Strong Medicine (21 page)
Authors: Angela Meadon
“Good! Good! Now put this on around your neck.” He held out his hand, something dangled from between his fingertips, swaying back and forth. I blinked away the tears and stared. It took me a long time to unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth and when I did it felt like a dead fish, coated in oil, flopping around as it died on a beach.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A charm,” he said, rolling his eyes at the dumb white bitch in his home. “It will call the ancestors to you so that they will answer your questions.”
“No, what is it made of?” The charm, dangling on the end of a thick leather cord, looked exactly like a finger. It was about four centimeters long, dark brown and shriveled into a desiccated hook. I couldn’t see a nail or anything, but the candles didn’t cast much light.
“It’s from a baboon,” the old man said.
“Is it… a finger?”
“Yes, yes. Part of the finger. It will catch the spirits of your ancestors, hook them like a fish and keep them until you release them.”
“How long do I have to wear it?”
“Just until you have the answers you need. Now you must go. The potion will hit you soon. You should be at home in bed when it does.”
Behind it all, Lindsey’s little grey bunny toy swung like a metronome. It blurred my visions, tainted them with its worn-out fur.
The night was blacker than my dreams, the scraggly curtains in my window managed to block the weak light of the city. I clicked on my bedside light and sat up. My feet squelched when they found the carpet. My water glass was resting on its side on the table, empty.
My notepad had escaped the spill. I picked it up and stared at the scraggly writing there. I’d followed the old man’s orders to keep paper next to the bed. He'd said that I’d have visions during the night and I’d write them down.
He was right. The paper was full of random words;
lion, take the dark sun, feast.
Then, clear as day in the middle of the page,
Bongani Zulu.
I already knew the man’s name. This was useless to me.
“Fuck!”
I threw the notepad across the room and flopped back onto the bed. That was it. I had nothing, no clues, no facts, and no more ideas. Lindsey was gone and there wasn’t anything more I could do about it.
Tears tickled my ears and dripped onto the bed. I had come to the end of the road. I would have to give up on my daughter or risk the wrath of the police by going back to them.
A hot, heavy pressure built in my chest, as if someone had buried my heart at the bottom of a gold mine. All I’d ever wanted was to give her a loving home and a better life than I’d had. Was that really so much to ask?
Anger tinged my grief. Anger at the man who’d taken Lindsey, at Nyala and Brits who knew who it was and did nothing to stop him, and at the old man who’d sold me a potion that didn’t do anything except fill my head with shadows.
This was it. This was my life now. I was the woman whose daughter had been taken and cut up for
muti
.
“Fuck.” The word came out low and slow, like a great white shark gliding through the sea.
The bunny. The damn bunny was the link.
I’d seen it in her dreams. I’d seen it for years on the back of Lindsey’s school bag. And I’d seen it again a few days ago, in the car park outside to police station, attached to a ring of keys in the hand of a man who came forward to help me find my daughter.
The bastard had claimed to be an eye witness, but he was the one who’d taken her.
My ears pounded with the sound of blood, and my neck throbbed with it.
How dare he?
And Detective Brits had let him walk out of there.
I stormed down the stairs to the kitchen. The counters were covered in dirty dishes from dinner the night before. I pulled two bottles of beer out of the fridge and sat down at the table. I downed the first one without taking a breath, and then cracked the second one open.
After three cigarettes I picked up my phone and called Detective Brits. It was 3:30 am. He answered after two rings.
#
“Erin.” Detective Brits sounded empty. “What are you talking about?”
“Bongani Zulu, the man who took Lindsey. You let him walk out of the police station. It’s no wonder you haven’t made any progress on the case. You’re helping him!”
The words poured out of me in a torrent, whipping the air from my lungs as they went. By the time I finished, I was gasping for air.
“Look, I don’t know what’s set you off this time. But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That eyewitness who came to the station with me. That was Bongani Zulu. You recognized him and you let him go.”
Detective Brits replied with a long sigh.
“What makes you think it was him?” the detective asked. “Do you have any evidence?”
“I saw him, in my dream tonight-”
“A dream? Jesus! This is not an episode of Long Island Medium. We solve crimes with evidence, not intuition.”
The fire under my skin turned to millions of insects. The image of the bunny flashed behind my eyes again. Small, grey fur worn thin on the legs. The left ear folded over backwards. I had no doubt. The eyewitness had Lindsey’s bunny. He’d brought it along to taunt me.
“The bunny,” I said at last. “On his keyring there was a bunny toy. Lindsey’s bunny. She always had it on her backpack. I’ve seen it a million times. He had it that day he came to the police station.”
“I remember that,” Detective Brits said.
Relief flooded through me. I wasn’t crazy. I hadn’t imagined it.
“You do?”
“Yes, but that’s not enough. You need to bring me something that links Zulu, the bunny, and Lindsey. If you can do that, I might be able to help.”
