The Song Dog (26 page)
“I’m afraid Hettie’s under sedation again,” she said.
“Can you just tell me if Maaties had a desk at his house?” said Kramer. “Somewhere he kept his personal papers et cetera?”
“No,” she said, without hesitation. “The family live cramped enough as it is, what with there being six of them.” And something in her voice implied she had
never
approved of the marriage.
“What about a table with a locked drawer he could’ve—”
“No,” she said. “Frankly, I’m quite shattered by the conditions I’ve found here! Do you know, the toilet doesn’t even flush properly? That man acted as though—”
“Er, well, give Mrs. Kritz my best, hey?” said Kramer, and dropped the receiver back into its cradle.
Then he began another hunt, this time for those inquest papers. “You fight dirty, Hans, you bastard!” he growled, having rooted about on the windowsill in the station commander’s
office, and then among the piles of other documents stacked all over the floor, only to find what he sought in its proper place in the filing cabinet.
The inquest docket contained no more than an average amount of paperwork. Just a pro forma accident report, filled in and signed by someone called W. D. de Klerk, a couple of poor carbon copies of the two postmortem reports, more carbons of the seven statements de Klerk had taken, the standard set of photographs, shot at night using a flash, and a sketch plan of the scene.
The sketch plan showed a right-angle turn in a dirt road that ran through acres of mature sugarcane. Several arrows indicated the path of a vehicle that had gone round the bend safely enough, but had failed to straighten up properly. Instead, it had plunged off the road, through a thin screen of cane and into two cane trucks, standing on a railway track which crossed the road at that point.
In short, it was just another classic example of a partygoer cornering too bloody fast on his homeward journey, and so innocent of mystery that it only made Kritzinger’s interest in the affair all the more puzzling.
Perhaps, thought Kramer, the photographs would throw a little light on things. The first was a long shot. In the background, the two sugarcane trucks lay derailed on their sides, and in the foreground were the remains of a pale-colored Renault Dauphine. A Dauphine had its engine in the rear, of course, so everything forward of the driving position had scrunched up like a bean can, leaving the driver impaled on his steering column and his passenger shredded through the windshield.
The second photograph had been taken from the opposite direction, with the cane trucks in the foreground, and didn’t add much, although it showed, rather faintly, the corner around which the Dauphine had come immediately before the crash. The sugarcane was tall and dense at that point, confirming that it had totally obscured what lay ahead.
The third and fourth photographs were of the inside of the car, before and after the removal of the bodies. The “before” picture was slightly less grotesque in its detail than Kramer at first supposed, once he realized that the driver’s lolling head had somehow become twisted right round and that he
did
have his ears on the correct way after all. As for the “after” picture, it was virtually identical, offering almost nothing new to look at, aside from a few details like the sticky-topped steering column; the ignition key still in the ignition lock, complete with fancy key ring; and a lurching statuette of St. Christopher, looking
I bloody told you so
on the top of the dashboard.
Zondi wandered in at that moment. “The Lieutenant has found the inquest papers?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do they give any indication of foul play having—”
“Not so far; all very straightforward. Kritz didn’t have a desk at home, by the way—you have his sister-in-law’s word for it.”
Zondi sighed. “Six times I have been through all the contents of Boss Kritzinger’s desk here, boss—nothing. I am beginning to wonder if maybe what we were told by the
songoma
wasn’t all just a big nonsense. I had thought,
hau
, wait till we get to Jafini! The pieces will start coming together fast!”
“Ja, and maybe they will, man,” said Kramer, preparing to move on from the photographs to the accident pro forma.
“But does the Lieutenant realize that so far we do not even have corroboration of Boss Kritzinger having any interest at all in that fatal? We could be wasting—”
“Hey,
wait a minute
…” said Kramer, rising, the last of the six photographs in his hand. “Come round here, quick! What do you make of that, hey?”
“Make of what, Lieutenant?”
“There, where my finger’s pointing. What shape would you say that thing was?”
“I think it is possibly a dog, boss.”
“Damn right, it is! But what kind? What breed, I mean?”
“Lieutenant?” said Zondi, very warily.
