The Blood of an Englishman Read online

  shall be brought to a place also appointed by him

  Mrs. Sophie Pritchard, the late Alice Hookham’s dearest friend, was also there, having testified that on countless occasions the dead woman had described the coward who had looked up at her bedroom one day, pointed, and then had been led away by a friendly, chattering group of Gestapo officers.

  and that there you be hanged by the neck

  Classina Marie Baksteen was there, loving every minute of it. A busty girl with frizzy hair sat beside her balding fiancé.

  until you are dead

  “Thank you, my lord,” said the prisoner.

  Oddly enough, Dr. Christian Strydom and Sergeant Van Rensburg were not there. Kramer found them engrossed in a corner of the post-mortem room at the mortuary when he called in just after five. They had scores of test-tubes, flasks, beakers and lengths of glass tubing arranged about them, and were communicating in pleased little grunts.

  “My God,” said Kramer, stopping short. “What is this? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

  “Ah, Tromp!” said Strydom, turning round with a test-tube of blood in his hand. “You’ve solved the one with the keys?”

  “No, I’ve just been in court to hear your friend the jolly green giant being sent for the chop.”

  “Oh,” said Strydom. “Was that today?”

  “Shall we show him, Doc?” whispered Van Rensburg.

  “Show me what?” asked Kramer.

  “What we can do with our extract of slime,” replied Van Rensburg, proudly. “Man, it’s like a miracle! For instance, what color of blood do you think that is in Doc’s hand?”

  “Red,” said Kramer.

  Van Rensburg frowned. “Ach no! Is it white blood, or is it black blood? If you found that at the scene of a crime, would you know?”

  “I’d taste it for purity,” said Kramer, grinning and moving over to the bench where they were working. “Is this what all those bloody snails were for?”

  “Let me show you!” enthused Van Rensburg. “It’s a question of a protein action, hey? You just put a drop of our extract in the sample, and then it precip—er, precipitates according to whether the blood is white or not.”

  “Hey, Doc! That’s not bad!”

  Strydom flushed slightly. “Not entirely original, I should point out. Pioneer work in this has been done in Port Elizabeth, using the snail Helix—”

  “No, don’t start being too scientific with me, please!” begged Kramer, looking round him. “I’m just a layman, remember?”

  “Ja, Doc, we must make allowances,” said Van Rensburg.

  “Have you lost something, Tromp?”

  “Uh huh, an unopened letter I brought in here this morning in the mad rush before court. It’s got ‘air mail’ on it and English stamps.”

  “Oh, of course, I picked it up and I’ve been keeping it for you,” said Strydom, fishing the envelope out of his apron pocket. “Where will you be tonight? The farmhouse?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Only I’ll be able to give you some results on the Bantu midget job.”

  “Fine—well, keep up the good work, hey?” said Kramer from the doorway. “There’s just one thing: what happens if you find a sample of Cape Colored blood? Mixed blood—you know?”

  “Yirra!” said Van Rensburg, turning in alarm to his mentor.

  Zondi discreetly stayed outside the car, chatting to Nxumalo and sharing a cigarette with him, while Kramer read the letter he had opened with some trepidation.

  Dear old Tromp,

  Excuse the handwriting, but I’m doing this in the waiting room of Southampton General matern’ty section—need you ask. Tish is having to have special tests or something. She wanted me to let you know how well everything has worked out since we got home, and to pass on her best wishes. You really taught us both a lesson, you know. I never thought I’d get her back—day after day I begged and pleaded with her. I even dragged old Smorgasbord along from the gym to swear blind we hadn’t been having it off in the sauna room. No more of that for me. Not only that but as Trish says, there’s no place like home in the end, and the hell with la dolce vita, matey! By the way, you may be interested to know that I’ve Gone Straight with my new salon. I have my reasons of course. What if a few months from now a very butchy babe is born in Southampton town, screaming for its bottle in Afrikaans? I suppose I’ll have to learn the lingo and in the meantime, old pal, there’s something for you to think about. Many thanks!

  Yours sincerely, Jonty Hayes

  “Hayes!”

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” asked Zondi, coming to the window. “You’re ready to go?”

  Kramer nodded, laughing and looking again at the letter, which had a lot between the lines. “Now there’s a typical example of how prejudice doesn’t help in this job,” he said, as Zondi got behind the wheel and started up. “You never stop to think that a poof hairdresser might have a second name, do you?”

  “Boss? Have you slipped up somewhere?” Zondi said with concern in his voice. “Is this letter—?”

  “No, it was just as well, I suppose,” said Kramer, putting the letter in his pocket for the Widow Fourie to read. “Kwela Village, please, Mickey, through the park, and don’t spare the horses.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Sailor Malan, Dr. LeMoyne Snyder, the Texan and all but one of the epileptics are or were real people; the blood test is also quite genuine. All other characters are fictitious, although the names of two South African policemen have been used as a reminder to them that they are not forgotten. Finally, I would like to thank Joe Connolly for his part in the initial stages of this book.

