The Song Dog

by James McClure

  She wasn’t to know, of course, that the picture would finish up with a jagged, violent scribble in ballpoint all over the man at her side, canceling him out, ruthlessly ripping him from her embrace forever, and ripping the surface of the print, too, so that the crazed line ended at a fat, obscene puncture mark.

  33

  KRAMER AND ZONDI half collided in the kitchen doorway, and said simultaneously: “It’s Suzman!”

  “Jesus, how did you find out?”

  “The time bomb, boss! He—”

  “Later,” said Kramer. “First, we’d better get the hell out of here with the minimum of fuss and—”

  The shrill scream for help had come from the servant’s quarters.

  Zondi spun around and sprinted off, Kramer hard on his heels, and they got there just as Mrs. Suzman took another wild swing with her brass-tipped walking stick. The maid, also trying to dodge the dog, had been forced back into the farthest corner of her room, and was stumbling about on the collapsing truckle bed, quite frantic.

  “Take me away, take me away!” she begged in English. “Please lock me up somewhere safe, po-eee-seeeee!”

  “Ta, auntie,” said Kramer, plucking the walking stick from Mrs. Suzman’s grasp. “Sergeant, arrest that thieving bitch and bloody chuck her in the car, hey?”

  “At last!” said Mrs. Suzman, dragging the dog back. “But why was it left to an old woman to force a confession? What’s the matter with you SAP? Have you all turned into nancy boys and bloody poofters, hey? That’sh what I keep asking Sarel!”

  Zondi bundled the maid out, still sobbing, and Kramer tossed the walking stick onto the bed, very aware this drunken old bitch could now cause even greater problems in the wake of his shattering discovery.

  “I kept saying to that soft bloody son of mine: ‘Arrest her, man!’ He wouldn’t hear of it!”

  “Auntie, you know something …?” remarked Kramer, glancing around the room, noting the thick bars over its single high window near the ceiling in the rear wall, and the hefty door lock, in which the maid had left her key. “This place looks very bare without a phone, hey?”

  Mrs. Suzman blinked. “What wash that?” she said, giving a snort of amused disbelief. “No phone in a kaffirs room? Tell me, whoever heard of a kaffir who wanted to—”

  “Ach, I wasn’t thinking so much of kaffirs as of a life-form even lower,” said Kramer, stepping out of the maid’s room and locking her into it.

  “Hau, boss!” said Zondi, as the Chevrolet was gunned away from the curb. “But what if the neighbors—”

  “Not one of the buggers has appeared yet, despite all the row she’s already made, hey? Don’t you think they’re more than used to the sound of her bloody ravings and think it wiser to take no notice?”

  “Eh-heh, that is true, Lieutenant. Although the maid told me—”

  “Where the hell is she, by the way?”

  “I gave her bus money to go running back to hide meantime with her father in the reserve, boss—she knows too, too much, that one!”

  “Not as much as I bloody know!” said Kramer grimly, digging into his jacket pocket. “Here, take a look at these—but make sure you handle them only by their edges …”

  And he tossed Zondi a small packet that turned out to contain five contact prints, wrapped in a very rude tracing. As soon as he saw the first of the prints, Zondi sat bolt upright.

  “But this is the photo, Lieutenant, of Boss Cloete and the madam dead in the Renault crash, with terrible scribbles all over them! Hau, what kind of hatred is this?”

  “We’ll just have to ask Suzman, hey? The next picture shows Fourie …”

  “Hau, hau, hau! But look, only the boss has the marks made on him.”

  “Uh-huh. He was the only one killed, see?”

  “And this young madam with the young boss, Lieutenant?”

  Kramer, who was making for Jafini police station with his foot down, glanced away from the road for only a split second. “That’s little Annika in her bikini,” he said. “I’d recognize the gorgeous curve of that bum anywhere; the hand is hers also, plus the ear with the diamond earring. The bloke in the frog flippers and carrying her in his arms is—”

  “Boss Gillets, Lieutenant?”

  “Uh-huh. What else do you notice about that one?”

  “The mad lines go all over both. Lieutenant! Was the plan to make him and the young madam dead?”

