Muti Nation (10 page)

“I heard about those cases you’re working on.” She licks on a red fireball and looks at me through half-lidded sapphire eyes. “From what I’ve gathered, it sounds like a dangerous killer is on the loose.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” I bite into a sour worm and pull the candy taut until it breaks in half.

“Anything I can help with?” she asks. “The media’s all over this, I could try and throw my weight around to give you some time?”

“It’s okay for now, Lei, but thank you.”

She turns onto her stomach, props herself onto her elbows and regards me from afar. “Want to talk about it?”

“No,” I say sharply.

“Want to talk about the sexy Brit you’ve been seeing on and off?” Leila wiggles her eyebrows, licks the fireball and sticks out her red tongue. No good can come from the naughty glimmer in her eyes. “Does he butter your scone like a real English gent?”

My face grows hot and she laughs in response.

“Can I make you a cuppa tea, then?” she teases, faking a cringe-worthy British accent.

From a tittering giggle, I fall into fits of laughter.

She’s relentless. “’Ave yer seen wha’ those bluddy Tory arseholes are up to now?”

“He doesn’t sound like an extra in a football hooligan flick!” I howl.

“Ah, yes. Of course,” Leila says, wiping her expression clear of emotion. “Let me just channel my inner Downton Abbey—”

“Please, don’t.”

She grins, licks her fireball again, and jerks her hand away from her mouth. “I almost forgot.” She pushes her free hand into her cleavage and pulls out a silver USB flash drive. “Don’t lose it. Don’t tell anyone you have it. Destroy it if you can’t find a use for the information on it.” Leila hands over the warm flash drive.

“Duly noted. Thank you.” I hide the drive between my own breasts until it is out of sight and safe. “What’s on it?”

Leila beams. “Blackmail on the judges who are pro-muti, if you get what I mean?”

“I have no idea what you mean.” I sit upright.

“Oh, you know,” she says, “just a few documents proving how certain judges faked their university degrees or some of their grades in order to get said degree. Photographs of an especially lenient judge on ritual murders who purchased muti from a witchdoctor he’d not convicted. Paper trails of pay-offs between judges and felons who walked. That type of stuff.”

“Holy shit, where did you get this information?”

“There’s a new genius I.T. guy at work. Not much to look at, mind, but he got me the info.” Leila shrugs again, pops the fireball into her mouth and cradles it in her cheek. “After I called him a dirty little nasty boy who was in dire need of a spanking he was more than willing to do my bidding.” Her mouth puckers up as she moves the sweet to the other cheek. “Anyway, I already verified the information, so you have your golden ticket if you want to use it, babe.”

“Holy crap, Lei,” I whisper. I’ll never blackmail a judge, it would be idiotic, but the prosecution side can definitely use this information if push comes to shove. If Gramps’ illegal retrieval of DNA was classified as being a loophole, this USB flash drive is a freaking wormhole planets could fall through.

“You’re welcome,” she says smugly, turning on to her back. “Now, we have about ninety minutes to catch up on each other’s lives. Tell me all about what you’ve been up to with Howlen these days.”

“It’s not like that between us.”

“Of course it’s not. You’re smart enough to know when a guy’s just there to scratch an itch, and I am smart enough to know you don’t see Howlen as a permanent fixture in your life. It doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a lack of scratching happening.”

I sigh. “Fine, I’ll tell you about the so-called scratching.”

It’s the least I can do, considering she doesn’t accept money for risking her life for others.

Chapter 12

The darkness is overwhelming; the rancid smell even more so.

The clicks and scratches of scurrying rats set his pulse racing. Abraham Amin scrambles for a foothold on the dirt-caked floor, scuffing his polished black shoes in the process. Sweat taps down his neck, trails his spine, and accumulates at his waistband. His drenched filthy shirt is sticking to his body uncomfortably. His breath comes out in ragged pants while he works his bound wrists against the leather cuffs. Chains rattle as he tugs his arms and swings his body back and forth to loosen the restraints.

