The Sunday Hangman Read Online Free Page B

bore tribal scars on his plump cheeks.
    “Carry on, Sergeant Zondi.”
    As melodic Zulu became Afrikaans, Strydom stirred restlessly, but Kramer was determined to hear the man out. Ngidi had arrived with Sergeant Arnot a little before eight, and had been detailed to deal with the farm laborers’ children who’d found the body. These children came to the picnic spot early every morning, to see what food might have been thrown in the food bin, and to wait on in hope of begging scraps off motorists who paused there for breakfast. The body had frightened them badly, and only the smoke of the caravaners’ fire had lured them back. At this stage, the body hadn’t been noticed from where the tables were, being hidden by the tree, and the morning rather misty. After showing the whites what one of their kind had done to himself, the children had watched the family pack up and go. Uncertain if they were not entitled to the bacon left untouched on the stones around the fire, most of them had stayed on to see what would happen next.
    “Did he ask these kids if they’d seen the dead man’s car here before?” Kramer broke in. “Or anything about any other vehicle that was familiar to them?”
    The question put a worried frown on Ngidi’s face, and he whispered his reply apologetically.
    “He says, Lieutenant, that his only orders were to make sure that the children had stolen nothing from the deceased’s clothing, or from the motorcar, which had been left unlocked.”
    “And then?”
    “He was instructed to chase these children away. His superior waited here for him to return, and that is all. They then returned to Doringboom.”
    Kramer fell into a ponder.
    “You can bugger off now, Fats,” Van Heerden told Ngidi. “Be sure you’re ready with the tape when I come, because the boss has still a lot to do.”
    “No, first ask him where the kids live, Zondi.”
    “To hell and gone,” declared Van Heerden, “and there’s not a road anywhere near that I know of. Five kilometers, at least.”
    “Lieutenant,” Zondi said quietly. “Ngidi can show me the path they have made.”
    “Fine. Then you see you have a proper word with them. Hitch a lift in the constable’s van afterwards, or we’ll pick you up on the way back. Okay?”
    “Sir.”
    “Excuse me,” Strydom butted in, “but are you sure that sending him such a—”
    “The lazy bugger needs a walk,” said Kramer, making for the car.
    Zondi could have chosen which path to follow without any assistance from the Doringboom bumpkin: it was so obviously a children’s path. The veld was never as flat and featureless as it looked from the road, and a path made by adults’ feet, trudging through the same dry grassland day after day, would have taken the line of least resistance. A four-gallon tin of river water, balanced on the head, was far easier to bear up a slope if the incline was climbed crookedly, and an outcrop of rocks was tedious when your feet were heavy. Arid so, whereas a path worn away by grownups would have skirted and meandered and turned, the path he was following ran straight. Dead straight, and as uncompromising as the hunger that sent small bare feet, numbed fleet by the frost, scampering down it each morning. He cursed the children for the straightness of their path. There was, of course, nothing to prevent him from finding a less strenuous route, except his pride. Over the past three months, Zondi had learned many things about pride, and in particular, how much strength it took.
    But he could be weak and shameless, too. This was when he permitted himself to imagine all sorts of nonsense, just as he was doing right then. The thief Erasmus, his brain said, had fired a rat, not a bullet, through that car door and into his leg. By mistake, this rat had been sewn inside him at the hospital, trapping it there in the flesh and the dark, and making it very afraid. If left undisturbed, then the rat endured quietly, and all he felt was the sting of the