David stared at the form slumped against the tree. The face was blackened with trapped blood, the puffy flesh swollen into a bloated mockery of human features that bulged over the brown packaging tape that covered his mouth. A brownish-red stain had discolored the inside of the tape. One lifeless eye stared sightlessly ahead. The other had been plucked out, leaving an empty red socket and a smear of blood on the swollen cheekbone below.
Around him, the team bustled back and forth. The pathol-ogist had arrived and was unpacking his gear.
The game ranger stood next to David.
“Vultures,” he said, pointing to the empty socket. “That’s how we found him. Saw a whole bunch of them circling over the trees, so we came along to take a look.”
He was a lean, bearded man with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He was looking at the body, whistling softly, with an expression on his face that David supposed was meant to convey that, out here in the bush, he’d seen it all before.
Normally such a display of unfeeling machismo would have irritated David. Right now, however, he was relieved that there was a local who could stand the sight without throwing up.
Grobbelaar was hanging from two cable ties buried in his neck. They had cut a groove into the tough bark of the tree trunk. Despite what must have been violent struggles, they hadn’t snapped. Looking at his corpse, David hoped that his efforts to escape had caused him to lose consciousness, sparing him the worst of the torture inflicted on him.
His body was covered in a blue-black mantle of flies, some of them as big as David’s thumbnail. Their hysterical buzzing drowned out the trill of the cicadas and the rustling of leaves in the wind. The air was tainted with a raw coppery tang. The smell of blood, with undertones of rot.
He couldn’t tell where the first heavy blow had landed, or how many there had been. Grobbelaar’s flesh was a mass of gaping wounds, encrusted with blood and surrounded by bloodied, tattered clothing. David could see splintered bone and torn muscle. Intestines spilled from the gashes in his stomach and ended in a half-chewed mass. Had vultures done this work, too? Or hyenas, or wild dogs?
Grobbelaar’s knees had buckled over the set of cable ties fastening his ankles to the tree. Half-hidden in the leaves, his bare feet were swollen, the flesh mottled purple where it showed through the dried streaks of blood.
The ground was swarming with ants.
The ranger moved away from the body and stamped his boots on the dirt.
“It’s what we always tell clients. Man is the most evil pred-ator there is. Lions, leopards, crocs, even our wild dogs, none of them would kill like this. They kill to eat.”
David nodded in agreement.
“When did you find him?”
“Just before we called you. Normally the sight of vultures wouldn’t worry us. We’d have thought the wild dogs had made a kill, and left it at that. We breed them here, you see. But one of the workers’ children on the farm next door wandered off into the bush a couple of days ago. We’ve been keeping an eye out for her. To be honest I was ninety-nine percent sure we were going to find the child’s body here. I almost phoned the owner before we came out, to give him a heads-up.”
“Is your reserve electric-fenced? How could this man have been brought in here without you noticing?”
The man shrugged. “We’ve got one section inside electric fencing. That’s where the chalets are, where the guests stay. We don’t want anything getting in there and making trouble. Guards at the gate, twenty-four hours.” He spread his hands. “For the rest, we’ve just got normal fencing. Six-foot diamond mesh, with a couple of barbed strands on top. It’s enough to keep the dogs in and the buck hardly ever jump out.”
“I need to check the perimeter. Somewhere near here, I’m betting you’ve got a section of broken fence.”
The game ranger squatted down and scanned the sur-rounding area. David waited and watched as he leaned forward, focusing on a point nearby. Then he straightened up again.
“If I’m right, I can take you straight to it. See between those two trees? Looks like the ground cover’s been disturbed. Let’s go check it out.”
David couldn’t see what the game ranger had noticed. But he followed him, leaves rustling around his feet, the yellow crime-scene tape surrounding the area flapping in the breeze as he lifted it and they stepped underneath.
They walked over a gentle rise in the ground. On the other side, David could see leaves crushed into the hard ground. A car had parked here.
The ranger whistled again. “So they drove in.”
He turned to follow the tracks, walking alongside them and peering down at the dirt.
“Ground’s so hard I can’t see any tire treads.”
David walked alongside him. The tracks curved round the contour of a hill. Grass sprouted in their center, but they were flattened, stony and dry.
“This looks like an old road,” David observed.
The game ranger nodded apologetically. “I’m sure it doesn’t help you, but it is a road. We recently bought this land from Sappi. You know, the paper manufacturers. That’s why there’s so little ground cover. No bushes, no shrubs. And tracks like this all over the place, where the logging trucks drove in and out.”
“So they followed a logging track.”
“Not difficult to do.”
“Bloody hell.”
They went down the hill. Now David could hear the noise of traffic and see the glint of the sun on wire. The fence was stretched between solid metal posts. The tracks ran under the wire and down to the road.
“Fence is still there,” muttered the game ranger.
They walked closer. The fence had been cut, each section sliced through, and then neatly repaired. Shiny new loops connected the broken ends.
“They came in and they went out,” David said. He looked at the earth by the side of the road where the car had driven away. Dry, hard, unforgiving. Winter terrain. The ranger was right. He doubted forensics would be able to get a tire imprint.
“Summertime, these woods can become a wetland,” the ranger said, echoing his thoughts. “Deep with mud. They’d have left tracks everywhere. This time of year is bad luck for you.”
Bad luck. That was one way of putting it.
Where was the weapon that had butchered the body? David stared around him. An axe, most likely. He didn’t think a panga would have inflicted such deep, heavy blows. The weapon hadn’t been left at the scene of the crime. It could be anywhere. It could have been thrown away, far out into the leafy forest. It could have been disposed of back in the city, in a dumpster. Or it could be wrapped in plastic, festering in the tire well of a car somewhere. He’d tell his team to comb the area anyway. It was a small chance, but their only one so far. If they could find the axe, it might lead them to the murderer.