The last thing he remembers is being at the ambassadorial mansion in Moreleta Park, chatting up some millionaire widow from Dubai. Most of the night is a blur which doesn’t make any sense. He never consumed alcohol excessively.
Never
. Therefore, he concludes he must’ve been drugged—probably by the overeager widow. But why? Why would anyone want to do this to him?

“Damn it,” Abraham chastises himself for his own stupidity. It was the first time he’d accepted the club’s invitation. It was the first time he’d considered cheating on his estranged, lunatic spouse. Now, he couldn’t help but wonder if she is behind all of this.

“Colleen!” he shouts out, hoping to get her attention. She’d done some pretty fucked-up shit in the past, but this was going too far. “Colleen!”

Blood runs down his arms and gathers in his armpits, staining his shirt red from the effort. If he can only find a way to pull himself up and get the leather cuffs unhooked from the hook, then he can escape. Then he can change his bloody last will and testament and exclude the demented she-devil from his inheritance. Abraham knows he’s grown soft over the years, soft enough to be overpowered, soft enough to be strung up like an animal waiting to be slaughtered. Pathetic.

He works his wrists clockwise and anticlockwise, the soundtrack to his escape being pants and grunts. Abraham feels the leather cuff cut into the mound of his left palm, slick blood lubricating his restraint. He tugs harder, more violently, grinding his teeth as he endures the pain. The leather bites into the soft flesh of his hand until he hears an unexpected crack. He supresses a scream when he realises the crack was him dislocating his own thumb. It’s surprise, not pain. He can’t feel anything really, except anger toward Colleen. He’d always known she was a strange woman. When they were younger, her free spirit charmed him, but as they grew older the novelty wore off and her crazy antics became borderline violent. Now, after twelve years of marriage he knew her soul was as black as this endless darkness.

He needs to find a way out. Then he’ll plan his revenge.

After a long struggle he slips one hand out of the cuff and blindly loosens the other. It takes longer than he hopes, but soon his arms are hanging limply at his sides, and he’s on solid ground again. The hard part comes next; finding a way out. If only he could see. If only he had a weapon to defend himself.

“You freed yourself faster than I anticipated.” The whispered voice is calm. Too calm. It’s not Colleen’s voice, as he’d hoped. Colleen he could handle.

Abraham’s heart pounds in his chest as fear courses through his veins. Every instinct tells him to run, but where?

“Then again, aren’t politicians professionals when it comes to evasion? Get themselves out of tricky situations, fast?”

An uneasy quiet falls.

When nothing happens after a few minutes, Abraham starts to wonder if the voice isn’t simply a figment of his imagination. Mind games are one of Colleen’s specialties. She says it “keeps our love unpredictable.” Maybe the stress has caught up with him.

He stretches his arms out and takes a step forward again, his legs still uncertain with fear.

“Did you know,” the voice says, giving pause to Abraham’s advancements, “I voted for you in the municipal elections.”

“Then what am I doing here?” Abraham asks. “Where is Colleen?”

“To answer your first question, it was my attempt at irony, I think.” The voice says. “You were always going to end up here, Abraham.
Always
.” A long pause, before, “As for the second question, I have no idea where your wife is. She’s not the person responsible for your capture and containment.”

At this, the pretence of surviving vanishes for Abraham. Colleen he could handle, but an unknown assailant is a whole other matter.

Not caring about making noise, he runs with outstretched arms, hoping to reach something solid. He stumbles in the dark and collides hard with the smooth floor, knocking his wind out.

A humourless laugh echoes through the void. Without warning, something slides across his right heel, severing his Achilles tendon.

Abraham screams but continues to drag himself forward with his fingertips and nails.

“I don’t want to kill you yet, but if you’re going to try and escape, I will render you incapable. Do you want to prolong your own suffering, Abraham?” The blade slides across the same heel a second time, and he screams again. “Shut your mouth, before I rip your vocal cords from your throat!”

