”
“Ho, ho, so the great Dr. Schrink is back!”
“Kindly stop referring to me—”
“Showing us where we are Jewish!” demanded Ramjut Pillay.
“Peerswammy, you’re missing the point. In saying—”
“We are not missing our point. Just you looking, Dr. Schrink, and you will see it is entirely uncircumscribed!”
Nurse Chatterjee came a step closer. “But nobody said you were Jewish, Peerswammy Lal, old fellow. What you over—”
“Nobody said,” Ramjut Pillay echoed bitterly, “that this was a place where an honest face was not to be trusted! Once a letter is sealed, it becomes—”
“But you shouldn’t have sealed it, Peerswammy, that is altogether against hospital regulations. We have to read all correspondence before it is leaving here, to make sure nothing that is offensive—”
The Artful Egg Page 24
