Muti Nation (32 page)

“Jesus, Esmé. I have issues, okay?” He walks to my desk and slams down the paperwork he brought along. “I’m sorry for leaving you in a shoddy part of town, for going off with another woman, and for being a total douche.”

The plume of smoke grows bigger, then smaller, then bigger again. It’s as though it’s breathing.

“I don’t forgive you for that, but I’ll be civil if you’ll get your head out of your ass.”

“Deal.”

I look back at the wall. “I will revel in your defeat,
Him
.” I spit his nickname, grabbing the files and stuffing them underneath my arm. I head to where Rynhardt stands, still staring at the smoke. “Let’s go, I want to see if we can speed up this chase by a few months,” I say to Rynhardt.

He falls into step beside me, still not commenting on the smoke.

Rynhardt seems to be taking everything in stride, but then the human psyche is strange. It protects people from incomprehensible and horrible things, until it stops. Then, their worlds shatter, and the resounding crash when everything catches up with them is something only a depressed poet can accurately describe.

It would be a shame if the intergalactic wrecking ball hits Rynhardt’s world too hard.

He drives us to the Pretoria West Police Station, a mixtape playing in the background, while I’m trying to make sense of the files on my lap.

“Detective Mosepi has done the preliminary interrogation,” Rynhardt says after a while. “He’ll debrief you as soon as we get there.”

“Mhmm,” I grunt. “Do you want to talk about it, Rynhardt?”

“About?”

“You know,” I start. “About my proficiency in attracting trouble.”

“I’m not bothered.”

I remain unconvinced.

“Honestly,” he says.

“If you want to talk about it, though—”

“I’m okay,” he says. “It takes a lot to scare me, Esmé.”

“Okay,” I answer, but I’m dubious of his so-called well-adjusted façade.

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, before casting his gaze back to the traffic jam ahead of us. “Look, nobody knows this, not even my family, but I’ve encountered my fair share of
unusual
activity.” Rynhardt glances at me from the corner of his eye, probably thinking I’d be surprised by his confession.

I’m not. Instead, I wait for him to continue his tale.

“You don’t seem impressed.”

“Everyone’s had their run-ins with the weird and wonderful, Rynhardt. People just don’t readily admit it.”

“Yes, but—” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No, please go on, I’m listening.”

Rynhardt grimaces. “I was born with—” He stops midsentence again. The suspense is killing me, but before I can say anything about him spitting it—whatever it is—out, he switches to Afrikaans: “
Ek is met die helm gebore
.”

“You were born with second sight?” I nod.

“You don’t believe me. Forget I said anything.”

“I do believe you. I’m thinking about all of the cases I’ve worked on relating to second sight. Some of them were quite interesting, while others were somewhat disturbing.”

“You’ve worked on stuff like this before?” he asks.

“Oh yes,” I explain. “Snyders International studies all of the fringe sciences. NDEs, HSPs, Shadow People, Ley Lines, Alternate Dimension theories, you name it.”

He narrows his eyes. “NDEs and HSPs?”

“Near Death Experiences and Hyper Sensitive People,” I offer.

“So you’re actually a paranormal investigator?”

I frown. “No, I’m an occult crime expert. I have degrees in Criminology and Theology, and I’m starting work on my B.A Anthropology next year.”

Rynhardt is silent, then he says: “I don’t get it.”

“What’s not to get? Snyders International is a business like any other. We were established to study the fringe sciences in particular, but like all businesses we sometimes have to do things we don’t like in order to break even every financial year. This is where ritual crimes come in. We consult on cases for the SAPS, act as expert witnesses in trials, and try our best to explain certain events as scientifically as possible for the general public. When we’re not doing that, though, we’re conducting studies and experiments to understand the world beyond our own. Snyders International is trying to build a bridge between science and fringe sciences, so the “unknown” can be explored by more people.”

“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 6
^th
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.