Muti Nation (27 page)

If you stay in the areas allocated for tourism, industry and suburban living, your chances of becoming a victim is slimmer than if you venture off the Yellow Brick Road.

Of course South Africa is more than a crime statistic or an idiotic government. It’s more than a statue of Nelson Mandela, Charlize Theron’s Academy Award, or Mark Shuttleworth’s space adventure. We are a nation of innovators driven to explore the known as well as the unknown. We strive to excel.

Competition is in our blood; survival embedded in our genes.

It should come as no surprise that I, too, possess competitiveness.

As I step into the office building I already dread telling my grandfather how limited our options have become. I know for a fact, that he won’t take my decision well. What other choice do we have, though? It’s either me playing the killer’s game or someone else dying. If I have to become the bait, so be it.

“Ah, good,” Precious says, poking her head out from the reception room. “I’ve received a call from the labs. The DNA results are being faxed as we speak.”

“Fantastic!” I feel as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. “Thank God.”

“I would advise against premature celebrations for the time being,” she says, glancing to the stairs before she waves me closer to the desk.

I walk over and lean against the desk. Exhaustion is a bitch, especially when you’ve seen someone murdered in front of you by an invisible hand of absolutely nothing.

Precious says, “Howlen looks like shit, and he’s in a foul mood to boot. Any idea why?”

“Not in the least,” I lie.

Precious clucks her tongue, before looking me up and down. “You don’t look much better. Something happen at the police station?”

“You can say that,” I say. “Rochester Ramphele died under extraordinary circumstances.”

“Oh? Tell me.”

And so I do. I tell her all about the horrific day I’d lived through and how all this happened before lunchtime.

Precious doesn’t enquire further than what I’m ready to divulge, but her eyes reveal how her mind is trying to find solutions to make my life easier. She’ll overlook my decision to play the killer’s game as a viable option, like always, but eventually she’ll come to realise we’ve crossed into that territory.

“Your grandfather is with Father Gabriel,” Precious says when I finish my story. “You might want to go tell them what’s happened.”

“Will do, but first I need those DNA results.” I stick out my hand and wiggle my fingers.

She looks at the fax machine before pulling the newly printed pages from the tray, and hands them over.

“Howlen!” I shout over my shoulder, knowing my voice would drift upstairs. “DNA results!”

“I’m coming!” he shouts back.

His footsteps move overhead, heavy and sluggish, as he makes his way to the staircase.

I walk over to the bannister, waving the papers in front of my face to keep the heat from making me sweat. Howlen comes into view, a more disgruntled, more dishevelled, more annoyed version of the person I know.

“You look like you’ve had a
terrible
night,” I say, smiling cruelly at him.

“Fuck off.”

“Dearie me, one would think a girl named Cinnamon would have been able to put you in a better mood. She is, after all, a professional. Isn’t she?” I pull the papers away before he could snatch them. “Considering you left me stranded in a really bad part of town, shouldn’t I be the one in a bad mood?”

“I’m sorry, okay? Can we get over this already?”

“No.” I continue to smile and flutter my eyelashes for extra effect. “Aren’t you even going to ask how I got home?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” he mutters. “You’re alive. How bad could it have been?”

My smile falters. “If you weren’t so good at your job, I’d have your ass fired so fast.”

“Oh, get off your throne.” He holds out his hand. “Do you want me to take a look at the results or should I wait until you’re done throwing your tantrum.”

I throw the papers into the air instead of handing them over and stroll away towards my grandfather’s office. If I lingered, things would have quickly gotten out of hand. Then people would question why we were getting into a mud-slinging contest. That would lead to assumptions, and assumptions are always bad. Besides, Howlen isn’t worth any of my emotions, anger included.

I knock on my grandfather’s office door and wait until he calls back.

“You’re back earlier than I expected.” Gramps is standing beside his desk, still dressed in his pyjamas. Father Gabriel is hunched over something on the desk, studying it intently. “Do we have any good news?”

“Not in particular. Rochester Ramphele died before he could tell us the registration number of
Him
’s van,” I say, walking inside. “The lab sent back the DNA results, though. So maybe we’ll catch a break.”

“If we don’t?” he asks.

“I’ve decided if we don’t find a lead, to become the bait. I’ll volunteer,” I say.

At this Father Gabriel’s head swings to face me. Gramps’ jaw drops. Obviously they haven’t even considered this line of thinking.

“Pops, what else is there to do?”

“I don’t approve,” Gramps says.

“Neither do I,” Father Gabriel chimes in.

“And I’m willing to take it to the next level if our current leads don’t pan out. If they do, I’ll withdraw my offer.” I take a seat on the sofa. “I’m not—”

I’m interrupted by a knock on the open door.

Without waiting for a sign to come in, Howlen enters, still reading the results. “I’ve got some interesting news for you,” he says. “Remember the sample we took from the customs officer you punched, Christiaan?”

“Yes,” Gramps answers.

“Well, your little stunt pretty much solved a handful of our open cases,” Howlen says.

“That’s wonderful!” Gramps exclaims. “We should get the police out there immediately.” He picks up the phone with shaky fingers.

“Is there anything about our current case in the stack of results?” I ask, studying my nails.

“
Him
isn’t in the system,” Howlen answers. “But it seems our customs officer is a blood relation to the killer. In fact, according to these results, they’re brothers.”

That snaps my attention. “You’re sure?”

“As sure as the labs are.” He shrugs and turns to Father Gabriel. “I couldn’t figure out what’s causing the “Dead Zone” phenomena. I’ve sent samples to some peers overseas, to see if they can find an explanation, though.”

