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  “Good morning, my boss,” said a voice right behind him.

  Turning, he saw one of the Bantu constables there, nervously thumbing the switch on his torch.

  “Name?”

  “Mkize.”

  “Well, where’s Sergeant Zondi, Mkize?”

  “Gone.”

  “What?”

  “Gone away, my boss, I think to the reserves.”

  “How? My car’s still outside there.”

  “I—I don’t know properly, my boss.”

  “But on whose orders, man? You Kaffirs just can’t do what you like, you know! Who said he could go?”

  “Actually, I told him to go, Lieutenant Kramer,” said a side of pork appearing in the doorway.

  “Who the—” Kramer just stopped himself.

  “Go, boy,” the stranger sighed to the Bantu constable, waiting until he had hurried off.

  “You were saying?”

  This was pork with menaces, no doubt of it.

  “I want to know who the hell you are and what the hell you think you’re doing.”

  “No need to get so mad, man. I’m Lieutenant Scott.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  That last phrase snapped the stem of Kramer’s most florid expletive. He stood speechless, staring at the other officer, noting that he was pink and fatty and unclean under the arms. It was amazing how accurate an assessment he had made in that first split second in the half dark. It was equally amazing how determined his mind was to fight shy of assessing just what was going on.

  “I’ve got some coffee in the house. What do you say to us two getting together there and sorting this thing out?”

  Kramer made no reply but led the way back into the bungalow through the front door. The coffee was on the desk in the study, a big pot of it and two mugs.

  “With milk?”

  “Without.”

  Scott lifted the heavy pot and poured without a tremor. This made Kramer realize he had better ease off on the tension or find himself at a disadvantage.

  “Scott, you say? CID?”

  “That’s right, but not in this division. Been seconded from Southwest for a couple of months.”

  No wonder Kramer had never heard of the bastard. The Southwest was about as far as you could get from Trekkersburg and still be in the Republic.

  “Too much desert?”

  “Too much bloody everything out there. Real reason’s I needed some experience in towns.”

  “Still, thought somebody might have told me.”

  “Only just arrived this morning. Usual bugger-up; nobody knew I was coming, not even your colonel.”

  “Muller?”

  “Du Plessis.”

  “So he was already in charge when you got here?”

  “What do you mean—er—”

  “Tromp. Tromp Kramer. Yours?”

  “John.”

  On first-name terms already; not bad going, considering the way Kramer felt. Now to get at the guts of the matter.

  “First night and they set you to work, John? You must be a bit pissed off.”

  “Don’t mind. Don’t know anyone; barracks aren’t up to much. Mind you, I’ll find myself a cheap place in a hotel soon as I’m able.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “No, the way it happened was this, see? The Colonel called me up to his office around eleven and said that he had a senior officer with his hands full. White bloke murdered and another dead in a car crash, suspicious circumstances.”

  “Didn’t know he cared.”

  “Oh, yes. Said it was Christmas and he didn’t want you too tied up. Also said this murder here seemed pretty straightforward and your boy could probably handle it on his own, seeing it’s a Bantu matter.”

  Isn’t that presuming a bit much?”

  “Well, isn’t it Bantu?”

  Kramer shrugged.

  “And your boy is not bad, the Colonel tells me.”

  “True.”

  “There you are then. Simple.”

  Yes, it was simple. Straightforward, like the man said. Nothing to get all worked up about. Yet.…

  “I see, John. So you’ve taken over from me, in other words. Pity nobody—”

  “They couldn’t get hold of you.”

  “No? So what are your plans?”

  “None. I’ve had the kitchen cleaned up, I’ve seen that Swart’s fiancee has been informed—did it by phone, got the Cape Town boys to go round. Lucky she was on night duty.”

  “And what else?”

  “Nothing else. Zondi seems to know what he’s doing. Got the home address of the servant and pushed off to find him.”

  “On foot? How far is it?”

  Scott laughed, motioning Kramer to be seated, too.

