The Song Dog

by James McClure

  “Can’t see what help we’d be, hanging around here,” he said, starting the engine. “You heard all that?”

  Zondi nodded and sighed. “The crow, boss,” he said.

  “Come again? What was that?”

  “I’ve never liked helicopters, Lieutenant,” said Zondi.

  25

  “FIRST OF ALL, Mickey,” said Kramer, as they started cautiously down the zigzagging, hazardous track leading from Mabata to the coastal plain, “I’m going to have you formally seconded to this investigation, okay?”

  “Boss?”

  “Well, any damn fool can see your undercover role has been blown to buggery by now, so we’ll just have to catch Cousin Nun-Shagger later on, when we have the time, hey? For expediency’s sake, however, to avoid a lot of nonsense from Bronkhorst, the Colonel, and the rest of the bloody red-tape brigade, I’m going to bullshit them that the mission murders and the Fynn’s Creek ones are possibly connected. That way, I can have you start work for me officially almost the minute we get back to Jafini. The ‘officially’ aspect is important, of course, because of technicalities such as the continuity of evidence et cetera, once we finally drag this bastard, kicking and screaming, to bloody court.”

  “Hau, this is very good news, Lieutenant!”

  “And as for what we do next, it seems we have a simple choice. Either we go looking for whoever took potshots at us last night, or we start poking into what the Song Dog’s sicked up on the carpet. Myself, I favor the latter plan, because at least we know where to bloody begin, hey?”

  “Boss?”

  “Didn’t the witch-doctor female tell you that Kritz had been fretting over what he’d written about the cane-truck fatal at his desk?”

  “That’s true, Lieutenant. Only I—”

  “And she did say ‘desk,’ didn’t she? Not ‘table’ or something similar?”

  “No, ‘desk’ for definite, boss, because I was surprised that someone so raw would know the term. Then I realized she was repeating part of Boss Kritzinger’s speech word for word, showing off to me how good her memory was. But I thought you said—”

  “Then obviously if we can find those case notes of his, a hell of a lot of time could be saved! Sounded to me as though Kritz had already done most of the groundwork.”

  “But, I thought, boss,” Zondi finally got in, “I thought the Lieutenant had already made a thorough search of Boss Kritzinger’s desk and found nothing?”

  “Ach, maybe I didn’t look as hard as I might have. After all, I didn’t know at that stage he’d been committing his big secret to paper, creating a document he’d not want anyone else to see. I just hope to God he didn’t destroy it!”

  “Or maybe the desk that the songoma spoke of was a different one he had back at his own house, boss.”

  “Good thinking, hey? I’ll do a check on that. Anything else she said I should know about?”

  Zondi smiled. “Well, there was what Mama Pelapela told me, Lieutenant, when I tried to trick her into telling me more, by asking if she had any advice to give us.”

  “Oh, ja, what was that?”

  “Mama Pelapela replied, boss: ‘I say to you both, revenge is your gift to the unjustly dead; go forth and be generous! For even when you are wrong you will be right, and when—’ ”

  “Cheeky old bitch!” said Kramer. “When have I ever been wrong, hey? But that first part I like—oh, ja, very definitely!”

  “Me, too, Lieutenant,” said Zondi.

  They came down out of those mountains like two-up in a fiery chariot, billowing a great plume of red dust behind them, and fell upon the Bombay Emporium like wolves upon a fold—or at least, that was how an astonished shop assistant seemed to view it when they bought up every Texan and Lucky Strike pack in sight, aware that they could have a long, hard haul ahead of them and no time to bugger about shopping for essentials in the middle of it.

  They were on their way out of the trading store when Zondi nudged Kramer and said: “Look, boss …”

  Hans Terblanche had just double-parked his Land Rover beside their own, and was lumbering with a frown toward the store’s verandah.

  “Wait here while I find out what he wants, Mickey,” said Kramer.

  “Tromp!” said Terblanche. “Where in heaven’s name have you been, hey? And look at the state you’re in! You’ve had me and the Widow Fourie worried sick about you, imagining all sorts of things!”

