Strong Medicine (15 page)
Authors: Angela Meadon
I scrolled through all the images, pointed out each one, told Precious what we were doing. Painted a picture of a life lived at full-speed. Lindsey’s life.
By the time we had looked at the last photo we were both crying.
“Please, help me get my baby back.” I wiped tears from my eyes.
Precious didn’t answer. Her hands twisted in her shirt, a bee wiggled in through the opening in her Coke can.
Finally she nodded. “I’ll take you to him.”
Inmate Number: 7865649
Bongani Zulu
27 January 2008
CMAX Prison, Pretoria
Detective Brits (DB): Mr. Zulu, thank you for agreeing to speak to me today. My name is Adriaan Brits. I’m in the Special Crimes Unit. We were hoping you’d be able to help us with an investigation.
Bongani Zulu (BZ): Brits? I lived in a village close to Brits for a while. The people there were quiet. The men all worked on the mines and left the women at home.
DB: I’ve never been there myself. Can I ask you about this problem I have?
BZ: You should go. To Brits.
DB: I’ll try and make the trip. Right now though, I work in the Special Crimes Unit. I’m trying to track down a man who has been abducting children in Soweto. We find their bodies a few days after they go missing. They have organs removed.
BZ: Mmm. Why should I help you?
DB: Somebody is killing children, Mr. Zulu. I’m trying to stop him.
BZ: The last time I helped the cops I was promised that they would help me. They never did.
DB: So, you want me to make a promise I can’t keep?
BZ: No. I want you to get me out of here.
DB: Out of CMAX?
BZ: Out of prison. I want to walk the streets, live in my own house. I want to see my children again.
DB: I don’t have that kind of power.
BZ: Then I can’t help you, Detective Brits.
DB: Is there really nothing else you want?
BZ: What do you think I know? I’ve been in here for ten years. It’s all changed out there.
DB: So, you don’t have any connections in that world anymore? The
muti
trade?
BZ: No, I don’t. The people move around a lot. They stop somewhere, do a few things. When the cops catch on, they leave.
- Survivor of
muti
attack, Johannesburg South Africa.
#
Precious fidgeted with the hem of her blouse. I kept my hands firmly on the steering wheel despite the fact that we were stopped at a red robot. They would shake too much if I let go. Sweat beaded the skin between my fingers and slicked the plastic cover of the wheel.
“Are you sure he’ll be at home?” I asked, coughing at the end of the question to cover the shudder in my voice.
“Yes.” Precious nodded like one of those toy dogs you see on some people’s dashboards. “He doesn’t have a job; he’s always home in the morning.”
“Does he have a gun?” I didn’t want to get shot when I accused him of stealing my child.
“I don’t think so.” Precious’s fingers twisted tighter into the blouse. “Not that he’s told me.”
I tried to focus on the road in front of me rather than the prospect of being shot by an angry kidnapper.
I didn’t grow up in the best part of town, God knows. There’s not much class in the East Rand. But I’d never seen anything like Reiger Park before. I turned into Clarence September Street and my stomach twisted around itself like a python suffocating an impala.
The street was lined with small, square houses with faded paint and tin roofs. Rusted-out cars dotted the driveways and gardens, their wheels removed and replaced with precarious piles of bricks. A mangy dog trotted across the road in front of me, its tail tucked between its legs. Children played in the street with a bald tire and wire-frame push cars. They stared at me as I drove past. I don’t imagine they saw too many white women driving around their neighborhood.
We drove past a shipping container with faded red paint, and “Tombstones” painted on the side. Precious told me to turn into the next street.
“This is it.” Precious pointed to another of the squat little houses. Her brother’s house was four houses down from the corner with a great view of a pale yellow mine dump that squatted on the horizon. It had unpainted concrete walls and the ubiquitous tin roof. A low red wall separated the property from the road, a few of the panels in the wall were cracked in half, one still had a smudge of black paint on the ragged edge from what looked like a recent car crash.
I could have just dropped Precious off and run. I hadn’t gone in yet. I glanced at her, fingers twisted up in her blouse, lip folded between her teeth. She was as nervous as I was. This was as risky for her as it was for me but she’d been able to find the courage to do it. I gripped my steering wheel so hard I could feel it start to warp beneath my hands.
“Okay.” I parked on the broad sand verge between the wall of Thabo’s house and the road. “Let’s get this over with.”
The thick stench of wood smoke filled the cold air, and I forced myself not to sneeze as I walked up the narrow path to the door. Children’s voices filled the air, drifting toward me from all around as they played. They should have been in school, not slumming around on the street.
Precious knocked twice before she opened the door and peered into the gloomy interior. The inside of the house was as dilapidated as the outside.
“Wait here for a moment,” she said before she disappeared into the murky interior.
I shuffled nervously on the loose concrete tile that acted as a doorstep. A group of four young men walked past, dressed in baggy jeans and loose attitudes. They eyeballed my car, and then me with growing interest. One of them nudged another and they slowed their pace. Predatory smiles crept across their faces.
I tried to return their stares with one of my own. I forced my face into the hardest scowl I could manage. They stopped in front of the gate and laughed when one said something I couldn’t hear. The way he grabbed at the crotch of his pants told me all I needed to know.
I pushed the door of Thabo’s house open and stepped into darkness.
“Is this the white woman you brought me?” A man spoke from a pool of shadows on my left.
“I didn’t…she’s not…yes.”
The shadows shifted and one of them approached me. He came so close I could smell the stale beer and sweat on his clothes. Smoke swirled around me and my eyes stung. It was too sweet to be cigarette smoke. Probably pot.
“Thabo.” The shadow held out a hand and I raised mine before I snatched it back.
I had to remember what this man was. A kidnapper. The man who took my daughter.
