by Jay Nadal
A heavy rapping on his open door that vibrated through the walls and floor jolted Scott from his thoughts. Mike filled the doorway, waving his notepad. There was nothing delicate about Mike. A knock on the door with his knuckles reverberated through the room like a normal person’s closed fist. “What’s up, Mike?”
“I’ve been following up all those avenues that we spoke about at the briefing the other day. So far, I’ve drawn a blank with community centres and support groups, but I’ve still got a few to work through on the list. But I had two interesting conversations. The first is with Down’s Nursery. They’ve had a young lad aged four who’s not been in for over five days. There’s been no answer from the parents either. I did say to the nursery that we were perhaps looking for a child a little older. But the nursery nurse I spoke to added that the lad in question was quite a large lad for his age and towered above the others. She said you could mistake him for being five or six years old.”
Mike flicked through his spiral-bound notepad. As he recapped his notes, Scott listened, tapping the end of his pen on the desk in a mixture of frustration and curiosity. “Then we’ve got Oakwood Primary School. They’ve got a young child who’s been absent from school for three days. He’s an African boy aged six years old. So he certainly matches the age, sex, and race of the young lad that we found. I’ve got an address of where the parents are staying. And the interesting thing is they are asylum seekers from South Africa, staying in council owned property on the Whitehawk.”
Mike and Scott set off with some urgency to visit both of the residential addresses given by the nursery and the primary school. Mike continued to give Scott further updates as they made their way towards an address off Coldean Lane. The property in question was only five minutes away from Down’s nursery. The manager of the nursery had been concerned enough to have paid a visit to the house after three days. Unfortunately, her visit had been futile. She had peered through the letter box but saw nothing untoward, and reached the conclusion that perhaps they had moved on, or had left the country.
Scott rapped on the door several times, whilst Mike walked around the front of the terraced property. He cupped his hands around his eyes as he peered in through the windows. He could just make out the outline of lounge furniture through the net curtain. Scott crouched down, and lifted the letter box flap. There were no circulars piling up on the doormat, there were no sounds, and there were none of the odious smells that would suggest that the inhabitants had come to harm.
“Anything?” Scott asked.
Mike shook his head as his eyes scanned beyond the nets for any sign of movement. “Nope, diddly-squat. From what I can see, it looks clean in there. Not much furniture though, since it looks sparse. Typical council property.”
According to Down’s nursery, Mbali and Samuel Sibeko, parents of four-year-old Yaseen lived inside. Scott and Mike had stopped off at Down’s nursery on their way, and they had taken a photograph of the boy provided by the nursery. They removed a small navy sweatshirt with the Down’s nursery emblem from Yaseen’s clothes hook, and placed it in an evidence bag. It would be sent to forensics and used to build a DNA profile for crossmatching with the victim.
Mike checked with the neighbours on either side. Residents hadn’t seen the family for over a week. Initial feedback suggested that the family were friendly and polite but quiet. Other than saying hello to them on the street, residents had had little to do with them. The family had been in the property for six months. Mike made a mental note to check with the council about previous addresses, and any indication of their current whereabouts.
Scott had been keen to move to the next location, but Mike had been insistent on stopping to grab a quick burger, muffins and cup of tea. He devoured his lunch in the car as Scott made his way to the next property.
“Keep your window open,” Scott said as they exited the car. “It smells like greasy chippies in here.”
Mike grumbled to himself as he gulped down the remnants of his tea. “Well, you were the one who said you were in a hurry. Otherwise, I would have sat outside the car and eaten it. Besides, the double choc chip muffins went down a treat with this cuppa,” Mike quipped as he lifted his polystyrene cup up in Scott’s direction.
Scott shook his head as he walked up the garden path. He was back in familiar territory again, the Whitehawk estate. A typical council property, it had dirty brown pebble-dashed walls, and a small patch of overgrown grass that passed as a front garden. Weeds crept up through the cracks in the broken concrete path.
Nothing more than PVC coated wire green garden fencing, which tended to flex and bend out of shape with the slightest of pressure, served as the front fence. It was a cheap type of budget fencing that people often used just to form some type of demarcation lines between them and neighbouring properties.
The sound of raised voices from within caused Mike and Scott to pause for a moment by the front door. They could make out a heated exchange. A female, with a high-pitched scream, matched in equal proportions by a heavy, deep male voice raised in anger.
Mike rolled his eyes. “If this is a fucking domestic, then I’m walking. Uniform can deal with it.”
