“That used to be the way,” agreed Dorf. “But people are a bit jittery now that such a theft could have political implications—I’m sure you’d have heard if this little lot had been stolen locally.”
“Then we’d best request Pretoria for reports of stolen dynamite nationally,” said Kramer. “Next?”
Dorf pointed to the three cigarette lighters. “Two of those have lighter fluid in them,” he said. “The remaining one, which your Bantu CID sergeant found near that line of bushes directly behind the detonation point, contains plain petrol. The conclusion I draw is that these two were filled from this can of lighter fuel, recovered from Square F23 on my grid, and thus the property of the householders, while the
third
lighter could have been dropped by the killer—anyone recognize it?”
There was a general shaking of heads.
“Ach, come on, tell us about the time bomb,” demanded Terblanche. “First of all,
was
it one?”
Dorf nodded, pointing to the small cardboard box. “Ja, I think we can call that more than a reasonable assumption, Lieutenant. Detonated by this little alarm clock here—the traveling variety, to go by the reduced size of its components.
We have yet to find the case, but I’m sure it can’t be very far away. Those wires and the battery were obviously part of the same crude setup. Maximum setting, a twelve-hour period.”
Terblanche frowned. “But what proof have you,” he asked, “that the spring and the rest of the stuff weren’t from a traveling clock owned by the deceased and her husband? I—”
“These items were embedded in the mud
below
the blast,” explained Dorf. “Not only that, the various parts show not the slightest sign of corrosion, which indicates they can’t have been exposed to the sea air for long. Contrast them with these parts from a clock that must have once stood in their—”
“Be that as it may,” said Terblanche, “it still looks to me as though you assume too much from too little, man—no offense intended!”
“But that’s my point, Lieutenant,” said Dorf. “There
is
so little, even after a most intensive search, that I can be virtually certain the alarm clock could not have been modified, for instance, to give a time delay in excess of—”
“Ach, I give up!” muttered Terblanche, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I’m going to see how Cassius is getting on, Tromp—okay?”
And with that, he stumped off.
“Hope it wasn’t me that upset him,” said Dorf.
“It was the time factor,” said Kramer, lighting up a Lucky. “You’re one hundred percent certain the bomb could not have been activated any earlier? We have a possible suspect, you see, who could have done it at about eleven but not later.”
“What did I tell you, hey?” Malan whispered to Suzman. “
That’s
why they went to the reserve! Gillets is obviously their number one—”
“Malan!” barked Kramer. “Forgotten my warning?”
“Sorry, Lieutenant! I’m really sorry, hey?”
Then Dorf spoke, reclaiming everyone’s attention. “No, Lieutenant, nobody can be one hundred percent sure of
anything in this world. Very early this morning, in another place, I lost a colleague who forgot that and clipped the wrong wire without first tracing its path properly. Therefore, I can only say that I’m ninety-nine point nine percent certain of the twelve-hour limit—unless, of course, an accomplice was used by the suspect you’ve mentioned.”
“An accomplice?” echoed Kramer. “No, sorry, I can’t see it, not in this context.”
“Tromp!” came a distant voice.
“It’s Lieutenant Terblanche, sir!” said Malan, puppy-eager to make amends. “Shall I go and see what the matter is?”
“No, I’ve a better plan, Jaapie,” said Kramer. “You take Field Cornet Dorf here to the Royal Hotel in Nkosala and see he has a bloody good meal with you. Only the best for one of the best, hey?—he’s more than deserved it. As for the rest of you, you can forget this little lot now and go home—bugger off!”
That had been an uncharacteristically kindly gesture on his part, Kramer knew full well, but, at the close of what had turned out to be a miserable, balls-aching, frustrating day, he’d needed something to raise his spirits a little, such as the thought of what would happen to the Colonel’s piles the instant he spotted an extravagant dinner for two on expenses. With any luck, it’d probably be a full, merciless hour before his sphincter finally unclenched itself.
“Tromp! Didn’t you hear me?”
“I’m coming, man, I’m coming …” said Kramer, hopping over the last strand of taut thatching string. “What’s the problem?”
“No problem, it’s just we seem to have solved the theft of the garments—only I’m afraid it isn’t good news.”
“Oh, ja?” Kramer reached the bare patch outside the cook boy’s hut and saw a second Zulu squatting subserviently there, beside Moses. “Who’s this, then?” he asked.
