The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption (BOOK 1)

by Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

  “You know, Mr. Gweta, our mystery scientist was not motivated by fame or money. He was just showing off. He wanted to stick his thumb up the nose of the botanist community. How? By accomplishing what we thought was impossible. In fact, I don’t believe this inventor is even a botanist. I am convinced he wandered into the field and decided to focus on its most cryptic puzzle: turning a harmless plant into a carnivore with human DNA. As soon as he succeeded, he lost interest. He left the grunt work of improving his invention to lesser minds like my own. That is why he planted the flowers in a place he knew that someone like me would discover them. Great Zimbabwe is a popular area with ethno-botanists. I am sure he has moved on to other things by now. I believe we are dealing with a bored genius. This man is cursed with a miraculous brain in his skull, but no calling in his heart.”

  “That’s quite the insight,” said Mr. Gweta with a smile. “But how do you know it’s a man?”

  Professor Khupe nodded his head in concession.

  “True. It could be a woman. But even you referred to him as a ‘he’.”

  “You are right,” said Mr. Gweta with a laugh.

  Professor Khupe’s eyes drifted to the voluptuous statue in the corner. Unlike other sensual images of the female form, this sculpture had been crafted to allow for lust without guilt or consequence. Its face betrayed no expression, and yet, it was even more alluring than the rest of its unclothed body. There was something trustworthy in its eyes. They seemed to say: “Confide in me. I am naked.”

  Professor Khupe overcame the momentary distraction and turned back to his host.

  “I am confident that our secret botanist is a man. In my experience, it tends to be men who express such conceit. This one scares me more than anyone I have ever met.”

  “Why?”

  “He is cruel. Worse, he has a formidable intellect. That’s a disturbing combination.”

  “How could you possibly know all this?” asked Mr. Gweta.

  Professor Khupe hesitated. The reasons behind his prediction were buried in a dark past that he had never discussed with anyone. The trauma was still fresh after more than two decades. Throughout the years, he had considered sharing his secret with close friends but had eventually decided against it. The events were so incredible that no one would have believed him. Especially in those days when any sign of irrationality was considered a mental illness. The potential stigma was not worth any comfort he would have received from telling his story.

  Professor Khupe knew that generous funding can trigger unplanned confessions in any scientist. But after so many years, he felt the time had come to open up. What better person to confide in than Mr. Gweta? The lawyer would neither judge him nor dismiss his story offhand. After all, his host had represented petty cannibals and clients interested in carnivorous plants.

  “I once met someone like our mystery botanist. She was an aunt of mine. Unfortunately, she was born before her time. She was a prodigy. Sadly, she was denied an education because she was a girl. Her father married her off to a man three times her age. That sort of thing was common back then. She was condemned to a life of chopping firewood and cooking for a fat and ungrateful husband. A brain that could have cured stubborn diseases or extended the frontiers of modern mathematics was wasted. You know, Mr. Gweta, genius is like a raging river. If you dam its flow it will carve out another route. In her case, the urgency of her stifled intellect turned into pure evil.”

  “Surely she was not that bad?” asked Mr. Gweta.

  “She was. Do you know that at least eight people died after she moved to her new husband’s village? All perished under mysterious circumstances. This was a village of about four hundred people. In a highly superstitious society, the newcomer would usually get all the blame. But not my aunt. No one suspected a thing. She was that devious.”

  “How do you know she was responsible?” Mr. Gweta’s scepticism was unequivocal, but like a good lawyer, his tone was indulgent.

  “She was a master of the ‘perfect-storm strategy’. She used pre-existing factors to guide events in a way that led to someone’s death. For example, she could spot a romantic affair from ten kilometres away. She would study all the players involved. The ignorant spouse. The personalities of the lovers. Their finances. Their habits. Then over time she would slowly foment situations that seemed harmless on their own, but, when combined over time, led to devastating results.

  “Let’s take the case of our secret lovers. After a few months of observation, my aunt went to the married couple’s house to ask for some salt. She told them that she had run out. The ignorant husband was there when she came by. He realized that they did not have enough salt, so he decided to walk to the grocery store, eight kilometres away.

  “When he was halfway to the store, he bumped into a missionary who lived near the village. The missionary was returning from his weekly shopping trip in the nearby town. He offered the man a pack of salt. He always bought an extra one just in case. The man accepted the salt and a ride back to the village in the priest’s truck. The husband returned early and of course found the lovers together. It had been several months since they had gotten the opportunity, so they had been reckless. What did the husband do? He went to look for his axe at the back of the house. He could not find it. Of course he couldn’t. My uncle had borrowed it that same morning. Why? Because he could not find his own household axe. My aunt had hidden it the day before. So the enraged husband was left without a weapon to implement his anger.

  “What to do? He ran to the priest’s truck and found an axe in the back. This was not a surprise because the priest was known for cutting his own firewood. He always moved around with his axe. To cut a long story short, the husband did the same with the two lovers. The day ended with two naked bodies. Bloodied. Partially dismembered. Very dead. The killer went to jail.