Scott pursed his lips, his chest rising as he took a deep breath before knocking. The voices inside stopped. Scott fully expected someone to come to the door, but after a short pause, with no results, he knocked again with some force. “Hello? It’s the police.” He could make out the faint scurrying of footsteps and some commotion inside. The footsteps became louder, and stopped behind the door before the sound of keys turned in the lock.
A short, broad black man answered the door. With the door ajar only six inches, Scott could see he had a round face, with a very large flat nose. His hair had been cropped tight. He offered the broadest of smiles which accentuated his chubby cheeks. His eyes shifted between the two strangers on the doorstep.
Scott and Mike held up their warrant cards. “I’m Detective Inspector Baker, this is my colleague Detective Constable Wilson. We are looking for Anneke and Patrick Chauke. We believe they live here?”
The man opened the door but continued to fix his gaze upon the two officers. Scott and Mike could see the full figure of the man. He was squat and rotund, dressed in a smart, dark navy suit, with a white, granddad collar style shirt. Mike noticed his seventies-looking black shiny patent shoes. In a heavy African accent, he addressed them. “I’m afraid they don’t live here.”
Mike and Scott exchanged the briefest of glances. “Who lives here?”
The man hesitated as his eyes narrowed. “May I ask what this is in regard to?”
“And you are?”
“I am Joshua Mabunda, Pastor Joshua Mabunda.”
“And you live here?”
The man shook his head. Scott felt they were going around in circles. “So what is your connection with the family that lives here?”
The pastor remained tight-lipped as he gazed at the two men. Scott lurched forward, about to take a firmer stance when he heard the soft sound of two people speaking from somewhere within the house.
“Can you tell me who lives here, sir?” Mike asked. He took a step closer to the doorway to signal his intention of demanding an answer.
The pastor opened his mouth to reply when the two voices from behind him became louder, and a man and woman stepped into the hallway from a back room. They spoke to the pastor in soft tones, with a dialect that neither Scott nor Mike could understand.
The couple were dressed in simple clothes. The man wore a creased white T-shirt, light blue jeans, and brown sandals. The female with him wore an orange, African dashiki print loose dress that hung off her thin frame.
“Are either of you Anneke or Patrick Chauke?” Scott asked as he ignored the pastor and looked beyond towards the other occupiers of the house. The couple remained tight-lipped, the man draping a protective arm around the shoulder of the woman. The woman had a pained expression on her face. Fear poured from the whites of her eyes as confusion seemed to c
loud her senses. She glanced back and forth between the pastor and the officers at the door. Her wide eyes suggested that she was either fearful of their situation, or of the pastor.
“This is Anneke and Patrick Chauke. They do not speak English, and I speak on their behalf.” The pastor turned towards the couple and muttered something in their own dialect that caused them to retreat half a step.
“What language do they speak?” Scott asked.
“They speak Isi Zulu. Anything you wish to ask them, you ask me and I will relay it for you.”
Scott’s jawbone tightened in frustration. “Do they have a son?”
Without glancing back towards the parents, the pastor nodded. “They do.”
“And what is their son’s name?”
“Michael.”
“And how old is Michael?”
The pastor looked at both officers. Even though there was calmness in his eyes, they appeared lifeless and lacking emotion. The absence of an answer began to grate both Mike and Scott. Scott raised his eyebrows as if to suggest well?
“Six.”
“And where is he?”
Before the pastor could reply, the woman in the corridor moaned, as tears flooded her eyes. “My babeee. Where is my baby?”
An uneasy silence hung in the air as the pastor stared towards the floor. Mike looked at Scott as he clenched his teeth and shook his head. Scott could tell that Mike itched to steamroller the pastor and drag him out of the way by his collars.
“I thought you said they couldn’t speak English?” Scott asked in a firm tone.
Anneke came rushing towards the door, Patrick just inches behind her. “Have you found my baby?”
“Michael?” Scott asked.
She’d nodded. Her tear-stained eyes searched both men for answers.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Three days ago,” replied Patrick.
“Does your son have any distinguishing features?” Scott asked.
The father nodded. “He has a red birthmark that covers the entire sole of his right foot.”
“Any other features?”
Patrick thought for a few moments before adding that his son had three distinct short scars on his abdomen.
Scott and Mike glanced at each other and exchanged unspoken words. The two features that the father described matched those that had been discovered during the post-mortem.
Patrick dropped his head, his bottom lip quivered with emotion. He glanced towards his wife. Her eyes expressed the excruciating pain that they both felt, grief threatening to swallow them into a dark vortex. “Have you found my son?”
