Muti Nation (4 page)

“I know.” Howlen lies back on the bed and folds his arms behind his head, appreciating the view from afar. “Where are you off to?”

“A glass of water,” I say. “Can I get you something from the kitchen while I’m there?”

Howlen sits upright again, checks the alarm clock and stands. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

I flip on the hallway’s light switch and pass the oblong table where framed photographs are positioned around a large crystal vase. A mirror hangs against the wall, an intrinsic part of the décor.

My hand automatically reaches out to switch on the kitchen light but a gut instinct tells me to stop. The whole house feels alive and wrong.

The toilet flushes in my bathroom.

“Howl?” I call. My voice involuntarily shakes on his name.

“Yes?” he answers.

I’m being an idiot, jumping at shadows, worried about what can’t hurt me. Since when am I afraid of the dark? I don’t answer him. Instead, I ignore the spinal shiver erecting every hair on my body to attention, and switch on the kitchen light.

Bad idea.

Every item in my utility closet—several brooms and mops, a bucket, the long-handled feather duster, and the vacuum cleaner—are assembled in the centre of my kitchen. The inanimate objects stand upright with no human assistance, and the bucket is levitating a few feet high. The first thing that pops into my head isn’t “Run!” but rather
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
, a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

“Howl?!” I call again, my voice edging on hysteria this time.

I keep my eyes on the assembly of cleaning products. I hear his footsteps in the hallway, bare feet slapping against the light grey tiles with each footstep.

“Jesus,” he hisses when he’s by my side. “What the fuck, May?”

The spell breaks.

Brooms, mops, and the long-handled feather duster clatter to the floor at once. Loudly. The bucket drops making a hollow plastic sound as it spins to a stop on the tiles.

And then, when I think it can’t get worse, it does.

The kitchens light bulb shines brighter and brighter then explodes with a deafening
pop
.

A crash in the hallway makes me spin away from the kitchen. I see a photo frame shattered and broken on the opposite side of the narrow passage. Another one flies from the table and crashes against the wall before it drops dead beside its mate. Then another. One by one the frames are thrown aside by something unseen.

Howlen grabs me around the waist. He spins us so his naked back faces the table and I am protected between him and the wall. Bursts of glass. Shards rain down in a tinkling melody.

Pop
.

The hallway darkens.

I’m trembling worse than when I’d been face-to-face with the shadow, not five minutes ago. The house feels like its breathing. In, out, in, out. Acrid air fills the spaces between here and everywhere. Kitchen cupboards, drawers and doors violently slam open and shut for thirty seconds, before the house descends into utter silence.

“What did you get yourself into?” Howlen asks, bundling my trembling body up against him.

I don’t know what he means. Case #137-ES is unspectacular in a throng of unsolved muti-murder cases, however macabre it seems.

I’ve seen worse. Howlen’s seen worse. If anything, it’s an old case coming back to haunt me.

The question is which case?

Chapter 5

Sangomas are legally recognised in South Africa as “traditional health practitioners” under the
Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2007
(Act. 22 of 2007). They are diviners, healers, traditional midwives and surgeons who openly practice their beliefs in accordance to the constitutions and laws of the country.

According to several reports, formal health sectors have shown an interest in the role of sangomas as well as the effectiveness of their herbal remedies. Public health specialists even enlist sangomas in the fight against HIV/AIDS, diarrhoea and pneumonia—some of the major causes of death in rural areas, especially amongst children.

Real
, certified sangomas aren’t usually a problem.

You get the odd one dabbling with dark forces, but generally the
Traditional Healers Organization for Africa
(THO) regulates and minimises malpractice in the traditional healing community.

The problem occurs when charlatans don’t adhere to ethics and laws, and then screw around with forces they can’t control.

“Those bastards controlled this attack just fine,” I mumble.

“Did you say something?” Howlen calls from the kitchen where he’s making us fresh mugs of coffee.

“Nope,” I pop the P and lower my head into my open palms.

We spent the remainder of the night clearing away glass, cleaning up destroyed objects, and throwing away any evidence of our time together. Then we sat in silence drinking coffee. Now dawn is on the horizon and I feel my weariness return with a vengeance.

SABC1 is broadcasting a rerun of some educational kids show in Xhosa. I think, I don’t know the language that well. SABC 2 is running the same infomercial fillers as always. SABC 3 is at the end of its AM Shopping programming. This leaves E-TV as my only option, but
Medical Detectives
isn’t exactly the type of show to unwind with after seeing a mutilated corpse less than twelve hours earlier. I use it as background noise for my thoughts, nothing more.

It’s been three hours since the attack and my nerves are shot. I’m on edge. I’m systematically raking through memories of old cases to find a link to the attacker or a reason for the attack. I’m coming up blank on both.

We’re usually so careful when we’re investigating ritualistic crimes. Careful in the sense that we give the police credit for bringing in the culprits, whoever he or she or they may be. We try
not
to bring attention to the agency.

We don’t slip up.

Slipping up could lead to more danger, more deaths, more shit in general. Still it’s possible someone fucked up somewhere along the way. We’re human, and humans are flawed after all.

“May,” Howlen says. His voice snaps me out of my thoughts.

I look up to where he holds my cell phone towards me.

It didn’t ring, I’m positive.

“It’s Mosepi,” he states.

Whatever small amount of energy I had left diminishes at the mention of Detective Mosepi’s name. It’s never a social call when the police are involved, no matter how long you’ve personally known some of them.

“I’ll deal with it,” he says.

