“I get that, but your grandfather travels abroad to lecture and train police to investigate ritual murders. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing—”
“My grandfather is a complex man with many talents, but he knows what he’s doing. The Vatican wouldn’t have allowed Father Gabriel to be on our services if they thought Gramps was a lunatic,” I say. “I need to get on with sorting these files before we get to the police station.”
“Esmé—”
“Not now, Rynhardt. I have to focus.”
Chapter 37
MISSING TEEN ALERT
CHANTELLE MARIE PERKINS
Description:
SAPS Case Number: OB06/06/06
Age: 17 Years
Gender: Female
Eyes: Green
Hair: Blonde
Build: Athletic
Weight: 61 kg
Height: 1.70 m
Last Seen: Monday, 06/06/2006
Last Contact: Monday, 06/06/2006
Last Seen Wearing: Pink sweatpants, with the word “JUICY” bedazzled in gold, across the buttocks. A white tank top and a black hoodie, as well as white Adidas trainers.
Chantelle Marie Perkins was last seen jogging down Columbia Road in Clubview, Centurion, on the 6th of June 2006, around 05:30 hours. She jogged a specific pre-approved route every morning before school and the neighbours always kept an eye out for her. A witness, Lesley Joyce, stated on the day of her disappearance, however, a suspicious car (a black Volkswagen Golf) without a registration number had driven up and down the streets in Clubview. Police were notified of the suspicious activity but had not arrived by the time Chantelle went out on her usual run.
Before Chantelle went missing, a brutish man was seen getting out of the car to walk down Columbia Road. Witnesses described him as a twenty-something year old black male, wearing a leather jacket, big black boots, and a necklace with a tooth pendant.
At 06:00 hours, when Chantelle had not returned to get ready for school, her parents became worried. By then the suspicious car had also left the area.
If you know of any leads to Chantelle’s whereabouts, or know of anyone who may be able to assist us in finding her, please contact your nearest police station.
Chapter 38
Coming face to face with a criminal is always a troublesome experience. Not because those men and women are sometimes accused of the most heinous crimes humanity has to offer, but because I’m always let down for some reason. I expect monsters to do the things they’re accused of doing, not regular human beings. It’s like figuring out Adolf Hitler was just a man with a vicious appetite for violence and a knack for manipulation made worse thanks to the magnificent power he’d gained. But the horrifying truth is, partly due to the fact it means everyone is capable of such extreme actions. Adolf Hitler was still just a man.
With Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy, I’m confronted with the same disappointment.
Sure, he is a bit broader in the chest than most of the criminals I’ve seen in the past, and he consists of corded muscles and sinew and he has a lot of height on me, but he’s just a human. He possibly has a terrible undiagnosed chemical imbalance in his brain, or he’s living with a terrifying childhood. But he’s a man nonetheless. I’m not a psychologist or a brain surgeon, so I can’t explain why he is the way he is, the same way I can’t explain why I’m the way I am. All I know is he’s flesh and bone, like me. And like Gramps implied, everyone in the world has a black mark against their names.
I drop my files onto the metal table, earning a reproachful grimace from the perpetrator. I sit down across from him and his lawyer. I take in his features—a strong jaw, brown eyes, large forehead, but most distinctively a scar across his upper lip—before, diverting my eyes to the files in front of me.
Detective Mosepi sits down to my left, silently allowing me the space to interrogate Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy. Rynhardt is leaning against the wall behind us, for reasons unbeknownst to me.
It’s time to get answers, fresh leads, Him.
The lawyer will be a problem, but the rat-faced criminal defence attorney with his beady eyes and cheap charcoal-coloured suit doesn’t seem like the type to care. This case is the sort of case they give out as punishment to insubordinate lawyers. It’s unwinnable, career suicide.
“My name is Esmé Snyders,” I start, folding my hands on the desk. “How would you prefer me to address you?”
I direct my question to Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy, who looks away. His pink tongue runs across his white teeth, before he smacks his thick lips. That’s all the response I get.
“You know keeping your identity from us won’t halt the investigation or prosecution. In fact, the more you piss them off,” I gesture in Detective Mosepi’s direction, “the likelier it is they’ll prosecute you under the name Pink Fluffernickel De Wet.”
He doesn’t break, which I expected.
“Let’s get on with it. You know why you’re here, right?” I say.
“Speeding.” His voice is abrasive, like sandpaper against tree bark. If he hadn’t been a real life villain, he could have played one in a radio drama.
“That too,” I say, glancing at the disinterested lawyer. Had he even given the guy council? Let’s see. “You’re also a suspect in a lot of open cases.”
Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy sneers, shrugs.
“If you don’t start cooperating, the police are going to charge you with theft, assault, kidnapping, rape, attempted murder, murder, and the illegal trade of human tissue. They have enough evidence to put you away for the rest of your life.”
“Allegedly,” the lawyer chimes in.
Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy flashes me a wolfish smile that cuts through my confidence. “Three square meals a day, a free education, a lifelong gym membership, and I get paid for doing menial chores around the prison. And you think I need to be worried?” He snorts in amusement. “I’m not scared.”
“You should be scared, though,” I say. “You don’t think you’ll be in the general populace, do you?” My hand drops down to the white piece of paper outlining the charges. “With this rap-sheet? No, no. You’ll be in a dark hole where nobody will ever find you. The rest of the world might think the prison system in South Africa is a picnic, but people get lost and forgotten so easily with the amount of people in there. And the things that happen to those lost and forgotten inmates…” I shake my head and tut. “Let’s just say they wish capital punishment was an option.”
“Miss Snyders are you threatening my client?” The lawyer asks.
“I’m hardly the threatening type.”
“I’m not scared,” Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy says again.
“Of course not, but people quickly change their minds when they see how it really is on the inside.”
I slide the files into view, opening the top one to the photographs of the victim. Sumaya Sava, a twenty-nine-year-old Muslim woman who’d been brutally attacked in 2004, peers back at me through swollen and discoloured eyes. All she’d done to deserve this was walk alone from the bus stop. I take out the photos and spread them out for the lawyer and his client to see. Displaying Sumaya’s bruises, her gaping wounds, the lacerations, as well as her defensive wounds is probably shocking, but this is the least of the shame she’d had to endure.
“Do you remember this woman? The one you raped and mauled like an animal?”
He looks away.
“No, you be a man and look at the things you’ve done.”
Slowly, he turns back to face me, defiance glittering in his eyes like jewels.
“Before she was raped and disfigured, she had a life. She was a mother, a wife, a daughter, and a sister. You took all of that away from her. Her husband divorced her, taking their children with him. Her depression is so great, she’s tried to commit suicide, which is a taboo in her faith. She’s been ostracised from her family and her community.”
Not missing a beat, I open a second file and take out the next set of photographs.
Henry Ndaba, a teenager at the time, who’d been targeted due to his albinism. He’d been partially castrated and he’d lost an arm. I remember interviewing him, remember how he said the man responsible had a possible cleft lip and definite demonic eyes.
I glance at the Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy, searching for the demonic eyes Henry had mentioned, but don’t find any trace of them.
“Do you remember this man?” I ask, suddenly unsure as to whether we have the right guy in custody. “Look closely.”
“I know nothing,” he spits out each word individually.
I’m not satisfied.
One after the other I pull out photographs of the victims, bitching every time he looks away.
The lawyer is quick to say I’m badgering his client, but I have a sharp tongue, and apparently Rynhardt’s well-versed when it comes to the law. Rynhardt keeps the proceedings in check with ease, much to my dismay. I would have enjoyed getting under his skin with a more brutal line of questioning. Finally, when every photograph is on display for him, something inside Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy snaps.
Gone is the rage, the detachment, the defiance. All that remains is the broken man whose sins have caught up with him. Success is in my grasp.
“I’m not this man anymore,” he says, barely above a whisper.
“I need to convene with my client,” the lawyer chips in.
“No.” Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy taps at a random photo with his index finger. “I’m not this man anymore. I’ve done bad things, I know—”
“You need to shut up right now,” the lawyer cuts him off, jumping from his seat.
“Sit down, Mr. Khumalo.” Detective Mosepi’s calm voice rings through the interrogation room for the first time.
The lawyer does as he’s instructed, but doesn’t seem happy about being ordered around.
“We all make mistakes,” Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy says. “These are my mistakes. I’m not like this anymore. I’ve grown up. I have a wife and a baby, and I have a job. I don’t do this anymore.”
“You have a life,” I say. “But your actions have ruined the lives of not only these people, but also the lives of their families and friends. You have a life, yes. They do not.”
“Fuck you! We all make mistakes!”
“What is your name?” I ask, not allowing myself to be baited into another circular argument.
Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy doesn’t answer. A veil of insolence glazes his eyes, making his intentions clear: he would not answer any of the important questions. There’s an unjustified loyalty between him and his brother, one I won’t be able to break in one sitting.
After an intense staring contest between the two of us, my cell phone vibrates in my pocket.
I fish it out, scroll to my messages and find an MMS from an unknown number with no explanation. After downloading the message, the image of a man with a warped face walking into a ruin of a building pops up. Colourful graffiti, gang tags, an image of a hawk, and JOU MA SE POES is visible against one wall of the desolate building. There’s also a black van parked nearby and overgrowth on the side of the building. Not a lot, but enough to hide certain illegal activities if the occasion called for it. The place looks familiar, but I just can’t place it.
Detective Mosepi leans closer, looking at my phone, before he whispers: “What is it?”
“We need to talk,” I say, jutting my chin to the door.
“Emergency?”
“Possibly,” I answer.
Without so much as a look in Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy or his lawyer’s direction, I exit the interrogation room with Detective Mosepi in tow. Rynhardt follows us too. When we’re out of earshot I hold out my cell phone for them to study the image. “This just came in from an unknown number. The place looks familiar, but—”
“That’s what used to be Lucky Luke’s,” Detective Mosepi says. “It’s across the street, beyond the dip, and a few buildings over; just opposite the Cash & Carry.”
