Murderous by David Hickson (best ereader for comics .txt) 📕

I waited in a room adjoining the pathology laboratory and watched through a window where bright lights glared onto the remains of the body that had been retrieved from the Van Rensburg farm. Andile Dlamini’s eyes were visible above the mask he wore and from the way in which they were screwed up I guessed the chemicals didn’t cover the smell of the rotting flesh. Andile was listening intently as the pathologist pointed out something on the skull with a tool that looked like a woodworker’s chisel.

Andile acknowledged me with a raised hand and a few minutes later the door into the adjoining laboratory opened and he came through with the pathologist. Andile pulled his face mask off and breathed in deeply as if he’d been holding his breath.

“You’re quite sure about that?” he asked the pathologist, a small man with a ring of hair around a polished dome of a head, and spectacles with perfectly circular lenses.

“Quite sure,” he said in a voice that sounded as if the bass chords had been filtered out.

“Felt like I breathed in several dread diseases,” said Andile, “but the doc here tells me it’s not dangerous.”

“Absolutely not,” said the pathologist. He wasn’t going to change his story, no matter how many times Andile asked him. “The cause of death was not disease. That man died from a bullet wound. You’re as likely to catch a disease from being in the same room as a stick of biltong.”

“Biltong doesn’t have maggots crawling over it,” said Andile.

“Maggots are very clean,” said the pathologist. Andile curled his lips up at that and turned to me.

“Hello, Freddy,” he said and reached out his hand, but then thought better of it, and pulled off the rubber gloves before shaking my hand. “They’ve told you who it is?”

“They have,” I confirmed.

“The doc has discovered something interesting.”

The pathologist nodded and swelled with the importance of a man who has made interesting discoveries.

“Frozen,” said the pathologist. Andile and I looked at him, and so he dropped his face mask below his chin so we could read his lips, and he gave me another clue. “Body was frozen,” he said.

“Frozen?” I said. “You mean that he was killed, and then frozen?”

“That’s what I mean,” said the pathologist. “He was killed and then frozen, not the other way around.” He did something unpleasant with his mouth, which might have been his way of smiling. I realised why he liked to wear that face mask so much.

“Can you determine how long he was frozen?” asked Andile.

“We cannot,” said the pathologist, and he removed his circular spectacles and polished them with a sparkling white handkerchief. His eyes were small and vulnerable and squinted slightly. “We can however determine that he was frozen within a few hours of death.”

“I see,” said Andile, and we both turned to look at the remains of Xolani on the brightly lit table on the other side of the glass where an assistant was collecting loose bones and pieces of flesh and carefully inserting them into plastic packages.

“In pieces?” asked Andile. “Was the body cut up before it was frozen?”

“There was no dismemberment.”

“So it would have been a big fridge,” said Andile.

“Indeed,” said the pathologist.

“A walk-in freezer,” said Andile, “a butcher’s freezer, maybe?”

“Maybe,” said the pathologist.

“The kind of big walk-in freezer that the Van Rensburgs have up at that lodge,” suggested Andile.

“That would be your area of expertise, captain. We have learnt all that we can,” said the pathologist in a closing ceremony kind of voice. He returned his glasses to his nose and blinked as his eyes adjusted. “The body will be available for five days, after which we will return it to the next of kin.”

“Thank you,” said Andile, and he turned to me. “Let’s have a quick cigarette, shall we, Freddy?” He frowned. “You do something to your eye?”

“I had a misunderstanding with a car door,” I said.

“Steak,” said the pathologist. “Put a raw steak on it. It’ll bring down the swelling.”

“Thank you,” I said, and the pathologist lifted his face mask again to indicate that he had finished imparting his interesting discoveries. I suspected that it was living people like us who worried him, not the rotting corpses that the maggots had cleaned.

Andile had been driven to the morgue by one of his junior officers, and so I drove us back into town, and we had our cigarettes while beating a path against the north-westerly wind.

“She wants a full verbal report,” said Andile.

“Khanyi?”

“Considers it part of the arrangement. Now that our prime suspect has turned up dead, she wants a full report so she can do a risk assessment. I have no idea what that is, but I’m to give it to her in person.”

“She’s making up reasons to see you,” I said.

“You think so?” Andile glanced at me to see whether I was teasing.

“I’ve worked with her for long enough,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like a regular request.”

“She’s a tough nut to crack,” admitted Andile. “I won’t lie to you. Very tough.”

“It’s all an act,” I said. “Don’t believe any of it. There’s nothing tough about her.”

We drove in silence for a moment.

“You know a man called Breytenbach?” asked Andile.

“Breytenbach?” I said.

“Riaan Breytenbach. He’s in mining, gold mining I think.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He called, from a hospital up north. Wanted to know about someone called Gabriel. Works with Major Fehrson.”

“Don’t think I know him.”

“That’s what I said to him. Never met a Gabriel.”

We drove on in silence, and the rain came swooping down the mountain to swallow us.

Eighteen

Khanyi’s teeth had been polished in order to smile brighter at Andile, who regarded her with the wariness of an animal that knows it is being watched by a predator. I was relieved not to be the only one dripping on the painted concrete floor of the Attic, and for once Khanyi said nothing about my dampness. But I received fewer of the sparkling teeth, and her eyes flashed