  “Oh, ja?” said Kramer, reaching the top step. “None of them too filthy, I hope.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Ach, I’ve just been following up a few leads, doing this and that, bumming a helicopter ride off Aap van Vuuren from Mabata.”

  “Mabata?” repeated Terblanche, taking a pace backward, his color draining. “You surely don’t mean you …!”

  “Relax, Hans, this isn’t a ghost you see! I got off the stop before, hey, so no harm done.”

  “Isn’t it terrible what happened to those blokes? I’ve never known such a week!”

  “Terrible,” said Kramer. “And you? What have you been doing?”

  “Me? I’ve been waiting for that fingerprint expert of yours to arrive from Trekkersburg—in between five hundred other things! You know Malan’s off sick today? An infected thumb that he got from some hammer yesterday, and now Sard’s got to go and relieve Stoffel Wessels up at Mabata. He’s packing himself a suitcase at his ma’s house right now, and the Colonel says I’m to drive him up there chop-chop—I’m on my way round now—on account of Stoffel’s having a nervous breakdown or something, and then I’ve got to bring Stoffel back for a proper checkup at the hospital, leaving only a raw Bantu in charge here, referring all important calls to Nkosala, while I—”

  “Would it help if I kept an eye on him?”

  “You actually mean that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Wonderful, man! You don’t know what a weight that is off my shoulders!”

  “Fine, then I’ll see you later, hey?”

  “Many, many thanks,” said Terblanche, hurrying back to his Land Rover. “I owe you a favor, hey?”

  No, we’re quits, thought Kramer, very heartened by having been told how much the Widow Fourie had missed him.

  And then, as the station commander’s Land Rover went backfiring off up the street, its tailgate flapping, Zondi emerged from the Bombay Emporium and murmured: “Why the sly little smile, Lieutenant?”

  “Ach, didn’t you hear, hey? I’ve just been put in charge of Jafini, which means we can bloody tear the place apart in our search for Kritz’s stuff, if we need to …”

  After just fifteen minutes back at the police station, that was no longer the idle threat it might have sounded. The dead detective sergeant’s desktop, awash in dockets, old carbon papers, and everything else once stored in its drawers and pigeonholes, had yielded nothing that seemed worth a second glance.

  Zondi dropped to his knees and started looking under the desktop itself.

  “I’ve already done all that!” said Kramer. “Can’t you come up with something more original, man?”

  “In a minute, boss,” said Zondi, pulling the drawers right out and turning them over.

  “And I’ve already explored those as well—you won’t find a damn thing stuck to them, I bet you!”

  “Hmmmmm,” said Zondi.

  “Listen,” said Kramer, “time to test your idea of the desk being one he had at home. I’ll go and find Kritz’s number in the boss’s office, ring the house, and pick up the inquest papers on the Cloete road traffic fatal while I’m there.”

  An unfamiliar female voice answered the Kritzingers’ telephone and explained, rather sharply, that she was Hettie’s sister, newly arrived from Durban to gather the bereaved family together and take them back with her.

  “I’m afraid Hettie’s under sedation again,” she said.

  “Can you just tell me if Maaties had a desk at his house?” said Kramer. “Somewhere he kept his personal papers et cetera?”

&nb
sp; “No,” she said, without hesitation. “The family live cramped enough as it is, what with there being six of them.” And something in her voice implied she had never approved of the marriage.

  “What about a table with a locked drawer he could’ve—”

  “No,” she said. “Frankly, I’m quite shattered by the conditions I’ve found here! Do you know, the toilet doesn’t even flush properly? That man acted as though—”

  “Er, well, give Mrs. Kritz my best, hey?” said Kramer, and dropped the receiver back into its cradle.

  Then he began another hunt, this time for those inquest papers. “You fight dirty, Hans, you bastard!” he growled, having rooted about on the windowsill in the station commander’s office, and then among the piles of other documents stacked all over the floor, only to find what he sought in its proper place in the filing cabinet.

  The inquest docket contained no more than an average amount of paperwork. Just a pro forma accident report, filled in and signed by someone called W. D. de Klerk, a couple of poor carbon copies of the two postmortem reports, more carbons of the seven statements de Klerk had taken, the standard set of photographs, shot at night using a flash, and a sketch plan of the scene.

