The Gooseberry Fool by James Mcclure Read Free Book Online

Plan B ever bearing fruit was very slight.
    So back to Plan A and a counterplan. If Zondi was going to come unstuck because his boss was not around, then the absurd reason for his absence could, with a little help, be made twice as absurd. And absurdity was something that got Colonel Muller’s goat but good.
    “I shall go to absurd, but absurd, lengths,” vowed Kramer aloud to himself, finding a cafe at which to have breakfast. “Ach, man, but the mind will bloody boggle!”
    His mind would, ultimately.

4
     
    B REAKFAST C OMPRISED AN entire packet of streaky bacon, a loaf of fresh white bread, and a family-size bottle of strawberry pop, consumed with gusto at the side of the national road north. Zondi was uncertain what his day would bring, and anxious to ensure missed meals would not trouble him. He would have lit a fire for the meat, but farmers could be trigger happy at this time of year.
    To be sure, the grass was very dry, and one ember could easily have the low hills of grazing swept black in minutes. A bleak, blond land, with scattered thornbush making smudges of dull green like white women’s eyeshadow, and bare patches of earth the pinky red of their sunburn. A hard land, too, that gave nothing for nothing. A good place for puff adders and lizards and the shrikes that hung their prey on the barbed-wire fences.
    His watch had stopped and the car had no radio. But judging by the sun, it was still before eight. Plenty of time to smoke a Stuyvesant and take another look at the map. At least the car, a beaten-up Anglia, had this much that was useful in it.
    Zondi had about another ten kilometers to do on the tar, then he turned right and carried on along a district road—its number was illegible. Five kilometers of this, then a turning left past a mission. Then, only two kilometers beyond that, the trading store and small hamlet of Robert’s Halt.
    He was thankful not to be in a hurry once the corrugations of the dirt road, regular as those in a washboard, began to drum beneath four very doubtful tires. There were also potholes big enough to swallow a wheel and sharp stones that clattered like hail on the car’s underside. The dust, however, was the worst of the lot, making short work of the ill-fitting doors and covering everything. But he was glad to be in a car and not, as long ago, on the seat of a donkey cart beside his father. Then the stones had been the worst as passing vehicles shotgunned them up at you. Once he had been bit on the ear—which was better luck than the donkey had met with on another occasion, when it lost an eye.
    Through a line of gums and wattles on the left appeared several whitewashed concrete-block buildings dominated by a tinroofed church. From the size of the cross above it, Zondi guessed Roman Catholic and then saw a sign that read: “St. Bernard’s Mission School and Hospital.” It seemed strangely deserted for a school, although the pupils could still be in assembly. Which did not, however, account for the fact that no patients were visible, and that was odd. Still, none of this was any of his business—that lay not a kilometer away over the ridge.
    The Anglia churned its way up, spending a nasty ten seconds with its inside wheels deep in a rut, then topped the rise and slithered to a halt. In the valley below was Robert’s Halt, hidden in among more gums and wattles. This happened to suit Zondi’s purpose perfectly, for he had decided that a slow, deceptively casual stroll up to Shabalala’s side would be preferable to a hard sprint after him.
    He took the car off the road and locked it. Then he pulled his old trick of turning his jacket inside out—which was what most rustics did, being very taken with the shiny satin lining—and checked his shoulder holster for snags. All set.
    It was a good day for walking, not nearly as hot as the previous one, and the air in the valley very clear. Zondi first watched swifts swallowing insects in the sky, then looked to see what