  “Hell no. He lives in northern Natal, Robert’s Halt. I was told to hand over the car they gave me and keep the other for you.”

  Kramer sat down and put his feet back on the blotter. Actually, once you got over his appearance, and natural distrust of an Afrikaner with an English name, this Scott bloke seemed all right. Not so much pork as pawn, he decided.

  “Family?” asked Scott.

  “Me? No, why?”

  “Christmas Day tomorrow. Just wondered what you’d be doing.”

  “Nothing special. Got this accident case, of course, but nobody’s going to be much help until the twenty-seventh.”

  “I know. Local lab have already told me they don’t want to know about this one till then. I could send the stuff down to Durban, I suppose. Maybe we could have a few drinks?”

  “Maybe,” Kramer replied, looking very hard at the blotter to the right of his shoes. He was certain that something had been lying there earlier that had since disappeared. Then he glanced up at the bookshelves; they had seemed very neat and orderly before, and he knew Van der Poel had not touched any of the volumes. Casually he pulled open the bottom left drawer and saw a paper clip lying on a Catholic Truth Society pamphlet.

  “You’ve been digging around in this room?” he asked Scott.

  “Thought you’d done the job for me, Tromp.”

  “Ah, so they told you. Just didn’t want you to have extra work.”

  “Thanks, man. You’re going now?”

  “Just for a pee,” Kramer replied, clowning a stiff-legged walk for a couple of paces.

  In the bathroom along the passage he opened the medicine cabinet and found what he wanted. He used the lavatory, dallied a moment at the kitchen door, and then rejoined Scott.

  “Somebody made a good job of cleaning up in there,” he said affably. “Best when they bleed on lino; carpet has to be chucked away. Who did it?”

  “Local station sent a boy over.”

  So the Bantu constables had not left their posts. He would have to take the matter further.

  “Think I’ll get a bit of shut-eye, John.”

  “Here?”

  “Good as any this time of day. How about you?”

  “Seems a good idea. Okay.”

  “Get a boy to wake me at six when they change over, all right?”

  “Fine, Tromp. Me, I’ll find myself a proper bed.”

  Scott left Kramer alone and very soon he was, contrary to his expectations, sound asleep.

  Several times a check was made on this.

  At ten past six, without seeing Scott again, Kramer took his leave of 44 Sunderland Avenue and drove, not back into town, but toward Skaapvlei police station. In under a mile he sighted his quarry and cut him off.

  The Bantu constable reared his bicycle up over the curb, wobbled wildly, caught his balance, and stopped. He was a very startled man. And that made a good beginning.

  Kramer swung open his passenger door and called, “Get in—I have something for you.”

  The constable got in, seating himself on the extreme off side of the car, like a virgin at a drive-in.

  “This,” said Kramer, holding out a pill. “You swallow that for me.”

  Which put the constable in a dilemma, but Kramer�
�s rank, skin, and expression reduced his degree of choice. He gulped the aspirin down, swallowing hard because his mouth must have gone very dry.

  “It is medicine, my boss?”

  “No, it is magic.”

  “Yebobo!”

  “A special magic that will kill your seed.”

  The constable, shocked to the core, jabbered in Zulu and Kramer recognized the word for “sterile,” which he had been trying to remember.

  “That’s right, you’ve got the picture. Only this can’t happen if you tell me the truth, old son.”

  “My—my boss?”

  “Tell me the truth and never tell anyone I spoke with you.”

  The constable nodded. Anything, anything to preserve the family line.

  “Then who has been in that house tonight since I left it? Zondi?”

  “No, he never go inside. He go away like I say before.”

  “The other lieutenant?”

  “Just him, my boss. No other new ones came.”

  “Sure?”

  “Mkize tells truth, cross my heart.”

  “The back door was locked, wasn’t it?”

  “No key for it.”

  “Right. Off you go then; you did your job well.”

  The Bantu constable scrambled out and regained the safety of the sidewalk.

  “Oh, one other thing, Mkize—may they never fall off.”

