The Blood of an Englishman Read online

  Hearing it summed up like that, Kramer’s own sense of the absurd took the wind out of his sails momentarily, and his hunch—being, like most hunches, a fairly frail craft—drifted dangerously towards the jagged reef of self-doubt.

  Colonel Muller struck. “If you had found me one piece of corroborative evidence from outside your highly personal interpretation of all this, then you could do as you like, Lieutenant. But, before any more time is frittered away, there are these items of physical evidence to be examined, checked, double-checked, accepted or eliminated. You still haven’t bothered to say what you thought of Galt’s highly significant deduction.”

  “Ach, that fits in with my theory too, Colonel,” said Kramer, rallying his reserves. “Do you recall the part when Hookham went on a ‘final sortie’ looking for this bloke? It’s just possible he found him at the very same spot as Bradshaw was—no, what most likely happened is that he was bound up and taken there to be executed. In a crazy way, that could seem very fitting.”

  “No, I’m not listening to any more of that rub—”

  “Can you suggest how he got there, sir?”

  Colonel Muller faltered for only a moment. “Yes, he was taken there, like you suggest,” he said. “What I’m disputing is the motive.”

  Then Kramer had a sudden, quite brilliant idea.

  16

  KRAMER’S IDEA WAS this. If Bradshaw and Hookham had provoked someone with their boisterous reminiscences of death and destruction, and if Hookham had noticed this someone looking less than amused by their talk, then it stood to reason that Bradshaw might have noticed that someone too.

  “I don’t call that a brilliant idea,” grunted Colonel Muller. “I call it further time wasted.”

  “I only said a ‘quite’ brilliant idea, sir—not a ‘very.’ In a way, it’s a self-evident idea at this stage of the investigation.”

  “Only if you subscribe to the lunatic link you’ve constructed between these two blokes. Why, for example, hasn’t Bradshaw come forward with such information himself?”

  Kramer smiled. “Well, for a start, he’s one hell of a thick-skinned bugger. I’m sure angry looks just bounce off him unnoticed.”

  “Then what is the point in going to see him?”

  “Prod his memory a bit, sir.”

  “Oh no,” said Colonel Muller, wagging that hairy great finger again. “I think you’ve fed enough people their lines so far, Lieutenant Kramer. Does he know about your RAF theory?”

  “No, not since I’ve developed it. When I saw him yesterday, I just asked him and his wife to go over every factor they might have in common. Look, I promise I’ll—”

  Colonel Muller stood up. “Promise nothing, Lieutenant. You still feel this is worth putting other things aside for? That this Mr. Wilson could be in danger?”

  “I do, Colonel.”

  “Okay, then I’ll tell you what: we’ll give this old cat one more swing by the tail. But if you don’t get your corroboration, then that whole avenue of enquiry is closed forthwith.”

  “Fair enough,” agreed Kramer. “I’d better get a—”

  “Not so fast,” Colonel Muller again reprimanded him. “I said we’ll do this—together, hey? I’ll do the talking, and you will just sit there, shut up and, let me warn you, don’t try any hypnotism!”

  What it was, Kramer thought, as they went down the stairs, to be trusted.

  Zondi, who had been included in the party as its official driver, which lent the divisional commandant’s descent to the remote back streets a degree of dignity, crouched beside the big, flashy Ford and watched a stag beetle trying to right itself on Kitchener Row.

  “Uh! That’s better—God, I was going mad in that place.”

  Detective Constable “Stormtrooper” Schoeman, who was so lightly built he appeared to go everywhere on tiptoe, had come out on the pavement outside the Bradshaws’ house to run on the spot, swing his arms, and do some smiling. He was a good sort, young Schoeman; never familiar, never ill-mannered, and in a tight spot he had fists on him like a trip hammer.

  “Hello, boss,” said Zondi, standing up. “How long is your shift?”

  “Ach, the usual, Zondi. I’m on two-to-ten, then that new bloke does the ten-to-six. At least by then this boring old bugger has gone to bed, and you can read or listen to the radio. If his son and him had one argument last night, they had about twenty, so I’m going to try and sell him the idea of going to the drive-in. Hell, I’ll even fix him up with a popsie!”

  Zondi laughed. “Good luck, Boss Schoeman! Hau, once I had such a job—they made me this important man’s house boy—and I nearly used my gun on him, I tell you! This is not policeman’s work.”

