The Song Dog

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The Song Dog Page 9

by James McClure


  “Man,” Kramer said, with a laugh, “have you noticed the irony? What sort of husband did this wild creature choose to look after her?”

  “A game ranger!” said the Widow Fourie, laughing too, as she turned from rinsing the sink. “No, I’d never thought of that before …”

  Their smiles locked, lingered, then faded together.

  “Look at the time!” said the Widow Fourie, snatching up a tea towel to dry her hands, turning from him. “I don’t know what I think I’m doing still up at this hour.”

  “Suggesting a few answers that could go a long way to solve a mystery,” said Kramer, rising from his chair. “If there was still trouble between Annika and Lance, and it was now threatening his whole livelihood, a man could find in that a motive for murder—especially a violent man, who might have reasons of his own not to want evidence given in the divorce court.”

  “But,” said the Widow Fourie, with a final glance at the clock, “although I can see what you’re getting at, Lance Gillets must have been miles away when the whatsit went off.”

  “Which is surely the whole point of using a timing device,” said Kramer. “It allows the killer to get to hell and gone from the scene, and concoct himself a cast-iron alibi.”

  “You mean it was a time bomb that went off last night?”

  “No proof as yet, but ja, I expect that to be confirmed tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is today,” said the Widow Fourie very firmly, moving to the passage doorway, “and I’ve an early start with masses of bed linen to check at the hospital, so—”

  “You do what there?”

  “Ach, you know, supervise the linen rooms, count the pillows—all of that. Let me see, is there anything else you need? I’ve put a towel in your bedroom and the maid’ll give you breakfast in the morning.”

  “N-no, I’m fine, thanks!”

  “Good,” said the Widow Fourie, adding a quick, impersonal smile. “Sleep well, hey?”

  “That wasn’t you singing in the shower was it, Lieutenant?” Bokkie Maritz croaked hoarsely, peering into Kramer’s room at seven thirty the next morning.

  “Me? Sing? That’ll be the day, Bok! How goes it?”

  “I’ve got a sore throat you wouldn’t believe,” said Maritz, clutching his pajama collar even more tightly. “Also, my forehead is hotter than—”

  “Straight back to bed for you!” said Kramer.

  “Ach, no, I can struggle on, hey?”

  “Bullshit, man! I need you well again quick. You get yourself under a pile of blankets, sweat it out, and I’ll get the DS to come and see you, give you some stuff.”

  “Er, I’m not too happy about seeing a doctor I don’t know,” said Maritz.

  “Doc Mackenzie’s one hell of a good bloke, Bok—all the cops around here swear by him.”

  “Oh, ja?”

  “You couldn’t be in better hands,” said Kramer, and went off to breakfast, whistling.

  “I’m Piet,” said a small boy seated at a table on the back verandah, eating toast and marmalade. “What’s your name?”

  “Tromp,” said Kramer, sitting down opposite him. “And in answer to your next question, I was four hundred and ninety-one last birthday.”

  “I’m six and a half,” said Piet.

  “Uh-huh. Where’re your brothers and sisters?”

  “They’ve gone. Ma’s taken them to the hospital to play with the other little kids in the nursery.”

  “Real baby stuff, huh?”

  Piet nodded. “I’m the man of the family,” he said. “Ma told me.

  “So how will you spend your day? Mending tractors or doing some accounts?”

  “First,” said Piet, “I’m going to feed my animals.” He paused while the maid placed a plate of fried eggs and bacon in front of Kramer, and then said, “All right if I have your bacon fat?”

  “Of course.”

  “Ta,” said Piet. “Ma’s already given me hers, so I’ve got quite a lot.”

  “What sort of pets eat bacon, hey?”

  “Animals, not pets,” said Piet, using the same note of scorn he had reserved for the word nursery. “Dingaan the iguana is my biggest. Smallest, I’ve got some cane mice, and in between all sorts: rabbits, guinea pigs, a tortoise, and three mole snakes. Dingaan’s the one who likes the bacon.”

  “I had a pig once,” said Kramer. “He hated bacon.”

