Strong Medicine (17 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

“As soon as I saw the bodies I knew it was ritual killings. The body parts had been taken. They were cut up, like the older people say. No hands, no lips, their eyes were even gone. It was ritual killings.”

- Villager, Limpopo province, South Africa

#

The next morning dawned murky and brown. I found Besta in the kitchen, camped at the table drinking a cup of tea and doing the crosswords in the Star newspaper. It was a habit she’d picked up from my father, and one thing she hadn’t changed when he died. She greeted me with a smile and bent back to her puzzle.

I filled a bowl with cornflakes and sloshed some milk into it, then fell into a chair at the table. I picked up my spoon, held it over the bowl, and my hand froze before the silver curve touched the cereal.

Cornflakes.

It was the last meal I’d eaten with Lindsey on the morning before she disappeared. Tears splashed into the milk and I hunched my shoulders, dropping the spoon onto the linoleum table.

“I can’t go on like this,
Ma
. I said. “I can’t live without my baby girl. I can’t accept that I’ll never see her again.”

Besta put her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t see what more you can do,
liefie
. Especially if the cops are protecting him.”

“I have to fight for my daughter.” I was repeating what the man in my dream had said to me. They were the only words I could think of.

“Can I make you some tea?” Besta asked.

“No thanks,
Ma
.” I put the bowl of cornflakes, untouched, into the sink and went out onto the balcony. Mr. Botha pushed his broom around the concrete floor, muttering about something, pale flesh visible through a collection of tears in his trousers. Lindsey would stick her finger in her mouth and mime gagging if she saw him like that.

I needed to find a way to get her back. The cops could go fuck themselves. I wouldn’t let them intimidate me into surrendering my baby girl. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed the number of the only person I knew would help me. Busi answered on the third ring.

“You feel like taking the law into your own hands?” I asked her once we had the pleasantries out of the way.

“I thought you’d never ask!”

#

Busi and I arrived at Thabo’s house around ten in the morning. A thin layer of cloud hung in the sky, the first signs of a cold front on the way. A group of children was playing a game of street soccer with a worn out ball. Most of the white patches were missing, leaving only bare brown fabric. They should have been in school. Lindsey should have been in school.

I parked on the broad pavement and glared at a pair of young men who gave us a little more attention than I liked. We walked up the dirt path from the gate to the house. I could hear the TV playing through the door. It sounded like soap reruns.

“You ready?” I asked Busi.

She nodded and rubbed her hands together. If she felt anything like I did, it was to stop them from shaking.

The brass door handle was slightly sticky beneath my skin. If I was lucky, the door would be unlocked. If not, our plan to take Thabo by surprise would die on the loose concrete doorstep. I turned the doorknob. It squeaked and the door opened.

A single bare bulb burned in the naked ceiling fitting; only one screw held it in place. An ancient couch stood against the wall on my left. Faded pictures of Bob Marley wreathed in thick white smoke decorated the walls. Thabo sprawled among the stained cushions. He turned to look at us and a lazy smile crawled across his face.

“The mother came back,” he said. “You want some big black dick too?”

“
Hai
!
uShaya
!” Busi stepped around me and raised a hand as if to give Thabo a hiding. “Did your mother teach you to speak like that?”

“My mother was a bitch,” Thabo said.

“I’m not here to discuss your mother.” I tried not to fidget but I didn’t know what to do with my hands. “You will tell me where my daughter is.”

Thabo’s laugh filled the room. His eyes drifted closed and his head lolled on his shoulders. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

He stood, a little unsteady on his feet, and stalked over to me. Hard muscles stood out on his chest and shoulders. I was completely out of my depth standing in this man’s house, in a hostile neighborhood, deliberately defying the cops who’d told me to leave him alone.

I thought about Lindsey’s face, the way she smelled. I would not let this asshole get the better of me. I raised my knee, hard and fast, and felt it connect with his nuts.

Thabo’s skin slapped the concrete as he fell, clutching at his crotch, retching and writhing on the floor.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, bending down so that our faces were only inches apart. “Did I get you in your big black dick?” I dug my heel into his exposed palms.

“Bitch!” he spat through clenched teeth.

“Tell me where my daughter is.”

“Fuck. You.” He gasped after each word. I wouldn’t have long before he recovered from the blow.

I pressed down harder with my boot. “Tell me or I will cut it off.”

Thabo’s only response was to force air through his gritted teeth. I heard Busi scratching around somewhere in the house, clanking and banging drawers.

The situation started unraveling, slipping through my fingers like motes of dust floating through beams of light. Soon I wouldn’t be in control any more. I’d have to do something. If he recovered before I got the information out of him I wouldn’t have another opportunity. He was much bigger than me, and I would be at his mercy.

“Busi!” I called, keeping my eyes on Thabo. “Bring me a knife.” Thabo’s eyes grew so wide I could see the pink flesh around the white.

Busi walked up to us holding a bread knife. She passed it to me; the rough wooden handle felt good in my palm. I crouched next to Thabo, holding the knife in front of his face.

“Tell me where she is, or I will kill you,” I said.

“You’re crazy,” Thabo said. “Both of you. I can’t tell you. They’ll kill me.”

I pressed the serrated edge of the knife to Thabo’s throat. I watched small dimples appear in the skin of his neck where the teeth of the blade bit into his flesh.

“You have about five seconds before I beat them to it.” Tiny drops of spit fell from my lips and splattered on his cheeks.

His blood-shot eyes darted between Busi’s face and mine. Sweat beaded along his hairline and ran down his forehead. “Okay! Okay! Fuck.” Thabo held his hands out. “I’ll tell you. His name is Makulu.”

