The Song Dog

by James McClure

  “So Hettie will be taking this badly?”

  “Too true! Doc Mackenzie’s had to put a big injection in her arm to take her mind off things.”

  “Then what about a close friend outside the force he might have talked to? Perhaps some bloke he went hunting with?”

  “Hunting with?” said Terblanche, glancing away from the track to look at Kramer in amused surprise.

  “Ach, the Colonel told me Kritz always took him a—”

  A sour laugh escaped Terblanche’s lips. “Ja, I know, big pieces of venison!—only he’d buy those off the game rangers, hey? Same as he once bought a box of mussels off me, only I bet he never told the Colonel that. Made sure he kept him happy, see, so he could carry on doing things his own sweet way, which meant just about ignoring the rest of us!”

  “Hmmm,” said Kramer, who knew the feeling.

  They reached the T-junction, where the track met the district road from Jafini, and Terblanche stopped to check for oncoming traffic. Then he turned right.

  “Hey, wrong way!” said Kramer. “Jafini’s the other—”

  “Ach, I’ve changed my mind,” said Terblanche. “I’ve got my second wind now, and besides, if you go back for your car, you could be late for the postmortems.”

  Kramer knew a lie when he heard one, and wondered what had really prompted this sudden about-face in the station commander. “Listen, Hans,” he began, “if you think—”

  “Don’t worry, Tromp! I’ll be fine! I bet my stomach’s as tough as yours any day, hey?”

  Dear God, so that was what lay behind all this bullshit, thought Kramer: Terblanche was afraid he’d be branded a sissy if he turned tail on the postmortems. Nothing scared a member of the SAP more than being suspected of cowardice, of course—bar perhaps being seen as a kaffir-loving liberal, but then that was virtually one and the same thing, come to think of it.

  6

  NKOSALA TURNED OUT to be Jafini times about three, only it did have a civic hall of sorts, built to an imposing Victorian design out of corrugated iron sheeting and painted maroon with brown woodwork. There was also a fairly modern police station in a pinkish brick, and right opposite, the sprawling, single-story hospital had been constructed of it, too.

  Terblanche drove straight round the back to an isolated building that had high, tiny windows, and stopped the Land Rover beside a mud-splattered Oldsmobile already parked there.

  “Doc’s beaten us to it, I see,” he said.

  “A doctor who’s English-speaking drives a heap like that?” said Kramer. “Why not the usual Merc? Isn’t he any bloody good?”

  “Ach, no, relax, Tromp! Doc is the dedicated type, hey? And a tip-top district surgeon, too—you ask any policeman around here. Whenever your wife or kiddies are sick, just give Doc a bell and he’ll soon have them—”

  “But what if they’re dead?” asked Kramer. “Is he any good at telling you how and why?”

  Terblanche winced. “Put it this way, I’ve never heard any complaints made.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Kramer.

  Back in the Free State, he’d had some bad experiences with doctors part-timing as district surgeons in remote rural areas. Some had not known much more about forensic pathology than the average backyard mechanic, armed with a grease-smudged manual from a newsstand, knew about automotive engineering. This meant, in practice, they were fine while coping with something fairly straightforward like strangulation by neck ligature, the equivalent of diagnosing when a fan belt was too tight, but God help the investigating officer if things proved any more complicated than that.

  “Come, and I’ll introduce you,” said Terblanche. “You’ll soon see there’s no basis for any misgivings!”

  Kramer followed Terblanche into a refrigeration room, empty except for about fourteen thousand flies, a hoist, and the acrid stench common to mortuaries, and saw two blurred figures through the frosted glass panels set in a big pair of cream doors.

  Terblanche hesitated, looking very shaky. “Er, that’s Doc through there and with him is Niko Claasens, the mortuary porter. Niko retired from the force about eight years ago.”

  “Uh-huh, but why nobody from over the road? I thought the whole cop shop would be here—can’t be many white murders to come and have a gawk at.”

  “You’re forgetting how people felt about the deceased,” said Terblanche. “I, er, suppose we’d better go in now?”

