Shooting Butterflies (32 page)

‘I have. And it's a chance I'm willing to take. If Wayne came back into our lives, he would try and take Josha away from me.'

‘No, maybe he would share him, but the court would never allow him to be taken from you. You are a good mother. He could never prove you unfit. You might have needed help all those years ago when we made this plan to come to Cape Town and live here together, but you have proved yourself time and time again since then. You have matured, and are no longer that scared sixteen-year-old who gave birth to Josha.'

‘I don't want to share Josha. Wayne hurt me, Gabe. I remember that hurt.' She crossed her arms over and hugged herself, in a protective stance.

‘Ridiculous! It's not what you need, but what Josha needs. Josha needs to know his father is alive.'

‘How am I going to tell a seven-year-old that his mother is a big fat liar?' she asked.

‘I don't know, you're the psychologist. I'm just the journalist. You work out what you're doing to your son in the long run, what harm you are doing to him.'

‘Gee, thanks, I needed to have that rubbed in my face. I can't, Gabe, I just can't break Josha's trust now. I never thought it through far enough when I told everyone that Wayne was dead, that Josha would also be told that story. By the time I realised, it was too late. I can't tell him now, he's too young. Maybe when he's older, maybe he'll understand why I lied to him.'

‘And maybe pigs will fly. Come on, Tara, it's not that you can't tell him, it's that you won't because you don't want to share Josha.'

‘I share Josha heaps, with you and your mum, and Lucretia. And my mum and Dela when they visit. He even likes Aunty Marie-Ann, and has her wrapped around his little finger.'

‘But not with Wayne. Wayne, who you still hold a torch for.'

‘I do not.'

‘Yes, you do! If you didn't, you would date.'

‘What, like your friend Andrew? That boy dressed in men's clothing. He's immature, unreasonable and rude!'

Gabe laughed. ‘No, not like any of my work colleagues. Someone else.'

‘No, I'm not free to date. I have Josha to think of, and you, and—'

‘And plenty of excuses. But I'm not really with you, in that way, the whole kissing cousin thing, yuck …'

She pulled a face. ‘That was not what I meant.'

‘I know, but don't let your experience with Wayne spoil every other man out there for you.'

‘But I don't want any other man!' Tara said.

‘Ahh, got you!' Gabe said, and wagged his finger.

She frowned at him.

‘Just give it some thought, maybe not now, or in a few days' time, but sometime, you're going to have to let Wayne back in. You created a child. Perhaps you can create a new life for you three.'

Tara laughed. ‘You're such a romantic, Gabe!'

‘I like to think so,' Gabe said, but while he didn't understand Tara's reasoning at all he planned to keep pushing her. He planned to wear her down, because what she was doing was unfair and cruel to Josha.

18

Mr Brits

Cape Town, South Africa

1998

Tara sat at her desk at the
Cape Argus.
Her head throbbed as it always did lately, despite the larger number of codeine-based pills she had been told to take. Only today it was worse. Someone inside had a ten-pound hammer and was trying to break out the front of her forehead. The tablets she had taken for the pain had done nothing. She had never been one to have headaches, so the multiple and constant occurrence of them was a worry.

She looked at the clock. Her appointment with Mr Brits, the neurologist, was in an hour, and she was dreading it. She had been referred to him by her regular GP when conventional remedies and medications had not eased her headaches. Mr Brits had examined her and sent her for an MRI.

Today she was getting the results.

Acid burnt in her stomach. Something was wrong in her head, and it couldn't be good news.

She was scared. Her hands shook. She spent moments flexing them every time she saw her unsteadiness, trying to calm herself, but panic balled like a fist in her throat. She silently thanked her lucky stars that she was kept busy at work, because she knew that if she was sitting at home, stewing, her stress level would rise like a tick on a giraffe's head that climbed on at waterhole level, and suddenly found itself in the tree tops. She swallowed and made a determined effort to shut her mind off to all the scenarios of what could be wrong.