  “How long’s Lieutenant Kramer staying? Have I got time to get some smokes from the shop?”

  “Let us quickly drive there,” suggested Zondi, who liked not being ordered to go and buy them. “Okay?”

  “Ja, let’s do it in style! Why not?”

  They sneaked the car away from the front of Bradshaw’s house, and then shot round the corner.

  “The Lieut’s going well on this case?” asked Schoeman.

  “Very well, boss,” said Zondi. “Moving very quickly.”

  But, from what he had overheard of the Lieutenant’s latest notions about vengeance-seeking Germans, he was beginning to doubt seriously his sense of direction.

  Mrs. Bradshaw was in shorts and a low-cut blouse, and Colonel Muller, rather touchingly, couldn’t keep his eyes off her. It was the one saving grace of an interview which had done nothing so far to confirm any of Kramer’s deeper and more pressing suspicions.

  “You realize why I must keep on about this social?” the Colonel said to her. “We in the CID have our methods, you see, and establishing the pattern of a crime is most important. Not only does it help us to piece together what has gone before, but it allows us to predict the future.”

  “Goodness!” exclaimed Mrs. Bradshaw, plainly flattered by his kindly attentions. “Isn’t that marvelous, Archie?”

  “I see nothing marvelous in having to repeat myself forty times over,” muttered Bradshaw. “What am I supposed to have said anyway, that might’ve made somebody look threateningly at me?”

  “Before I answer that, Mr. Bradshaw, I want you to pause a minute—close your eyes even!—and cast your mind back one final time. You’re standing talking to Mr. Hookham, you two are laughing together, and suddenly you see these eyes on you! You feel somebody is staring at you from behind somewhere! Or later, as you’re moving round, socializing, somebody cuts you dead.”

  Kramer winced.

  “Close your eyes, Archie!” commanded Mrs. Bradshaw.

  Bradshaw cast a despairing glance at Kramer, and flopped back in his study armchair, closing his eyes as requested. Colonel Muller’s eyes then met Mrs. Bradshaw’s eyes, lingered, and reluctantly moved back to the witness under interrogation. Bradshaw had apparently dozed off.

  “Er—um, Mr. Bradshaw, sir?” said Colonel Muller.

  “Mmmmm.…”

  “What can you see now? In your mind’s eye so to speak?”

  “Faces. Happy, smiling faces. People laughing at my jokes. My wife’s face when I’m talking about fishing.”

  “Good, good! Now think of another topic you discussed with Mr. Hookham.”

  “There’s a lady present, Colonel.”

  “Oh Archie!” giggled Mrs. Bradshaw, but looked sad.

  Colonel Muller flushed. “Ja, no, that wouldn’t be relevant,” he reassured everyone hurriedly. “Perhaps it would be all right for me to prompt you a little at this stage.” He caught Kramer’s baleful stare. “And I’ll tell you how I’ll do that: I’ll say what you weren’t saying at the time that interests us.”

  “God,” sighed Bradshaw, very quietly.

  “You weren’t, for instance, telling Mr. Hookham about the time you were a prisoner-of-war and escaped dressed as a nun.”

  Bradshaw’s eyes shot open and he looked directly into Kramer’s delig
hted gaze.

  “Funny you forgot to mention that before, hey?” said Kramer. “Mind you, there are the different versions.”

  “Lieutenant!” snapped Colonel Muller.

  “Sorry, sir. I hope I haven’t broken the trance.”

  “Eyes closed again, Archie!” ordered Mrs. Bradshaw, who shone with gleeful, if suppressed, enlightenment. “I’ll make Colonel Muller promise this will be the very last time.”

  “I promise,” he said, unbidden. “And do you remember talking about the best places to take a dog for a walk? Did you tell Mr. Hookham about the side of the racecourse? Well, not that conversation either.”

  Bradshaw gave Kramer an ugly look, then sank back, knitting his fingers together. “If it wasn’t that, then it must have been.…” He smiled cynically to himself, as if he had become reconciled to this ridiculous game. “Bonzo told me about his factory, his flight out on South African Airways, his time in the Raf.…” Then the smile vanished and was replaced by a blank, faintly sour expression.

  Kramer leaned forward.

  “Shhhhh!” cautioned Colonel Muller.

  “Think hard!” urged Mrs. Bradshaw, whose instincts were good. Think hard, Archie!”

