Nielsen. We appreciated it.”
He stepped backwards onto Zondi’s foot.
But the protest was never made. At that instant Nielsen uttered a strange whoop.
“Just look at what I’ve found!”
“Oh, yes?”
Reluctant, yet curious, Kramer joined Nielsen on a stump beside the wattle nearest to the tree with a fork in it. Across a branch in front of them, which was just low enough for a man to touch with his fingertips from the ground, ran a long, deep cut that went quite a way into the bark on either side.
“What on earth would leave a mark like that one, though?” Nielsen asked, bemused.
“A sickle?”
“That fits the bill exactly! Why did…?”
“The killer used one. Any blood? Hair?”
“No, not a suggestion; just a greenish smear where it bisected our small friend.”
The gash was right in the middle of the gap in a straggling line of newly hatched caterpillars.
“I know what,” said Kramer. “He just hung it up here while he had his hands full with other matters.”
“Simplicity itself, Lieutenant. I do the same with tools when I’m gardening; keeps them out of the children’s reach.”
You could see, a second later, Nielsen wished he had not said quite that.
“Every little helps,” Kramer said, jumping to the ground. “Now we really must be off, man.”
Nielsen chuckled.
“You surprise me, Lieutenant.”
“Why’s that?”
“Are you usually happy with just half a body?”
“Hey?”
Zondi stepped forward and bent down to examine the area under the branch.
“You won’t find it there, boy,” Nielsen said. “I had a good quiz over the whole area when I found the first piece. That’s why I was checking on the time the ants took to move such a weight.”
“You think they were coming back for more this time?”
“It’s a possibility. Shall we explore a little?”
Zondi, who was standing behind Nielsen, grinned heartlessly. He was thoroughly enjoying such an uncharacteristic display of restraint on Kramer’s part. He knew it hurt.
“Why not?” Kramer replied, shrugging. He would deal with Zondi later.
“What we’re after is their nest,” Nielsen explained confidentially. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to find as they try to travel in a straight line when they’re lugging a load. Now this is the way they were heading…”
Kramer followed him into the brambles a short distance.
“And here’s a nest of them! Boy, bring me my bag, will you?”
Zondi slouched up with the haversack. Nielsen took from it a small trowel and began to dig. Furious ants poured out of the ground and pumped formic acid into anything soft. It was all very uncomfortable-yet obviously unscientific, let alone unmanly, to shift your position.
Finally, Nielsen held up a lump of earth resembling a gritty bath sponge.
“Their food store,” he said, breaking it open gently. Out of the holes dropped a weblike cocoon. Nielsen peeled off the white covering.
“And here we have the rest of the caterpillar-the two halves match up precisely.”
“What’s the stuff around it?”
“The ants’ way of preserving it for later.”
“I see.”
Nielsen shook his head solemnly.
“I’m not sure you do. Wrapping up their bits and pieces takes quite some time. Also, these ants never forage after dark. Therefore, according to my calculations, they must have got hold of it yesterday morning.”
“Morning?”
“No later than lunchtime, I’m afraid.”
The implication sank into Kramer like a depth charge. At first nothing happened as it moved down through the warm superficialities of a sunny day and fairly companionable intercourse. Then it entered the colder layers of his mind where, finding its critical level, it exploded-buckling the plates of a watertight assumption and bringing confusion to the surface.
“But-but that means the killer was here long before… It was…”
“Premeditated.”
“Right!” Zondi stepped in a pace. There was not a sound in the forest. No wind. Silence.
“I thought you said this species of murderer acted spontaneously,” Nielsen queried.
“I did.”
“And that, particularly with child victims, it was a case of their meeting up with a stranger quite by chance?”
“Yes.”
“Yet the boy must have arranged to be here last night, in this one glade out of hundreds like it all around. How else could the murderer have known where to leave the sickle handy?”
Kramer was ordering his own thoughts.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” he said at last, sitting down on a boulder. Nielsen lit the cigarette for him.
“Never mind, you’re not the only one to have a pet theory upset by the facts, Lieutenant. They’ve cost me my doctorate once already.”
“Hey? I meant wrong in applying the bloody thing in the first place.”
“But the mutilations! No ordinary murderer goes in for that sort of thing, surely.”
The cigarette was handed over for Zondi to take a light. Kramer retrieved it before replying.
“Unless, of course, he’s a very smart cookie. How’s that for a theory? The facts fit it all right.”
“Good God!”
Nielsen sat down, too, on the other rock.
“Are you actually suggesting that whoever’s involved is not necessarily a pervert?”
“I’m sure of it.”
This intuitive leap was too much for strictly disciplined thought processes: it plainly annoyed Nielsen.
“Oh, come on. Wouldn’t you expect to have found at least some sign of squeamishness? I might be driven to kill, but I doubt if I could go in for-you know, that sort of disgusting behavior.”
“What sort? All he did was strangle the kid and stab him. Stabbing is stabbing, whatever part you do it in. He just got the effect he was after by going for the crotch-and there are a lot more disgusting things he could have done than that, man.”
“You’re forgetting the legs, aren’t you? I thought it looked like a frenzied attack.”
“That was before, while we were seeing what we thought we saw. Now I’d say the lack of any proper pattern in the wounds shows he could have tried to do it with his head turned away.”
“Because he was squeamish? Well, maybe.”
“There’s the time factor as well, remember. The body was carefully positioned and he made quite sure nothing incriminating was left behind. You can’t tell me he was in such a hurry that he had to skip a part of his plans-there is no evidence of any sexual interference, besides the wounds.”
“Then the whole thing’s a fake!”
“Except for the fact, Mr. Nielsen, that the victim is genuinely dead.”
Nielsen stared at Kramer and Kramer stared at Zondi and Zondi looked from one to the other.
Sex had been such an acceptable motive for child murder-yet any alternative was bound to prove twice as engaging.
“You’re right,” said Kramer, “it is a lovely morning.”
