The Song Dog

by James McClure

  “Ach, now wait a minute! Remember, this is a white madam you’re talking about, hey? So watch it!”

  “Lieutenant, when I was young, before I could join the police at sixteen, I worked two years as a houseboy …”

  “So what?”

  “I am thinking of Moses Khumalo, Lieutenant. In my experience, white masters and white madams almost never give you time off unless they want you out of the way to afford them full privacy. For example, boss, many have a mating custom after the big lunch on Sunday, and so their servants are always permitted to take the rest of the—”

  “Damn it, man, I understand what you’re hinting at,” said Kramer, “but it’s a bullshit theory that doesn’t fit the facts. Boss Kritzinger was the only other person killed by the blast; I don’t know of any pieces of some bare-bummed bloody ‘lover’ blown all over the place!”

  “Then it could have been Boss Kritzinger himself who—”

  “Ach, no! Had Moses ever seen him at Fynn’s Creek before, hey?”

  “No, that is true, Lieutenant,” said Zondi, shaking his head. “And it is also true, boss, I have heard nothing at the shebeen of a scandalous nature concerning Boss Kritzinger. Hau, you should hear how some white masters and madams in this district behave! One houseboy was saying—”

  “Enough!” said Kramer. “Almighty God, who’d have thought you kaffirs were such bloody gossips? Can we get back to more serious matters?”

  “Gladly, Lieutenant,” said Zondi. “Which means, boss, I must repeat my question.”

  “Which one was that?”

  “I asked the Lieutenant whether Boss Kritzinger had been investigating a case that could have lifted a weight from the shoulders of the white madam, making her—”

  “And the answer is, ja, possibly, but there could be a lot more to it than that. I hope you’re not expecting me to start reeling off to you the whole of my bloody investigation so far!”

  “Are we not both Murder and Robbery, my boss?”

  “Jesus wept, you really are the cheekiest damn kaffir I’ve ever bloody come across!”

  “Hau, Lieutenant, very nearly Sister Theresa’s exact words to me on many, many occasions,” said Zondi.

  21

  FINALLY, THE SQUALL outside the hut hollered for help, and its big brother came running, a God Almighty storm, which hammered at the hut door and started trying to tear off the roof thatch.

  “A pity this didn’t happen three nights ago,” remarked Kramer, forced to raise his voice. “Would have put a bloody dampener on things, hey?—might even have blown the fuse out!”

  Zondi nodded, but clearly he was still preoccupied by the resume Kramer had just finished giving him. His eyes had that unfocused look, although directed at the candle flame, and he remained motionless, hands deep in his jacket pockets.

  “My uncle used to have a pet baboon who sat just like that, dead still for hours,” said Kramer. “His excuse was old age and constipation—what’s yours, hey?”

  “Lieutenant?” said Zondi, turning, and his broad smile caught up a second later. “Hau! I’m sorry, my boss, but many, many things have begun to fit together, making everything so much clearer!”

  “Oh, ja?”

  “But, er, with respect, the Lieutenant will allow me to correct one of his possible theories? Boss Kritzinger could not have eaten that last meal of meat curry with Boss Grantham.”

  “How the hell would you know that, hey?”

  “Because, Lieutenant, Moon Acre is a place of employment for many, many runaway men, and it was there that I was on surveillance that same night, hiding from the dogs in a treetop near the compound. I can swear to you that Boss Grantham ate alone at round about eight o’clock, and then listened to his radio on the front verandah, drinking gin and tonic, until close to eleven, when he told the chef and the other staff to go off duty. He then retired to his bedroom, and there he remained reading until the explosion, when he came running out with a rifle in his hands, calling out in an alarmed manner for his induna.”

  “The big bang took him by surprise, you say?”

  “I am sorry, Lieutenant.”

  “Ach, no! Let’s get at the facts, man! That could save me a lot of time, as it tends to bugger any case against Grantham, doesn’t it?”

  Zondi shook his head. “I see no reason for that, my boss. Clearly, there are many strange things that happen at Moon Acre of which we have still much to learn.”

  “Incidentally, did you spot Cousin Nun-Shagger there?”