“What did you do with her?” The words fell from my mouth like hot coals, burning my lips as they dropped into the space between my body and his.
“Who?” He spread his arms, more smoke swirled.
“My daughter, Lindsey. You took her a week ago. She was on her way home. Please tell me what you did with her.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, woman. You’re crazy.”
“Please.” I mustn’t lose my temper with this man. He was dangerous. I was in his house. “Just tell me where I can find her? I just want her back.”
I choked back the urge to cry. I must stay strong here, not show any weakness. I must not show him how much power he had over me right now.
“Did she look like you?” He reached for me, his fingers just brushing the hair next to my right ear. His face came closer to mine and I noticed three parallel scratches on his left cheek. Had Lindsey done that to him? I gritted my teeth so that I wouldn’t bite off his fingers.
“How many children do you steal every week that you have to ask me that?” I don’t know where the words came from, they were just there.
Thabo laughed, a deep chuckle that filled the small space around us and enveloped me in a cloud of acrid stink. “So much attitude! Precious, thank you for bringing her here. We will have fun together.”
“I’m not here to play with you.” Where the hell was Precious anyway? My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I couldn’t see her in the room. Two doorways led into other parts of the house. I could make out the white porcelain curve of a toilet behind one. “Just tell me where Lindsey is so that I can get her back.”
“I don’t know where your daughter is, but I’m sure she’s having fun.” The condescending tone made me want to plant my knee in his nuts.
“Look, just tell me where she is and I’ll get out of your hair. I won’t say anything about where I got the info. I swear. Just tell me, please?”
“I’m not her nanny.” Thabo reached for my arm and I stepped backwards to avoid his grasp.
He laughed and came faster. I backpedaled until my heels thumped into the wall. His leering grin filled my vision, and his breath stung my eyes. I raised my arms in front of me, hands clasped into tight fists. I swung at him. He laughed more, grabbed my hands in his, and pressed his body against mine.
I tried to push him away, but he was too strong for me. Muscles shifted beneath his skin and he pressed my wrists together in one hand, freeing the other to run it up my thigh.
“Stop it! Stop!” My words became pleas, louder, higher until I was screaming at him to leave me alone and let me go.
A shadow shifted behind him and a hollow
thunk
cut off my cries. Thabo’s hands fell away, flew to the back of his head. He swore, dropped to his knees. I watched him clutch at the back of his head, followed his line of sight to Precious holding a wooden chopping board in one hand. She dropped it next to him and turned to me.
“Run!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the door. My feet found themselves again and I tore out of the house.
“Holy shit!” I panted and gasped for air as we sprinted to the car. “We just assaulted a man in his own house!”
“He was asking for it,” Precious said. “I don’t care if he’s my brother, he shouldn’t treat a woman like that.”
We jumped into my car, and I revved the engine to life before tearing off down the street.
I ran the tip of my finger along the bridge of my nose, feeling for the thin wire beneath my skin. The wire that held two pieces of bone in place and kept my nose straight.
Sweat soaked into my shirt despite the cold, and when I got out of the car in the cop shop’s busy parking lot, the moisture trapped in my tracksuit turned to ice in the wind. My whole body seized and shuddered in the cold. I pulled my collar tight around my neck and ran into the reception area of the station.
Detective Nyala was just coming out of the interrogation room as the doors banged shut behind me, cutting off the blast of cold air as they did. I locked eyes with him over the heads of the ever-present queue of dejected men and women.
Nyala was wearing a dark blue suit, neatly pressed as usual. The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Ms. du Toit, a pleasure.” He stood as he spoke and buttoned the top button on his jacket. “Have a seat.”
I stepped through into the room and closed the door behind me. My legs gave up as I lowered myself into the chair. The strength I’d used to keep going fled the moment I felt safe.
“How can I help you today?” Nyala stood with his hands on the back of his chair.
I took a deep breath and let it out in a puff. Where should I start?
“I met a woman this morning,” I said. “She phoned me and told me that her brother knew something about Lindsey.”
“That was dangerous,” Nyala said. “You should come to us first and let us meet with possible witnesses.”
I ground my teeth and forced myself not to swear at him. I wasn’t going to repeat the argument I’d had the last time I’d come to the cops. They were busy, I got that. “I’m bringing you something big now.”
“Really?” Nyala’s eyebrows rose so high on his forehead I thought they might slide down the back of his neck.
“Yeah, the woman I saw. Her brother told her he took Lindsey. I know where he lives.”
“That’s interesting.” The hesitation in Nyala’s voice was plain. He was going to brush me off again. A lump of fear ignited in my chest. “Do you have any proof that he took her?”
“No, I…she told me he did it. I believe her.”
“We can’t believe every person who claims to know something, Ms. du Toit. We need evidence.” Nyala pulled his chair out and sat down. “Do you have any evidence?”
I couldn’t tell Nyala that I’d gone to visit Thabo. He would probably throw me in jail for interfering in the investigation or something. I didn’t have any evidence. All of the air rushed out of my lungs and I had to blink tears out of my eyes.
“No,” I said at last, my voice almost cracking.
“Right, well, we are too busy to run around after every wild story without some kind of evidence to back us up.” Nyala reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a notebook and pen. He placed them gently on the table and slid them across to me. “Why don’t you write down this man’s name and address and, if I have time, I will pay him a visit?”
“Thank you.” My hand shook as I wrote. It wasn’t the response I’d expected. I’d hoped Nyala would rush out with the cavalry and go to arrest Thabo. I would just have to accept that the cops were not interested in helping me.
I scribbled Thabo’s details on the notepad and slammed the pen down on the table with a plasticky crunch. Nyala said something to me as I left, but the sound of my despair drowned out his words like surf crashing on a beach.
