“Hey, when are you going up to Doringboom?” the Colonel asked a few moments later, cupping a hand over the mouthpiece. “Your old pal’s on the line, wondering if there’s a lift for him available. I thought it wouldn’t be long before he wanted to get his nose in there! You know how Doc is about these matters.”
Kramer frowned; he also knew that Strydom had an official car of his own, which made the request seem rather odd, and that he didn’t like the idea of being tied down to bringing the silly sod back again.
“Tell him I’m sorry, Colonel, but I’m not even waiting for lunch. We’re leaving straight away at one o’clock.”
“Hello, Chris? He’s charging out of my office right now.”
The Colonel listened for a second or two longer, chuckled, and then replaced the receiver with a flourish, thereby regaining Kramer’s undying loyalty and respect.
“All fixed up, Tromp,” he said blithely, flicking the rest of his tobacco juice at the wood paneling behind him. “You’ll find Doc waiting on the corner of Parade and Ladysmith Street on your way round the block. And the next time you try to cut short a briefing with me by saying you’re leaving town at one o’clock sharp, make sure that it isn’t already after bloody ten past.”
A total adjustment, it seemed, had been asking too much.
3
The veld all around them was as parched as an old tennis ball and much the same color. Apart from some thorn scrub, there were no trees except those gathered together for a definite purpose: to shade a tin-roofed homestead, or to provide a trading store with its windbreak. The sort of God’s own country where every farmer began his day with a very deep sigh.
Wearied simply by looking at it, Kramer turned his gaze back on the road ahead. Puddles of mirage water shimmered across the asphalt, putting a wobble into the broken white line, and, a long way off, an oncoming bus glinted like a pinhead in the bright sun, before looming huge. Then the buffet and shake of their passing was over, and a distant Volkswagen entered the lists. Soon it, too, was left cross-eyed behind them, and the one-horse town of Doringboom drew that much closer. Mickey Zondi was driving as he always drove: not as though the Chevrolet were a taut extension of mind and body, but like a man who has given his bolting horse its head, being content to merely rake it in the ribs now and then, Kramer personally found the technique stimulating, yet he could tell-from the awed silence on the back seat-that their passenger thought differently.
“Do you get up this way often, Doc?”
“Er-not what you would call a lot.”
“Then it must be nice for you, hey? Especially when you can just sit back and enjoy the scenery.”
“Very nice,” said Strydom, whose narrowed eyes never left the road. “It was one of the main reasons I asked the favor.”
Not that he’d put forward any other reasons so far, the devious old bastard. He had mumbled something about a radiator and water leaks and then let it trail. However, once you had a few minutes to reflect, it was simple enough to guess his strategy: by actually traveling with the investigating officer, he felt able to gate-crash Myburgh’s morgue party, and no ethical questions asked. That young bloke had better watch himself, or he’d find a paper being poached from right under his nose.
A signpost flashed by: DORINGBOOM 22 KM.
“Look, sir,” murmured Zondi. “This is maybe the place.”
The road had just twitched into a straight and level section that arrowed across a bleak plain, brushing a dark smudge at about the halfway mark, before disappearing into the drifting haze of distant grass fires. And the vulture-eyed bugger was right: in no time at all, the smudge had resolved itself into three concrete picnic tables, a large refuse bin, and half a dozen flat-topped thorn trees-plus a police Land-Rover, parked with its doors left open. Two Khaki-trousered Bantu constables were crouched with a tape measure, while a white constable, in his blue tunic and shorts, made notes on a clipboard. As a roadside attraction, it was too good to be missed.
They came to a sliding halt, waited for their dust to clear, and climbed out. The white constable approached, treating them to a full measure of rustic caution. He was a scrawny lad, knobbly at knee and elbow, and heavily reinforced by the revolver sagging at his side.
“Lieutenant Kramer?”
“That’s right-and this is Dr. Strydom, senior DS.”
“Van Heerden, sir,” said the youngster, shaking hands with the civilian. “Hell, you were quick! When Sarge warned me to get down here and finish my plan, instead of finding those sheep, I didn’t see what the panic was about.”
He had an engaging innocence that wouldn’t get him very far in the force.
“Let’s have a look, then.”
“Please, sir, it’s only in rough. If you will wait a minute, I’ll-”
“Ta,” said Kramer, jerking the clipboard from him. “I see what you mean: lots of nice sums and pretty letters, but no bloody plan begun-let alone finished. You are an idler, aren’t you?”
“Very idle, sir. Only there’s this sheep business to worry me, and the tape’s got no meters, so I’m having to convert. My boys brought the wrong one.”
“So relax,” Kramer grunted, handing the board back.
Then he went over to where the dirt met the tar, and looked to the right and to the left. You could see a considerable distance in either direction, and at night, any approaching vehicle would give at least sixty seconds’ warning before its headlights became effective.
“How about the whatsit itself?” suggested Strydom, who was showing a decided stubbornness regarding precedent.
“Doc, you think of everything.”
“Out of the officer’s way!” barked Van Heerden, bustling through a wide gap between his black assistants. “This is the tree in question, right here. And to be strictly fair, sir, if you give my plan another look, you’ll see that I have called it A.”
The tree called A was the second tallest of the group. It had a very hard, grayish-yellow bark, and supported an umbrella of tiny, dusty leaves, protected from long-vanished giraffes by clusters of big thorns. The trunk, which was roughly the thickness of two telephone poles, rose fairly straight, dodging a few imaginary redcoat shells near the top. There it divided into a spread of twisted spokes, with the stoutest branch going off horizontally, away from the road. And then, because asymmetry was a quirk of all thorn trees, the neat look of the thing had been spoiled by a secondary trunk, sprouting out of the main one at head height, on the other, picnic-spot side.
“Shall I explain, Lieutenant?”
“Uh huh.”
“The deceased was dangling over this exact area where you see the red ants going in and out of their nest. His toes were almost touching, because of the stretch in the neck-it was terrible. So, as you can see, the rope went up and over that biggest branch, and down to where it was tied on the main part.”
“Just hold on,” Strydom interrupted, his head tipped back. “How could he have got it over a branch as high as that? He couldn’t have thrown it, with all the rest of the sticks in the way.”
“That was also a bloody long tow rope,” Kramer added.
“Not really, sir; usual double-length. Can I show you?”
“You’re about the right size.”
Grinning, Van Heerden went around to the far side of the tree and sprang onto a large boulder. He reached up, took a grip on the offshoot from the main trunk, and hauled himself into the air. Then he slipped his foot into the fork, swung round and stood triumphant, with his underpants showing.
“Very clever, Van. You worked that all out for yourself?”
“Didn’t have to, Lieutenant. This is where the end of the rope was tied, after he’d dropped the noose part over the branch. In line here with my face, when I’m upright, you see. Actually, it was Sergeant Arnot who said how obvious it was, when we were undoing the knot this morning.”
There he went again; no idea of tact at all.