  “Uh-huh, looks to me like Gillets had a lucky escape that night, hey?” said Kramer, turning right onto the main street.

  Zondi frowned as he examined the remaining prints, turning them this way and that. Both showed happy-looking couples, wearing bathing costumes on the beach, and each had been attacked so violently that the ballpoint had torn through the emulsion.

  “Does the Lieutenant know who these last bosses and madams are?” he asked, as the Chevrolet came to a stop in the police yard beside Terblanche’s Land Rover. “More victims?”

  “Kritz did hint he wasn’t sure how many killings were involved,” Kramer reminded him. “Or maybe, those couples haven’t had their turn yet—who knows? We’d better try and identify them soon, in case we need to warn them.”

  “Hau, hau, hau …”

  “I’ve also whipped the rest of the bastard’s collection, hey?” said Kramer, taking out two Lucky Strikes and lighting them. “But they’re not worth bloody bothering with. Unmarked, just more females catching a tan on the beach—you know, crotches and big tits, something else in the foreground. Here, this one’s yours …”

  “Ta, boss!” said Zondi, taking a long pull on the Lucky the instant he was handed it.

  “And then,” said Kramer, “there’s a final set that looks like it was taken at various times from the scrub line behind the cook boy’s hut, showing Annika Cloete doing this and that, as though the bastard’s been doing a lot of spying on her, sort of a bloody Peeping Tom with a camera.”

  “No more couples, then, Lieutenant?”

  “No, none. You’ve noticed there’s a pattern?”

  Zondi nodded. “And no pictures with Boss Kritzinger in them?”

  “Uh-uh. I double-checked, looking for Ma Kritz to help identify him; looking for a bloke simply fitting Kritz’s description. Nothing! No more scribbles either.”

  “Then we have a break in the pattern, boss,” said Zondi, blowing a smoke ring. “It could mean that finally we have proof Boss Kritzinger was an accidental victim of that dynamite explosion.”

  “You know something, Mickey? You could be right! No wonder Suzman bloody panicked and tried to make as big a mess as he could of the original evidence, hey? And then got the Colonel to call the dogs off, telling bloody lies about Maaties’ reputation, saying anything just to avoid what he knew would otherwise be the consequences!”

  “What dogs, Lieutenant?”

  “Ach, you know: bastards a lot harder and smarter than you and me, my son—real detectives. The kind you call in from Jo’burg Murder Squad when you really have a problem, something a bit personal or truly unacceptable? No-necks who just walk in, pick you up, nail you to the wall, and—”

  Zondi laughed.

  “You think I’m joking? Listen, they came to Bloemfontein last October, to help look for this white male who’d raped his servant girl’s seven-year-old. Three days later, they went away again, and a week later, we locals found the bugger. The DS said that because of the cauterized blood vessels, done with a blowtorch, he’d not bled to death but had died choking on his own cock, very slowly.”

  “Hau!”

  “Oh, ja, they don’t mess around, and Suzman must have heard that. What they especially hate is any cop who does harm to another cop, no matter what his excuse is.”

  “Then, Lieutenant, perhaps we had better be very sure that we aren’t about to make another big mistake ourselves, not so?” said Zondi, arching an eyebrow. “How strong is our evidence? Maybe Boss Suzman was very fond of these couples he took pictures of, and when they were killed, he became so upse
t he took his pen and—”

  “Ach, no! What’s this? Fairy-tale time?”

  Zondi chuckled. “No, boss, that was a bad joke, but one thing does worry me a bit, and that is—”

  “Hey,” said Kramer, interrupting, “you haven’t told me yet what you found out at the Suzmans’—what was it?”

  “Oh, that a small traveling clock had gone missing over the weekend, which the maid took the blame for, and that Boss Suzman had come back in very dirty clothes last night, which he obviously tried to clean up a bit himself before throwing them in the wash basket.”

  “After you’d sent him arse over tip in the mud at Fynn’s Creek with your bloody awful marksmanship? Ja, that figures! Christ, while I was setting up my little trap yesterday, it was bloody Suzman who kept poking his nose in, wanting to know what was afoot, asking questions and everything! Man, I don’t know how I missed that.”

