The Song Dog by James McClure Page B

obvious,” agreed Kramer, climbing out. “The last place I visited, they thought I’d come to bloody bulldozer the house.”
    “Oh, ja, that’d be those poor white squatters awaiting eviction down on the edge of Ma Murdoch’s place—what is their name again?”
    “Bothma. Man, you only had to take one look at their cooking arrangements to know Kritzinger never ate there! Christ, he’d have been dead
long
before midnight.”
    Terblanche gave a weary chuckle. “We shouldn’t really make jokes,” he said, “but, to be honest, I thought something very similar a couple of times myself. Listen, I’ve got bad news for you. I came up with nothing from my eight, and the same goesfor the others; both Malan and Suzman scored a duck. Apart, that is, from one family who told Malan they are sure they saw his car pass by at about seven thirty last night.”
    “They did? Whereabouts was this?”
    “It’s easier if I show you on the map …”
    As they started walking up the path to the police station, Kramer asked: “Ever heard of something called the song dog, Hans?”
    “Sorry?”
    “The song dog.”
    “Meaning a jackal or something?”
    “No, it appears not.”
    Terblanche turned to him. “Has someone been pulling your leg?” he asked.
    “Hmmmm, I’m beginning to wonder about that myself,” said Kramer. “This place has gone bloody quiet!”
    “Oh, I hope you don’t mind, but I said to the others they could get off home once I’d heard they had nothing to report. They’d been on their feet for more than—”
    “Fine,” said Kramer, glancing into the white CID office. “The same went for Bokkie Maritz?”
    “No, Bok had already gone by the time I got back. Left a note to say he’d found out where I fixed you two up with rooms and that he didn’t want to miss supper there.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “What about you, Tromp?” asked Terblanche, opening the door to his office. “Any luck with your eight addresses?”
    “Not really,” said Kramer. “Apart from getting a bit more background on this thing Kritzinger had going with Grantham. I’ve a feeling that another visit to Moon Acre could produce a few interesting details about both of them, but I doubt how relevant they’d be to the case. Now, show me this spot on the map and then get yourself off home—you’re so buggered you’re walking like a bloody hippo with a hernia.”
    “Here’s where our only witnesses live,” said Terblanche, positioning a grimy forefinger on the wall map. “As you see, their homestead isn’t anywhere special, apart from being near the junction of where all these cane-lorry tracks go through the fields, and not far from the little railway line which carries cane, too. Maaties was traveling south in this direction, they say, and fast.”
    “Why the hell should he being doing that?”
    “Well, while I was waiting for you, I stood and stared at the map for a while,” said Terblanche, “asking myself the same question. The only sense I could make of it was that he had been over here, on the Mabata road, and had decided to take a shortcut right over to the other properly made road down here, connecting us with Muilberg.”
    “At about what time was this, did you say?”
    “Approximately seven thirty.”
    Kramer rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Kritz could also have been going to meet someone down any of these tracks that branch off into the cane,” he said. “It grows high, so it would have hidden them from the road, and there’d be no kaffirs still out working to see them …”
    “That’s true,” agreed Terblanche. “You couldn’t wish for better countryside—a big crisscross maze.”
    “This investigation doesn’t get any easier, does it?” remarked Kramer. “But, look, it’s high time you called it a day, Hans. In fact, I’ll even drive you home, because I want to borrow your Land Rover and take another look at Fynn’s Creek.”
    “
Tonight
? Out of the question, Tromp! Not only have you also