The threat shuts Abraham up. Mucus and tears stream down his face as he digs his nails into the dirt, breaking them into jagged shadows of what they used to be. Blood gushes across the heel of his foot, just more of the darkness already pooled around him. It’s too much darkness to bear; it’s too little to hide him from the culprit responsible for his pain.

“When you’re done throwing your tantrum, I have dinner waiting.” The stranger hooks one arm underneath Abraham’s and lifts him onto his feet. More crying, more screams, more threats.

“Why?” Abraham manages through his tears as his captor drags him to the other end of the room.

“I told you, I don’t want to kill you yet.”

“So you’re playing a twisted game with me?”

A dry laugh. “I understand why you might be confused, given your status, but believe me when I say, you’re simply a means to an end. There’s nothing political about this. I have no personal qualms against you or your family. No, it’s merely fate, Abraham.”

“Fate?”

He drops Abraham Amin into a plastic chair. “Fate,” he echoes.

Chapter 13

All I want to do is have a long bubble bath, dress in my comfiest PJs and fall asleep in my queen-size bed, but I know it won’t happen tonight. I’m too hyped up on facts, theories and curiosities. Feyisola and Leila’s information are burning metaphorical holes in my mind, demanding immediate attention. The unsolved homicides of Valentine Sikelo and Carol-Anne Brewis will certainly keep me from slipping into a deep slumber. These are my reasons for heading back to the office at ten o’clock instead of going home.

The Sikelo and Brewis cases are puzzles, the murderer’s enigmas.

It’s infuriating.

The developing cluster-fuck in Pretoria is eating me alive from the inside out. Though, I’m sure Gramps would call this situation a cakewalk in comparison to the 2008 Kei Ripper Murders in Butterworth.

When I reach the office the lights are on. I notice that Howlen and Precious’ vehicles are in their usual places as I park my car in its usual spot. When I walk into the building, still wearing the provocative red dress—a personal requirement for my cover this evening—I hear my colleagues brainstorming in the conference room. I peek in.

The conference room is in disarray. Whiteboards line the walls with photographs and scribbles in blue marker. Pictures of the crime scenes, ante-mortem portraits of the victims, mugshots of the suspects hang on the walls along with assorted pieces of evidence. There are stacks of boxes filled with old case files and evidence on the large oak table. Discarded fast food containers lie on one end. At the other end used mugs of coffee stand in a pitiful circle on a decorative stand that used to house my father’s miniature bottle ships.

“Something doesn’t make sense here. The timeline is off on the Sikelo case,” Gramps says, facing one of the whiteboards at the end of the conference room. “According to the reports, Valentine Sikelo’s body was in advanced stages of decomposition, consistent with an exposed corpse at three days in the African sun, but her husband’s witness statement suggests she was alive and the same morning? What am I missing here?”

“Albert Einstein once said: Imagination is more important than knowledge.” I say, walking into the conference room. “For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand. Imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand
.
”

“Your point being?” Howlen turns in his seat and looks at me as though I’m a rare collectible.

I’m not sure if I like being objectified without doing some objectification myself. Had we been alone, I might’ve toyed with him a bit. Alas, playtime would have to wait.

“My point is, other than sounding pretentious, we’ve grown accustomed to searching for answers in conventional ways. We’ve become complacent with searching for a particular type of killer.”

I walk up to my grandfather and the whiteboards, before I point to the crime scene photos of Valentine and Carol-Anne.

“If you look at the placement of the bodies, and check their locations, you’ll see this isn’t run-of-the-mill muti-murders.” I explain. “Valentine Sikelo was found in the veld between WF Nkomo Street and the Magalies Freeway which isn’t a particularly good hiding place considering there are still some people who use the footbridge to get from Kwaggasrand to Danville. And dumping Carol-Anne Brewis’ body at the Gert van Rooyen house is another peculiar choice. Why?”