Indecent Exposure (25 page)

Sergeant Breitenbach looked dubious.

“Well, the Mayor says…” he began.

“What’s the Mayor got to do with it?” asked the Kommandant with a sense of awful premonition.

“He’s one of the suspects, sir,” Sergeant Breitenbach admitted awkwardly. “Luitenant Verkramp said…”

But Kommandant van Heerden was on his feet and white with rage.

“Don’t tell me what the fucking shit says,” he screamed. “I go away for ten days and half the town blows up, half the police force turns into raving homosexuals, half the stock of French letters is bought up by some sex maniac, Verkramp arrests the fucking Mayor. What the fuck do I care what Verkramp says. It’s what he’s done that’s worrying me.”

The Kommandant stopped short. “Is there anything else I ought to know?” he demanded. Sergeant Breitenbach shifted his feet nervously. “There are thirty-five other suspects in the prison, sir. There’s the Dean of Piemburg, Alderman Cecil, the manager of Barclays Bank…”

“Oh my God, and I suppose they’ve all been interrogated,” squawked the Kommandant.

“Yes sir,” said Sergeant Breitenbach who knew precisely what the Kommandant meant by interrogated. “They’ve been standing up for the last eight days. The Mayor’s admitted he doesn’t like the government but he still maintains he didn’t blow up the telephone exchange. The only confession we’ve got that’s any use is from the manager of Barclays Bank”

“The manager of Barclays Bank?” asked the Kommandant. “What’s he done?”

“Peed in the Hluwe Dam, sir. It carries the death penalty.”

“Peeing in the Hluwe Dam carries the death penalty? I didn’t know that.”

“It’s in the Sabotage Act 1962. Polluting water supplies, sir,” the Sergeant said.

“Yes well,” said the Kommandant doubtfully, “I daresay it is but all I can say is that if Verkramp thinks he can hang the manager of Barclays Bank for peeing in a dam he must be mad. I’m going up to Fort Rapier to see that bastard.”

In Fort Rapier Mental Hospital Luitenant Verkramp was still suffering from acute anxiety brought on by the wholly unexpected result of his experiment in aversion therapy and counter-terrorism. His temporary conviction that he was the Almighty had given way to a phobia about birds. Dr von Blimenstein drew her own conclusions.

“A simple case of sexual guilt together with a castration complex,” she told the nurse when Verkramp refused his dinner on the grounds that it was stuffed chicken and French lettuce.

“Take it away,” he screamed, “I can’t take any more.”

He was equally adamant about feather pillows and in fact anything vaguely reminiscent of what Dr von Blimenstein would insist on calling our feathered friends.

“No friends of mine,” said Verkramp, eyeing a pouter pigeon on the tree outside his window with alarm.

“We’ve got to try to get to the bottom of this thing,” said Dr von Blimenstein. Verkramp looked at her wildly.

“Don’t mention that thing,” he shouted. Dr von Blimenstein took note of this fresh symptom. “Anal complex,” she thought to herself and sent the Luitenant into panic by asking him if he had ever had any homosexual experiences.

“Yes,” said Verkramp desperately when the doctor insisted on knowing.

“Would you like to tell me about it?”

“No,” said Verkramp who still couldn’t get the picture of hooker Botha in a yellow wig out of his mind. “No. I wouldn’t.”

Dr von Blimenstein persisted.

“We’re never going to get anywhere unless you come to terms with your own unconscious,” she told him. “You’ve got to be absolutely frank with me.”

“Yes,” said Verkramp who hadn’t come to Fort Rapier to be frank with anyone.

If, during the day, Dr von Blimenstein gained the impression that sex was at the root of Verkramp’s breakdown, his behaviour at night suggested another explanation. As she sat by his bedside and made notes of his ramblings, the doctor noticed a new pattern emerging. Verkramp spent much of his nights screaming about bombs and secret agents and was clearly obsessed with the number twelve. Remembering how frequently she had counted twelve explosions as the saboteurs struck she was hardly surprised that the head of Security in Piemburg should be obsessed by the number. On the other hand she gained the definite impression from Verkramp’s sleep-talking that he had had twelve secret agents working for him. She decided to ask him about this new symptom in the morning.

“What does the number twelve mean to you?” she asked when she came to see him next day. Verkramp went pale and began to shake.

