The Snakes of Tumara (eBook)

An SA Police Series Suspense Story, Book 9

Gerrie Radlof, Pieter Haasbroek (Autoren)

Pieter Haasbroek (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
115 Seiten
Pieter Haasbroek (Verlag)
9780001021532 (ISBN)

Infos

In the wild heart of the Transvaal, men are dying.

Not by accident, but by a cold, slithering design.

The weapon is a serpent, but the killer walks on two legs.

The remote Rooibok Hills have become a hunting ground. When a wave of unnaturally vicious cobra attacks claims a police officer, Detective Sergeant Kobus Roode is sent from Johannesburg into a world of primal fear and superstition. He finds a terrified tribe in the grip of the witch doctor, Tumara, who blames the deaths on a vengeful 'Great Serpent Spirit.'

Kobus suspects the venom flows from a more human source. As he digs for the truth, he uncovers a sinister conspiracy of greed and murder, realizing the next strike is aimed directly at him. In a land of shifting allegiances, where every shadow could hide a striking snake or a hidden assassin, he learns that the deadliest serpent of all is the one you never see coming.

A riveting blend of classic adventure and pulse-pounding mystery, this novel is perfect for fans of Wilbur Smith and edge-of-your-seat thrillers where the stakes are life and death.

Prepare for a reading experience you won't be able to put down. Perfect for fans of pulp, action, and mystery, this thrilling ninth book in the SA Police Series delivers on every page. Are you ready for The Snakes of Tumara? Begin the gripping investigation now!

Textauszug

9. THE SNAKES OF TUMARA

Chapter 1

DEATH BY THE CAMPFIRE

There is a rustle in the knee-high grass to his right. Constable van Greunen looks up. He detects no movement anywhere. Nevertheless, he feels a slight unease. He surveys the scene around him.

It is an hour or so after dusk. Two campfires burn about ten paces apart on a slope where the trees do not grow so densely, and from where Van Greunen, earlier in the evening, could see over the swells and peaks of the Rooibok Hills to the slopes of the Mauer Mountains. Behind those mountains flows the Limpopo or, as the natives hereabouts still call it, the Crocodile River.

At the other fire, a black constable is squatting. He reaches out his hand and takes the steam-spouting kettle off the hook above the flames. He looks up as the white constable calls to him.

“We must keep the fires burning high, Manjeta,” Van Greunen remarks.

“That would be best, my sir,” Manjeta answers. And he, too, glances about him before pulling the tins of coffee closer.

Van Greunen looks back at the diary lying open on his knee. With his fountain pen in his right hand, he rereads the few lines he has already written. The flickering flames cause dark patches to move across the page from time to time, but he can easily make out his neat handwriting.

“My second visit today,” he reads. “Was to the hut of Konjeli, the son of Ntola, who died last week after being bitten by a snake. It was the fourth victim of the Mkopo tribe, in the kraal of Trankwala. Here, too, I could make no sense of it, and the impression created was that it was merely an accident.

Yet I feel that…” Here Van Greunen had stopped when he heard the rustle in the grass. Now he continues with the report, “that all is not right. There is the sombre mood of the Mkopo, and Manjeta has overheard words here and there, and even phrases, that indicate the Mkopo are afraid. They speak of the Great Serpent Spirit. I have discussed the matter with Nicolaas Bredenkamp. He has a large farm here in the wilderness and trades with the Mkopo. Nicolaas believes that the witch doctor, Tumara, is using the cobra attacks to assert his authority…”

Van Greunen’s hand jerks back. The pen draws a line across the page. There was the rustle again. And now he clearly sees the movement in the blades of grass barely two paces from him. It is on the edge of the patch he has trampled flat and in the middle of which his fire is burning.

He places the book on the tree stump beside him and the pen on top of it so that it cannot roll off. He yanks the heavy revolver from its leather holster and holds it ready in his right hand. His eyes remain fixed on the spot where he saw the long blades swaying as if a breeze had pushed through them, and yet the evening is dead still, and there is not even a movement in the leaves of the trees above his head.

At the opposite fire, Manjeta has also risen to his feet. He looks with concern at Constable van Greunen, but he stands stock-still. His eyes follow the other’s gaze, but now even the stirring in the grass is no longer there. He stands with the steaming mug of coffee in his hand but makes no attempt to carry it to the white constable. Within him, too, is the sense of foreboding that the talk of snakes and the questioning of the victims’ next of kin has awakened.

“This whole business captures a man’s imagination,” Van Greunen calls out in a hushed voice, but with a half-apologetic laugh. “It has thoroughly unsettled me, most likely…”

He sees the faint, shadowy line on the stump diagonally behind him. As swift as lightning, he swings around. Like a man possessed, he pulls the trigger of the police revolver. Shot after shot reverberates through the evening stillness.