“What if I told you that Kritz kept a Scottie dog key ring, exactly like this one, tucked away somewhere in his desk—until Bokkie Maritz unearthed it last Tuesday?”
“
Hau, hau, hau
…”
“You can say that again! You know why? Because I’ll bet you bloody anything
it was the same key ring
, confirming that Kritz certainly did have an interest!”
It was good to see Zondi with his smile again.
Then, to clinch matters, Kramer remembered the two pieces of the key-ring puzzle he had palmed, with the sole intention of making life more interesting for Bokkie Maritz, and produced them from his trouser pocket. One was white, the other red, and it proved simple enough to match the latter, from which the Scottie’s tail jutted, with the image in the photograph.
“But how would Boss Kritzinger have come by this key ring, Lieutenant?” asked Zondi. “He was not the investigating officer, and even if he had been, why—”
“All sorts of ways! Simplest of all, he could have gone to the car dump to inspect the wreck, after being told to take an interest in the case, and have taken it as a memento or something.”
Zondi snapped his fingers, as though a sudden idea had struck him. “Perhaps Boss Kritzinger had considered giving it to Mama Pelapela to hold in her hand while she addressed the Song Dog,” he suggested. “That is a thing many
songomas
do.”
“There you are, then! Man, we just keep getting warmer and warmer, don’t we? So back you go, try taking a fresh approach to the problem, and I’ll whip through these statements, see if I can’t spot what got Kritz’s Y-fronts in a knot, hey? Tell you what, my son, I’ll bloody
race
you!”
O
N HIS OWN
in the station commander’s office once more, Kramer sat down and took up the accident pro forma, his eyes alighting on “Cause of Accident (if known),” where he read: “Apparent loss of control, no other vehicle involved. Strong smell of alcohol vicinity driver’s abdominal injuries.”
The obvious place to look next was at the “Forensic Report Summary” overleaf: “Gross Multiple injuries, fatal in both cases. Driver had consumed roughly the equivalent of a bottle of wine, passenger ditto.”
“Shit, what’s new?” said Kramer, tossing aside the pro forma and picking up a sworn statement made by someone called Daryl Gordon Taylor, hoping he would provide some hint of what had aroused Kritzinger’s suspicions:
I am a white adult male, aged fifty-two years, residing at the Manager’s House, Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd., Jafini, Northern Zululand. My occupation is mill manager and I have been employed by Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd. in this capacity for twenty-seven years. Throughout this period, I have been acquainted with the deceased, Andries Johannes Adolf Jeremiah Cloete, who was employed at Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd. as the European foreman with a labor force of thirty-five non-European mill boys under him. He performed his duties well and responsibly at all
times. I have also known the deceased on a social basis for twenty-five years and consider him a good friend and colleague meriting respect for the moderation he showed in all things
.
On the night in question the deceased and his deceased wife were present in my garden for a barbecue. Also in attendance were Mr. and Mrs. G. T. Taylor, my aged parents, Mr. J. G. H. Geldenhuys, the magistrate from Nkosala, and Mrs. J. G. H. Geldenhuys, Miss Susan Truscott-Smythe, who had come to buy a horse from me, and Mr. Roberto Fransico, who I was given to understand was her uncle and benefactor. We assembled at seven o’clock for drinks and the servants had the meat ready by eight o’clock. It took over two hours to eat after which coffee was served. At no time did either of the deceased consume more wine than was offered to the rest of the guests being too well mannered for that. By the time of their departure at approximately eleven o’clock I was confident they were as sober as Mr. J. G. H. Geldenhuys, the magistrate, who left just ahead of them although on a different road. The track the deceased used is generally used only by employees of Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd. and of course Mr. Bruce Grantham registered owner of the land. The deceased always used that track for visiting my place. I estimate he must have traveled up and down it more than 1,150 times over the period I have known them including every Christmas and New Year without once having an accident. I totally reject the rumor the deceased was speeding and misjudged a corner he knew so well. My belief is that he must have seen some animal or native in the road and tried to avoid it making his big mistake that way for he was a tenderhearted man who could not bear to see a creature that was suffering. In conclusion I would like to state that the deceased always took extra special care while driving a vehicle belonging to
Jafini Sugar Mills Ltd. as was the case when this tragedy occurred
.