  With which Kramer accelerated away and made for home. It had been a dirty trick to play on the wog, but by going for the Zulu’s most vulnerable spot he had made sure of the truth.

  When he had left the house with Strydom, everyone—Fingerprints, photographers, the lot—had already been and gone. Zondi had not gone back in. This meant that Scott had been lying through his teeth when he denied making a search in the study.

  What this, in turn, actually signified was now the important thing. Kramer thought very carefully and long, finally coming up with what had to be the answer: the bastards really were out to get him, and Zondi, too.

  Colonel Du Plessis had separated them by picking on the only other death going to preoccupy Kramer, and then cleverly substituting an officer of equal rank in his place. The fact that praise had been poured on Zondi indicated the devilment of their plans. Plans that had two objectives, and either way they had to win. Plan A was to cause aggravation by splitting the team, hoping the wog, left so much on his own, would mess things up. Plan B was to have Scott see if he could not find another solution to the killing—one which Kramer and Zondi had not supposed existed.

  He could just picture the scene when Colonel Muller returned and was handed the Swart report.

  Plan A: After all, they would say, if Kramer was willing to have Zondi do so much of the investigating, so were we—the lieutenant is highly respected. We saw no reason to alter the arrangements, although now we know our confidence was unfounded.

  Plan B: Well, it seems Zondi decided it was the Bantu domestic, sir—maybe that’s why Lieutenant Kramer slipped up in the house. It was just as well Lieutenant Scott took over when he did, or we’d never have found out. Of course you must be disappointed, Colonel Muller, but some of us have been wondering about those two. You know what we mean?

  Either way they had to win—providing, however, something did go wrong. For the first time in years, Kramer found himself carefully appraising Zondi’s capabilities, testing—with complete honesty—how much confidence he had in the man; after all, both their careers depended upon it. But Zondi was not found wanting, and Kramer felt sure he would make it to Robert’s Halt and do the necessary without any trouble. Which shifted the onus to himself. Granted his examination of the house had not been exhaustive, yet the case hardly demanded it should be: open and shut was the expression he wanted. Granted he might have gone over the study more carefully; but Scott had done so, and was still loafing about, and this indicated nothing had come up. No, the likelihood of Plan B ever bearing fruit was very slight.

  So back to Plan A and a counterplan. If Zondi was going to come unstuck because his boss was not around, then the absurd reason for his absence could, with a little help, be made twice as absurd. And absurdity was something that got Colonel Muller’s goat but good.

  “I shall go to absurd, but absurd, lengths,” vowed Kramer aloud to himself, finding a cafe at which to have breakfast. “Ach, man, but the mind will bloody boggle!”

  His mind would, ultimately.

  4

  BREAKFAST COMPRISED AN entire packet of streaky bacon, a loaf of fresh white bread, and a family-size bottle of strawberry pop, consumed with gusto at the side of the national road north. Zondi was uncertain what his day would bring, and anxious to ensure missed meals would not trouble him. He would have lit a fire for the meat, but farmers could be trigger happy at this time of year.

  To be sure, the grass was very dry, and one ember could easily have the low hills of grazing swept black in minutes. A bleak, blond land, with scattered thornbush making smudges of dull green like white women’s eyeshadow, and bare patches of earth the pinky red of their sunburn. A hard land, too, that gave nothing for nothing. A good place for puff adders and lizards and the shrikes that hung their prey on the barbed-wire fences.

  His watch had stopped and the car had no radio. But judging by the sun, it was still before eight. Plenty of time to smoke a Stuyvesant and take another look at the map. At least the car, a beaten-up Anglia, had this much that was useful in it.

  Zondi had about another ten kilometers to do on the tar, then he turned right and carried on along a district road—its number was illegible. Five kilometers of this, then a turning left past a mission. Then, only two kilometers beyond that, the trading store and small hamlet of Robert’s Halt.

