Shooting Butterflies (48 page)

‘The South African police found that hidden compartment in his
bakkie
, and they found girls' clothing in there. They found his tranquilliser darts in his bag. If they didn't think there was merit in what you and Gabe told them, we wouldn't be here. There is no way the Zimbabwe and South African police would have managed to work on this together if they didn't think you two were right.'

‘I know, and I want closure for me and for all the families that had their little girls ripped away. They need to know where the girls are. But I can't stop thinking how lucky I was that Jamison was in my life then. He saved me, and now again as an adult he put his life on the line for me. That type of debt, I can never repay.'

‘I don't expect repayment, Tara,' Jamison said. ‘I just want the same as you, for this nightmare to be over. I can't imagine anything worse than this ritual that he used happening to my girls.'

Gabe stopped the
bakkie
in front of the sheep pens where the Zimbabwean police officers stood. The detective was in his car, which was covered in dust, and there were two police vans from South Africa parked nearby.

Gibson Ncube shook his cousin's hand as he joined the group of people talking in the middle. ‘Shilo, it's been a long time.'

Jamison smiled. ‘Too long,' he said and introduced Gibson to Wayne, Gabe and Tara.

‘Where do you think the policemen need to look first?' Jamison asked Gibson.

‘I think they should split up. There are two sites of interest. The mushroom shed and the sacred site,' Gibson said as he pointed to the huge shed build half submerged below ground level.

Gabe immediately said, ‘I'm with the team who goes to the sacred site.'

‘Me too,' said Tara. ‘I don't want to go in that shed, it looks really dark.'

The policemen talked between themselves and their teams split up, with Zimbabweans and South Africans in both teams, to make sure that each country could record the same incident and not accuse the other of incompetence should something happen that either of them didn't like.

The detective from the farm was with the sacred site team, and they set off in their vehicles to follow Gibson to the site in the bush. The others were collecting huge spotlights from their
bakkies
and heading for the mushroom shed.

Jamison opted to stay and look through the shed. He had seen the tree re-enacted enough times before many years ago. He didn't need to see it again.

The detective climbed into the back seat of their 4x4, next to Gabe, with Wayne now driving, following the lead vehicle. They drove in the opposite direction to where the road had come into the farm, along a small strip dirt road where the middle
mannetjie
was covered with green grass that brushed the underside of the vehicle. They came to a wall of thorn trees. Gibson stood at the wall where a small game path led into it.

‘Great, thorn trees, had to be,' the detective complained.

Fifteen minutes later they came into a clearing. A single tree grew in the clearing, and Gibson pointed to a bag hanging in the tree.

Some of the Zimbabweans had a discussion about carrying on because they were entering a
sangoma
's private territory, but Gibson assured them that it was Buffel who had put the muti
bags there. Gabe took pictures of the bags, keen to photograph everything about the murders he'd been working on for so many years.

As they came out of the bush they could see a large tree in the centre of a clearing. From its branches hung several large objects that looked like five cocoons suspended by thick nylon rope, high enough off the ground to stop wild animals tearing them apart.

There were white bones shattered and lying around on the ground everywhere. Gabe took a photo and then examined one closer. He had been in enough war zones, and seen enough carnage in his life to identify what he was looking at.

‘This is human,' he said. ‘Everyone, tread with caution, these are the remains of some of his victims.'

The detective shook his head. ‘I thought you were mad, I thought that perhaps we were looking for some reporter's pipe dream. I followed this up because you were so insistent, Gabe, but you were right. Look at this.' He pointed to another fragment of human bone.

Gibson sniffed the air. ‘Leopard,' he said and he looked up into the tree. ‘There, in the branches.'

They could see the leopard that stood in the tree. It was large. Gibson brought his rifle up and got ready to shoot. ‘It's seen us and it's not happy,' he said as the leopard hissed and spat at the humans intruding on its territory.

It moved through the branches, and then jumped down along the trunk of the tree and ran off into the bush. Outnumbered by humans, it had chosen to flee.

‘We need to make sure that those are bodies in that tree,' the detective said.

They moved closer.

‘Old, no smell,' Gibson said, as he lead them carefully to the tree. He gave his weapon to Wayne, and shinnied up into the lower branches and across to where one of the ropes was tied.

‘Wait a moment, I need photographs,' Gabe said and again he took multiple photographs with both the cameras he carried. The
police officers did the same. They walked around the tree and took different angles, and pictures of the tree and the ground where more bones were scattered around.

‘I'm ready,' the police photographer from Zimbabwe said.

‘Right, untie one and let it down carefully,' the detective said.

Gibson tried to unknot the rope but it was too tight.

‘Cut it,' the detective instructed.

He positioned men under it to try to catch the cocoon.

‘Coming down,' said Gibson as he cut the last strand of rope with his hunting knife.

The cocoon landed safely in the arms of the men, and they quickly put it on the ground. More photographs were taken and the detective carefully cut open the thick
riempies
that were wrapped around the
kaross
protecting the chrysalis inside.

It was stiff to open, but eventually they bent it back, to reveal a human skeleton. The flesh had long since been eaten by maggots, the skin shrunken inwards, but the long blonde hair was confirmation that this had once been a girl.

‘I was right,' Gabe said. ‘I hate that I was right.'

Tara stood still. She looked around her.

Buffel had wanted to put her in a cocoon just like this.

So many children had died because her mother had moved her away, and he had attempted to substitute other girls for her in his sick dream. Her mother's own softness at not wanting to live away from her own family had saved her life.

‘The butterflies,' Gibson said as he came and stood next to her. ‘“Butterflies to hold Impendla's hand and save his soul.” It's what he used to say in his shed. I never caught him stealing one, and I was so wary of following him into the
bundu
and having him discovering my tracks. I didn't want him knowing that I was where I shouldn't be. I should have come here, I should have checked inside these
karosses
before today.' He hung his head.

Wayne stood next to Tara, his arm around her. ‘I'm so glad that you lived. That you gave me a son and that you are not inside one of those cocoons.'

As they stood there, Tara noticed something she hadn't before. Dancing around her was a mass of small white butterflies. They seemed to be on a migration pattern and were flying through the site. For a moment the area was alive with the butterflies, then they slowed, and only a few could be seen dancing their bourrée fluidly as they floated across the African bush, headed northeast.

‘I can only hope that all the souls here find peace now,' she said as one landed on her.

Such a delicate insect, its paper-thin little wings, with dark brown lines. She watched as it closed its wings, and opened them again, as if catching its breath. As if using her as an oasis in its epic migration.

Tara thought of the anguish every victim had undergone at the hands of Buffel, of all the innocence lost. She thought of the happiness he had stolen from her so many years ago. But instead of feeling sad, she felt a weight lift off her.

She was free.

And she hoped that the soul of the original victim in the whole mess, Impendla, was free at last too. That perhaps the butterflies were a sign that he had crossed over, and his soul was saved.