  The sketch plan showed a right-angle turn in a dirt road that ran through acres of mature sugarcane. Several arrows indicated the path of a vehicle that had gone round the bend safely enough, but had failed to straighten up properly. Instead, it had plunged off the road, through a thin screen of cane and into two cane trucks, standing on a railway track which crossed the road at that point.

  In short, it was just another classic example of a partygoer cornering too bloody fast on his homeward journey, and so innocent of mystery that it only made Kritzinger’s interest in the affair all the more puzzling.

  Perhaps, thought Kramer, the photographs would throw a little light on things. The first was a long shot. In the background, the two sugarcane trucks lay derailed on their sides, and in the foreground were the remains of a pale-colored Renault Dauphine. A Dauphine had its engine in the rear, of course, so everything forward of the driving position had scrunched up like a bean can, leaving the driver impaled on his steering column and his passenger shredded through the windshield.

  The second photograph had been taken from the opposite direction, with the cane trucks in the foreground, and didn’t add much, although it showed, rather faintly, the corner around which the Dauphine had come immediately before the crash. The sugarcane was tall and dense at that point, confirming that it had totally obscured what lay ahead.

  The third and fourth photographs were of the inside of the car, before and after the removal of the bodies. The “before” picture was slightly less grotesque in its detail than Kramer at first supposed, once he realized that the driver’s lolling head had somehow become twisted right round and that he did have his ears on the correct way after all. As for the “after” picture, it was virtually identical, offering almost nothing new to look at, aside from a few details like the sticky-topped steering column; the ignition key still in the ignition lock, complete with fancy key ring; and a lurching statuette of St. Christopher, looking I bloody told you so on the top of the dashboard.

  Zondi wandered in at that moment. “The Lieutenant has found the inquest papers?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do they give any indication of foul play having—”

  “Not so far; all very straightforward. Kritz didn’t have a desk at home, by the way—you have his sister-in-law’s word for it.”

  Zondi sighed. “Six times I have been through all the contents of Boss Kritzinger’s desk here, boss—nothing. I am beginning to wonder if maybe what we were told by the songoma wasn’t all just a big nonsense. I had thought, hau, wait till we get to Jafini! The pieces will start coming together fast!”

  “Ja, and maybe they will, man,” said Kramer, preparing to move on from the photographs to the accident pro forma.

  “But does the Lieutenant realize that so far we do not even have corroboration of Boss Kritzinger having any interest at all in that fatal? We could be wasting—”

  “Hey, wait a minute …” said Kramer, rising, the last of the six photographs in his hand. “Come round here, quick! What do you make of that, hey?”

  “Make of what, Lieutenant?”

  “There, where my finger’s pointing. What shape would you say that thing was?”

  “I think it is possibly a dog, boss.”

  “Damn right, it is! But what kind? What breed, I mean?”

  “Lieutenant?” said Zondi, very warily.

  “What if I told you that Kritz kept a Scottie dog key ring, exactly like this one, tucked away somewhere in his desk—until Bokkie Maritz unearthed it last Tuesday?”

  “Hau, hau, hau …”

  “You can say that again! You know why? Because I’ll bet you bloody anything it was the same key ring, confirming that Kritz certainly did have an interest!”

  It was good to see Zondi with his smile again.

  Then, to clinch matters, Kramer remembered the two pieces of the key-ring puzzle he had palmed, with the sole intention of making life more interesting for Bokkie Maritz, and produced them from his trouser pocket. One was white, the other red, and it proved simple enough to match the latter, from which the Scottie’s tail jutted, with the image in the photograph.

  “But how would Boss Kritzinger have come by this key ring, Lieutenant?” asked Zondi. “He was not the investigating officer, and even if he had been, why—”

  “All sorts of ways! Simplest of all, he could have gone to the car dump to inspect the wreck, after being told to take an interest in the case, and have taken it as a memento or something.”