“I have to know,” she told him. “It’s in your own interest.”

“Shan’t tell you,” said Verkramp who knew, if he knew anything, that it wasn’t in his interest to tell her about the number twelve.

“Don’t forget that I’m acting in a professional capacity,” said the doctor, “and that anything you tell me remains a secret between us.”

Luitenant Verkramp was not reassured.

“Doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said. “I don’t know anything about number twelve.”

“I see,” said the doctor making a note of his alarm. “Then perhaps you’d like to tell me about the trip to Durban.”

There was no doubt now that she was close to the heart of Verkramp’s neurosis. His reaction indicated that quite clearly. By the time the gibbering Luitenant had been got back into bed and given sedation, Dr von Blimenstein was satisfied that she could effect a cure. She was beginning to think that there were other advantages to be gained from her insight into his problems and the idea of marriage, never far from the doctor’s mind, began to re-emerge.

“Tell me,” she said as she tucked Verkramp into bed again, “is it true that a wife cannot be forced to give evidence against her husband?”

Verkramp said it was and, with a smile that suggested he would do well to meditate on the fact, Dr von Blimenstein left the room. When she returned an hour later, it was to find the patient ready with an explanation for his obsession with the number twelve.

“There were twelve saboteurs and they were-”

“Bullshit,” snapped the doctor, “utter bullshit. There were twelve secret agents and they were working for you and you took them to Durban by car. Isn’t that the truth?”

“Yes. No, No, it’s not,” Verkramp wailed.

“Now listen to me. Balthazar Verkramp, if you go on lying I’ll have you given an injection of truth drug and we’ll get an accurate confession out of you before you know what’s happened.”

Verkramp stared panic-stricken from the bed.

“You wouldn’t,” he shrieked. “You’re not allowed to.”

Dr von Blimenstein looked round the room suggestively. It was more like a cell than a private room. “In here,” she said, “I can do anything I like. You’re my patient and I’m your doctor and if you give any trouble I can have you in a straitjacket and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Now then, are you prepared to tell me about your problems and remember your secrets are safe with me. As your medical adviser no one can force me to tell them what has passed between us unless of course I was put into the witness box. Then of course I would be under oath.” The doctor paused before continuing, “You did say that a wife couldn’t be forced to give evidence against her husband, didn’t you?”

To Verkramp the alternatives he was now facing were if anything more shocking than exploding ostriches and camp konstabels. He lay in bed and wondered what to do. If he refused to admit that he was responsible for all the bombings and violence in the city, the doctor would use the truth drug to get it out of him and he would have forfeited her good-will into the bargain. If he admitted it openly, he would escape the legal consequences of his zeal only to be led to the altar. There seemed to be little choice. He swallowed nervously, stared round the room for the last uncommitted time and asked for a glass of water.

“Will you marry me?” he said finally.

Dr von Blimenstein smiled sweetly.

“Of course, I will, darling. Of course I will,” and a moment later Verkramp was in her arms and the doctor’s mouth was pressed closely over his lips. Verkramp shut his eyes and considered a lifetime of Dr von Blimenstein. It was, he supposed, preferable to being hanged.

When Kommandant van Heerden arrived at Fort Rapier to see the Luitenant it was not surprising that he found his way strewn with extraordinary obstacles. In the first place he found the clerk in the Inquiry Desk at Admissions decidedly unhelpful. The fact that the clerk was a catatonic schizophrenic chosen by Dr von Blimenstein for his general immobility to help out at a time of acute staff shortage led to a sharp rise in the Kommandant’s blood pressure.

“I demand to see Luitenant Verkramp,” he shouted at the motionless catatonic and was about to resort to violence when a tall man with an exceedingly pale face interrupted.

“I think he’s in Ward C,” the man told him. The Kommandant thanked him and went to Ward C only to find it was filled with manic-depressive women. He returned to Admissions and after another one-sided altercation with the catatonic clerk was told by the tall thin man who happened to be passing through again that Verkramp was definitely in Ward H. The Kommandant went to Ward H and while unable to diagnose what the patients there were suffering from was grateful to note that Verkramp wasn’t. He went back to Admissions in a foul temper and met the thin tall man in the corridor.