  “No, boss, but the possibility remains. I must make further inquiries.”

  “Uh-huh. Where else have I gone wrong so far, that you know about?”

  “It was not I, boss, who took the Sunday-best clothes of Moses Khumalo, the cook boy.”

  “Oh, really? Who did, then? Any ideas on that score?”

  “I think it was probably a Bantu quite unconnected with this case, my boss—somebody also drinking in the shebeen that night. Someone who overheard Moses saying he had been given the night off because his boss was away, and who would have known, by watching Moses, that it would be many, many hours before he returned to Fynn’s Creek. This someone could have slipped away then, and gone to see what he could steal from him—or even steal from the house, boss. The point is, Lieutenant, those clothes must have been taken the same night as the explosion, because the next night, when you caught me speaking with Moses Khumalo, they were no longer there.”

  “Hell, Moses couldn’t be sure of that, when I last asked him!”

  “Maybe not, Lieutenant, but during my visit, when Moses went to make water, I gave this hut a quick search, just as a test of his honesty. This tin trunk, boss, was quite empty.”

  Kramer sighed and shook his head. “On second thoughts, Smart Arse might have been a better name for you,” he said, holding out his Lucky Strike packet, two cigarettes protruding.

  “Many thanks, Lieutenant! Actually, in this matter, I thought exactly the same way as the boss did: I also started a search for the clothing thief, thinking he might perhaps have witnessed matters of interest at Fynn’s Creek that night, but without success, sir. I would think that since the explosion he has been very, very afraid of those clothes, and has probably buried them deep in some ant-bear hole.”

  “Then here’s an order, Bantu Detective Sergeant. The next bloody ant bear you see with a patch in its best shirt and shiny seat in its pants—you arrest the bastard, okay?”

  Zondi chuckled, and they shared the fluttering candle flame, lighting up and each inhaling deeply.

  “Now your turn,” said Kramer. “Let’s hear what you been up to the past few days—especially what you’ve discovered.”

  “Starting from where, boss?”

  “From where you left off. You know, I’d just caught you talking to Moses Khumalo, the cook boy …”

  “Eh-heh,” said Zondi, rising to pace about again. “Well, boss, I felt no wiser after that, except I had a suspicion that Boss Kritzinger had come on Monday to discuss some case in which the young madam had an interest. I wanted to seek more information while I had the chance, and so, seeing the Lieutenant was very busy with Moses, using Cassius Mabeni as his interpreter, I decided to examine the vehicle which Boss Kritzinger had left behind.”

  “Christ, and there was me, thinking you had hightailed out of Fynn’s Creek, like a buffalo with its bum on fire!”

  “Which is true, Lieutenant. But I also circled right round and came cautiously back. And when I reached the vehicle, I was at first disappointed. I had hoped to—”

  “Hold it a sec!” said Kramer, having had a sudden, nasty thought. “I hope you’re not going to tell me you removed anything from it? Because, when I searched it, there was bugger all to be found, hey?”

  Zondi shook his head. “No, I took nothing, boss. It was all very bare, as you say, except for the ashtray.”

  “Jammed full, as I remember.”

  “To the top, boss. But there were many more used matches than there were ol
d cigarette ends.”

  “You counted them? But what could that tell you? When my ashtray gets too full, I do what Kritz must have done—start chucking my cigarette ends out of my window!”

  Zondi nodded. “Me, too, boss—and when I am sitting parked somewhere. So, just on the off chance of learning more about Lieutenant Kritzinger’s movements that night, I took a look around. You know that small fever tree hiding the car which had the big bend in its trunk? Eight freshly smoked Texans lay close beneath it. Boss Kritzinger must have been flicking each one away in the same fashion, through his car window, just like the Lieutenant does, which was why they had all landed in almost the same place.”

  “Oh, ja? And?”

  “Remember, there were eight of them, Lieutenant. Eight times the eight minutes a Texan takes to smoke, and you have sixty-four minutes spent there, minimum.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Not if Boss Kritzinger had been chain-smoking, sir,” said Zondi. “Sitting there very worried, trying to make up his mind whether or not to do something.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, whether to reveal to the young madam some news that could be very upsetting, boss.”