  Zondi snapped his fingers, as though a sudden idea had struck him. “Perhaps Boss Kritzinger had considered giving it to Mama Pelapela to hold in her hand while she addressed the Song Dog,” he suggested. “That is a thing many songomas do.”

  “There you are, then! Man, we just keep getting warmer and warmer, don’t we? So back you go, try taking a fresh approach to the problem, and I’ll whip through these statements, see if I can’t spot what got Kritz’s Y-fronts in a knot, hey? Tell you what, my son, I’ll bloody race you!”

  26

  ON HIS OWN in the station commander’s office once more, Kramer sat down and took up the accident pro forma, his eyes alighting on “Cause of Accident (if known),” where he read: “Apparent loss of control, no other vehicle involved. Strong smell of alcohol vicinity driver’s abdominal injuries.”

  The obvious place to look next was at the “Forensic Report Summary” overleaf: “Gross Multiple injuries, fatal in both cases. Driver had consumed roughly the equivalent of a bottle of wine, passenger ditto.”

  “Shit, what’s new?” said Kramer, tossing aside the pro forma and picking up a sworn statement made by someone called Daryl Gordon Taylor, hoping he would provide some hint of what had aroused Kritzinger’s suspicions:

  I am a white adult male, aged fifty-two years, residing at the Manager’s House, Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd., Jafini, Northern Zululand. My occupation is mill manager and I have been employed by Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd. in this capacity for twenty-seven years. Throughout this period, I have been acquainted with the deceased, Andries Johannes Adolf Jeremiah Cloete, who was employed at Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd. as the European foreman with a labor force of thirty-five non-European mill boys under him. He performed his duties well and responsibly at all times. I have also known the deceased on a social basis for twenty-five years and consider him a good friend and colleague meriting respect for the moderation he showed in all things.

  On the night in question the deceased and his deceased wife were present in my garden for a barbecue. Also in attendance were Mr. and Mrs. G. T. Taylor, my aged parents, Mr. J. G. H. Geldenhuys, the magistrate from Nkosala, and Mrs. J. G. H. Geldenhuys, Miss Susan Truscott-Smythe, who had come to buy a horse from me, and Mr. Roberto Fransico, who I was given to understand was her uncle and benefactor. We asse
mbled at seven o’clock for drinks and the servants had the meat ready by eight o’clock. It took over two hours to eat after which coffee was served. At no time did either of the deceased consume more wine than was offered to the rest of the guests being too well mannered for that. By the time of their departure at approximately eleven o’clock I was confident they were as sober as Mr. J. G. H. Geldenhuys, the magistrate, who left just ahead of them although on a different road. The track the deceased used is generally used only by employees of Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd. and of course Mr. Bruce Grantham registered owner of the land. The deceased always used that track for visiting my place. I estimate he must have traveled up and down it more than 1,150 times over the period I have known them including every Christmas and New Year without once having an accident. I totally reject the rumor the deceased was speeding and misjudged a corner he knew so well. My belief is that he must have seen some animal or native in the road and tried to avoid it making his big mistake that way for he was a tenderhearted man who could not bear to see a creature that was suffering. In conclusion I would like to state that the deceased always took extra special care while driving a vehicle belonging to Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd. as was the case when this tragedy occurred.

  “Man, oh, man,” murmured Kramer. “With friends like that, who needs attorneys?”

  Even so, while such a statement might indeed encourage any reasonable man to suspect that Cloete could have driven home safely from a booze-up at Taylor’s place blind drunk with his head in a bucket, it still contained nothing to suggest that anything other than one of the more banal vagaries of fate had finally caught up that night with a very boring-sounding couple.

  “Damn, damn, damn …” said Kramer.

  Zondi, seated in Kritzinger’s chair, was trying to imagine himself in the dead man’s shoes as well.

  “Here I am,” he thought, “and over there, directly opposite, in front of the window, is Jaap Malan. I have a secret document I don’t want him or anyone else to find. If I hide it here, in my desk, there is a chance he might stumble across it—perhaps looking for some statement or other, during one of my many absences … My only way of keeping it from him would be to place it somewhere he would never dream of looking, and yet, at the same time, it would be somewhere that provides me with ready access. Such as?”