“I disagree,” Strydom said huffily.
“Well, something like that. Can’t guess any better until we know where he’s been the last three months. Probably got up the nose of a Jo’burg mob.”
“I’m objecting to you treating this fracture as a fluke, Lieutenant. Hell, the flukes themselves are rare enough, without hoods and metal rings and God knows what else. Do you want me to prove that to you?”
The Colonel was scrutinizing his ceiling, where he had a favorite lizard that caught flies for him. But the hour was late and it had probably left the office.
“Just give me an outline to be going on with,” he told Kramer, “as you’re too bloody shagged out to talk any proper sense this evening. So let’s stop psychoanalyzing Doc’s little obsession and concentrate on what action you’re taking.”
“Firstly, sir, I don’t want this getting to the press before we understand it better. You can see the effect it’s had on a supposedly mature-”
“Consider that done.”
“Ta. I’ve already handed the firearms over to Ballistics, and they’re sending specifications to every gun squad from here to Cape Town. Not much of a lead, I admit.”
“Worth trying.”
“The usual forensic checks are going ahead on Erasmus’s clothing, vehicle, and so on. Also the hood we found.”
“Good.”
“We were too late to dust the car for fingerprints-Arnot’s mob had already been through it. I get the Bible back in the morning-nothing on it so far, except Erasmus’s own-and we’ll see where that takes us.”
“You never can tell.”
“Lead kindly light, sir?”
“Trompie,” admonished the Colonel, a full elder of the Dutch Reformed Church, who wore a black frock coat and white bow tie on Sundays, “you mustn’t think being shagged out is any excuse for that kind of behavior! Now push off home, you hear?”
“One other thing: I’ve put out a description of Erasmus as a reminder to those in the big cities who didn’t think this was a matter which concerned them. I bet you he was in Jo’burg the whole time, getting himself a nice tan at Zoo Lake, right under their bloody noses.”
“Tomorrow, man. When you can also get all excited about what this same playboy was doing twenty kilometers south of Doringboom.”
The man had a point there.
Kramer rose from the corner of the desk and started to leave.
“Oh, by the way, Tromp.…”
“Colonel?”
“I believe you and the DS had a little chat together this afternoon.”
“Did we, sir?” Kramer said, suddenly having had a stomachful of devious old bastards.
“I fully realize it was confidential,” Colonel Muller added hastily, as though the last thing he’d think of would be to pry, “but I just wondered.”
“Uh huh?”
“Well, how it had gone down.”
“Like a glass of cold puke, sir.”
It didn’t seem possible that a final touch had still to be put to that day, but Kramer, who’d seen two sunsets and no sleep, should have known better.
He should also have been paying more attention to Zondi’s droll account of the afternoon’s adventures, because just after taking the turnoff to Kwela Village, he was aware of having missed a bit somewhere.
“Go back to not knowing how to catch them,” he said, flicking away a half-smoked cigarette.
“That was easy, boss. You remember what I said about the excited state of these kids? All I had to do was to lie very still. Soon they came crawling to see what the matter is this time, and they come right up close to hear if I am breathing. Pah! Two hands, two kids! The rest run like-”
“You mean little sod. Thought you were too damn perky for a ten-kilometer round trip.”
“They are happy, boss. By the way, twenty cents on expenses?”
“Fine.”
“You know that bacon?”
“Don’t tell me: Ngidi scoffed it.”
“No, the sergeant”-Zondi laughed-“while Ngidi was chasing the kids.”
This made a good note to end on. Kramer just added that he didn’t want Zondi under his feet until at least the following afternoon, and then they drove in silence toward the smoky spread of the municipal township. Almost in the center of the serried rows of two-room dwellings, all as neatly placed as a thousand bureaucratic rubbers, the Chev stopped at one distinguished by a pathway edged in rusty cans. Zondi waved his thanks, and the Chev, which knew what to do, rumbled off down the corrugated dirt road and found the quickest way to Blue Haze.
Kramer had bought the old farmhouse, with its meter-thick shale walls and wraparound verandah, to put in his will. Pending the implementation of this will, he rented the property, at the cost of a Trekkersburg apartment, to the ultimate beneficiary, the Widow Fourie, and her family of young children. It was really a very uncomplicated arrangement, which allowed him to pursue his chosen career without any thought of irresponsibility, and to be able to sleep the odd night in the country when the mood took him. As it had, against his better judgment, done now.
But the children’s lights were out by the time the Chev finally nosed into the driveway and came crunching to a stop outside the front door. And the Widow Fourie, whose ample mind and body had drawn Kramer there, came out alone to greet him, tying back her yellow hair.
“You caught me just going to wash it,” she scolded, her kiss pleased and quick. “So what’s been happening in the world I haven’t heard about?”
“Ach, would you believe a state execution?”
“Big deal,” said the Widow Fourie. “It’s Tuesday, isn’t it?”
6
There are dreams that can affect the whole of a man’s working day. In the case of a very sweet dream, or of a positively terrible one, its influence can extend over a period far greater than that. Such a dream is, generally speaking, best not dreamed at all.
This had always been Kramer’s belief, and it was why he was trying to get back to sleep again, the sooner to expunge all traces of the girl with long legs. Then again, to dream of one female, and to wake up in the bed of another, could leave a bloke feeling guilty for no good reason at all. But he remained dozing, remembering her now only in patches of sharp, scented detail: the neat knob of a wristbone, sweat pearled in the cup above her breastbone, the muss of honey wisps, a nipple swelling from pink raisin to grape, and the pinch of those long legs, straddling him, turning him over and over, and her laughter. So simple, so uncomplicated, so greedy it shocked him, made him greedy as well. Her crazy joy in him.
“Hey,” said the Widow Fourie, whose warm back smoothed his belly, “what’s the point, when Joanna will be in with the tea soon?”
He rolled away and looked down at the polished floorboards, noticing where the original owner’s great stinkwood bed had left the impression of a caster; what a hell of a nightly battering it must have withstood to do that. Then this gratuitous lewdness disgusted him, and he went to take a bath.
The Widow Fourie wandered in a few minutes later, carrying the tea tray, and bringing her cigarettes with her. Like Strydom, she often complained about getting in five minutes of proper conversation, and this had long been her little trick. She knew, of course, that the door would never be bolted.
“How are you this morning?” she asked, settling on the lavatory lid, which she’d prettified with blue lace.