  “But, boss, to go back to what I was saying, there is still one thing about all this that truly worries me: would Boss Suzman have been clever enough to make a time bomb? And where would he have got dynamite from, without—”

  “Hmmm,” said Kramer, “now that, Mickey, is a bloody good question …”

  “You see, Lieutenant, even if—”

  “Got it!” whooped Kramer, flinging his car door open. “You want to stand amazed and truly mind-boggled? Then just follow me, hey?”

  Trust Hans Terblanche to choose that exact moment to halt Kramer and Zondi in their tracks as they hurried into the police station, by blocking the corridor outside his office with his benign, bumbling presence.

  “Tromp!” he said, with a huge beam. “Really good news, hey? Our friend Stoffel from Mabata will be allowed to leave hospital first thing tomorrow morning! Aren’t the miracles of modern medicine wonderful?”

  “Hans,” said Kramer, “isn’t there a bloody Readers Digest you can bugger off and read somewhere?”

  Terblanche, glancing at Zondi, allowed his hackles to rise visibly. “Ach, Tromp,” he said, “that’s not how I like to be—”

  “No offense intended, Hans, hey? It’s just I haven’t time to waste. Have you got your key to the exhibits cupboard?”

  “Er, ja, here it is, only—”

  Kramer grabbed the key from him and hastened to the end of the corridor, where he had the padlock off before Zondi and Terblanche could reach his side. Then he threw open the cupboard doors and reached in, his right hand confident it knew exactly where to go. It disappeared under a bundle of recovered clothing, felt around, rummaged for only a second or two, then came out again, clutching the brown-paper parcel labeled Umfolosi Quarry Co.

  “But, Lieutenant,” ventured Zondi, with a wary sideways glance at Terblanche, “that label says a dozen sticks, and one look tells me that there are a dozen sticks in—”

  “Just listen, though …” said Kramer. “Bet you they don’t all make the same sound!”

  “Heavens, you’re not going to put a match to—” began Terblanche, stepping back sharply.

  “Relax, Hans, the fireworks are later,” said Kramer.

  Then, one at a time, he tapped each of the twelve paper-wrapped cylinders against one of the cupboard shelves; six produced a dull thud; the rest gave the sharp rap of wood on wood.

  “Look, cut-up broomsticks, Mickey!” said Kramer, stripping the wrapping off a sample of the latter. “Note also, this isn’t proper dynamite paper, man. It’s ordinary brown parcel paper, smeared with something like butter to give it the right greasy, translucent look.” He sniffed at the wrapping and added: “Christ, it is bloody butter—and no watermark!”

  “Six sticks substituted, Lieutenant …” murmured Zondi. “One less than Boss Dorf said were used to blow up the house at Fynn’s Creek.”

  “Ach, nobody’s perfect!” said Kramer.

  Terblanche grunted and said: “What exactly is going on here, hey? How much longer am I going to be kept in the dark?”

  “Listen, Hans,” said Kramer, turning to him, “there’s a lot I’ve got to fill you in on, but first, have you any idea where Sarel Suzman is?”

  “Up at Mabata, of course—I thought I’d told you that.”

  “But he is still there, hey?”

  “Of course!”

  “The point is, man, I need a quick word with old Sarel—in person, that is—only I’d appreciate it if he didn’t know I was on my way up there, okay?”

  “Why?” challenged Terblanche unexpectedly.

  “I’ll also explain that later, once I—”

  “Sorry, that’s not good enough, Lieutenant!” said Terblanche, his voice hardening further, in a way it had never done before. “I also think it’s high time your boy went into Bantu CID, don’t you?—maybe find himself something useful to do there …”

  “You heard, kaffir,” said Kramer.

  34

  TERBLANCHE LED THE way through into his office and motioned for Kramer to be seated. “You know what you’re doing, Tromp?” he said, in a gruff, aggrieved voice, as he sank into the chair behind his desk. “You’re doing to me exactly what Maaties used to do. The more I get to know you, the more I realize how alike you are—but it’s really not nice that.”

