K RAMER HATED PARTIES. Parties of any description. And cocktail parties more than any other kind, although they were seldom his lot. Having admitted a prejudice, he was still able to say that this particular party was the worst ever held.
Most of the eighty guests seemed to think so, too. You could see their charming faces ached to get away.
Precisely what was wrong with it was another matter. There were no cocktails, of course, but there was plenty of drink. The mayor’s personal staff met the heavy demand for free civic Scotch recklessly, without benefit of tot measure. And there was plenty of food spread over a long trestle table disguised by a tablecloth bearing the Trekkersburg shield of arms. The sly matronly glutton could help herself to anything ranging from salmon roe on toast to a green onion on a stick. The sandwiches were to be avoided, however, as the brittle bread had lost its grip on the cucumber.
It had all the makings of a successful function-and the added attraction of a four-piece band.
At first Kramer had suspected that Mannie Hendriks and his Cococabana Trio were primarily responsible for the strange gloom which pervaded the assembly. He had slipped in through the side entrance just as they began a soulful number which described, in musical terms, the plight of a wretched Peruvian peasant who had lost his beloved donkey; that was what Mannie said and you had to believe him. But even when the drummer introduced a medley from South Pacific the mood had not improved.
Then Kramer remembered a dance to which he had gone with some fellow recruits from the police college. They shared an adolescent belief that all nurses were promiscuous and it was in the dining-room of a mental hospital just outside Pretoria. He had drawn sweaty-palmed Student Nurse Bekker who wanted to talk psychology all night. When, to get into the garden, he had mumbled how much he detested parties, she informed him that he was suffering feelings of sexual inadequacy. This had been a surprise.
But now he realised that Miss Bekker might have had something there. He was feeling inadequate-and, to use her phrase, probably projecting this into what he saw.
Everything had been so clear-cut up to the moment Councillor Trenshaw appeared briefly through a gap in the crowd. He had been holding his wife’s handbag while she demonstrated an exercise from her keep-fit class. Then their friends laughed ambiguously and closed in about them again.
Kramer had not had time for a proper assessment, but it was clear that Councillor Trenshaw was a cool customer. So cool that thoughts of a disastrous misapprehension chilled Kramer’s brain. Yet he had to do something.
The music stopped.
And about the only person who was thoroughly enjoying herself, the society columnist from the Gazette, zeroed in on the new face she spotted beside the bust of Theophilus Shepstone.
“I’m Felicity Painter-and who are you, my dear? I won’t let you budge from there until you tell me!”
She was very much bigger than Kramer and twirled the end of her long string of beads like a lariat.
“Security, madam.”
“Really?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Oh dear, what a pity.”
And she went yodelling off after a couple who immediately stampeded for the exit.
The party was beginning to fold. The band had stopped.
Kramer looked anxiously across but the musicians had just paused to top up their drinks. Thank God, they had a bit to go yet, and that committee chairman never left early because it was rude.
Then he had it. The idea that would cost him nothing if he was wrong-and bring him the jackpot if he was right.
Mannie was an old acquaintance, after all.
“Request, Trompie? This isn’t that sort of do, you know.”
“I’d count it a big favour, man.”
“Tell me what it is.”
“Greensleeves.”
“That oldie! We can’t play it on this kind of gig. They want show stuff, Latin Am. It’ll sound all wrong.”
“They won’t mind it that much. Most of them probably won’t even notice. For old time’s sake.”
“The things I do for people.”
“Make it short, if you like.”
“Okay. Don’t ask me why. You hear that, you blokes? My friend here wants a few bars of Greensleeves. Let’s take it from the top.”
And as Mannie gave the downbeat, Kramer stepped upon the bandstand beside him to look over the heads at Councillor Trenshaw, who stood against the doors to the Council Chamber at the far end of the room.
Greensleeves: the simple melody had an effect on Trenshaw which its regal composer never contemplated. It hit him right between the ears. It lifted him on his toes. It brought blood to his face. It fixed his startled eyes on Kramer.
Kramer looked back.
The Cococabana Trio got carried away. With maracas and guitar they soon had the sweet English maiden stamping in the dust of a Mexican square along with the best of them.
Then it was Kramer’s turn to gape.
Three other men were staring up at him, their faces registering alarm. One by one they turned to push their way towards Councillor Trenshaw.
In their wake came Kramer. They reached the council chamber doors and so did he.
“Please go straight through, gentlemen,” he said softly.
The group swung on him. A short, plump man took a pace forward.
“Let’s not worry the ladies, gentlemen.”
They nodded and went in ahead of Kramer who closed the doors on the party and then crossed the chamber to the light switches. Night had fallen unnoticed.