  It became so silent that the muted hum of the swimming pool’s filtration pump grew quite distinct.

  “No good,” said Bradshaw, opening his eyes and sitting up. “I had a damned good time at that social, swapped stories with Bonzo, ran over a few dogfights, the big job I acted as pathfinder on, and that’s it. I can’t remember causing any upset to anyone, and if I’d seen somebody looking at me aggressively, then I’d have punched the bastard on the nose.”

  “He would,” confirmed Mrs. Bradshaw, with another of those giggles that had a sad ending. “My husband always stands up for himself! It’s his motto.”

  Colonel Muller turned away from Bradshaw’s self-satisfied smirk and looked at Kramer, who was feeling sick and defiant all at the same time. That wasn’t the only fish he had to fry.

  “Can I speak now, Colonel?”

  “Oh, before you do, Lieutenant—if you’ll excuse me butting in,” said Mrs. Bradshaw, laying a hand on Colonel Muller’s hand on the armchair beside her, “I want this gentleman here to explain how the ‘pattern’ idea works.”

  “It doesn’t always work,” replied Colonel Muller, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Without going into all the tedious details, in this instance Lieutenant Kramer’s theory was that the killer was taking his revenge on former members of the RAF who bombed Germany during the last war.”

  “But Archie has never bombed anyone!” she said indignantly. “How very unfair!”

  Bradshaw snorted scornfully. “That’s a bit bloody farfetched, isn’t it? I mean—oh for God’s sake!” His laughter hurt his bullet injury, and he sucked in his breath.

  “Does it hurt?” Kramer enquired, glad that it did. “But what you can’t deny, Mr. Bradshaw, is that you assisted those bombers to carry out their raids, and so carry the same amount of blame in the eyes of someone who suffered. You could even say they regarded it as a war crime.”

  “Rubbish!”

  “Say what you like, Mr. Bradshaw, you and Bonzo Hookham are linked by bombing for the RAF. One man shooting at both of you proves that.”

  “Even greater rubbish, Lieutenant! It’s a sheer coincidence, just like our meeting up was a coincidence! Haven’t you got something better to base your ‘pattern’ on?”

  “We have, as a matter of fact,” Colonel Muller intervened. “Forensic evidence suggests that Mr. Hookham could have been killed near where you were shot. A piece of water plant presumably from the stream there confirms as much—and it ties in with the time of death as well.”

  Mrs. Bradshaw blinked. “I can’t see the pattern in that,” she admitted, seeking out Colonel Muller’s deep gray eyes. “Is there one?”

  “Why, of course, my dear! The killer favors that spot!” And Colonel Muller continued in a positive flood of inspired guesses, if only to hold her gaze, perhaps. “He favors that spot because it’s lonely and yet it’s also handy to the suburb of Six Valleys built on those hills to the east of it. He is aware that gunshots are not infrequently heard coming from kids with two-twos, and perhaps he picks his victims from among the people who walk their dogs there. Who knows? Mr. Hookham could have tried it out himself last week, and while he was away from the car with the dogs, the killer could have seen the service booklet through the window, noted the address, and made his plan. We must all remember we’re dealing with a diabolically clever mind here!”

  “True,” remarked Kramer, very softly, but his resolve was weakening again. There had been a lot of sound reasoning in that. “There is one other—”

  “Ooooo!” exclaimed Mrs. Bradshaw. “You have frightened me, Colonel!”

  “Ach no,” he comforted her, “don’t you worry, madam!”

  “Myra.”

  “Myra then, we’ll—”

  “To get back to the pattern,” harrumphed Bradshaw, giving his wife a terrible scowl, “and here I mean the plausible pattern, what are your predictions, Colonel Muller, if I may ask?”

  “Ah.”

  “That the next attack—if there is another attack—will come in or around that area?”

  “Exactly,” said Colonel Muller, rising imposingly to his feet. “If this is only the beginning of several attacks, as are characteristic of this type of criminal, my prediction is as you have so intelligently guessed.” Then he looked sharply at Bradshaw to gauge the mollifying effect of his words.

  Mollified to all appearances, Bradshaw rose as well, but his sling hampered his attempt to reach his full height. “I take it that this little chat is over? Can I offer you gentlemen a drink, perhaps? A sundowner?”