“I thought it closed down ages ago,” I say.
“Oh, it did. Lucky Luke’s closed down and fell into disrepair. Now it’s a heroin house.”
“Oh my god,” I breathe. “The police station is right here. Why the hell don’t you do something about it?”
Detective Mosepi’s unreadable expression is his only response, because duh. I should know by now logic isn’t in everyone’s nature, or in their vocabulary for that matter. The SAPS is no different in this regard.
“Fine, can we go see if he’s there?”
“You want to go snooping around in a heroin house, filled with druggies who are stoned out of their mind, in search of a guy whose face we can’t see?”
“A simple no would have sufficed, but yes,” I say. “I would like to follow this lead.”
“We can’t. There are protocols—”
“Protocols haven’t done jack in this case so far.”
“Don’t get snippy with me, Esmé,” Detective Mosepi warns. “Everyone’s frustrated.”
I wave my hand in the direction of the street for emphasis: “He’s right here, Mosepi.” The indignation I feel amplifies my voice, but I don’t care. We need to find Him, before he can kill again. Before Him can get his grubby hands on someone I care for.
“You know what?” I start, pocketing my cell phone and straightening my back. “While you’re following protocols, I’m going to catch a killer.”
The two steps I take aren’t enough to get me out of his reach.
Detective Mosepi clamps his hand around my wrist and says my name in a low, fatherly voice. I turn to face him, and feel my resolve wasting away.
“I need to clear things with the captain first, so give me a few minutes and we’ll go together. Okay?” he says. “Okay?”
I exhale through my nose, nod, and feel him loosen his grip on me.
“Rynhardt, keep an eye on her. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Rynhardt acknowledges the request with an unenthusiastic “Yes, sir,” and Detective Mosepi departs. He studies me in one quick look, the same technique he taught me not three days ago before leaning back against the wall again. “Are you still angry with me?”
I have a split second to make a decision, a decision I’ll likely regret in the morning.
Detective Mosepi rounds a corner, disappearing from sight. Now’s possibly my only chance. The captain is unpredictable, and I doubt he’d be in the mood to send some of his people on a wild goose chase.
I saunter up to Rynhardt, as close as I can without broadcasting my intentions to the whole world, before placing both hands against his chest. My fingertips draw circles against his crisp white shirt.
“Angry is too harsh a word,” I say, keeping my voice low and seductive. “Mildly disappointed, maybe, but I’m over it.”
Our gazes meet, and a somewhat familiar fluttering starts up in the pit of my stomach. The feeling catches me off guard, and I almost don’t go through with my plan. Unfortunately for Rynhardt, people’s lives are on the line.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, you know?” he says, one hand snaking around my waist.
I take a step closer, press my cheek against his shoulder, and allow my hands to slowly move down his chest and to his sides.
“I know.” My hands slide lower until they come to a rest on the hem of his pants. I tilt my chin to look into his eyes again. “I really do like you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
I blush. “Take me out to dinner sometime?”
“Just tell me when.”
My left hand moves to his cheek, before I draw him closer and kiss him deeply. Meanwhile the nimble fingers on my right hand moves to his pocket, snatch his keys, and with deft movements make their way into my pocket. If I had come with my own car, I wouldn’t have had to resort to this treachery, but life loves throwing curveballs. So, here I am, ready to commit grand theft auto for the sake of following a lead which may not even pan out.
I break the kiss, feeling starry-eyed and guilty, and pull away.
/>
“Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to make use of the ladies’ room, and I suspect you need to get Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy back to the cells.”
Rynhardt clears his throat and nods. “Yeah.”
“It’s this way, right?” I point in the opposite direction to where the bathrooms are. I’ve been here enough to know their exact location. My conscience is going to be gnawing at me, at least for a week.
Rynhardt shakes his head. “No, it’s this way. Turn right, second door on your left.”
“Thanks.” I smile, fluttering my eyelashes, before making my way to where he’d directed.
When I’ve turned the corner, I stop and peer around the wall to make sure he’s left before dashing across the corridor and towards the back door. Past the tarnished metal door leading to the parking lot, I start running for the Ford Ranger—a beastly thing beside the rest of the vehicles.
“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” The mantra keeps my legs pumping, my boots smacking against the tarmac. I don’t look back. I can’t look back. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
I almost streamline past the Ford Ranger, needing to grab hold of the bullbar to stop myself from overshooting. As soon as the fob key’s pressed and the locks spring open, I’m climbing into the driver’s seat, singing my tune of obscenities. Then, I’m igniting the engine and pulling out of the parking space, finally allowing myself a glimpse at the door.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Rynhardt hadn’t figured out I’ve gone missing yet.
I turn my attention to the road and drive out of the parking lot without even being stopped by the guard at the gate.
Muti Nation Page 23