  “But they usually eat anything!” exclaimed Piet in some surprise. Then he laughed. “You tried to trick me,” he said, getting down from his chair to go out into the backyard. “Or was it a joke?”

  “My third of the day,” confirmed Kramer.

  And his mood was still uncommonly good when he drained his coffee cup, lit a Lucky, and decided to wander out and see how Dingaan was enjoying his tidbits.

  Piet was standing under an avocado tree that gave shade to a crudely built hutch of sorts in the center of a chicken-wire enclosure.

  “Where’s Dingaan?” Kramer asked.

  “Hiding,” said Piet. “Watch …”

  He tossed a morsel of bacon fat into the enclosure, there was a pause, and then out from under the hutch came an iguana, its little bent legs scurrying beneath a long, tail-lashing body. In a trice, the bacon had been snapped up, and the iguana was back under cover again.

  “Man, that was quick!” said Kramer. “Have you ever timed it?”

  Piet shook his head. “I haven’t got a watch,” he said. “But you couldn’t time it anyway, Dingaan’s too quick once there’s meat near him.”

  “Hmmm,” said Kramer.

  “You want a turn feeding him?”

  “Er, no, I’d best be getting to work,” said Kramer. “But thanks, hey? See you later …”

  “Bye, Tromp,” said Piet, carefully selecting the next piece of fat.

  Kramer walked away with a smile that died in seconds. He still couldn’t put a finger on it, but something was wrong, very wrong, in the way he was seeing things—and now somehow young Piet had just drawn his attention to this.

  11

  AN OVERNIGHT SHOWER had done for Jafini, in Kramer’s opinion, what embalming did for a corpse. The dead-end dump didn’t look any less dead, but at least its coloring had much improved, now all the dust had been washed off; the faint odor of decay had gone too, swept down the storm drains.

  Two vehicles attracted his attention the instant he turned into the main street. He saw that his Chevrolet was already at the garage, having its damaged exhaust pipe repaired, thanks no doubt to Hans Terblanche. He also saw Grantham at the wheel of a diesel Mercedes pickup, and that he had one of his mad, bad kaffirs seated right beside him in the cab, and not on the back among the cornmeal sacks, where he properly belonged. Didn’t the man know that the only whites and blacks who ever rode together were cops? Was he really so thick, or just trying to be bloody provocative?

  “Lovely day, Lieutenant!” Grantham shouted across, as they passed, adding something Kramer missed.

  He’d been distracted that same instant by a glimpse of an inside-out jacket, vanishing into the Bombay Emporium. “Short Arse!” he said to himself, gunning the Land Rover over to the curb, ready for another hard look at the bastard when he came out. But the coon who emerged six long minutes later in an inside-out jacket was elderly, rather stooped, grinning idiotically, and had the fast shuffle of an advanced syphilitic.

  “Shit,” said Kramer, and drove on.

  He parked round the back of the police station and used the rear entrance to reach Terblanche’s office.

  “Morning, Tromp!” said the station commander, pouring the stale water from his carafe out of the window. “Guess what—we’ve got the army with us!”

  “So that’s it,” said Kramer. “You’ve been given until two hundred hours to clean up, or face a court-martial, hey?”

  Terblanche looked quite hurt. “I always do a tidy when I get a moment,” he said. “Besides, Field Cornet Dorf hasn’t been in here yet. He’s been down at Fynn’s Creek since first ligh
t with Jaapie Malan, getting his bearings. Oh, ja, he’s not one to stand twiddling his thumbs, this explosives expert of ours—he arrived about four, straight from some sabotage.”

  “Good,” said Kramer. “This could speed up things, now I’ve a few ideas to work on.”

  “You have?” said Terblanche. “I thought you were looking a bit more cheerful this morning! Did you discover something new at Fynn’s Creek last night?”

  “I learned that Kritz was there yesterday afternoon and had a long, intimate chat with the female deceased which seemed to lift a big weight off her shoulders.”

  Terblanche frowned. “Just him and little Annika?” he said. “An intimate chat? This is news to me. I didn’t know that he was—”

  “Ach, no, I think it happened quite by chance,” said Kramer. “Grantham told me he’d suggested to Kritz that he ought to take a look at the reserve some day, and from what the kitchen boy states, it sounds to me as if Kritz simply pitched up there. As for intimate, he wasn’t to know Lance wasn’t also going to be there—not with his Parks Board Land Rover parked in full view.”