“Okay, okay, I can do that.”
“Alright, you know where to find me when you do.”
Detective Brits hung up. I lit another cigarette and opened my third beer. It would be easy. All I need is a picture of Lindsey with that bunny.
An incessant buzzing blew the smoky nightmare images from my mind. I squinted in the bright light, tried to focus on the world around me but all I could see was blurry colours and indistinct shapes.
Heavy steps sounded in the passage, followed by my bedroom door creaking open. Besta peeked her head in through the crack and smiled at me. Her face wrinkled but her eyes drooped.
“Patrick’s on the phone,
liefie
.”
“Ugh.” I groaned and rolled over, pulling the blanket over my head. “I don’t want to speak to him,
Ma
.”
“He’s been calling since yesterday. Wants to know about Lindsey. He says if you don’t talk to him he’s coming here.”
Fucking pushy bastard. I threw the covers off my bed and stalked down to the kitchen. The phone receiver rested among a scattering of dishes, last night’s dinner still crusted their edges.
“What?” My voice cracked as I pressed the receiver to my ear and I swallowed to clear the sandy feeling from my throat.
“Erin? It’s Pat, have you found Lindsey yet?”
I almost hung up right there and then. Patrick was the last person on Earth I wanted to talk to. I ground my teeth, took a deep breath and tried to still my anger.
“No, not yet.” Not that he was doing any goddamn thing to help.
“Shit,” he said. “It’s been almost two weeks.”
Like I didn’t fucking know that already. I’d struggled through every hour of those two weeks.
“Yeah. What have you done to help?”
“Erin, don’t be like that. She’s my daughter too.”
“You have an interesting way of showing it.” My chest burned, I couldn’t keep the words inside. I didn’t want to. “You don’t bother to call or visit for what? Ten years? Now all of a sudden you care so much for her? How come I haven’t seen you around here handing out flyers? Where were you when I was wandering around the
veld
looking for clues? Hey? Fuck you, Patrick.”
He was quiet for a long time, so long that I thought he’d left the phone on the table and gone for a smoke. He used to do that to me all the time at the end of our relationship. He didn’t care enough to hear me out, but he was too chicken shit to interrupt or make me stop. Then I heard breathing, slow and deliberate, like he was counting to ten.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last.
My chest ached and I leaned my head against the yellowed fridge. “I know who did it. But it’s too late. There’s nothing you or I can do to get Lindsey back. She’s gone. The cops know who took her but they’re protecting him. I’ve tried everything I can to find him but I don’t have enough info. And it’s been so long already, she’s probably—” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Like admitting it would make it true. That she was gone, forever.
“Well, if you know who it is, there are ways we can find him. Do you have a name?”
“I do.”
“Okay, meet me at my place and we’ll see what we can do.”
#
His house was on a large plot, I passed horses and tall pine trees and a meadow with a cow grazing among a flock of geese.
I stopped outside number 21 and pressed the buzzer on the intercom. A huge brick wall separated the property from the road. There were six strands of electric wire on top of the wall. Every house in the area had a similar barrier.
The intercom buzzed and I introduced myself to the static-filled voice on the other end. Whoever it was decided that I wasn’t a threat because the huge metal gate slid open. I drove up the winding brick driveway, past beds of immaculately manicured flowers, and parked under a carport at the end of the drive.
The house was a double-storey, face-brick affair with large windows and a huge wooden door. It swung open and a man walked out.
“Thank you.” The first words out of his mouth. “For coming here, I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you.”
Why did he have to be so fucking mature about it? I wanted to hate him for leaving me to raise Lindsey, and for leaving me to deal with her disappearance for two weeks on my own. He was making it really difficult.
“You want some tea?”
I nodded and he led me into the house. It was huge. All open space, tall ceilings, and tasteful art. I felt like a foreigner in a strange land. I didn’t belong here. Nor did the Patrick I used to know.
Patrick poured two glasses of apple juice and offered me one. We sat on bar stools next to the granite-topped kitchen island.
“Nice house,” I said. I sipped the cool apple juice and savored the refreshing tingle as it washed down my throat.
Patrick scanned the kitchen and the living room behind me. “Thanks. It’s my mom’s. She moved in here with her new husband like, three years ago. They’re away in Paris or something. I’m looking after the cat.”
I bit down a snarky response about taking better care of the cat than he did his own daughter.
“You said you might be able to help find the guy who took Lindsey?”
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “I might be able to hack into the SANRAL database and access the eNATIS system. It’s a database of all the registered drivers in the country.”
“Oh, right.” I nodded and drank some more apple juice. I stared into the glass and watched the golden liquid swirling between my fingers.
“It’s dangerous, though. I could lose my job.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I recognized the tone in his voice. Even after so long apart. He wanted something from me. He wanted me.
“Now? Patrick? With your daughter God knows where?”
He shrugged, sipped his juice and licked his lip slowly. His eyes burned into mine.