“Man, oh, man,” murmured Kramer. “With friends like that, who needs attorneys?”
Even so, while such a statement might indeed encourage any reasonable man to suspect that Cloete could have driven home safely from a booze-up at Taylor’s place blind drunk with his head in a bucket, it still contained nothing to suggest that anything other than one of the more banal vagaries of fate had finally caught up that night with a very boring-sounding couple.
“Damn, damn,
damn …
” said Kramer.
Zondi, seated in Kritzinger’s chair, was trying to imagine himself in the dead man’s shoes as well.
“Here I am,” he thought, “and over there, directly opposite, in front of the window, is Jaap Malan. I have a secret document I don’t want him or anyone else to find. If I hide it here, in my desk, there is a chance he might stumble across it—perhaps looking for some statement or other, during one of my many absences … My only way of keeping it from him would be to place it somewhere he would never dream of looking, and yet, at the same time, it would be somewhere that provides me with ready access. Such as?”
He looked all around him, and then back at the desk across the way from him. “Ah!” he said.
How wonderfully simple: Kritzinger must have hidden his secret papers somewhere on
Malan’s
side of the room—not in a drawer or anything like that, of course, but somewhere just as easy to get to.
“That looks an interesting idea, Mickey,” said Kramer, strolling back into the CID office. “What are you doing to Jaapi’s desk—changing the gearbox?”
Zondi, flat on his back beneath the desk, began to extricate himself. “Just wait, boss,” he said, “I could have a big surprise for you …” Then he crawled round to the far side and started removing drawers.
“Thought you’d like to know,” said Kramer, dropping the inquest docket on Kritzinger’s desk, “that Colonel Du Plessis has just approved your secondment to the Fynn’s Creek case. Mind you, he was in such a bloody tiz-woz, what with the chopper crash and the arrest of this Mandela character, he’d probably have given me permission to ravish his lady wife
and
the pedigree cocker spaniel.”
“I am very happy for you, boss.”
“You bugger! You’re not listening!”
“Please, Lieutenant, I’m engaged in—”
“Some bloody weird behavior! Ja, I’m well aware of that.”
Zondi pushed both drawers back. “Ah,” he said, “another even more brilliant idea, boss! Will the Lieutenant please move over this side and use Boss Malan’s desk instead?”
“Why?”
“So I can test my brilliant idea, boss.”
“Bloody hell,” sighed Kramer, doing as he was asked, taking the inquest docket with him. “I just hope you—”
“My reasoning, boss, is based upon the fact that Boss Kritzinger had in his desk a Scottie dog key ring of special significance that he had not made any actual attempt to hide, or else such a person as Boss Bokkie Maritz would never have found it.”
“So what?”
“Surely that is the key to Boss Kritzinger’s handling of secrets, Lieutenant?
He did not hide what was hidden
. He simply relied on others being unable to grasp a special significance.”
“Oh, ja? So he hid his notes by not hiding them either—is that what you’re saying?”
“Precisely, boss! With the big advantage he could look at them very easily whenever he wanted.”
“Hmmmm. Maybe you’re making a mistake by imagining things on Kritz’s behalf without having any real idea of how bright he was. Personally, I think you overrate him, kaffir.”
“But what was it that cost Boss Kritzinger his life, Lieutenant?” asked Zondi. “What he knew—or what he did not know? Was it intelligence or stupidity?”
“Ach!” said Kramer, sitting down behind Malan’s desk. “It’s your bloody theory, man—you prove it.” And he took up the next of the sworn statements.
It had been made by Jacob Gerhardus Hendrik Geldenhuys, the Nkosala magistrate, and apart from the preamble, giving his race, age, and all the rest, it appeared mercifully brief, running to no more than two paragraphs:
In my view the deceased was not inebriated to the degree it had affected his ability to drive a motor vehicle correctly at the conclusion of the evening, having imbibed his liquor slowly over a period of more than four hours in conjunction with the consumption of a considerable quantity of protein, which is known to alter the nature of alcohol and and inhibit its absorption into the system. (See State v. Koekemoor, et al.)