  “Ja, ja, I get you,” said Terblanche, losing some of his troubled look. “But what was this long chat about?”

  “Here, read my notes of the interview with the cook boy,” Kramer invited him, “and then you’ll know as much as I do about it.”

  Terblanche worked his way ponderously through the three pages. He had just finished, and was looking up to say something, when there came a rap at the door and Jaapie Malan poked his unlovely head round the jamb.

  “Morning, Lieutenant!” he said. “Morning, sir! I’ve got the army bloke waiting to speak to you about the—”

  “Ach, send him in, man,” said Terblanche. “Send him in.”

  Field Cornet Sybrand Dorf of the South African Defence Force looked like an experiment carried out by a mad zookeeper. He had the head of a bat-eared fox, shoulders like a gnu, and his long, spindly legs gave him the gait of a giraffe. His camouflage fatigues did nothing to hide any of this, but at least his army boots had a reassuring, un-hoof-like high shine to them.

  “Let me say at the start,” Terblanche told him, after the introductions and handshaking were over, “that we’re both impressed, very impressed by your application to duty—you’ve certainly wasted no time, hey?”

  “Just obeying orders, sir.”

  “Oh, ja?”

  “Troubled times, sir. Devices being detonated all over, political. Must take priority, sir, but we do our best, sir.”

  “So you’ve ruled out this one being political?” asked Terblanche. “Only one of my blokes did have a theory that a saboteur from a sub could’ve—”

  “Ruled out, totally, sir. Excessive-quantity explosives, sir. Sufficient, sir, for three acts of terrorism against the state, sir, and terrorists well trained, sir, but explosives in short supply. Other signs of amateurism, too, sir. Civilian, definitely, doubts none, sir.

  “Oh, ja?” said Kramer. “Exactly how much dynamite are we talking about here?”

  “Must have been seven sticks, minimum, sir,” said Dorf. “In all probability, blasting dynamite, plain, same as road and dam builders use. I need to request extra assistance to make a proper search for the wrapper fragments and other items.”

  “Of course,” said Terblanche. “You can have any help you want, hey? Only what ‘other items’ are you searching for?”

  “Source of primary detonation, sir, timing mechanism, batteries, wires, and so forth.”

  “Timing mechanism?” echoed Terblanche. “So you have reason to believe that this was a time bomb?”

  Dorf looked slightly bemused for an instant. “Naturally, sir. Is not that the whole point of using explosives?”

  “In what way?”

  “Well,” said Dorf, shooting Kramer a glance, “an explosive charge, detonated by timing device, allows the perpetrator to be removed from the scene of the crime at the time it is actually committed, yet rest assured the deed is done.”

  “And so?”

  “Alibi, cast-iron, sir, can be concocted.”

  “But why would someone miles away be asked for his alibi in the first place, hey?” said Terblanche.

  “Ah,” said Dorf. “That’s what they hope people will think. But there is invariably some known connection with the target, sir. Case of political act: known activist and state target. Case of civilian act: known associate and deceased target—business partner, spouse, established enemies, sir.”

  “Spouse?” said Terblanche, his fists bunching.

  “Themes, variations on, sir,” replied Dorf.

  “Seems to me,” said Kramer, “the only bloody alibi with any relevance is the one pertaining to when the bomb was placed and not when it was set to go off, hey?”

  “Very true, sir,” admitted Dorf. “Hence all the more important, sir, to establish nature of device, timing, sir. In case of clock, ordinary alarm, for instance, maximum delay time equals one full rotation of the hands, hours twelve, sir.”

  “And so,” said Kramer, “knowing that the blast went off at ten past midnight, the earliest the bomb could have been positioned—if an alarm clock was used—would have had to be just after midday on Monday?”

  “Correct, sir. Alarm clock, ordinary, can be adapted to allow for greater delay, but would call for expertise not reflected in use of excessive quantity of explosive material, sir.”