“It’s the work of pure evil, like I said,” Father Gabriel uses an I-told-you-so tone.

“You withdraw your offer, yes?” Gramps asks me, holding his hand over the receiver.

“For now, but we need to find
Him
. Soon.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll make sure to get something out of Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy.” Gramps returns to the phone call.

“You were considering offering yourself up to the killer?” Howlen says walking closer. “Is this about last night?”

“What do you take me for?” I whisper. “Some pathetic damsel in distress? Sorry, Howl, but even if you didn’t walk out on me last night at the club, we wouldn’t have worked out. You’ve got too many secrets, and I have no desire to complicate my life further.”

“How did you get home last night?”

“Does it matter?”

“If you knew why I stormed off in the first place, you might be more sympathetic.”

“Doubtful. Very doubtful. But even if you did share your lot in life, what right does it give you to treat me with such callousness? Besides, I’m sure you were thinking up a buffet of excuses while you were banging Cinnamon.”

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,” he says.

“Oh please, if you wanted to talk about anything concerning your life, you had more than a few opportunities since Gramps employed you,” I snap back.

“When you two are done whispering over there, let me know. We have to come up with a plan of action,” Gramps says. “I want these bastards in cuffs by Friday at the latest.”

~

The plan of action is simple:

Detective Mosepi will be in control of a sting operation, along with cops from the Johannesburg Police Departments and the airport authorities. Due to the unknown identity of the perpetrator, and not knowing his address, this will have to go down at O.R. Tambo International whether the hotshot airport guys want it or not.

Gramps will be at the police station, ready to identify the guy out of a line-up, whereas Detective Louw and I will be in the interrogation room asking questions about crimes he’s probably forgotten committing. There are, I think, eleven cases to which I can link the guy. This amounts to at least eleven lives he’s ruined, or ended. Not counting the victims’ family members or friends. And it doesn’t include what his brother’s been up to. Specific numbers will have to be guessed at until I can work through all of our cases.

Howlen will stay at the office.

Nobody in Snyders International wants to depend on him for anything. I have my own reasons why, but Gramps says it’s because Howlen’s entered his “self-destruction season.” Whatever that means.

Father Gabriel has to be out of town for a week or two, due to some “pandemic” in Bloemfontein caused by a silly game called the Charlie-Charlie Challenge. This game supposedly makes kids think they’re getting possessed by a Mexican demon or something along those lines. I don’t know the semantics. Father Gabriel is the expert, and he said it’s a load of bull. In other words, he’ll quickly tell parents or teachers or the kids themselves it’s all in their heads, but I’ve seen how a bit of holy water and a prayer can make those types of people feel better.

Precious, on the other hand, holds the fort. We’re still waiting for results to come through, for eyewitnesses to call back, for unexplained phenomena to be reported.

Our plan of action will only be implemented in a couple of days.

In the meantime, I’m sitting on the floor in the musky, dimly lit storage room, sifting through case files for any further links to Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy. So far I’d only found two definite cases, where in the transcript the witness explicitly states the attacker had worn a human tooth necklace. Everyone knows there were more links; we simply need the definitive proof of his involvement.

I drew the short straw on storage room duty.

Motes of dust swirl through the dank room where each box represents a case. There are, in total, one hundred and forty boxes relating to muti crimes. More boxes, relating to other paranormal and occult cases, exist. But those are, thankfully, in a separate storage room on the second floor.

The closet-sized space holding the muti-related cases is not my favourite place in the world. As I read through a file and evaluate evidence, I can’t help feeling itchy. Those itches then turn to thoughts of spiders with judgmental eyes, large fangs, and a terrible disposition. When the spiders aren’t enough to freak me out, my mind wanders to silverfish. In my opinion, silverfish are worse than any spider.

I shudder, scratch the back of my neck and wade through boxes.

“Knock, knock.”

Rynhardt’s voice snaps me out of my concentration. I look up to find him standing in the door.

“I was sent to help, seeing as I need to familiarise myself with the cases before interrogation day,” he explains.

“Oh, good,” I say, shifting to the side to create space for him.

Rynhardt unclips his weapon from the holster, and places it on the floor beside him when he sits down.

I point to a stack of boxes near the door. “Those five boxes aren’t related to Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy. I still have a hundred and thirty-two others to go through, though. Are you up for the challenge?”

“I am.” He grabs one of the boxes I’d already taken down for myself. “What am I looking for exactly?”

“Check the transcripts for anything implying the perpetrator wore a human tooth necklace. If you don’t find anything there you’ll have to look through some of the lab results where trace evidence was collected. Push those to the side and I’ll have Howlen see if they match to the results we got today.”

“Okay.” Rynhardt nods, lifting the lid off the box. “It’s quieter than normal here.”

“Prep days are always like this,” I say, flipping through a transcript. “Usually someone is sent here to dig up things we need, then I, or Gramps depending if he’s in town, go through the shortlist boxes again to make sure they do relate to whatever. If trace evidence stuff should be double-checked, they go to Howlen. Eventually the boxes come to me again when I need to go in and present the evidence to the police or sit in on an interrogation.”

“Sounds like you could use a hand,” he says.

I show him how our administration system works. Every box is compartmentalised for easy navigation. There’s the overview file which holds copies of the most important things; the summary of the case stapled to the front of the file, copies of the police report and lab results, and photographs of the scene, are in those files. Another file in the box usually contains supplemental evidence, like transcripts and expert witness statements. The hard copies of audio or video recordings are in the boxes as well, alongside any material evidence we could find which the police overlooked. The last file contains our costs for the particular case. Some boxes have a lot of information; others are meager. When Rynhardt seems familiar enough with things, I let him be.