“Not there?” the man inquired. “Then he’s certainly in Ward E.”

“Make up your mind,” shouted the Kommandant angrily. “First you say he’s in Ward C, then in Ward H and now Ward E.”

“Interesting point you’ve just raised,” said the man.

“What point?” asked the Kommandant.

“About making up your mind,” said the man. “It presupposes in the first place that there is a distinction between the mind and the brain. Now if you had said ‘Make up your brain’ the implications would have been quite different.”

“Listen,” said the Kommandant, “I’ve come here to see Luitenant Verkramp not swop logic with you.” He went off down the corridor again in search of Ward E only to learn that it was in the Bantu section which made it unlikely Verkramp was in it whatever he was suffering from. The Kommandant went back to Admissions swearing to murder the tall man if he could find him. Instead he found himself confronted by Dr von Blimenstein who pointed out acidly that he was in a hospital and not in a police station and would he kindly behave accordingly. Somewhat subdued by this evidence of authority the Kommandant followed her into her office.

“Now then, what is it you want?” she asked seating herself behind her desk and eyeing him coldly.

“I want to visit Luitenant Verkramp,” said the Commandant.

“Are you parent, relative or guardian?” asked the doctor.

“I’m a police officer investigating a crime,” said the Kommandant.

“Then you have a warrant? I should like to see it.”

The Kommandant said he hadn’t a warrant. “I am Kommandant of Police in Piemburg and Verkramp is under my command. I don’t need a warrant to visit him wherever he is.”

Dr von Blimenstein smiled patronizingly.

“You obviously don’t understand hospital rules,” she said. “We have to be very careful who visits our patients. We can’t have them being disturbed by casual acquaintances or by being asked questions about their work. After all, Balthazar’s problems largely stem from overwork and I’m afraid I hold you responsible.”

The Kommandant was so astonished by hearing Verkramp called Balthazar that he couldn’t think of a suitable reply.

“Now, if you could let me have some idea of the sort of questions you wish to put to him, I might be able to assist you,” continued the doctor, conscious of the advantage she had already gained.

The Kommandant could think of a great many questions he would like to put to the Luitenant but he thought it wiser not to mention them now. He explained that he simply wanted to find out if Verkramp could shed any light on the recent series of bombings.

“I see,” Dr von Blimenstein said. “Now if I understand you rightly, you are quite satisfied with the way the Luitenant handled the situation in your absence?”

Kommandant van Heerden decided that a policy of appeasement was the only one likely to persuade the doctor to allow him to interview Verkramp.

“Yes,” he said, “Luitenant Verkramp did everything he could to put a stop to the trouble.”

“Good,” said Dr von Blimenstein encouragingly, “I’m glad to hear you say that. You see it’s important that the patient shouldn’t be made to feel in any way guilty. Balthazar’s problems are largely the result of a long-standing sense of guilt and inadequacy. We don’t want to intensify those feelings now, do we?”

“No,” said the Kommandant who could well believe that Verkramp’s problem had to do with guilt.

“I take it then, that you are absolutely satisfied with his work and feel that he has handled the situation with skill and an exceptional degree of conscientiousness. Is that correct?”

“Definitely,” said the Kommandant, “he couldn’t have done better if he had tried.”

“In that case I think it is quite all right for you to see him,” Dr von Blimenstein said and switched off the portable tape recorder on her desk. She got up and went down the passage followed by the Kommandant who was beginning to feel that he had in some subtle way been outmanoeuvred. After climbing several flights of stairs they came to yet another corridor. “If you’ll just wait here,” said the doctor, “I’ll go and tell him that you want to see him,” and leaving the Kommandant in a small waiting-room she went off to Verkramp’s private room.

“We’ve got a visitor,” she announced gaily as Verkramp cringed in his bed.

“Who is it?” he asked weakly.

“Just an old friend,” she said. “He just wants to ask you a few questions. Kommandant van Heerden.”

Verkramp assumed a new and dreadful pallor.

“Now there’s no need to worry,” Dr von Blimenstein said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking his hand. “You don’t have to answer any questions unless you want to.”

“Well, I don’t,” said Verkramp emphatically.

“Then you shan’t,” she said, extracting a bottle from her pocket and a lump of sugar.

“What’s that?” Verkramp asked nervously.