The Steam Pig by James McClure

kaffir corn coming up on the right. It was extraordinarily high and had a most curious reddish hue.
    Car tracks extended into it for about ten yards.
    Zondi stopped and switched off. It was deathly quiet. So quiet that when Zondi reached out and pulled a corn stalk, Kramer heard the squeal as it left its tight sheath of leaves.
    The hybrid was distinctive. No wonder the peasant farmer’s son had so readily recognised a sample caught in the Dodge’s substructure.
    Zondi pressed the glove compartment catch and it clattered open. Kramer saw the thin film of pink powder which lay over the road maps. Peacehaven dust could penetrate anything, even spectacle cases. This was not remarkable in itself.
    â€œI see, so the Dodge had been cleaned inside except for in there—that’s why you looked—”
    There was no point in talking to himself. Zondi was already making off across the field. He did not go far.
    As Kramer approached there was a sudden buzz like a bullet, so immediate and menacing that his fists clenched. Then a spangled pall rose above the kaffir corn, dithered a brighter blue against the sky, and disintegrated into zipping threads of belligerent flies.
    Five paces on sat Shoe Shoe, exactly where he had been left. Only now he appeared to be twice his normal size. Since dawn the sun had been urging life and growth in all living things. Shoe Shoe was dead; but millions of bacteria were multiplying and feeding in their host, breaking wind millions of tiny times and filling his body with gases which distended him horribly.
    Even so, the stink was not that bad and both Kramer and Zondi had seen it all before. This enabled them to ignore nature’s remorseless processes and search for any sign that man had played his sinister part. There was none. It was a natural death.
    That was if you ignored the fact that someone had taken a man, paralysed from the neck down, and dumped him out of sight and earshot in a deserted area surrounded by Keep Out signs. The sun and the ants and the beetles—even the bluebottles—had simply done as ordained.
    And while they toiled, Shoe Shoe must have broken his silence.
    Kramer replaced the handset of the dashboard radio and accepted Zondi’s offer of chocolate.
    â€œBloody hungry,” he said, “what’s the time?”
    â€œThree.”
    â€œThe meat wagon’s coming, Dr Strydom has one call to make on the way—police widow, or something. We should get back to town by four.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you put out an alert for Mkize, boss?”
    â€œGershwin? Because I want you to have him, my friend.”
    Zondi gave a grunt of deep satisfaction.
    â€œThat’s the way we are playing this one, man, by ourselves. I told the Colonel and he’s dead scared about the tip-off he gave the killer.”
    â€œBetter not make any slip-ups though.”
    â€œ Ach, I’ll just blame my kaffir .”
    They laughed. The sound reached a crow about to settle in the kaffir corn and it flapped resignedly away again. Overhead larger birds with hooked beaks kept to their stacking column.
    â€œShoe Shoe’s still got his eyes,” Kramer remarked.
    â€œThem flying up there? They are worried, they wait for Shoe Shoe to lie down. He does not look dead enough for them.”
    â€œWhat about the crow then?”
    â€œOh, he just another damn fool black bastard.”
    â€œWatch it. How long have they waited, do you think?”
    â€œSince Shoe Shoe come here—one, maybe two days. You can see he was in the sun a long time.”
    â€œAnd Gershwin said that he had gone to the mountains on Saturday. Funny that, he only became important to us three days after Dr Strydom found the spoke wound. You could say this is a fluke.”
    â€œBoss?”
    â€œYes, has nothing to do with the Le Roux case. This is just a little private affair of Gershwin’s. No one was ever meant to know about the girl—why look for