Weeping Waters, by Karin Brynard

Weeping Waters, by Karin Brynard. The Penguin Group (South Africa). Cape Town, South Africa 2014. ISBN 9780143538189 / ISBN 978-0-14-353818-9

Karin Brynard's novel Weeping Waters is a slow-burner that gets hotter and hotter as the pages turn. Crime fiction doesn't get any better.

The call came through just after two. He was at his desk at the police station, having his lunch of vetkoek and mince. Washed down, as usual, with a mug of strong black coffee. Three sugars. He was almost done when the phone rang. One of the constables on duty in the charge office. "There's been a murder," the man gasped, "two dead. A farm killing. Woman and child. White. On Huilwater farm, about forty kays out on the Upington road." And then, "The caller is still on the line. Would the Inspector like to speak to him?" Inspector Albertus Markus Beeslaar shoved the vetkoek aside. A mans voice, shaky and hoarse. "Too late," he kept repeating, "a madman ... a devil..." The voice broke off. "Like animals. Both of them, just slaughtered. Blood. On everything. Everywhere." He said he was standing in it. Then the man began to sob, stammering about being too late. It took some coaxing to get a name out of him. "Boet Pretorius," he eventually answered. "From the farm next door." The child was barely four years old. "Four, just four," he said, over and over again. "Where's the woman's husband?" Beeslaar asked this several times. "There is no fucking husband," was the fierce reply. A foreman, yes, but he was nowhere to be found. Where was he phoning from? There was a long silence, as if the man had to think about it. Then, "Good God, man! Get out of the house, now," Beeslaar ordered. "Wait outside. I'm on my way" For a moment Beeslaar didn't move. So much for a peaceful life on the platteland, his dream of a quiet small-town post. He threw the vetkoek into his wastepaper basket and told the constable on duty to send more backup to Huil-water. He rounded up two colleagues and got a car. The Citi Golf. The only one available in a carpool of two. No air con, a hundred and eighty thousand on the clock. They squeezed in, ready to tackle the forty kilometres of dirt road. Sergeant Pyl had to take the back, with Ghaap in the passenger seat. Beeslaar crammed his own two-metre frame behind the wheel. Cursing under his breath, as he did each time he got into the tiny car: the steering wheel too close to his knees, the seat too narrow, no legroom, his head against the roof, leaving him feeling hemmed in and pissed off. This afternoon was no exception. He was in a foul mood already, even before they hit the road that led to the murder scene. But all that didn't irritate him as much as the fact that he was still struggling to find his feet in this post: real city boy, ill at ease in a world of farmers and cattle and farm roads and sand and snakes and blazing-heat-without-air-con. He'd barely arrived, blissfully under the impression he was heading for a quiet job in a peaceful backwater, when the shit hit the fan and started flying in all directions. He arrived right in the middle of an unprecedented wave of stock theft. And either he wasn't a detective's backside any more, or he was dealing with a super-sophisticated mafia. Because he could find neither hide nor hair of these crooks, no matter how hard he tried. The farmers were at their wits' end. And furious, because they were being nailed. [...]

This is an excerpt from the novel Weeping Waters, by Karin Brynard.

Title: Weeping Waters
Author: Karin Brynard
Genre: Crime novel
Publisher: The Penguin Group (South Africa)
Cape Town, South Africa 2014
ISBN 9780143538189 / ISBN 978-0-14-353818-9
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 360 pages