“Now will you all please take a seat.”
The four men advanced slowly, as in someone else’s dream, on the large crescent table that seated the council in full session. They did not sit together but went automatically to their places.
Christ, they all had places.
For a moment Kramer hesitated, and then he mounted the platform and took the mayor’s chair. He looked down on the table and saw each council member was provided with a blotter and a wooden wedge bearing his name.
“Councillor Ferguson, Councillor Da Silva, Councillor Trenshaw, Councillor Ford,” he read out, from left to right.
He knew what the next words would be.
“What’s the meaning of all this?” demanded Da Silva.
Kramer did not know himself-a vice racket run by a fifth of the city council was inconceivable. And what made it all most puzzling was the way they were all glaring at him. They were not frightened, they were angry.
“We have a right to know!” Ford barked.
Kramer took a deep breath. It was critically important he said the right thing.
“The Steam Pig, gentlemen.”
Something registered all right: Da Silva shot to his feet, furious.
“You’ve had the contracts off us! You people promised it was all finished and done with.”
“What was, Councillor?”
“You know very well.”
“The business about the girl,” Trenshaw mumbled.
“But it isn’t finished.”
“Look-”
Trenshaw extended a hand to restrain his colleague.
“Steady now, Irving. We don’t know this one. He could be trying to work something for himself on the side.”
Kramer remained passive as they stared intently at him, and they found no clue to his internal turmoil. But it was not good, he could not go on: he did not know what role he was supposed to be playing, or the words that went with it.
“I am a police officer. Lieutenant Kramer of Trekkersburg CID. I am investigating the murder of a Coloured female going by the name of Theresa le Roux. I have reason to suspect that you know something to our advantage.”
They let him say it all. And then they just sat. A bomb would not have shifted them. They would have welcomed it.
Da Silva began to sob.
“Well, thank God, it’s over,” Trenshaw sighed and the others nodded.
Kramer came down from the dais.
“If one of you would like to make a statement, I will just remind you that it is possible for a witness to give State’s evidence. This means proceedings will not be taken against you. Murder is a capital offence.”
“We haven’t murdered anyone!”
“No, Councillor Trenshaw? Then you tell me what it was you did to the girl-or had done for you?”
“Nothing!”
A giggle wriggled from Ferguson. He had begun to crack back in the Assembly Room.
“What if we all talk?” Trenshaw suggested, a slight smile finding its place out of long habit in a twist of his lips.
“Go ahead, sir, I’m listening.”
Van Niekerk had given Zondi the typewriter to clean. To his surprise it was being done very thoroughly.
“What are you using-meths?” he asked.
“Carbon Tetrachloride, Sergeant.”
“Why can’t you just say Car. Tet., man? Where did you get it?”
“Photographic.”
“Was Sergeant Prinsloo there?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Van Niekerk went back to his list of people who had bought electronic organs in Trekkersburg. Some addresses were still missing.
“Where did you put the directory?”
“Beside you, Sergeant.”
“Trying to be funny, Zondi?”
“No, sir.”
The directory flopped open and Van Niekerk had to move the outside telephone to make room.
“You say that the Lieutenant rang when I was speaking to the Colonel?”
“Yes. He has gone to a cocktail party at the City Hall, Sergeant.”
“I like that!”
“He said that we must ring him if there is important news, but not otherwise.”
“I see.”
Van Niekerk smiled to himself.
Kramer had been right about two things: Trenshaw was the leader of a gang and it had been mixed up in a vice racket.
Only the racket belonged to somebody else. To judge from the response to his opening remark, none other than that elusive but menacing spectre, the Steam Pig. But he had not pressed the point.
Time was relative and he had relatively little of it. Back at headquarters, the brotherhood of Arsecreepers Anonymous would be already plotting his downfall. They knew where to find him. They would not know what to do with what they found.
It was expedient, then, simply to let the four talk, crosstalk, sob and express. The whole of their story was emerging very quickly. One question from him would have destroyed the pace, even given time for second thoughts and for lawyers.
And while he listened, Kramer made a number of astute deductions based on obscure references-perception being relative, too.
Trenshaw had been the leader of a gang formed in childhood, forgotten in the acned years of night classes, fondly remembered in the decades of profitable sophistication, and reformed when worldly success finally opened the doors to the stifling confines of the Albert Club.
