The Steam Pig Read Free Page A

you.
    So the two detectives followed him over. On the way Kramer realised why the one place he hated seeing a stiff was a morgue. The trouble was the height of the table which gave you no opportunity to adjust to the sight by degrees on the approach. You had to be on top of it before you knew what it was all about.
    Where Mr Abbott had last seen his Ophelia, Kramer now saw a life-size rag doll. Or so it seemed. Large knives, hardly scalpels, are used for opening a body. This one was now held together again by thick black thread in Dr Strydom’s erratic herringbone stitch with the surgeon’s tow stuffing protruding at intervals. It was also a patchwork of bright colours—the sun having shifted across to act like a giant projector lamp behind the stained glass windows. When Dr Strydom switched on the main light he heightened the illusion by rendering the hues in pastel, which better suited the form, and by making the untouched head and shoulders gleam like fine porcelain. Kramer noticed that a very tiny brush had been used to paint on such long eyelashes.
    And he concentrated for a while on the head. One thing was certain: he had never seen it before—that was a face you would never forget. He bent to examine the hair roots.
    â€œYes, it’s dyed,” Dr Strydom said. “Brown eyes, you see. A common enough failing among nice young women, not only tarts.”
    Kramer jerked a thumb crudely.
    â€œWell, on a rough guess, I’d say she lost her virginity about a year ago,” Dr Strydom chuckled. “But that doesn’t amount to much these days either. You should see—”
    â€œAny kids?”
    â€œNo, never.”
    â€œDisease?”
    â€œNone.”
    â€œThen the chances are she wasn’t sleeping around, just having it with a steady.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œThat gives us something to go on. Recently, do you think?”
    â€œPossibly not within twelve hours of death. Although it would depend on precautionary method preferred.”
    Kramer smiled wryly at the lapse into clinic jargon. The old bugger was more himself now.
    â€œWell, Doc, what about the m.o.?”
    â€œLike to take a guess?”
    â€œAfter you’ve hacked her around? It looks like a Mau Mau atrocity. What did the death cert. say?”
    â€œCardiac.”
    â€œAnd what was it?”
    â€œBicycle spoke.”
    The words stabbed. Christ, this was really something. Bantu murdering Bantu was nothing. White murdering white was seldom any better, they just had counsel who could make a ready reckoner wring your heart. But mix Bantu and white together and you had instant headlines two inches high. It remained to be seen how much larger they could grow when it was known that a bizarre Bantu weapon had been used.
    Kramer gestured impatiently for the district surgeon to turn the body on its side.
    â€œKnow what the Lieutenant’s up to?” Dr Strydom asked Prinsloo.
    â€œHe’s looking for puncture marks along the spine,” Prinsloo whispered, “where they put the spoke in to paralyse her—like Shoe Shoe.”
    Dr Strydom smiled smugly.
    â€œShe’s dead, not paralysed, man. What’s happened here is along the same lines but the intent is quite different. Think for a moment. When the spoke’s used by the local boys they sterilise the point first with a match. Why? So there won’t be any infection. So the victim will live to regret his mistakes as long as possible. Like Shoe Shoe, as you said.
    â€œHere, however, it is used the way I saw it done thirty years ago on the Rand, in the Jo’burg townships. Not often, mind you, and it’s so clever we probably missed dozens on a Monday with the weekend to clear up. Speciality of the Bantu gangs. Look …”
    Dr Strydom pulled the left arm away from the body and propped it at right angles on the edge of the slab. He pointed.
    â€œTell me what you see there,” he said.
    Kramer stopped. It