  “Lead the way!” said Kramer, and followed him into the postmortem room.

  A moment later, he was standing stunned, unable to believe what met his eyes, and so shocked even his hearing seemed to go, making any sounds seem very distant.

  “Tromp?” prompted Terblanche, possibly for the second or third time. “Doc’s just said how pleased he is to meet you …”

  Kramer looked first at the wrong person, as he realized an instant later. Niko Claasens, the mortuary porter, still had cop written all over him, from his short, grizzled grey hair to the way his hard, steel-grey eyes deflected an inquiring glance, making it ricochet.

  No, Doc Mackenzie was the smaller man, as toothy as a neighing horse. Life had trodden hard on him, giving him a bald patch like the lobby carpet in a cheap rooming house, and the rest showed in the burst blood vessels of his face. His high color was repeated in his jazzy tie, which had been cut—by the look of it—from a cafe’s curtains.

  “Welcome to Zululand, Lieutenant!” said the district surgeon. “This is an unexpected honor!”

  “Ta,” said Kramer, then forced his gaze back to what had shocked him so deeply.

  Like the very worst sort of backyard mechanic, Mackenzie had plainly been working away with cheerful abandon, removing every part he could find some means of dismantling, undoing this and undoing that, until he’d finally ended up surrounded by more bits and pieces than he probably knew what to do with—or indeed, understood. Not a flat surface remained that hadn’t some component or other heaped on it, coiled on it, or balanced on it, while the floor appeared, in motoring terms, as though someone had forgotten to drain the sump first, making it hazardous to move about.

  “Ooops!” said Terblanche, correcting a slight skid as he advanced farther into the room. “You certainly don’t waste any time. Doc! Tell me, how far have you got?”

  “I’m on my second, and all I’ve got left to do now is take a look at the lungs.”

  “Goodness, that was quick!”

  “Not much to the first PM, to be honest, Hans,” said Mackenzie, picking up a clipboard that held a bloodstained postmortem report form. “Female, blah, blah, virtual disintegration, blah, blah, gross disruption of tissue, blah, blah—all of which naturally set certain limitations on any examination that could be usefully conducted. Conclusion: death consistent with large quantity of high explosive detonated in close proximity to deceased.”

  “There!” Terblanche said to Kramer. “Didn’t I say Doc would come up with all the answers?”

  “Unbelievable,” said Kramer.

  “Ja, and I know what you meant by that disintegration business, Doc,” said Terblanche. “Man, we had a hell of a time chasing the sea gulls off, and then looking for the smallest pieces by listening for where the flies were buzzing loudest. Malan was really good at that.”

  “A good fellow all round,” agreed Mackenzie. “Is his athlete’s foot any better?”

  “Ach, as you know, CID’s not really my department …”

  I don’t believe any of this, thought Kramer, I just don’t. Then, to distract himself, he turned and went over to come face-to-face, as promised, with one of the best, Maaties Kritzinger.

  The late detective sergeant had been reduced to little more than a chassis and some flapping bodywork, making it difficult to decide where the effects of the explosion had ended and the postmortem begun. Even so, through half-closed lids, it was still possible to glean an impression of a broad-shouldered, stocky individual of above-average height, well-muscled but running a little to fat that gleamed like butter in cross-section.
As for the face, it turned out there was no longer any, although the head itself was still intact, covered in wavy brown hair.

  Mackenzie cleared his throat. “If you’ve no objections, gentlemen, I’d better keep at it,” he said. “I’ve today’s floggings to supervise at the prison at four, and then some house calls to make to kiddies with this flu that’s going round, which doesn’t leave me—

  “You just carry on, Doc!” said Terblanche.

  “You’re actually staying, Hans?” said Mackenzie, showing great surprise. “But I thought you—”

  “No, no, the Lieutenant prefers to work this way, and I agree with him.” So saying, Terblanche moved over to stand beside Kramer at the postmortem table. “Erggggh!” he exclaimed, before hastening to add: “But highly interesting …”

  Mackenzie reached into Kritzinger and came out with what looked like a radiator hose plus attachments, until a second glance revealed it to be the windpipe and lungs. “Here we go again,” he murmured. “The characteristic signs visible to the naked eye even before I section it.”