Not that it had been the same gang all along. Trenshaw himself was a stranger to Trekkersburg until his fortieth year, and the other three had never met during their early lives in the city. Each, however, had once belonged to a gang and every gang has its component parts: Trenshaw, the slightly soft-looking boy who nevertheless dared to put red pepper in the crotch piece of his aunt’s drawers as they hung on the line; Da Silva, the fat boy who liked to make thin boys cry with twists of his surprisingly strong fingers; Ford, the jovial boy who collected dirty words and stories-even made some up; Ferguson, the boy whose parents were never at home and who timorously insisted he always came along for the ride. None of them bad boys-and what fun they had had.
The Albert Club had looked over its half-moon spectacles as they each made their entrance, rustled an air-mail copy of The Times, and wished to God that old Brigadier Pinkie Thomas had not faded away. The new secretary, an upstart who had never seen action, was allowing the tone to go to pieces in a damnable fashion. Once the black ball had dealt summarily with counter-jumpers, Jews and Nationalist Party wallahs-now, alas, there were increasingly few men of honour left to do their duty at membership meetings. The whole world was going to hell-look at what had happened to the Seaforths, and to the Camerons. And that was in the UK.
For their part, the four new members had tried very hard to meet the exacting standards which still permeated the vast, panelled rooms. They learnt to speak to the sashed Indian waiters with due courtesy, as if to a fellow countryman. They cheerfully endured campaigns which had left thousands staining the map red where it was losing its colour. They even learned a compassion for the fierce old bachelors who had lived in an officers’ mess all their lives and wished to die in one; there was an almost irresistible attraction in such firm concepts of good, in articulate English spoken slowly round a sip of Cape brandy, in killers who had the innocence of children.
In the end, though, they had moved to the far extreme of the long bar to where their charcoal-suited generation pompously discussed share prices and the effects of cholesterol on the cardiac tissues. This was less of a strain but incredibly boring. Especially when you knew the form of every hobby horse in every race to closing time.
In short, the adult world proved a grievous disappointment and their regression to covert childhood was natural enough. It began with a secret wink that Trenshaw had meant for his fellow councillor Da Silva but which they had all returned. And secret signs are the very foundation of gangs.
Soon the four of them were happier than they had been for years. If their excesses caused damage, their wealth could provide compensation and buy silence. Nothing they did, even with claymores that bizarre night in the billiard room, could be regarded by adults as anything but childish. Best of all, they learned that rumours of their antics-they had only forgotten themselves that once at the club-were earning them reputations formerly the prerogative of devil-may-care subalterns.
Then something happened.
Trenshaw expanded Protea Electronics and went to Japan to arrange a hard-bargained contract for transistors. He spent many long days on factory floors and in board rooms. And yet all he told the others about on his return were the nights. The use of sex as a means of persuasion by the lesser Japanese exporter beggared the imagination. When it was used competitively, very little else was left intact.
Trenshaw was a changed man-and so, vicariously, were his companions. The gang had started to grow up again. They began to titillate each other with fantasies about their respective secretaries. War-time issues of Lilliput and Men Only were discovered in their garages and laughingly passed between them. A Playboy magazine somehow evaded the Customs and postal authorities to go the rounds, despite the risk of a fine or imprisonment for possession. Widows and divorcees soon became the brunt of many a subliminal joke.
But these were grown men, not teenagers still curious and a little afraid. They all had wives. They had all bedded a woman calculated to do wonders for them socially. That she had proved disappointing in other respects had, up till then, been part of the price.
A price, that was it. These were cautious men, these city councillors, an affair with all its unpredictable and sordid risks was unthinkable. A straightforward business arrangement was not, when you came to think about it.
Now Durban was a port, an acknowledged place for trade and barter, and an obvious place to begin. Yet, in the final analysis, only a fool would walk in off the street to strike a deal with a stranger. You had to know your woman first. You needed at least one satisfied customer, and you needed to trust him.
Trenshaw met Jackson on what was to have been their final visit. The others were out on the verandah of the Edward, talking themselves into a self-righteous Puritanism as they watched the night’s bikini girls return their ogles with full-bodied contempt. Jackson had mistaken Trenshaw for the manager-after all, he was in his best suit. And by the time Trenshaw had convinced him of his mistake, they had reached the bar. Jackson had insisted on making his apology a large one and Trenshaw, who was feeling low, accepted it. Then he insisted on negating Jackson’s gesture by buying him a double, too. Jackson said he would have to get it down rather quickly as he was off to a party in a nearby block of flats. It was plain he was afraid he might miss something. Trenshaw was intrigued.
His clumsy probing amused Jackson. Yes, there were going to be girls. Young girls. He did not know their names-names were not ever used at his sort of parties. It was just going to be all clean dirty fun. He was sorry he could not invite Trenshaw to join him. Very sorry, indeed. But you had to be so very careful.