‘Hey, Tara, quick word,' Gabe said as he walked into her office.

‘Sure. I have twenty minutes and I'm counting them down.'

‘You sure you don't want me to come and hold your hand?'

‘I'm twenty-nine years old. You would think that by now I could manage to go to a doctor's appointment alone without relying on you as always, Gabe.'

‘Neurologist, not doctor,' Gabe said. ‘A little different to a simple snotty nose.'

‘I know. Now, what's up? What interesting thing have you brought to me today?'

Gabe put a folder in front of her. ‘These abductions. I think there is a pattern … Look, at first, we had one girl go missing in 1982. Then in 1983, two girls, same age, same build, same MO. The girls were taken from the beach while on holidays. Cape Town and Durban. Both big cities, both small-town girls, not really savvy with strangers.

‘Then we have a break. In 1992 it jumps to six girls, the next cluster spaced over a short few months. Six white children, all blue eyes, blonde hair, all just becoming adolescents, hitting puberty. Then it returns to just one at a time again. I think we either have a single serial killer, or a collector. Perhaps it's a paedophile like the police think, but I'm not so sure. I think it's someone else. I think it's something to do with the black tribal muti trade.'

‘Gabe—'

‘No, wait. Hear me out. They
are
specific, if you take these girls out of all the kids who go missing and look at them as a group. Their ages, they don't change, the physical characteristics, they are
the same. It's just the demographics from around South Africa that vary. Interestingly enough, none of these girls are from a farming community, and other than the first two, all were taken from public places in northern cities, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Upington, Pietersburg, Kimberly and Bloemfontein. Always the girls were alone, except in this last case. The girl was abducted as they returned to their car after they had walked their dog and the father was left for dead in the parking lot of the shopping centre. And the father's ear was cut off. He lived, but has no recollection of even being hit on the head and knocked out.

‘Which to me means that wherever this killer is from, he's shopping in a different territory. He's not from a city, he's in the country and doesn't want to draw attention to his area, so he is spreading the net outwards. And he is now collecting souvenirs, a change in behaviour—'

‘Clever theory. Really clever, grouping those girls. But what is the significance of them, the police have never found any bodies?'

‘That's why I think it's the muti trade, and I think that if they look in the right place, they will find pieces, but not whole bodies. There are too many girls now not too. I think we are about to have more abductions soon. Look at this line when I group them.

‘One, then two, then six and then the rest are all singles, as if he's just ticking over. That, or we have a second case in here messing with my data. I think we are about to have more girls in serious trouble.'

‘Good theory. But you need evidence, not just a hunch,' Tara reminded Gabe as she massaged her forehead.

‘I know, and I was kind of hoping that you were feeling well enough to do me a profile. The type of person who would target just one type of victim.'

‘You want a profile, just off the top of my head? You do know that my head isn't really well at the moment, Gabe,' she said and smiled at him.

‘I know, and no pressure on this. I just saw the trend and thought I'd share. We have been working on this for so long.' He smiled at her and her heart melted.

He was always her rock. The cousin she treated like a brother. She was so lucky to work with him now, share his world. She knew that even if she was so busy that she had not a moment to spare, she would make time to compile his profile for him.

She would do anything for Gabe.

‘Thanks. I know what you meant. So, right off the cuff? Number one scenario: a psychopath and there is no pattern and you are seeing one where there is just random chaos. Or the second scenario: someone focused who becomes manic. If it's the second, then we are in more trouble than you think, because he would be meticulous, planning everything, even the unexpected. But he has a trigger, something that sets him off on another spree, if you want to call it that. Something that accelerates his manic behaviour.'

‘Alright. Psychopath is too random, going with the second there. A manic, like how? A trigger like what?' Gabe frowned. ‘Talk English, not psycho-babble.'

‘Like someone who has undiagnosed PTSD. You know post-traumatic-stress—'

‘I know what that is, smarty-pants,' he interrupted her.