“No,” I say before temptation can take root. Something weird happened, what’s new? If I had to take a day off every time my reality bordered on becoming crazy-town, I wouldn’t get any work done.

I take the phone from Howlen and read the vague text message: 227 MALHERBE STR, CAPITAL PARK—MOSEPI. The text sends new chills down my spine as I realise the importance of the address.

I stand, setting loose a string of under-breath curses, the sort of language sailors would blush over. I reread the street address to make sure my eyes aren’t playing tricks.

When I regain my composure, I look at Howlen, who waits for an explanation.

“Get dressed, we’ve got problems,” I say.

“What’s the significance of 227 Malherbe Street?” Howlen asks as I make my way to the bedroom.

I’m already wondering if I should dress in the black dress or black power suit. There will, without a doubt, be reporters. Many news vans, dozens of journalists, photographers for blogs and newspapers and God knows what else will flood the area. There’s no way around the media for this one.

“Do you know the story of Gert van Rooyen?” I ask in response, opening my closet door as Howlen enters the bedroom.

He shakes his head.

“You’re a criminologist living in South Africa. How do you not know about Gert van Rooyen and his mistress, Joey Haarhoff?”

“Okay, let’s skip the lecture and get to the point.” He picks up his shirt from the armchair in the corner of the room.

“Allegedly, Gert van Rooyen was a paedophile and serial killer who was never convicted and who, together with his mistress Joey Haarhoff, abducted and apparently murdered at least six young girls between 1988 and 1989. The pair committed suicide when they were faced with arrest, after the escape of their last kidnapped victim. Their other victims have never been found. It’s one of the country’s greatest unsolved crimes, Howl,” I explain, retrieving the black dress from my wardrobe. “There’s been a lot of speculation over the years and only a few hard facts, unfortunately.”

Howlen shakes out his shirt to rid it of creases. “But what does it have to do with the address?”

I glance over my shoulder. “That was his address,” I say, and try to reach the zipper on the back of the dress.

Howlen walks over, pushes my hands away, and zips it shut. His hands linger on my shoulders, before he goes back to dressing himself.

“Anyway, I can guarantee it’ll be a media circus out there today, so let’s not talk about the case in the field.” I put on my black heels, one after the other, and walk towards the dressing table to do my hair and put on some make-up.

Howlen is ready by the time I’m done, and he looks rather dapper for someone in yesterday’s clothes. Few people can do the walk-of-shame as confidently as he, though I doubt he’s bothered by such mundane things.

We drive to the crime scene in his car, listening to the University of Pretoria’s radio station—TUKS FM’s breakfast show. The volume is low, but the news about the murder at the old Gert van Rooyen house breaks at 06:00 a.m. sharp.

“Does Pretoria have a copycat killer on his hands? Is this murder in any way related to the original missing girls? Who is the victim?” The radio presenters speculate while Howlen searches for a parking spot alongside news vans and random vehicles. So many faces have turned out to see this morose cat-and-mouse game between a faceless foe and the good men and women in blue.

I switch off the radio, annoyed by the nonsense of having to circumnavigate other people’s theories when the cold, hard facts haven’t even been established yet.

Howlen parks his silver Yaris almost a block away from the crime scene, away from the mob’s curiosity. Together, we walk in silence, the previous night a distant memory. We are the epitome of professionalism.

A few people look at us as we pass through the barricade keeping the fanatical audience at bay, but nobody says anything of value. There’s a “hello” or a nod, or a polite wave from the officers who know us. There are also hushed conversations amongst the civilians; nothing concrete, just rumour and gossip, and disbelief at this travesty. Otherwise, we’re left to our own thoughts. I always like listening to the din of the crowds. They might know something we don’t, something we can use to further an investigation. It helps to keep ones ears open.

The property is hidden with seven-foot-high concrete walls and a metal gate in serious need of a new coat of paint. Dead shrubs have grown wild over the years and peep across the property’s defences. A magnificent bottlebrush tree blooms large red flowers which hang precariously against the peeling white backdrop of the wall. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, I’m sure.

The atmosphere is disgusting.

Multiple layers of excitement, insecurity, fear and death thickens in the air, threatening to suffocate me.

“This feels wrong,” I say, more to myself than Howlen.

He agrees with a mumbled, “It does.”

“Finally,” Detective Mosepi says when we approach, irritated. “Come in.”

The gate slides shut behind us as we follow him inside. There are detectives everywhere, a few uniforms and even the forensics team has shown up. The crime scene is partitioned off with a white tent, which will become increasingly uncomfortable as the heat rises with the sun.

Detective Mosepi talks as we walk. “The victim is a twelve-year-old girl from Danville who went missing out of bed last night. She looks… well, I’m not certain what to make of this one, to be honest.”

“Let’s start with the obvious then. What’s the victim’s name?” I ask.

“Carol-Anne Brewis,” Detective Mosepi says and hands me the photograph of a beautiful girl in her school uniform. “Blonde hair, blue eyes. Basically van Rooyen’s type, if you know what I mean.”

I nod, bite the inside of my cheek as I glance at the tent, and look back at the detective.

“It’s bad.” He confirms my suspicions without my needing to ask, and my stomach does a somersault. “The first officers on the scene say her body was still warm when they touched her, meaning she was murdered between three and four thirty this morning.”

“Any witnesses?” Howlen.

“Mrs. Potgieter, who lives across the street, took her dog out around four-thirty this morning when she saw a suspicious car drive away. She hasn’t been much help, but I…” Mosepi’s words travel off to the recesses of my mind as I stare at the photograph.