“Moses cook boy’s uncle from Jafini, my boss,” explained Cassius Mabeni. “He come to bring food because police say Moses cook boy must never-never leave this place.”
“Uh-huh—and so?”
“Well, Cassius was questioning the cook boy, just like you told him to,” said Terblanche, “when all of a sudden, the uncle here starts chipping in. They had just got to where Cassius was asking if the cook boy remembered anyone leaving the beer drink, and the cook boy had answered he could remember nothing, not even dropping the money that had been so kindly returned to him. Then his uncle says, ‘What money?’—and they started arguing.”
“About what?” asked Kramer.
“Uncle man say Elifasi Ndhlovu was not drinking beer with them that night, my boss,” said Cassius Mabeni. “He says it is all one damn big lie.”
“Ja, that’s right,” continued Terblanche, “and so the cook boy here says to him, ‘Why would a man give to me money out of his own pocket that I had not dropped? That doesn’t make much sense, you old buffoon!’—or words to that effect.”
“No, it doesn’t make sense,” agreed Kramer. “Unless—”
“Ah, but the uncle had his own answer for that! He says that this Elifasi must have used the money as an excuse to come down here and see what he could steal. But, because there was a police guard on the property, he had stolen from the cook boy instead, taking his Sunday best.”
“Hmmm, not a bad theory. It wasn’t until today that Moses noticed his suit had gone, was it?”
“Exactly,” said Terblanche. “So the garments could have still been here in his hut on the night of the explosion, only to be taken
the following
night, when Elifasi came by.”
“Hell, I was here myself then,” said Kramer. “No wonder the bastard took off like a clockwork meerkat! You remember that, Cassius?”
“
Yebo
, my boss—too very-very damn quick!”
“But didn’t you tell me he was a good bloke, this Elifasi character?”
Mabeni looked embarrassed. “That is true, my boss,” he admitted. “A man who had caused no trouble.”
The cook boy started shaking his head and making a long protest in Zulu.
“Ach, no, what’s that all about now?” demanded Kramer, his patience wearing thin. “Just tell this Moses that, as far as I’m concerned, the matter is no longer of any interest to me, and that he can sort it all out with Cassius in the—”
“He’s saying,” interpreted Terblanche, “that he is certain the garments were not taken by Elifasi, who did not have the eyes of a thief but sat with him the whole time and just talked and asked questions and everything.”
“Questions? Such as what?”
“Oh, I suppose the usual kaffir things, how many children he had, how many wives, but I’ll ask him,” said Terblanche, and did so with some abruptness, as though intent on keeping the cook boy’s answer short.
Moses could not have kept it shorter: he said nothing in reply, just looked suddenly very uncomfortable and played dumb.
“Hau!”
said Mabeni, looking at Kramer and Terblanche in surprise. “Cassius now kick this cheeky kaffir, my boss?”
“Ja, I think that’s an excellent idea,” said Terblanche, drawing his truncheon. “What the hell does he think he’s playing at?”
“Yega, yega!”
pleaded Moses, crossing his arms over his face and backing away. “No hit, boss, no hit!”
Mabeni bellowed at him in Zulu, grabbed his arms, pulled them down, and yelled in his face, making him screw up his eyes. Still with this eyes tight shut, the cook boy began a babble, holding Mabeni’s huge hands at bay.
Terblanche listened briefly, then turned to Kramer: “Ach,
it’s nothing,” he said. “He’s just worried that we will inform Gillets he’s been disloyal, telling personal details about his master and madam, the way servants do. Apparently, this Elifasi character once worked for a boss just as hard, and this gave them much in common, stories to joke about.” Terblanche paused, listened again, and said: “Now he’s even more worried that
we
will not be too pleased with him also telling his visitor about the CID sergeant who came here, plus what action he’d seen the police taking since the explosion. As I said, normal servant’s tittle-tattle, only we’ve really scared him and he—”
“Hold it!” said Kramer, so sharply that not only Terblanche but the cook boy, too, were stopped in their tracks. “I thought the word ‘questions’ sparked this off, hey? Tittle-tattle just flows, but questions are another bloody matter entirely! It’s a point that needs clearing up.” A very nasty feeling was beginning to emerge, like a maggot hatching in the pit of his belly.