Tara stuck her tongue out at him. ‘Or, someone who has been diagnosed PTSD and goes off their meds. Like someone who's seriously mentally ill, someone who is totally past reality enough to not recognise those children as humans, but as something else. Gabe, the big question I want to know here is why is it only girls? What about the boys? Where do they fit into your theory? Are there no boys with the same characteristics that are going missing?'

‘I don't know why there are no boys. I have searched the missing children's reports but didn't find clusters of blue-eyed, blond-haired boys.'

Tara held her head in her hands. ‘Gabe, have you considered that maybe you are searching those exact criteria, because you have a beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed boy at home?'

‘Maybe subconsciously. He's coming up to that age when these girls disappear, but it's more than that. It's a feeling I have. I can't
explain it. But these feelings have kept me alive in war zones before, so I'm not ready to dismiss it just yet.'

‘I'll go along with that. No scientific proof, but if that's what you feel. What's your next move?' She looked at him, her eyebrows raised.

‘Reinterview the parents of these missing girls. There has to be something that links all these kids together, we just have to find it.'

Tara nodded, then held her head to try and keep it still. ‘Okay. I'll work on a proper profile for you, when I get back. Right now I need to get out of here and to my appointment.'

She closed the file and handed it back to Gabe, then she gathered her bag up out of the drawer and walked to the door. She hesitated, and then turned back.

‘You know what, Gabe? I think I will have that hand to hold onto. Come with me?'

She held Gabe's hand firmly in hers. Terrified of the results, she walked with him into the neurosurgeon's office.

Mr Brits sat on his side of the consulting desk. He was approximately forty years old, and had a killer smile. But he also wore a wedding band almost ten millimetres thick. Tall and slim, he spoke with a slight Afrikaans accent.

She made the introductions. ‘Mr Brits, my cousin Gabe. Gabe, my neurosurgeon, Mr Brits.'

‘Emile, please, good to meet you, Gabe.'

The men shook hands and Emile motioned for them to take a seat. She sat on the edge of her chair as Gabe moved his chair closer as if knowing that she needed him close, and he took her hand in his again.

‘How have you been feeling, Tara?' Emile asked.

‘My head still hurts, I still can't get rid of the headache. Those pills you prescribed to trial didn't help at all, so I only took the initial two, like you suggested.'

‘That's understandable,' Emile said, as he leant forward and opened a file on his desk. He laid out two different films on the table in front of her, black and white images. ‘Take a look here. I
want to show you something. Do you see this area on this picture? You are looking at the pituitary gland.' He pointed to a place in the brain scan. ‘Now look at this picture. Can you see the difference?'

He pointed again to a part in the picture, on one it was clear, on the next it had a small white mass showing.

‘Which one is mine?' Tara asked.

He pointed to the one of the left. ‘Tara, you have a tumour, what we call a pituitary adenoma. There is a mass growing near your pituitary gland. That is the “master gland” that controls all the hormones in the circulatory system.'

She felt Gabe squeeze her hand and she was so thankful that she had decided to bring him with her.

‘Usually it presents with headaches, galactorrhea, where your breasts can suddenly excrete milk, and temporal hemianopia, like double vision, or partial vision loss. There are other symptoms too, but you appear to be lucky, as other than the headaches you are not displaying any of them, and from your blood test, it doesn't seem to be affecting your hormone levels so far. Most often, tumours found here are benign. But at this stage I can't tell if that is the case or not.'

Tara sat still. She had a thing growing in her head. She had a tumour.

She began to shake. Her breathing became restricted in her throat. She felt faint, as if someone was pulling a dark sheet over her head.

‘It's a lot to take in, Tara. It's a shock. Hearing news like this is never easy.'

Emile put a small bottle of opened fruit juice on the desk in font of her. ‘Drink, it will help the shock.'

She tried to drink the juice but after a sip or two she gave up, her throat was still feeling as if someone was trying to push two ping pong balls down it, and nothing could pass.