  “Uh-huh, so the chances are we’re looking for someone who was at Fynn’s Creek within those twelve hours before the explosion?”

  “Everything points that way, sir,” agreed Dorf.

  “Then our first job is to check on the movements of any known—er, associate?”

  “Exactly, sir, pending a fuller—”

  “Listen, man,” said Kramer, rising from his seat on the edge of the desk, “I know you’re pushed for time, so we won’t detain you any longer—you’re going back down to the beach?”

  “As soon as I have the personnel to—”

  “All the officers are at your disposal, hey? Just tell Sergeant Suzman to organize things, and Lieutenant Terblanche here and me will join you later. Okay?”

  Dorf drew himself to attention again. “Very good, sir! Much obliged, sir!” The explosives expert did an about-turn and left the room, closing the spring-loaded door so carefully it suggested he hated the thought of anything banging behind him.

  There was the long silence Kramer had expected, and then a hiss, which he hadn’t. Terblanche was on his feet the next instant, and smashed his right fist into the side of the filing cabinet. “Bastard!” he seethed between gritted teeth. “Bastard! Gillets, you—you—you—you bastard!” He was plainly allowing himself just the one forbidden word, but making the most of it.

  “Steady, Hans—you’ve only just started tidying up the place,” murmured Kramer.

  Terblanche looked round with an expression so distorted by pain it was terrible to look at. It was an expression only to be imagined in the ordinary course of events—the expression of a child, say, being crushed beneath a bus. Then it was gone.

  Quite gone.

  “I’m sorry, Tromp,” mumbled Terblanche, straightening his tunic with a couple of tugs at his waistline. “Truly sorry, my friend. That was …”

  “Only natural, Hans! You can’t keep bottled up forever.”

  “Hey?”

  “Don’t tell me the thought Lance Gillets might be responsible hadn’t already occurred to you,” said Kramer. “You knew Annika better than most people, all her troubles and woes. You even tried to stop the wedding taking place, and so–”

  “Who’s been telling you all this?”

  “You know damn well who,” said Kramer. “You obviously spent a lot of time with the Widow Fourie after her man had his accident. You know her mind, how it works, what interests her, how bright she is. And so, when you had to find me some accommodation, your first thought was to get her to leak the information to me in a—”

  “Listen,” said Terbl
anche, raising an indignant finger to him, “so far as the Widow Fourie was concerned, my only thought was that she and the kiddies could do with the extra money. Nothing more than that! For heaven’s sake, I didn’t even know you then, which makes your—”

  “You didn’t have to know me,” cut in Kramer. “So long as you made sure the investigating officer lodged with her, then you could be fairly certain that in this way, if in none other, he would soon learn a lot more about the whole Annika Gillets affair, including a possible motive. Come on, man—try and deny it!”

  Terblanche shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can deny it. I’m not clever that way. I’m not CID, I’ve told you so—how many times?”

  “Then tell me this,” said Kramer, growing impatient. “Why, when we spent so much time together yesterday, did you never once tell me what the Widow Fourie told me last night? And yet you knew it! Because if she knew it, then you—”

  “I said to you, Tromp, I said that you must always check with me anything anyone told you about Annika. I would have got round to—”

  “Ja, but then you gave me the impression it was all old stuff, going back to when she was so-high to a bloody grasshopper! You never once implied anything up-to-date in your knowledge of her, any of the worries you had about her. Not one. Now explain that.”

  Terblanche retreated to his seat behind the desk and sat down heavily, crossed his arms on his blotter, and rested his forehead on them. He stayed in this position a full two minutes, not lifting his head again until Kramer’s Lucky burned too low and he had to light another.

  “I can’t explain it, Tromp,” he said. “I can only tell you that, since the moment I met Sarel down near Fynn’s Creek, my mind has been—well, I don’t know how to describe it. I’ve felt in shock, man. Real shock, like the time I found my ma dying in the small paddock, and thought at first she was a new foal trying to stand up, until I got nearer. Ja, shock like that, which is crazy! I’m a policeman, ja? I’m not meant to—”

  “Fine,” said Kramer. “That’s all I wanted to know. I’m getting the picture and—”

 

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