  “Such as?” inquired Terblanche brightly.

  “When high explosives go off, there’s a peak of high pressure followed by a trough of low pressure, a sort of suction effect,” explained Mackenzie, obviously quoting from the blood-smudged text he had left propped open near the sink. “The violent compression-decompression strain stretches and tears tissue, disintegrates the capillary network and so forth.”

  “Blah, blah,” said Kramer, and went over to have a look at what he imagined would be Annika Gillets. But he’d hardly taken hold of the sheet when a hand gripped his elbow.

  “Tromp,” said Terblanche, now very whey-faced. “Er, I’ve just realized something: you can’t have had any lunch today, can you? How about if I nip up to one of the wards and get a nurse there to make you a sandwich?”

  “Hell, I don’t know how you can think of food at a time like this, Hans,” said Kramer. “But maybe a cheese and tomato, plenty of red pepper.”

  Terblanche turned and made a hasty exit, leaving Kramer to finish drawing back the crumpled sheet covering the other postmortem slab.

  At first what he saw lying there left him quite cold. The heaped collection of assorted bits and pieces seemed unrecognizable as anything, let alone a human. Then, very gradually, like recalling tantalizing snatches from some wet dream or other, Kramer found himself picking out various delights. There was a pretty foot with plump little toes, a chubby right ear pierced for a diamond stud, a sensuous right hand with burnished, long, unpainted nails, and a good solid flank with a delectable curve to it. God Almighty, Kramer thought, I’ve definitely missed out on something here.

  And his sense of loss, however irrational, made him suddenly very angry, the way wanting to relive a dream can sometimes do. For an intense moment, he wanted this young lady back, wanted to feel her warmth against him, and even to hear, perhaps, what she would cry out near his ear.

  “I suppose I could have tried to arrange that in some semblance of anatomical order,” remarked Mackenzie, glancing across at him. “But if I know the undertakers, they’ll just tip the whole lot straight in its coffin, and so …”

  Kramer took a moment to adjust. “Ach, I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “Done a dental check?”

  “First thing I thought of, Lieutenant. I had her card picked up this morning, and the teeth match perfectly.”

  “Oh, ja? I’ve not seen any …”

  “Niko’s popped the jaws in ajar in case they’re needed for the inquest.”

  “Careful you don’t leave it by your bedside,” said Kramer.

  Then he went back to examining the clammy jigsaw spread out before him. He tried to make sense of each and every part, flipping over the fleshy pieces to see if there was skin on the reverse that would yield a clue to where they had once fitted together. It was like attempting a puzzle that was all sunset. Then he chanced across a well-tanned section, possibly from an upper arm to judge by its oval vaccination scar, that bore the bruises of what looked like three big knuckle marks.

  “These bruises, Doc,” he said. “What did you make of them?”

  “Bruises, where?”

  “Right here, on the female deceased.”

  “Oh, those,” said Mackenzie with a shrug. “Frankly, I’d not noticed them, but no harm done. They’re immaterial.”

  “Immaterial? How’s that?”

  “Can’t you see? They must be at least two or three days old, Lieutenant—nothing at all to do with the explosion.”

  Kramer just stared, unable to quite credit for a moment what he had just heard. “I’d like, Dr. Mackenzie,” he said very softly, “to see that postmortem report on Mrs. Gillets. Pass it over, please.”

  “But I’ve already—”

  “Give!” barked Kramer, putting out his hand. “Let’s see what else you decided was bloody ‘immaterial’ in a murder case—Jesus Christ, man!”

  The scribbled report was difficult to scan in a hurry, so Kramer turned to the summary section. Here he read:

  Fragmented, no organic disease. Generative and other pelvic organs/tissue, including stomach, not present.

  “But how come all this is missing, when we’ve still got a nice chunk of bum right here?” he demanded. “Have you looked for the stomach?”

