letting it go after a moment’s mature consideration.
“And why not?” he said. “Us lads were told not to get too close because of footprints et cetera. Shall we string the floods round the trees here?”
“Fine. Need a hand?”
“Manage best on our own, thanks. Carry on, Viljoen.”
“Sir.”
“I’ll just prime the generator meantime,” Pringle said. And as he did so, he explained to Hendriks that his hometown was Margate. Hendriks said that Margate was not bad but the shark nets cramped his style. Pringle explained that his Margate was the other Margate although, of course, the one on the Indian Ocean was by far the prettier. Hendriks said that he preferred Umkomaas for his holidays anyway.
It was not much of a conversation, still less a dialogue, but it succeeded in establishing an air of professional nonchalance. Mutual respect grew apace.
In under five minutes the lamps were secured to the trees and connected to the generator. Pringle yanked on the starting lanyard and the small engine took first time, startling a wood pigeon out of the branches overhead with a loud clatter of wings. When Hendriks and the others, who all looked up at the noise, brought their gaze back to the glade, they gave a little gasp like children at a pantomime when the curtain rises.
First, a slow fade up on the fairy grotto, as the generator’s coil worked up to maximum revolutions, and then each twig, leaf, and stalk of grass was finally revealed with a vivid, artificial brittleness against the black flats of the deep forest. All wire and paper and paint, it looked. The lights pulsed to the quick beat of the two-stroke, investing the unreality of the scene with a flickering life of its own.
And in the center sprawled a naked fairy. It had to be a fairy because, as everyone there could see, it was sexless.
If only very recently so.
Kramer found Sergeant Bokkie Kritzinger waiting for him in the car park at the country club, indulging in an unseemly personal eccentricity.
“Still chewing it then, Bokkie?”
The big fellow spat out the end of his tie.
“Sir? Just feeling a bit jumpy, that’s all.”
“But why come outside?”
“I wanted a word with you before you saw them-there’s something really funny going on.”
“Who’s this you’re talking about?”
“That boy and girl who say they found the kid. They’ve got blood on them.”
“So you said over the phone.”
“I don’t just mean the hands now. I’ve had a better look-it’s underneath.”
“What?”
“Their clothes.”
“But-”
“On their bodies, sir!”
Kramer reached out and tucked the damp tip of Bokkie’s tie into the bulging blue shirt front. The sergeant grinned, hiding fists behind his back.
“In there you mean, Bokkie?”
“Sir.”
“Then we’d better start again with their story. Here, we can sit in this thing.”
They filled the front seat of the fire department’s emergency tender. Kramer lit up a Lucky Strike and found the multipurpose contraption had everything save an ashtray for his match.
“Well, sir, it’s the same as before really. The bloke is a Transvaal junior tennis champion by the name of Jonathan Rogers. Age seventeen, last year at school, and English-speaking. The girl’s Penelope Jones, sixteen years of age, doing her matric, and she comes from over Greenside way.”
“What have they said happened?”
“The boy claims he left the dance-a Trekkersburg Tennis Club do for the visiting teams-at approximately eleven. He and the girl wanted to look at the city at night.”
“From inside a plantation?”
“His story, sir. Anyway, I asked him the same question and he said he thought there was a little hill down there where you went for the lights.”
“ Uhuh.”
“They were going along when they saw this boy who seemed to be watching them. He had his head in the fork of a tree, like so, with his arms out either side and sort of leaning on it.”
“And then?”
“Rogers says he asked the boy what he was doing there. When the boy didn’t say anything, did nothing, they went up to him. They then thought he’d slid down the tree and got caught in it. That he was hurt. Rogers says they tried to lift him off and he toppled backwards on top of them and they fell underneath. That’s when they realized he-”
“Took them long enough!”
“What I thought, sir.”
“Blood?”
“Plenty.”
“And how long do you think the boy’s been dead?”
“He was still pretty warm when I got there around midnight.”
“I see. And what does the girl have to say?”
“Nothing.”
“Hey?”
“Shocked out of her mind. In the club secretary’s office just sitting. You can’t get her to open her mouth. When she looks at you, your arse goes tight. I tell you there’s something bloody weird about all this, sir. That’s why I’ve kept her father away so far.”
“Good man. Who’s with her now-and the boy?”
“Constable Williams. He’s having a hell of a job keeping them out.”
“Who?”
“The secretary, Pipson; Mr. Jones, the father; and the Transvaal coach, Freddie Harris.”
“What the hell?”
“Really doing his nut, this Freddie. Says his chances of the singles championship are ruined-doesn’t think the rest of the team will be up to much in the morning either; all too upset.”
“Bugger me, and there’s a kid… Any identification yet?”
“Central are looking after that; nothing so far. I’ve asked for the dogs and the extra men and everything, like you said. The district surgeon is on his way now.”
“ Uhuh. What about the rest of the dance?”
“All gone home or back in their hotels.”
“Good.”
“Do you agree there’s some…?”
“Look, Bokkie, I never agree until I have facts that agree. Maybe there is something strange, maybe not. You go back and keep those two quiet and I’ll take a look-see in the trees. I can hear they’ve got the lighting going.”
With the sigh of the subordinate who is so often right yet never heeded by his superiors, Bokkie slid off the seat and landed heavily on the tarmac. He paused to hitch his button-down holster round to its correct position.
“Bokkie,” Kramer murmured, “has it perhaps not occurred to you it might be her blood?”
As the father of two preadolescent girls, Sergeant Kritzinger understandably appeared shocked.
It was true, the body was warm to the touch. Very warm although several hours must have passed for blood to congeal like that. Most peculiar.
Kramer rubbed his fingers in the sand and stood up.