  “But this can’t be right! Didn’t you hear me saying earlier that the curry had to have been eaten within twenty minutes or so of his death? There is no way he could have done that and sat around smoking eight bloody Texans!”

  Zondi shrugged.

  “You don’t follow what I mean?”

  “It’s like this, Lieutenant,” said Zondi. “From that first night, when all the cook boys were talking at Mama Dumela’s shebeen about the curry search, it seemed plain to me that every kitchen within a certain area had been eliminated, leaving only one. I then naturally assumed that the remaining kitchen was where the meal had been prepared, for there could be no other explanation.”

  “Now I’m the one who doesn’t follow!”

  “I mean the kitchen here at Fynn’s Creek, Lieutenant. Is that not correct?”

  “Can’t have been! Look, apart from everything else, let me repeat that the curry et cetera was Lieutenant Kritzinger’s favorite meal, and so it must have been prepared for him by someone very familiar with his ways. You’re not trying to suggest he and the young madam were bloody intimates on the quiet, are you? There’s certainly no evidence for thinking that!”

  Zondi blew a careful smoke ring. “What I do suggest, boss, is this,” he said. “Say Boss Kritzinger and the young madam agreed that morning to meet again in the evening, when he would have further news for her, and this was what made her so happy. Is it not possible she offered to serve him a meal then, to have while they talked, and she asked him what kind of food he’d like best to eat? His request would have been easy for most households to find; he favored very ordinary things.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  “Hau, I know what’s troubling the Lieutenant!” said Zondi, smiling. “It must of course never be assumed a young madam can cook for herself. But I double-checked, sir. At Mama Dumela’s shebeen, I discovered the whereabouts of the old woman who used to be cook girl in the young madam’s parents’ house, and yes, the young madam could make simple dishes like stews and curries and even—”

  “Okay,” said Kramer. “All this sounds very logical, but how do you explain the fact Boss Kritzinger was killed as he approached the house that night—with a full belly?”

  Zondi shrugged. “The Lieutenant,” he said, “has told me that some noise or other must have attracted the attention of the young madam, bringing her through into the guest room. Could not that same sound have also attracted the attention of Boss Kritzinger, who then decided to leave the house and investigate the noise another way—despite a full belly?”

  In the silence that followed, a silence made all the more acute by the storm having died away as swiftly as it had arisen, two owls hooted, one high and one low.

  Kramer rose unsteadily to his feet, tried a couple of steps, waited until his sense of balance adjusted, and then tried a couple more. “I’m having to reshuffle all kinds of things in my head,” he said. “But you know something? I think we might be getting a bloody sight closer to the truth of what happened that night, hey?”

  Zondi nodded.

  “So finish telling us what else you’ve been up to, and then we’ll put the whole lot together and see where that leaves us.”

  “Hau, I do have not many more things to say, my boss,” replied Zondi. “I have really been a mere observer in these matters—which, I must confess, have greatly intrigued me, but I have also had my own job to do.”

  “Ja, ja, but was that you I saw go into the Bombay Emporium just after breakfast?”

  Zondi grinned. “I fear so, Lieutenant! Hau, that was a bad moment for me, until I could persuade Two Times that his own jacket would look much better inside out, and quickly sent him off home to show his daughters what a handsome fellow it made him!”

  “You’re not to be bloody trusted, are you?”

  “With respect, Lieutenant,” said Zondi, “I had a feeling the boss was becoming too interested in my presence, and that this might lead to my being exposed as a police officer before I found my cousin Matthew Mslope. After that, I tried hard to disappear from view.”

  “Until tonight, hey?”

  “Naturally, the Lieutenant’s activities today greatly aroused my interest, for I could see no reason why, having searched this hut myself, it had become the center of much attention. On account of which, I decided to come and watch to see what—”

  “Ja, ja, the rest we can take as read. But, in between disappearing and tonight, did you pick anything else up? Any more information that could be pertinent?”