“And you gave Lindsey to this man?” My hands shook like a Chihuahua on crack. After all this time, I finally had something concrete, something I could use to find my baby girl.

“Yes, I met him at a BP that night and he paid me, then he took her away.”

“Where is he?” I asked. I still held the knife to his throat, and I pressed down slightly when I asked the question. A pearl necklace of tiny blood drops oozed out onto his skin.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Thabo screamed, panic erupting from him as his blood ran like lava down his neck and soaked into his shirt.

I stared at the blood for an eternity. The realization crept up on me like a lion hunting an impala. I’d just cut this man’s throat. I dropped the knife and stood up.

“Let’s get out of here.” I grabbed Busi’s arm and started pulling her towards the door. I didn’t like what we were doing. We had all the info we were going to get out of Thabo and I needed to be a thousand kilometers away from him.

Busi kicked Thabo in the ribs, and then we turned and ran.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

“It wasn’t right.” I sat on my bed, a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka on the nightstand beside me. Its bitter scent filled the air and clawed at the back of my throat. The full moon cast a crisp white light through my bedroom window, shadows of the burglar bars lay across my legs like the stripes of a tiger.

I’d said it to myself a thousand times since we’d left Thabo’s house that morning. Busi’s answer, repeated as often, was that he didn’t deserve any better and the cops wouldn’t have helped us.

Alone, in the dark of the night with a belly full of vodka, I couldn’t find the courage that Busi had. I couldn’t convince myself that we’d acted fairly. We’d broken into a man’s home and tortured information out of him. What if he decided to go to the police?

The house was quiet. The only sound that reached my ears was the shushing of tires on the road outside. The ugly thoughts in my head were my only company. Too much time had passed since Lindsey had been taken. I’d often heard of abducted children on the radio and scoffed at their parents’ persistence. I could understand holding out hope for a few days, a week at the most, but these people would go on wishing for their child’s safe return for months. Now I was in their shoes. I could see the situation from their side and I could finally understand the undying desire to find my child.

I would keep going no matter what. Until I could hold her in my arms again.

Thabo wouldn’t go to the police, because if he did he would have to tell them why we were there in the first place. I’d already told them about him, but he didn’t know that. No. I didn’t have to worry about him.

Unless he went to the man who had Lindsey. What if they came after me?

I lifted my cell phone from its place next to the bottle of vodka, wiped a few stray drops of alcohol from the screen with the back of my thumb, and searched for Detective Nyala’s number.

What would he say if I told him? Would he help me now that I knew who had my daughter? Would he protect me from them?

I took another swig of vodka and watched the phone number blur on the screen in front of me.

Fuck these guys. They hadn’t done anything to help me yet, why would they start now?

Eleven days had passed since Lindsey’s disappearance. Every passing moment made it less and less likely that I’d ever find her alive. I could not rely on the cops anymore. I couldn’t wait for them anymore. It was up to me. If I ever wanted to see my baby alive again, I’d have to get her back myself.

I pressed the green phone and waited while the call connected. He’d said he wanted to help me, and then did nothing. Well, I could help myself.

“Erin.” Detective Nyala’s voice was thick with sleep when he answered. “It’s almost midnight. Why are you phoning me?”

“I know who has my daughter.” The words tasted sour in my mouth as I burped them out on a wave of vodka-tainted breath.

I heard a woman’s voice in the background of the call and Nyala spoke to her in a language I didn’t understand. Zulu probably. I really should learn an African language.

“Just a minute,” Nyala said into the phone. “I’m going downstairs.”

I listened as he made his way through his home. Subtle clues giving me an idea of the layout. A door handle creaked, then the
snick-chunk
of a slam-lock gate opening and sliding out of the passage. A light switch
clicked
on and the springs in an old couch squeaked.

“What did you do?” Nyala asked.

“Uhm…” The bravado that had driven me to dial his number had leaked out of me with every passing moment that I’d spent listening to him navigate his home. Now I couldn’t find the words to say what I needed to say.

“I went to see Thabo, the guy who took Lindsey. I threatened him to tell me who he’d given her to. He wouldn’t tell me.”

“That’s not so bad then,” Nyala said. “I don’t think this warrants a midnight phone call.”

“That’s not all,” I said. “We kinda hurt him.”

“You what?” Nyala choked off at the end of the question.

“I got angry. I kneed him in the balls. Then I got a knife.”

“Jesus, you fucking stupid—” Nyala growled down the phone line. “Do you have any idea how serious this is? He could press charges against you.”

“He gave me a name, Makulu.”

“Don’t do anything stupid now,” Nyala said. His voice was high, tight. I could almost taste his fear. Or maybe that was the vodka.

“You might have a name, but you don’t know how dangerous this guy is. Don’t go rushing off and get yourself killed.”

“At least I’m doing something. You’ve known all along and you’ve been protecting him!”

“I don’t have a choice. You don’t know who this guy is. Who he really is. He has a lot of power. Power that we can’t fight.”

“Ag, don’t tell me you believe that superstitious bullshit.”

“That bullshit is part of my culture,” Nyala said. “I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen the kind of power this man has. I’m not going to cross him.”

“So you’re going to sit back and let him kill children?” My throat turned sour and my stomach bucked. Was I really talking to a cop like this?

“I don’t have a choice.” Nyala’s answer was little more than a whisper, with cold intent beneath it. “I don’t make the rules. I follow them.”

“Well, I’m not going to let him take my daughter and get away with it. If you’re not going to do something, I will.”