Trenshaw was sorry, too, when he returned to the others and told them what had happened. He had no need to embellish what he had learned. They all recognised the irony that for once their role of civic dignitary would not be voiced as proof of their integrity. It would sound very strange in the ears of a man like Jackson and not worth the risk. He could take it as a measure of what they had at stake-he could also see their position as posing a danger for everyone concerned.
But he had accepted Trenshaw’s business card and had made a promise to pop in on him any time he was in Trekkersburg.
Understandably the corporate life of the frolicsome four had gone into a decline on their return home. Sensing something, their wives resorted to a measure of dutiful abandon which ill became their years. This was only embarrassing and thankfully short-lived. Three secretaries were replaced by mature women, a fourth resigned independently in enormous shame to marry at the mouth of a twelve-bore. It was a bad time.
And then one night Trenshaw had appeared at the long bar in the Albert with a curious smile on his face. Jackson had been to see him. Jackson was in town for the one thing that would bring him all those miles from Durban. It had to be special.
That was why he had telephoned them to meet-they were going to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Trenshaw had already been to the hall porter to sign Jackson on as a visitor. He would come right through the minute he arrived. They chose a remote corner, creaked down into their cane chairs, and waited.
Jackson never arrived.
He telephoned next day and apologised effusively to Trenshaw. Things had got a little out of hand. It had been too incredible for words and only ten Rand, for God’s sake. What had been most impressive, however, were the safeguards. To be quite frank with Trenshaw, sixty minutes was all you were allowed but it left him so-well, he had not been able to face the idea of booze-up on top of it.
Trenshaw was adamant: Jackson had to see him when he called again on Trekkersburg, they would lunch together.
Which they did. And when the others gathered beneath the painting of General Buller, they did not need Jackson to tell them what an hour with Theresa le Roux entailed, music and all. Trenshaw spoke with the tongue of a fallen angel. At the end of it, he declared that Jackson had confessed to having made a check on his background. He had been given the address and an introduction. He was also permitted, after very careful consideration, to allow no more than three others to share his good fortune.
For nobody wanted to kill the golden goose.
But somebody had. And this was not so long after Jackson had dropped the sky on them all, as they played five-up round the Trekkersburg Country Club course, by airily stating he had films and tapes recording acts of unlawful intercourse with a person of another race. He produced a document to prove Theresa was Coloured. Finally, he advised his fellow golfers to use their influence as best they could to see certain contracts for the new Bantu township went to the list of firms he had had typed out.
As soon as they had seen the names, they knew that Jackson was a man of infinite resource. He could not only search for and find the corruptible, he could also foresee the outraged reaction of the incorruptible being coerced into awarding major contracts to the wrong people. All he asked was that the lesser jobs be passed to a specific group of the multitude of small companies competing for them. There was going to be such a squabble among them anyway, like urchins tossed a handful of pennies, that no one would take much notice of who were the victors. The total sum divided would not amount to much, but if it all went into a single pocket, the figures would move into the millions. The work itself could be sub-contracted out.
It was a masterpiece, providing the four elected members of the council could swing it the right way. Even if they could not, it had not been a vast investment, no considerable loss-except to themselves, and there would be other times. The lasting qualities of film and tape were almost unlimited.
And it was no use being silly and committing suicide. They had their families to think of. Once the contracts were signed, the tapes, the films and the girl would be destroyed. It was well known that a tape or a film, being a copy, could be copied. A co-accused-or at the very least, State witness-could not. By destroying Miss Le Roux, it was proof positive that no copies of the records would remain, as it would be incriminatory evidence.
And, after all, gentlemen, she was only a Coloured. It was not quite the same thing as killing a white. Look how she deceived you, shamed you, humiliated you in the name of eroticism yet really because she hated you for something you could not help-being white.
Desperation gives an edge to men’s minds, a ring to their voices, a ruthlessness to their actions, which can be mistaken for conviction. The other members of the Bantu Affairs Committee were only too pleased to have some of the more petty decisions taken for them.
As promised, the girl died in a manner unspecified but sworn to be undetectable. Her funeral notice on Tuesday, the day of the signing, was premature but, as Jackson pointed out on the telephone that morning, an act of good faith made possible by the full council’s approval of the committee’s recommendations the Friday before.
Trenshaw had still not been able to believe it. He had borne the brunt of what had happened. The others had blamed him entirely, most unfairly. Especially after Jackson admitted that the orgy in that beachfront flat down in Durban had never taken place. They were infuriated to learn, too, that Trenshaw’s overwhelming anxiety to see the matter safely to its conclusion had compelled him to claim an acquaintance with some old fool of a captain who was cremated on Wednesday afternoon.
They had stopped talking.