He had taken off his jacket when he came to sit by the fire, for the evening air is sultry after the sweltering day. His shirt is unbuttoned at the front and the sleeves are rolled up. With every crack of the heavy revolver, he sees the broad, flared hood shooting towards him like a spearhead. He feels the repeated striking against his chest, and when the magazine is empty and he, panting with terror, strikes at the beast on the stump, there is the pricking sensation on his forearm that sends a cold shiver through his skin. He is unaware of any pain and realises that he is not thinking clearly. He had already wanted to jump back, but his heavy boots are anchored to the ground as if the full extent of his mental faculties is focused on the movements of his arm.

“Jump back, Sir!” he hears the hoarse cry beside him. “Get back!”

He realises how the snake is evading every blow he aims at it, and then shooting with precision between his flailing arms to strike against his shirt and sometimes leave a mark on his bare body. Then a hard blow strikes him on the shoulder. He is flung away into the tall grass.

Manjeta hurls the mug of steaming coffee at the beast. The flared hood shrinks away, and the long, gleaming neck disappears into the coils on the stump. In his left hand, Manjeta holds a burning log that he had snatched from the fire as he sprang forward. His own fear died in the face of his officer’s peril. With an inborn loyalty, he had charged at this deadly, venomous thing.

Now he aims the burning log precisely at the middle of that coiled, deadly nest. The movement causes the flames and black smoke to lash back into his face. He squeezes his eyes shut. The wood burns into the stump. Burning embers scatter into the long grass.

Manjeta snatches his hand back. He opens his eyes and rubs them with his hands to soothe the sting of the smoke. At the same time, he also jumps back.

There is nothing at the stump. He steps closer, looks on either side of it, but nowhere is a sign of the cobra to be detected. He bends over the white constable. He sees that Van Greunen is lying motionless. He lifts him up and carries him to the fire. The white man’s eyes are open. Suddenly his face contorts with pain. His body tenses. Then he relaxes again.

Manjeta pulls a razor-sharp knife from the sheath at his side. His eyes search the white man’s chest. He shakes his head.

“My Sir should have jumped back,” he says, moved. “My Sir should have jumped back… then it could only have struck once.”

 

Major Sonnenberg looks up from the diary lying open before him on the desk as the door opens. A young sergeant closes it behind him and comes briskly to the front of the desk. He salutes.

The major stands and extends his hand. The other shakes it firmly.

“You’re here, Kobus,” Major Sonnenberg exclaims. “Welcome back!”

“Thank you, Major,” Kobus Roode replies with a smile, his gaze not wavering from the other’s. “I got up as soon as I received the message.”

“Got up?” the major exclaims in surprise. “At eleven in the morning!”

“Yes.” Kobus smiles broadly. “My exams are behind me. I still have leave until tomorrow. I decided to spend it in bed.”

The major nods. He sits down but continues to look at the young sergeant.

“I don’t blame you, Kobus,” he says genially. “You’ve worked hard. You deserve to rest for a while now.”

“And yet you are the first to disturb that rest,” Kobus calls out with mock reproach, while he, too, takes a seat.

“Isn’t there another way you would rest better, Kobus?”

A yearning drives the smile from the young man’s eyes. It is as if he can feel the wind of the open veld blowing against his face and the rhythm in his body of a magnificent beast’s powerful gallop beneath him, with the reins held lightly in his left hand.

He is suddenly all interest. Since beginning his career as a lawman, he had served as a constable in various remote corners of the Transvaal. That had been his life. But his zeal and the success he achieved in many a case had drawn the attention of Head Office. Kobus Roode is not yet thirty, and yet he is already a detective sergeant. They had recalled him to Johannesburg for further training. The days and weeks of research in the records rooms, the oppressive four walls with their confining view, had made him restless.

During this period, he had found a friend… a man who understood him. Major Sonnenberg soon realised that Kobus Roode’s spirit wandered in the open country, over mountain and slope and veld, while he nevertheless applied himself to his studies with praiseworthy dedication. And because Major Sonnenberg owed his popularity not only to a pleasant personality, he had already sent Kobus out on cases on several occasions when he could easily have found someone else for the task.

“I don’t want to be presumptuous, Major!” Kobus exclaims eagerly. “But if there happens to be work…”

“There is,” Major Sonnenberg says with a nod. Even before Kobus was summoned to Johannesburg, he had already followed the young sergeant’s career. He now looks at the broad shoulders and knows how much strength is contained in that young body. He sees the excitement on the regular features, which appear so neat under the crew cut, currently bared of a cap. “Read this, Kobus.” The major picks up the diary and hands it across the desk. Then he leans back and relaxes while watching the young sergeant as he turns back a few pages and reads Constable Van Greunen’s notes, up to the last words written that night by the campfire. After reading it word for word, he looks up.

“Where is Constable Van Greunen?” he enquires.

“That’s not all, Kobus. That is not the end of that story.”

Kobus is aware of the gravity of this announcement. He has also noticed that the major is no...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.9.2025
• Übersetzer: Pieter Haasbroek, Ai
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-13: 9780001021532 / 9780001021532