  He was thankful not to be in a hurry once the corrugations of the dirt road, regular as those in a washboard, began to drum beneath four very doubtful tires. There were also potholes big enough to swallow a wheel and sharp stones that clattered like hail on the car’s underside. The dust, however, was the worst of the lot, making short work of the ill-fitting doors and covering everything. But he was glad to be in a car and not, as long ago, on the seat of a donkey cart beside his father. Then the stones had been the worst as passing vehicles shotgunned them up at you. Once he had been bit on the ear—which was better luck than the donkey had met with on another occasion, when it lost an eye.

  Through a line of gums and wattles on the left appeared several whitewashed concrete-block buildings dominated by a tinroofed church. From the size of the cross above it, Zondi guessed Roman Catholic and then saw a sign that read: “St. Bernard’s Mission School and Hospital.” It seemed strangely deserted for a school, although the pupils could still be in assembly. Which did not, however, account for the fact that no patients were visible, and that was odd. Still, none of this was any of his business—that lay not a kilometer away over the ridge.

  The Anglia churned its way up, spending a nasty ten seconds with its inside wheels deep in a rut, then topped the rise and slithered to a halt. In the valley below was Robert’s Halt, hidden in among more gums and wattles. This happened to suit Zondi’s purpose perfectly, for he had decided that a slow, deceptively casual stroll up to Shabalala’s side would be preferable to a hard sprint after him.

  He took the car off the road and locked it. Then he pulled his old trick of turning his jacket inside out—which was what most rustics did, being very taken with the shiny satin lining—and checked his shoulder holster for snags. All set.

  It was a good day for walking, not nearly as hot as the previous one, and the air in the valley very clear. Zondi first watched swifts swallowing insects in the sky, then looked to see what quality of cattle grazed the slopes around. He saw none. He listened for the zipping whistles of the herd boys keeping their charges together on dipping day, but heard none.

  He stopped. This place was indeed very peculiar. If an ache in his body had not persisted to remind him of how he had spent the night, he would have cursed himself for drinking too m
uch. Even so, had he sunk an oil drum of Moses Makatini’s moonshine, Robert’s Halt would still have seemed unreal.

  There was nothing tangible he could deduce from his observations, but they bred caution within him. So he found a cross country route to the trading store which would allow him to approach unnoticed—the path was so overgrown he had little chance of meeting anyone else on it, either.

  As he descended toward the river, Zondi began to hear sounds as confusing as everything else: dull thuds and scraping and the squeal of metal, yet no voices. By then he should have been close enough to hear even a child laugh.

  The branches thinned and he saw Robert’s Halt across the river—and a sight quite extraordinary. The place was surrounded by policemen, the whites armed with sten guns and the Africans with spears. Their riot vans unfortunately blocked off a proper view of what was going on beyond them.

  Zondi cursed. Cursed and swore because he had been given a car without a radio. There must have been sudden, dramatic developments in the case he was unaware of.

  As he continued walking toward the hamlet, his mind struggled with conjecture, tried to think of what possible reason there could be for such a turnout. Even if Shabalala had taken a gun from Swart’s home, and was expected to resist arrest, six men at the most would have been sufficient for the job.

  The thuds and squeals ceased.

  Zondi checked his step, slipping behind an aloe to see what happened next. There was the sound of an engine starting up and then, from behind the riot vans, came a truck piled high with villagers and their property.

  What an idiot he had been: it was an eviction. An ordinary Black Spot eviction, one of hundreds, an everyday event—and he had allowed his imagination to distort his vision. Of course there were thuds when furniture was loaded on a truck; naturally there were noises when valuable roof sheeting was stripped off to be removed as well; obviously it was not a time for talk, nor for children to laugh. As for the cordon of police, that was standard procedure to prevent any stupidity.

  A bulldozer roared into raucous life and emerged from the scrub to flatten the vacated homes. It waited, however, for three other trucks to carry away the last of the people. They forded the river close to where Zondi stood and he could see no men among them, except for the very old. Certainly nobody resembling the description he had been given of Shabalala.