  “Me? Like Kritz? Jesus, you can’t be serious, man! I’m not a bloody—”

  “Listen, you’ve been treating me as thicker than that blasted farm boy you’ve got seconded to assist you! But there are limits to my stupidity, of that I can assure you! You want a ‘for instance’?”

  “Hell, if you think—”

  “Point number one,” said Terblanche, pointing with his paper knife, “you asked me for a key to the exhibits cupboard. Such keys are only available to white noncommissioned officers and above, correct? A total of three personnel at Jafini: two sergeants and me. Only we go minus one, because one of those sergeants is now dead, killed by a dynamite bomb. And then we go minus one again, because I know I have had nothing to with taking explosives that never belonged to me. Heavens, man, give me credit for something! Even Hans Terblanche can take two from three and see that the one who’s left, the one who’s got some difficult questions to find the answers to, must be Sarel Suzman! Why not just come straight out with what’s on your mind? Why not treat me the same way you—”

  “Fine, then take a look at these pictures Suzman kept hidden away in his bedroom, Hans,” said Kramer, who really didn’t have time for point number two. “I was about to show them to you anyway …” And he dealt the defaced prints one at a time onto Terblanche’s blotter—all except for the Fourie picture, which he palmed.

  There began a long, crackly silence.

  Terblanche’s hands shook as he lifted each print, looked at it, and then laid it gently aside again, as though trying to make up somehow, in his clumsy way, for the violence they’d been subjected to.

  “No,” he said in a whisper.

  “Ja, Hans,” said Kramer. “It’s hard to accept, man, I know, but it’s true. Do you know who everyone is? I’m stuck regarding the identity of those two couples in the pictures on the left.”

  “These—” began Terblanche, but had to swallow first. “These were good friends of mine from the tennis club at Nkosala. That’s Barry Gardiner and his young wife, Sue; that’s Louise and Pat Simpson, his farm manager.”

  “Oh, ja? Were, you say?”

  “B-Barry had this big sugar farm just above Nkosala, and his own little plane, a four-seater. They—they all died in it, last Christmas, some fault after takeoff. He used to fly in, you see, bringing Pat dressed as Santa Claus, for the kiddies, and say he’d fetched him down from the North Pole. The kiddies all saw the crash, it was terrible! Even the piccanins, watching the party from the fence and asking for cake, they also cried, wept their hearts out. Oh, man!” And now Terblanche was weeping too.

  “Listen,” said Kramer, certain he had heard somewhere it was better for a bloke to be allowed to express his deep feelings than to suppress them, “get up off your fat arse, hey, and help me go get this bloody animal!
”

  Stumbling to his feet, the station commander dragged a forearm across his eyes to wipe his tears away, then jerked open his top desk drawer, fumbled a fifty-round pack of .38 ammunition into his right trouser pocket, followed it with a pair of handcuffs, and shoved two tear-gas grenades into his tunic’s side pockets, before grabbing up a whip, a big torch, and a long truncheon. Then, without looking at Kramer, for his tears had not stopped streaming down, he barged past him, blinking, snatching up the keys to his Land Rover on his way out.

  “Be with you in two seconds, hey?” said Kramer. “First, I’ve got to tell my boy where we’re—”

  “Listen!” said Terblanche, turning abruptly, speaking through clenched teeth. “This has got to be just us. Understood?”

  “You mean—”

  “Just us. You and me only, Tromp!”

  “Fine,” said Kramer, “we ride alone, that’s agreed. You get the Land Rover started …”

  Then he went down the corridor and walked into the Bantu CID office, expecting Zondi to be waiting there impatiently, bursting to hear what had happened after he’d been ordered to remove himself from the corridor.

  “Mickey, are you deaf?”

  Zondi, totally engrossed in a slim docket, looked up and took a second or two before responding. “Hau, sorry, boss!” he said, leaping up out of his chair and thrusting the docket eagerly toward Kramer. “Look, Lieutenant, see what is written here! I saw that notice over there on the notice board and then I found—”

  “What’s this? Has the bastard also been killing off—”

  “No, no, boss—not Boss Suzman. The Bantu male suspect described here sounds like my cousin Matthew Mslope!”