  “Though the incident was tragic, the whole thing seemed as ordinary as a stench in a toilet. My aunt was thrilled. She could have orchestrated a simple killing but she wanted to flavour the savage event with irony. She had made sure that the enraged husband would use the holy man’s axe. She was even more elated about the guilt that the missionary would always carry on his conscience. The deaths were not his fault, but certain burdens are tailor-made to crush certain shoulders. Though the police did not charge him and the villagers did not blame him, the priest considered himself a spiritual accessory to murder. For a man of the cloth, his inadvertence offered no absolution.

  “That same year, another villager was stomped to death by a cow. Another set himself on fire. Two others disappeared and were never heard from again. One was found dead with a stomach full of fertilizer. The eighth was found in a shrivelled state. His stomach was full of salt. The circumstances of these cases made it impossible to implicate my aunt in any way. Each of the incidences was linked to factors that existed before she arrived in the village.”

  Mr. Gweta smiled. The professor knew what he was thinking.

  “How do I know all this? She told me. I visited her with my mother when I was a teenager. The two were second cousins. On the third night of our visit, I lay tossing and turning in my hut. I was experiencing the most vivid nightmare. I don’t know if it was the bad dream that broke my sleep, but when I woke up, I found my aunt sitting at the edge of my mattress. She had this blank expression on her face. I did not say a word.

  “She started telling me how she had ‘precipitated’ all these deaths. She did not refer to them as murders. Her voice was plain and direct. She told me that for each of those eight deaths, she had made an average of two hundred attempts. Even the greatest improbabilities can be overcome. It only required a sustained onslaught of attempts.

  “My aunt noted that her method of killing was condoned by the heavens because it required a mental aptitude that approached the divine. Killing with one’s own hands was only evil because ‘manual murder’ was the domain of brutes. Those who killed in this way were simply lashing out in a state of arousal. Such ‘Neanderthal ho
micides’ did not require high-quality thoughts ... only the desire to kill and the initiative to do so. But influencing a series of unrelated factors to bring about a murderous outcome was horrendously complex. If at all there was a sin in such an act, the genius of a successful attempt would guarantee forgiveness. A reward to the Blessed ...

  “I don’t know why my aunt was sharing all this information with me, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to ask any questions. When she was done, she stared at me for a while and said: ‘Do you know I can kill you too, young one? Your mother would never know who was responsible. How could she? She doesn’t even know that I am responsible for her sudden decision to visit me and to bring you along. I wanted you and me to talk. I usually don’t give people notice before I kill them, but my plans for you required your knowledge of my intentions. At first, I planned to tell you my entire strategy, one improbable step at a time. Unlike others I have dispensed, I would have given you enough notice. You would have had the chance to try and frustrate my efforts. But still, you would have failed. Your demise would have been more entertaining than all of my other successes combined. However, I am not going to kill you.’ She then added, ‘Something tells me your life will be worth observing rather than ending.’

  “Then she said something else that shocked me.”

  “What?” asked Mr. Gweta. He was on the edge of his seat.

  “She asked me if she could join me in bed.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, no. I told her I had a girlfriend.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing. Her expression did not change. It was as though she had never asked the question. Sure, I was a hormonal teenager, but that woman was frightening. She had these dead eyes. She kept them fixed on me for more than three minutes. In that time, she was frozen perfectly still. Then she suddenly twitched her head slightly to the left and locked it in that position for another minute. When a distant rooster announced the onset of sunrise, she stood and walked out without a word.

  “The next morning my aunt was a different woman. She was smiling and joking around with my mother. The eyes that had been dead earlier that morning were now filled with warmth and vitality. She even wished me good luck with my exams and gave me a gift. It was a writing pad with pink pages. Just in case I wanted to write a love letter to a girl. I decided to throw it away at the first opportunity. I could not do so when my mother was around, so I waited until we got back to Mutare. The day after we returned, I was walking along Aerodrome Road when I realized that I still had the pad in my pocket. I found the nearest garbage bin and threw it away.

  “The following morning, my best friend phoned me. He was frantic. He told me that my girlfriend had committed suicide. The series of events that led to that tragedy were as improbable as they were troubling. Apparently, my girlfriend’s best friend had seen me throwing away the writing pad. That girl hated me. She had retrieved the pad from the garbage in the hope that she would find something incriminating. Unfortunately, she died in a bus accident that same day. The police officers that arrived at the scene found the pad in her bag. My girlfriend’s name and address was written on the cover, so naturally they returned it to her.”

  “It turns out that on the very first page of that pad was a love letter written in my handwriting. The letter was addressed to my girlfriend’s best friend who had just died. Stung by the apparent betrayal, my girlfriend wrote a suicide note using a page from the same pad. She folded it together with the fake love letter and stuffed both of them down her throat. She choked to death. When the coroner removed the letters, the nonexistent love triangle came to light. The police interviewed me, but they did not charge me with anything.”

  “Do you think your aunt was responsible?”

  “I am sure of it. But even today, I cannot find an entry point into her method. She had complete deniability. My aunt lived in the rural areas and only travelled to Mutare twice a year with her husband. Though she was close to my mother, that fateful visit was the first time I had seen the woman since I was four years old. To my knowledge, she had met neither my girlfriend nor her best friend. Even if she had, both were dead so they could not confirm any contact. My aunt’s only connection to the events was that cursed pad.

