Free The Song Dog by James McClure Page A

each, and ten hours’ sleep, which made getting them to concentrate more than Terblanche could apparently handle.
    “No,
listen
,” he said. “The map shows a total of thirty-three possible addresses within the twenty-minute area at which curry
might
have been served, so we’ll now divide it equally and
each
of us will do a group, not go round them all together, hey?”
    “I still don’t get it,” whined Malan, rugby stockings at halfmast and one knee grazed.
    “Ach, what don’t you get, Jaapie?”
    “How we’re going to divide this list up.”
    “Surely, that’s obvious. We—”
    “But four doesn’t go into thirty-three, sir!”
    “Oh, yes, it bloody does,” intervened Kramer. “I take the first eight addresses, Suzman takes the next eight, Lieutenant Terblanche the next eight, and you, Malan, the last lot. After which we—”
    “But that means I get nine to do and—”
    “Look, have you forgotten my warning earlier on, hey?”
    “What
I
don’t get,” cut in Suzman, fingering a trouser crease morosely and finding it no longer had its knife edge, “is why Maaties should have eaten out at all last night, when his own home is less than twenty minutes from Fynn’s Creek. Are you sure Hettie hasn’t changed her mind about this curry business?”
    “Absolutely sure,” said Terblanche. “I sent Blackspot down to have a word with her kitchen boy just a quarter of an hour ago, and he confirms not only that but also that his boss didn’t come home again at all after he left at breakfast time.”
    “Nice thinking, Hans,” said Kramer. “But can we get back to—”
    “I still don’t see the point of all this,” grumbled Malan. “If Maaties was at one of these places beforehand, and the people there told him the explosion was going to happen, then they’re not going to tell us that, are they? I mean, if they
were
going to, they’d have done so already—not so?”
    “No, not necessarily so,” said Suzman unexpectedly. “Maybe they’re frightened to get involved now, with a proven killer on the loose. It could be a different story once we actually catch him.”
    “Correct—except for one thing,” said Kramer. “We’re cops, hey? It’s our job to get people to talk when we want them totalk, not just when it suits them, so get out there and start twisting a few arms. You follow, Malan? Show them what a real man is like when he does business!”
    Suzman and Terblanche exchanged amused glances as Malan, tugging those stockings up, went over to the map and started earnestly jotting down addresses as though now hell-bent on terrorizing half of Northern Zululand.

8
    B ARELY TWO MINUTES later, Kramer was alone in his Chevrolet, heading out of Jafini back down the Nkosala road to the first address on his share of the list. He’d been warned that half a mile short of Fynn’s Creek turnoff, he should start watching out for a sign which came and went rather suddenly, pointing the way to Moon Acre Farm, the property of a Mr. Bruce Grantham.
    Grantham, so Terblanche had explained, was about as close as anyone had ever become to being a friend of Maaties Kritzinger, chiefly on account of the particularly savage bunch of coons living in his farm compound. Kritzinger had spent many hours—even whole days—at Moon Acre, dealing with everything from murder to serious assault, petty theft, and arson. Afterward, he and Grantham would often booze half the night away, talking it all over and coming, more often than not, to a mutually satisfactory arrangement. “Mind you,” Terblanche had added, “those boys of his do some really crazy things, even for kaffirs, and I often wonder what goes on up at that big house of his. He sometimes goes so far out of his way to look after their interests you’d think he was a kaffir-lover.”
    Kramer narrowed his eyes. An oddly familiar figure had come in sight, back turned, walking along the verge of the road ahead of him. Then, an instant later, the inside-out