He pushed her away. He was shaking uncontrollably. His face expressed one thing: revulsion.
Before she could ask him again, he was gone-blundering through the bracken, sobbing, cursing, heading straight for the youth behind the tree.
Who never moved.
Until he was caught by the shoulders and hurled to the ground. Jonathan was drawing back his foot for a kick to the groin when something made him so dizzy and nauseated that he staggered three paces and fell over a log.
Seconds later, she came hopping, a thorn in her foot, into the glade. Bibbity-bobbing about like anything. Weeping, too.
“Love me,” she cried. “I’m not different!”
And she threw herself down beside the dim male form and pulled a limp hand to her breast.
Then she felt the rigor of the flesh.
And blood where manhood should be.
“Jonathan!”
“I’m over here,” he gasped, “by the log.”
For her last rational thought, Miss Jones resolved never again to take off her spectacles.
Poor old Penny Jones.
2
Murder was not altogether a bad thing, mused Lieutenant Trompie Kramer of the Trekkersburg Murder Squad. It had its advantages. Every murderer thought as much-even if for only a second split like a tree in a brainstorm. And a surprising number of so-called victims did, too, judging by the way they egged the buggers on.
He throttled hard as his long black Chevrolet sloughed suburbia and joined the dual highway to the country club. He licked up a squelch of tomato sauce for an aperitif before beginning on the hamburger.
Then again, take the rest of the mob: ask them how much they would like to live without murder. Not much. Not at all, once they had thought about it. A man with iron in his soul did a lot for the anemic world most people inhabited; everyone from the pale justices, arranging their pens and pencils like knives and forks, to the pinch- cheeked crones with flasks in the galleries, felt better for being there-while the press boys, ever mindful of the public’s needs, added it to all the other good things in the breakfast cereal spooned up over their words. And when the genuine article was not available, there were always the hundreds of murders committed for profit by writers. Yes, they kept things going, just like those pinups in Antarctic weather stations. So at the expense of one, two, say a family of persons, a large chunk of society was kept either too busy or too content or too both to cause trouble. Something that did all this could not be all bad. No, sir.
But wanton sex killings involving the young were quite another matter. Kramer sucked his sticky fingers and wondered why.
He found a partial answer in recalling the Widow Fourie’s reaction a few minutes earlier to the news of his assignment. He had given it to her straight, with an apology for spoiling their plans. When she withdrew abruptly into herself, he had apologized again. It was then that he noticed she was trying to keep her eyes from the door of the children’s bedroom. And that was his answer: this sort of murder was the one kind that could happen to anyone. You and particularly yours were eligible, maybe not this time but next time, no matter how much care you took to avoid sordid situations, no matter how often you slept with a cop. Just to know there was a homicidal pervert at large was to find yourself perversely cursing the fact you had four fine, attractive kids. Attractive! Man, everything sweet turned bitter when there was an animal in the shadows.
An oncoming vehicle glared before dipping its headlights, reminding Kramer of the way expert witnesses always looked down suddenly whenever he said animal. To hell with them and all that crap about mumsy-love and arsehole fix-whatsits; he knew what he was talking about. Human beings you investigated, animals you had to hunt.
And because he was a detective, not a bloody game ranger, this always niggled. So much-
His foot had jumped from accelerator to brake.
Not a hundred yards ahead a Land-Rover had emerged from behind a tarpaulined bulldozer to make placidly for the center island. At its present speed, with the bulldozer already blocking some of the road, the Chevrolet could take only one line into the next bend and that was straight through the Land-Rover.
These were the discernible facts.
Instantly Kramer confirmed his reflex decision by stamping on the pedal and careering into a tight spin just as the other driver glanced round in surprise at such an intrusion. He was that type. The sort who try to make combustion engines leap for dear life. The Land-Rover stalled. Kramer closed his eyes.
Opening them again in a sudden quiet to find himself at rest, facing the way he had come. It was a relief, too, discovering the Chevrolet had followed him round. Everything seemed intact-especially the bulldozer. Kramer uttered a short, unorthodox prayer.
But the Land-Rover driver did not linger to join him in it. All Kramer got was the registration number from the back plate. Crazy bloody farmer.
Now that, thought Kramer, as he continued up through the wattles to the country club, was what got his goat about sex killings: they were hit-and-run jobs. Time and place were merely coincidental-the only link between the participants was a single, spontaneous act of violence. And so, with no history of emotional interaction to provide the x and y of an equation, his customary reliance on flashes of analytical brilliance became totally inappropriate.
No less inappropriate, in fact, than asking the intimates of someone flattened by a rogue rhino if the deceased had ever quarreled with the beast.
Oh, ja, little wonder game rangers were such an unsophisticated bunch.
Blood in moonlight looks black.
Constable Hendriks had noted this on numerous occasions without ever making up his mind as to whether it contributed greatly to the overall effect. Sometimes it just reminded him of treacle. Other times-possibly because treacle was something you ate-it made him queasy. That was most often when there were flies about to confuse the issue, but thankfully it was long past their bedtime.
As it was his own and presumably that of the kid at his feet.
He yawned.
Then stiffened into an attitude of ostentatious vigilance at the sound of footsteps approaching. They stopped just behind the perimeter of the glade.
“All right, where do you want them?”
“Hey? Who’s there?”
“Sorry, mate, don’t speak the lingo-Station Officer Pringle, fire brigade, with the lights you wanted.”
There were six firemen waiting at a respectful distance with Pringle; two carrying a portable generator, three juggling lamps, and the other draped in coils of heavy-duty flex. All of them trying to get a glimpse of what welcome tragedy had broken the monotony of grass fires and snooker.
“I hear it’s a kiddie,” the shortest fireman said in Afrikaans.
Hendriks shrugged but moved to his side.
“What’s with this redneck?” he asked, hard-eying Pringle. “Another bloody English immigrant?”
“Oh, no, he’s come down from the north. He’s all right.”
Pringle must have recognized the apologetic, having heard it made for him before. He added helpfully, “Uganda.”
“Ja, it’s very bad up there,” Hendriks replied with grave authority-and in English.
Everybody smiled.
There was a pause. Pringle wriggled a finger through his tunic and pajama top to scratch a heat rash. The pair with the generator grew impatient for orders and put it down where they stood. Pringle lifted an eyebrow,