  “I certainly did, but hold on a moment …” Mackenzie went over for his textbook. “Explosions can be very strange,” he said. “Might I read you this, Lieutenant, from Taylors Medical Jurisprudence? ‘1940—violent explosion at a small ammunition factory—some 339 fragments found—um, representing only a small part of three persons.’ So you see, the fact the stomach’s missing isn’t in itself of any particular significance, not when establishing the cause of—”

  “No, I don’t bloody see!” cut in Kramer. “You seem to think all I’m interested in is knowing what killed these two people. Hell, we all know that already, so who needs you to state the bloody obvious? Let me explain something to you, Doc, about postmortems. They are not about blood and guts, man, they are about time—and I don’t mean the split second these two went to their Maker, hey? I mean hours, days, even weeks … the things in their lives that led up to that moment. Understand me?”

  Mackenzie frowned, as though trying to focus on a revolutionary concept, and Claasens kept his eyes averted.

  “Then let me put it this way,” said Kramer. “I can see for myself that at least Kritzinger’s still got his stomach, because you’ve stuffed it between his feet here, but why haven’t you looked inside it? You had a go at most things.”

  “Um, well, because it hasn’t any penetrating wounds that could add to our knowledge of the explo—”

  “Ach, open it up, man! Come on, right now!”

  For an instant Mackenzie hesitated, rebellion clear in the lift of his narrow shoulders, then they fell, with what looked like the practiced ease of the born loser. He carried the stomach over to his dissecting slab by the sink, selected his longest knife, and shakily divided the organ in two.

  An immediate aroma of brandy was detectable, if only to be overwhelmed an instant later by a stinking sludge that included, quite plainly, lumps of part-digested curried meat, boiled rice, diced carrot and tomatoes, plus fragments of tinned peaches and, perhaps, pineapple.

  “Excellent!” said Kramer. “Here we have his last meal, a proper sit-down dinner, not some snack snatched in a hurry or scoffed while he drove. Any idea of how long that had been in his stomach before the bomb went off?”

  “Um, I can’t be certain, my experience being a bit limited in these matters, but everything is still so intact it can’t have been in his digestive juices for long, can it? Shall we say half an hour at the most?”

  “My guess exactly,” concurred Kramer, “based on all the street drunks I’ve seen puke up, hey? But you’d best still send it to the lab for a double check.”

  “Of course. Lieutenant!”

  “Now do you see what I was making all the fuss about? This
evidence makes it clear that one of the last things our friend did was to have a late supper. If we find out where he had that late supper, then we could also discover who tipped him off about Fynn’s Creek. A man doesn’t sit around stuffing his face when he’s on his way to stop a juicy little popsie being blown to buggery, does he? No, he—”

  “Ach, meat curry you can get anywhere!” cut in Niko Claasens with surly impatience, speaking for the first time. “You’d go bloody mad trying to track that down.”

  “I’m not sure,” said Kramer. “Maybe Kritzinger kept the bill for his expenses or something. Anyone know what was in his pockets?”

  “No idea, I’m afraid,” said Mackenzie. “All bodies are stripped, with a sheet over them, by the time I—”

  “What bill?” grumbled Claasens. “You tell me where you’re going to find a place that sells meals after nine in the country district! This isn’t Jo’burg, you know, it’s—”

  “Just a bloody minute …!” said Kramer, who had been flipping back through the reports attached to the clipboard. “There’s no clothing listed here, not for either body. Why’s that? Did CID take it at the scene?”

  Mackenzie flinched away from Kramer’s glare. “Niko?” he said. “This is more your department …”

  Claasens glowered. “Ach, I did the usual when stiffs come in, Doc. I cut off and chucked it in the incinerator bag, same as we always do. Hans would have already done the pockets at the beach.”

  “What?” said Kramer. “Clothing in a murder case can—”

  “Look, Niko,” Mackenzie said hastily. “Be a good fellow and pop through to the refrigeration room and bring the bag back here for the Lieutenant to—”

  “Bag’ll be gone by now,” said Claasens, with a shrug. “The boiler boy came down for it at ten. Anyway, it was just rags, not clothes. You know, filthy, useless bits of—”