  OTHER TITLES IN THE SOHO CRIME SERIES

  Quentin Bates

  (Iceland)

  Frozen Assets

  Cold Comfort

  Cheryl Benard

  (Pakistan)

  Moghul Buffet

  James R. Benn

  (World War II Europe)

  Billy Boyle

  The First Wave

  Blood Alone

  Evil for Evil

  Rag & Bone

  A Mortal Terror

  Death’s Door

  Cara Black

  (Paris, France)

  Murder in the Marais

  Murder in Belleville

  Murder in the Sentier

  Murder in the Bastille

  Murder in Clichy

  Murder in Montmartre

  Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

  Murder in the Rue de Paradis

  Murder in the Latin Quarter

  Murder in the Palais Royal

  Murder in Passy

  Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

  Grace Brophy

  (Italy)

  The Last Enemy

  A Deadly Paradise

  Henry Chang

  (Chinatown)

  Chinatown Beat

  Year of the Dog

  Red Jade

  Colin Cotterill

  (Laos)

  The Coroner’s Lunch

  Thirty-Three Teeth

  Disco for the Departed

  Anarchy and Old Dogs

  Curse of the Pogo Stick

  The Merry Misogynist

  Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

  Slash and Burn

  Garry Disher

  (Australia)

  The Dragon Man

  Kittyhawk Down

  Snapshot

  Chain of Evidence

  Blood Moon

  Wyatt

  Whispering Death

  Port Vila Blues

  David Downing

  (World War II Germany)

  Zoo Station

  Silesian Station

  Stettin Station

  Potsdam Station

  Lehrter Station

  Leighton Gage

  (Brazil)

  Blood of the Wicked

  Buried Strangers

  Dying Gasp

  Every Bitter Thing

  A Vine in the Blood

  Perfec
t Hatred

  Michael Genelin

  (Slovakia)

  Siren of the Waters

  Dark Dreams

  The Magician’s Accomplice

  Requiem for a Gypsy

  Adrian Hyland

  (Australia)

  Moonlight Downs

  Gunshot Road

  Stan Jones

  (Alaska)

  White Sky, Black Ice

  Shaman Pass

  Village of the Ghost Bears

  Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis

  (Denmark)

  The Boy in the Suitcase

  Invisible Murders

  Graeme Kent

  (Solomon Islands)

  Devil-Devil

  One Blood

  Martin Limón

  (South Korea)

  Jade Lady Burning

  Slicky Boys

  Buddha’s Money

  The Door to Bitterness

  The Wandering Ghost

  G.I. Bones

  Mr. Kill

  Joy Brigade

  Peter Lovesey

  (Bath, England)

  The Last Detective

  The Vault

  On the Edge

  The Reaper

  Rough Cider

  The False Inspector Dew

  Diamond Dust

  Diamond Solitaire

  The House Sitter

  The Summons

  Bloodhounds

  Upon a Dark Night

  The Circle

  The Secret Hangman

  The Headhunters

  Skeleton Hill

  Stagestruck

  Cop to Corpse

  Jassy Mackenzie

  (South Africa)

  Random Violence

  Stolen Lives

  The Fallen

  Seichō Matsumoto

  (Japan)

  Inspector Imanishi Investigates

  James McClure

  (South Africa)

  The Steam Pig

  The Caterpillar Cop

  The Gooseberry Fool

  Snake

  The Sunday Hangman

  The Blood of an Englishman

  Jan Merete Weiss

  (Italy)

  These Dark Things

  Magdalen Nabb

  (Italy)

  Death of an Englishman

  Death of a Dutchman

  Death in Springtime

  Death in Autumn

  The Marshal and the Madwoman

  The Marshal and the Murderer

  The Marshal’s Own Case

  The Marshal Makes His Report

  The Marshal at the Villa Torrini

  Property of Blood

  Some Bitter Taste

  The Innocent

  Vita Nuova

  Stuart Neville

  (Northern Ireland)

  The Ghosts of Belfast

  Collusion

  Stolen Souls

  Eliot Pattison

  (Tibet)

  Prayer of the Dragon

  The Lord of Death

  Rebecca Pawel

  (1930s Spain)

  Death of a Nationalist

  Law of Return

  The Watcher in the Pine

  The Summer Snow

  Qiu Xiaolong

  (China)

  Death of a Red Heroine

  A Loyal Character Dancer

  When Red is Black

  Matt Beynon Rees

  (Palestine)

  The Collaborator of Bethlehem

  A Grave in Gaza

  The Samaritan’s Secret

  The Fourth Assassin

  John Straley

  (Alaska)

  The Woman Who Married a Bear

  The Curious Eat Themselves

  Akimitsu Takagi

  (Japan)

  The Tattoo Murder Case

  Honeymoon to Nowhere

  The Informer

  Helene Tursten

  (Sweden)

  Detective Inspector Huss

  The Torso

  The Glass Devil

  Night Rounds

  Janwillem van de Wetering

  (Holland)

  Outsider in Amsterdam

  Tumbleweed

  The Corpse on the Dike

  Death of a Hawker

  The Japanese Corpse

  The Blond Baboon

  The Maine Massacre

  The Mind-Murders

  The Streetbird

  The Rattle-Rat

  Hard Rain

  Just a Corpse at Twilight

  Hollow-Eyed Angel

  The Perfidious Parrot

  Amsterdam Cops: Collected Stories