  “Well.…” Colonel Muller sneaked a peek down Mrs. Bradshaw’s cleavage, pretending to check on the shininess of his shoes.

  “Ach, why not? We’re not in any hurry any longer, are we, Lieutenant?”

  “But how many attacks are there going to be?” lamented Mrs. Bradshaw. “What you’ve said still makes me shiver all—”

  “My prediction is one more,” said Kramer. “And I’d—”

  “Ja, possibly only one more,” agreed Colonel Muller, with another look of sudden inspiration. “And shall I tell you how I work that out?”

  “Fascinating,” encouraged Bradshaw, pulling his wife to her feet. “Get the drinks tray, dear—and a jersey, maybe?”

  “Let me hear this first, Archie!”

  “I base my assumption on another assumption, I grant you,” declared Colonel Muller, with a wary eye on Kramer, “but here goes. Everything indicates this five-shot Smith & Wesson was stolen—that’s point number one. Point number two is that the ammunition being used is very old. Point number three is the clear indication that the killer has only the ammunition that was in the gun when he stole it, and—”

  “Point number four,” said Mrs. Bradshaw, excitedly, “is he’s fired four shots and so he can have only one left!”

  When Colonel Muller looked at her then, it was clear to everyone else in the room that she was, most definitely, a woman after his own heart. “Did you hear that?” he said to Kramer. “Can you fault such reasoning, such perfect logic?”

  “I think so,” said Kramer, but had to think hard before coming up with the answer. “For someone so short on ammo, he wasn’t fussy about wasting two more than he really needed on Bonzo Hookham, sir.”

  “Heat of the moment, Lieutenant! He didn’t think!”

  “Why, what’s your theory, if it keeps clashing?” asked Bradshaw, poking Kramer in the chest. “Is your prediction, of one more, different?”

  For a wild moment, Kramer felt almost like hugging the bastard. “Firstly, I don’t think he’d have started this campaign of revenge without enough ammo, even if it was old. And—”

  “For the last time, dammit!—” began Colonel Muller.

  “No, let’s hear him out,” insisted Bradshaw. “The way your ace det
ective’s mind works is fascinating to a mere layman.” The type of fascination it had for him was implicit in his evil little eyes, which twinkled and sparkled.

  You son of a bitch, thought Kramer, but remained in his debt none the less. “Mr. Digby-Smith reports having received a telephone call,” he said, “which purported to come from an old school friend of Bonzo Hookham’s. I want to know if possibly there’s another link here.”

  “No old schoolmates of mine have rung up recently, if that’s what you mean!” laughed Bradshaw, hurting himself again.

  Kramer turned to Mrs. Bradshaw. “What about these crank calls? Anyone you noticed with a strange, foreign-sounding accent?”

  Mrs. Bradshaw jumped. Then she looked wide-eyed at her husband.

  “No, no calls anything like that,” he said brusquely. “What about those drinks I offered you just now?”

  “But, Archie.…” she said reproachfully.

  “Myra, didn’t I ask you to fetch the tray?”

  “I think you ought to tell them, Archie. I always said you should.”

  “Then I’ll get the bloody tray!”

  Kramer watched Bradshaw leave the room, then turned to see how Colonel Muller was enjoying this turn of events. “A definite link of some kind here, sir?”

  Mrs. Bradshaw could not endure the silence that fell between them at that moment.

  She rapped her fingers on the desk top.

  She crumpled up one of her sketches.

  She inhaled a very deep breath.

  “It was one of the first things Archie told me at the hospital the morning after,” she began in a rush. “Do you know when I mean? When he started speaking about what’d happened. He said that he could have sworn the man called out to him, attracted his attention, made him swing round to face the gun. He sort of thought the man had said, ‘You’re my first’—but that sounded so silly. What made it harder to be sure, he said, was that the man had this funny accent. Not exactly foreign, sort of a mixture. Then he said he had been dreaming about the thing all night, having those terrible nightmares that drugs in hospitals give you after an operation, and he could really have imagined that part. I went on at him to remember which it was, and the more he thought, the more uncertain he became, until finally he was sure it must have been just a dream. I still wanted to tell you, but he made me promise not to—he was going to look a big enough fool already, he said, and then he didn’t want to say a word about how big this man had been. I won him over on that score, but—until you said that a few moments ago, about Digby-Smith—I had dismissed it from my mind.”