  “But that’s not all. The officer in charge of the investigation showed me the letters that were retrieved from my girlfriend’s throat. Her suicide note was painful to read, but my so-called love letter struck me the hardest. It was in my handwriting. It mimicked my tone and adopted the phrases that I would use. It even employed terms of endearment that I only shared with my girlfriend in private. I didn’t want to look like a smitten teenager among my peers. The problem with that damned letter is that I did not write it. Worse, I knew that all the pages in the pad had been blank when my aunt gave it to me. In fact, she had even flipped through all of them in front of me before handing it over. I did not think much of it at the time, but I later realized that she had done so to confirm that nothing was written inside.”

  “Did you tell this to the police?” asked Mr. Gweta.

  “Of course not! I knew that no one would ever believe me so I kept my mouth shut. I accepted my role in the tragedy. My aunt knew I would not tell anyone. She wanted it to be our dirty secret. I got dirty. She revelled in the secret.”

  “It must have been a difficult time, Professor.”

  “Of course. I was a villain to both girls’ families. Many people in my community were generous with their hatred towards me. But I was a hero to my friends. Though I was heartbroken, I cannot deny that I was flattered by the admiration I received. I was the charming rogue who seduced two best friends and drove one of them to kill herself because of it. Isn’t it strange how young people can actually envy the power to bring about such a result? And it was not just the few who were destined to be psychopaths. Among them were others who grew up to become loving husbands and good citizens who donate to charity. Of course, I am not flattered by their admiration anymore.”

  “Of course. So where is your aunt, now?” asked Mr. Gweta.

  “I don’t know. She disappeared. Her husband came home one day and she was gone. He remarried and produced a battalion of children. That was that. Nothing more could be done. No one ever heard from my aunt again. I doubt she ever found a productive use for her talents. I hope she is dead.”

  Mr. Gweta shook his head and smiled. The two men sat in silence for a while.

  Professor Khupe continued.

  “Ratidzo was a wonderful girl.”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “Yes. I loved her. Sadly, she was young and volatile. If she had talked to me before taking such drastic measures, she would still be alive today. I wish she had lived long enough to grow out of the fiction that we were supposed to be together forever. She would have come to realize that our love was the early stage of a long process of maturity. Of self-definition. We all need people to push or lean against in order to discover who we are. To shape ourselves. Who knows, Ratidzo may have grown to realize I was an idiot? Maybe she would have hated me. She never got the chance. Wherever she is, the girl is probably looking down on me and slapping herself. I am sure she is screaming: ‘I died for a botanist! Why?’”

  Professor Khupe smiled to himself.

  “Ratidzo was only sixteen.”

  Mr. Gweta sighed. “It appears both our lives were influenced by women we once loved.”

  “At least yours survived for you to mock, Mr. Gweta.”

  Professor Khupe shrugged. The past was a prison full of screaming ghosts. Even when a visit was unavoidable, it was never a good idea to stay too long.

  “You know, Mr. Gweta, the man who developed our carnivorous plant reminds me of my aunt. Such people wreak havoc simply because they have the capacity to do so. They have supersonic intellects. Unfortunately, they are anchored to the railway tracks of a world that is run by average minds. Their pent-up intelligence craves an outlet. They could apply themselves to curing d
iseases or creating inventions to benefit humanity. Instead, they spend their time developing plants that eat the dead. When you have no regard for humanity, using genius for destruction is the only option. In a strange way, I pity such people. Their tragedy is that they will never find fulfilment because their genius is not driven by any exalted purpose. For my aunt, murder was an outlet, not a calling. With time, the outlet replaced any hope of a productive self-discovery. Everyone loses.”

  Professor Khupe leaned forward.

  “Mr. Gweta. This plant is the result of genius without a calling. Like my aunt, this anonymous botanist is planning havoc. His motivation is bound to be trivial, but his impact will not be. This is just the beginning. Warn your clients. There is probably nothing they can do anyway, but at least it will give them some notice of the coming disarray. That alone is a gift. Surprises tend to compound trauma.”

  Professor Khupe looked at his watch.

  “I apologize for moving us off-topic,” he said.

  Mr. Gweta shook his head. “Don’t apologize. It was a fascinating story. A welcome diversion from the prosaic world of corporate law.”

  “Prosaic but profitable,” replied Professor Khupe.

  “I won’t deny that!”

  Mr. Gweta rolled up his sleeves and placed his hands behind his head.

  “Now, it is critical that your work remains secret. We do not want any disclosures. We have already prepared a security plan for your lab.”

  “Fair enough,” replied Professor Khupe. Suddenly, he felt an urge to pose a question that he knew should remain unasked. His curiosity got the better of him.

  “So after we develop and patent this plant, then what?”

  Mr. Gweta smiled. “Nothing. We put the patent on the shelf and sue anyone who infringes on it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your work will never see the light of day, Professor.”

  “Are you saying that your clients are hiring me to spend a decade of my life on something that may never make it to the market?”