“Jesus. You’re disgusting.”
Another shrug.
He didn’t give a fuck about Lindsey. The whole thing was about getting back into my pants.
“Don’t get me wrong, I care about Lindsey. I just don’t want to take this risk without a little reward up front.”
I stood up and glared at him. “Really? This is what you want?”
“I can get his ID number, phone number, address. The whole shebang. For one little bang.”
“Goddammit!” I turned and headed for the nearest polar-white door. It housed a toilet and a tiny sink shaped like a seashell. A small mirror above the sink showed me my anger and fear. Tears ran down my cheeks in messy trails of eyeliner. My skin was flushed a bright red that showed through the layer of cheap foundation.
Was this the way it would always be between us? Would I always end up crying in the bathroom while that asshole smirked into a drink somewhere?
Fuck him!
I would fuck him. I would get the info I needed to save my daughter and then I would cut this piece of shit out of my life for once and for all.
#
I toweled myself off and pulled my clothes on over still-damp skin. I had to pass back through the master bedroom to make my way back to the kitchen. It was as ostentatious as the rest of the house; a giant four-poster bed dominated the room, thick carpets the colour of an iceberg absorbed the soles of my feet as I walked through.
A collection of photo frames stood on the solid oak dresser. Patrick had been a cute kid. I saw some of Lindsey in his eyes and the set of his mouth. I paused at the photos and looked closely at each one. Their brood of grandchildren had swelled. I could identify at least four children apart from Lindsey.
My eye caught on a photo of Lindsey in the center of the display. She was about seven or eight years old in the photo. Dressed up in her crisp school uniform, standing in front of a flowering bush in the school yard. Her backpack hung over one shoulder. The little bunny hung from the zipper.
My chest clamped and I grabbed the photo frame, pulled the metal clasps open on the back, and slid the photo out. This was probably the only thing Patrick’s parents had to remember Lindsey, and I was taking it.
I’ll bring her to visit when I have her back.
The silent promise hung in the bedroom as I folded the photo in half and slipped it into my pocket before hurrying out.
Patrick was seated at the kitchen island again when I went downstairs. He smiled a toothy grin at me and offered another glass of apple juice. I accepted it reluctantly. I needed something to clear the taste of him out of my mouth.
He had a laptop set up on the counter in front of him, the cover was matte black and it had a fat black box protruding from the back. It was impressive, that’s for sure.
“So, you work for SANRAL?”
Patrick chuckled. “Yeah, but I don’t work on etolling. I write programs for them, keep the systems from falling over. I don’t officially have access to eNATIS, but it’s not that difficult to get in. People keep their passwords in the dumbest places. What was the guy’s name?”
“It’s Bongani Zulu.” I said. The name tasted bitter on my tongue and I washed it out with a sip of apple juice.
Patrick typed it into the query screen and we waited for a minute while the system connected to the database. I watched the little spinning circle on the screen with a growing lump in my chest. What would come up? Photos? Home address?
The screen flashed and filled with a table, and a long list of names that kept growing. And growing. When it finally stopped there were more than two hundred names on the list.
“Oh, shit! How are we going to know which one of these guys is our man?” I asked.
“I’ll run a couple of filters, and then we’ll cross-check criminal records. Don’t worry.”
The list shortened as Patrick eliminated people based on age and location. That brought the list down to three men. One in Soweto and two in Boksburg.
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this is illegal. So, don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Of course.” I hovered behind him, mindful of how close our bodies were. He smelled of sweat and floral fabric softener.
Patrick started another program and entered the ID numbers of the three men into the search screen in turn. Two of them returned positive hits. The first had been arrested for breaking and entering, rape and murder. The second had multiple convictions for abduction and murder.
“That’s him.” I pointed at the second man. “That’s the man who took Lindsey.”
Patrick opened his file. There was a photo at the top of the page. It showed an older man, his dark hair sprinkled with grey. A large scar ran across his forehead. His eyes were dark and, even in the photograph, utterly empty.
Patrick scribbled his address on the back of an old Pick n Pay receipt and held it out to me. “Wanna go for a drive?” he asked.
I took the piece of paper from him. I didn’t want to go anywhere with him. I didn’t want anything to do with him. I tried to smile at him. I didn’t want him to get upset with me when I refused.
“I’m not ready to go just yet.” I folded the paper and put it into the front pocket of my jeans. “I need to plan what I’m going to do. You know?”
Patrick nodded and smiled at me. “Sure. Just shout if you need anything, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Patrick walked me to my car, he stood too close when he said goodbye and my chest clenched when he leaned in to kiss me goodbye. I turned my cheek toward him and tried not to pull away as he kissed my skin.
“Thanks again,” I said as I gunned my engine and reversed into the driveway. “You asshole.” I muttered the last between my teeth with a fake smile plastered across my face.
I caught one last glance at him in my rear-view mirror. With any luck I’d never see him again.