  “What I did, boss,” said Zondi, “was go to the shebeen to see if I could find out if there was a case that Boss Kritzinger would want to discuss with the young madam. Mama Dumela suggested a road traffic accident in which both the young madam’s parents had been killed, allegedly through the carelessness of Boss Grantham’s cane boys. When I asked her why she should think of this, she told me there had been talk in the shebeen of Boss Kritzinger having been to see a songoma, high in the mountains, to inquire further into the matter.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” asked Kramer.

  “A famous witch, Lieutenant,” said Zondi. “Surely there were witches and wizards in the Orange Free State?”

  “Of course there bloody are! Half of the bastards on police retainers to find lost and stolen Bantu cattle, through their usual trick of frightening the shit out of half witted kaffirs! So what?”

  “This witch is also on a police retainer,” said Zondi. “Mabata police station pays it each month, and that is maybe how Boss Kritzinger got to hear of her, if he did not already know she was the greatest songoma in the area, able to give any man the answer to the question that most vexed him.”

  “Christ, was sodding Maaties bloody white or wasn’t he?”

  “I think Boss Kritzinger had been forced to heed only his heart, Lieutenant, like any man who had grown desperate,” said Zondi. “And because he was so close to the People of Heaven, there are many who said he—”

  “The people of where?”

  “Heaven, boss. That is what ‘Zulu’ means: the People of Heaven.”

  “Christ, they never taught us that in bloody Sunday school!” said Kramer.

  “Anyway, Lieutenant,” said Zondi, “Boss Kritzinger went up in the mountains to see the songoma, he asked his question, and she passed it on for a reply from her great spirit, the Song Dog.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Kramer, “there’s something else maybe I should have told you …”

  For an instant, the high, shrill zzzzzzzzzzzzz of a mosquito could be heard in the hut, above the croaking of mangrove frogs, then the sound ended abruptly.

  Zondi, distracted, looked round to see where it might have landed, then back at Kramer, with one eyebrow raised.

  “You’d just got to this Song Dog business …” Kramer r
eminded him.

  “Ah, yes, Lieutenant! I was told Boss Kritzinger had been inquiring after the circumstances of a fatal collision last year when—”

  “So you’ve already said. And?”

  “Regrettably, that is all I learned of the matter, Lieutenant,” said Zondi, “but at least it gave me a link between Fynn’s Creek and Boss Kritzinger.”

  “Surely to God, there must have been more to it than that!”

  “Trouble was, boss, this information had reached me in an old, ragged whisper, passed on from one mouth to the other, starting with some person who was very, very sick, and who had gone to this songoma for special medicine. The songoma is now nearly deaf, boss, and that is the only reason we know as much as this, for Boss Kritzinger had to state his troubles in a big, loud voice. But her reply was given in an old woman’s mumbles, I’m told, making it impossible to hear what her words were from outside the cave entrance. Consequently—”

  “Ach, never mind what she said, which was bound to be bullshit anyway!” said Kramer. “What interests me far more is the exact nature of the questions Lieutenant Kritzinger put to her, because questions themselves can be every bit as revealing as answers, you know!”

  “I am sorry, but as I say, that is all that I know. Lieutenant. The trouble being, this cave lies far away, and—”

  “What if I drove you there? How long would it take?”

  “Just to Mabata, boss? Because the rest of the way, a man has to walk many, many miles.”

  “Ja, ja, to wherever. Two hours? Three? Because if we—”

  “Hau!” exclaimed Zondi, startled into his first and only interruption. “The Lieutenant does not understand! Mama Pelapela, the songoma, is like a true doctor, boss, in that what a person says to her is meant to be secret. It is considered a most sacred matter.”

  “Then ask the old bitch how sacred her bloody retainer is,” growled Kramer.

  22

  THE DIRT TRACK to Mabata could well have been built by a farmer determined to deter traveling salesmen intent on seducing his nubile young daughters, decided Kramer. The bloody thing wasn’t simply an obstacle course, boasting everything from falling boulders to the sort of dips and turns that perverted roller-coaster designers only dreamed about, but it also had a deeply rutted, corrugated surface which proved an absolute ball-breaker, numbing everything from the waist down, with side effects on the brain.