Between them, Terblanche and Mabeni interrogated the cook boy, changing tactic and addressing him quietly, allowing him to squat beside his uncle. His replies were faltering and he frequently seemed to have difficulty in grasping what was required of him.
“Ach, come on,” Kramer growled, flicking aside a half-smoked Lucky. “I can’t wait half the—”
“Yirra, Tromp,” said Terblanche, looking shaken now as he turned to him. “He says they just talked at first, anything and everything. The questioning itself seems to have started when he began asking the cook boy about
us
, the police, hey? All very casual, ja, but the coon wanted to know the description of who was in charge of the case, what had been found, where we were looking—luckily the cook boy’s such a raw kaffir he couldn’t tell him much. But what does this all
mean
, hey? Was this Elifasi Ndhlovu spying on us? I tell you, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced in the whole of my service before!”
Kramer shrugged, his mind racing.
“You know what, Tromp?” said Terblanche. “I’m beginning to think this case
could
be political … Don’t you think we’d best stop and call in the Security Branch?”
“And make fools of ourselves if it isn’t? You heard Dorf say it couldn’t be. No, Hans, first we find this Elifasi bastard ourselves and have a little chat with him.”
“But—”
“His name probably means bugger all, so what we need now is a description—have you got one?”
“Ja, I asked for it earlier,” said Terblanche, nodding and taking out his notebook shakily. “It’s not much, hey? Bantu adult male, average height, slim build, speaks country-boy Zulu, late twenties maybe, wears old tennis shoes, inside-out jacket, matches in his ears, and—”
“Short Arse! I can’t tell you why,
but I bloody knew it!
” said Kramer.
T
HE DAY CHANGED
note then, like a guitar string breaking.
Another went as the Land Rover reached the point, just south of the Moon Acre turnoff on the Nkosala road, where Short Arse had disappeared in a cloud of the Chevrolet’s dust the previous day, not to be seen again.
“That sly little bastard!” muttered Kramer, making Terblanche and Mabeni, who sat between them, look round. “He’s been playing silly buggers with me the whole time!”
“You mean Elifasi has?” asked Terblanche.
But Kramer was too preoccupied by the exact science of hindsight, as he’d once heard it described, to reply.
How painfully obvious it now seemed to him why Short Arse had done his vanishing trick. Wary that he could be stopped and questioned, as might any kaffir male when a white woman had been murdered, he had taken a nosedive through the dust cloud into the dense sugarcane and hidden there. Then, once it had seemed safe to do so, he’d emerged again and continued on his way to Fynn’s Creek to see Moses the cook boy, much amused to note, no doubt, that the law was elsewhere, wasting its time on bloody Grantham.
On top of which, it had now also occurred to Kramer that his first encounter with Short Arse, within only a minute or so of his arrival in Jafini, could not have been the coincidence it
had seemed at the time. Rather, the cunning bastard had been bent on making an immediate check on every newcomer who looked as though he might be part of police reinforcements.
“This Short Arse, this Elifasi bugger,” said Kramer, “must be caught before this night is over—understood?”
“But how?” asked Terblanche. “I’ve already asked Cassius here if he can remember his current address from his pass book, and he—”
“Forget it, it’ll be a fake anyhow,” said Kramer. “Our main advantage is that presumably he doesn’t know we’re on to his little game, or we’d have been out looking for him sooner. My bet is, he’ll be still hanging around somewhere, trying to find out what we—”
“But why, Tromp?” said Terblanche. “Why is he doing this?”
“My guess is that he’s somehow part of what happened at Fynn’s Creek,” said Kramer. “He may even have been the bloody accomplice that Sybrand Dorf believes could have been involved, the one with the petrol lighter that got dropped.”
Terblanche gave a low whistle. “You mean Lance Gillets could have paid this kaffir to plant the bomb for him? But that’s terrible!”
“Been done before, using kaffirs as murder weapons,” Kramer reminded him. “You remember that cop in Pretoria whose wife hired two wogs to—”
“Ja, I know, but to think little Annika was …”
“Say that is what went on here,” said Kramer. “And now Short Arse, alias Elifasi, is shitting himself that he could be caught and held solely responsible. Hence he’s tried to find out the state of the game from the cook boy, hence he’s—ach! I don’t know all the ins and outs yet, but I do know this: that little black bastard
is
mixed up somehow in this business.”