Scott cleared his throat admitting, “We’ve discovered the body of a young child. The distinguishing marks that you mentioned are consistent with those that we found on the body.”
Anneke Chauke dropped to her knees and buried her head in her hands as she wailed and sobbed. Patrick knelt down beside her and swept her up into his arms. Anneke buried her head in his chest. After a few tense moments, her cries became silent, her voice trapped in her throat.
“I want to see my child,” Patrick demanded through watery eyes and a stiffened jaw.
Scott stepped forward and dropped to one knee to place one hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment. There are some tests that are still being conducted on the body.” In situations like this, Scott knew that he had to lie. There was no way that any person, let alone a parent, could see a loved one after they had been the victim of such a hideous crime.
Patrick searched Scott’s eyes for more information, but a gentle shake of Scott’s head told Patrick that he couldn’t divulge more.
During the exchange between Scott and the parents, Mike had blocked the front door to contain the scene, and observe the pastor. Pastor Mabunda wore a stern expression on his face. Mike sensed that the man’s eyes were boring into the parents, as if annoyed that his instructions to remain quiet had been disobeyed. Something didn’t feel right to Mike. For someone calling himself a pastor, a man of God, his demeanour suggested otherwise. His eyes were cold, his words measured, and his influence on the parents, chilling.
Scott whispered in a softer tone, “We’ll need you to come to the station with us. We believe that the child could be your son. So, we would like to ask you some questions around his disappearance, and build a better understanding of Michael. Is that okay?”
Patrick stared back at Scott through heavy, swollen, and sad eyes. He looked a broken man as his shoulders sagged. Doing his hardest to be strong for his wife, he held back his emotions like a dam holding back a lake. But inside, the pain and grief ripped through his body like a swirling tornado.
As he looked at Patrick, Scott felt a strong bond of empathy towards what the Chaukes were going through. The knock on the door. The presence of police officers, and the news that any parent dreaded. With it so fresh in their minds, he knew that they would experience a multitude of emotions. They would be confused, frightened, and saddened. Their world shattered beyond belief.
Scott showed the parents to his car, whilst Mike gathered evidence that would help them to confirm Michael’s identity. He placed the boy’s toothbrush in a plastic evidence bag. In separate evidence bags he placed a pillowcase from the child’s bed, his pyjamas, and a T-shirt that he had just worn last week that hadn’t been washed yet.
Scott knew that the pastor had to be dealt with, too. For the time being, his full contact details were noted and uniformed officers were called to bring him. The first priority in Scott’s mind was to confirm the identity of the dead body, and bring some closure for the victim’s parents.
9
Anneke and Patrick Chauke sat across the table from Scott and Raj. Mike and Abby were interviewing the pastor in a separate interview room down the corridor. The Chaukes held hands and sat in silence, listening to the formal introductions and cautions for the benefit of the tape recorder.
Anneke stared at the table, unwilling to raise her eyes to meet those of the officers interviewing her. Occasional sobs racked her body every time she thought of Michael. Prior to beginning the interview, they had voluntarily taken part in a buccal swab. It was a simple test taken as a way of collecting DNA from the cells on the inside of a person’s cheek. The samples could be taken and cross-referenced against a DNA profile of the victim. The other samples taken from the house would be used as a secondary method of analysis and confirmation.
Scott’s questions had been answered by Patrick, his wife too distraught to utter a word.
“What was your reason for coming to the UK?”
“Our villages were being persecuted. We are a minority tribe. Our elders were too weak to challenge the brutality of the marauding tribes who would rob us, rape our women, steal our children, and destroy our crops. We wanted a better life for Michael.”
“And how did you get here?”
“There are people. People who can get us here. We came across the land in a truck. We spent every bit of money we had to get here.”
“Tell me about Michael?” Scott asked.
Patrick gazed off to the wall behind Scott, his mind tracking back through the years. His eyes were empty and dark. “He was a fun-loving boy. Soft, bright, and intelligent. He wanted to do well. He would sit there for hours looking at books.”
“And when was the last time you saw him?”
Patrick shrugged his shoulders. “Five days ago. He said he wanted to go and play in the front garden with a few other boys. He has done that before. He must have only been gone half an hour. When Anneke went out to call him to dinner…he was gone.” Soulless tears erupted from the corners of his eyes and crept down either side of his nose.
“So, why didn’t you report him missing as soon as you found out that he’d gone?”
Patrick glanced across to his wife. Scott noticed a tension between them as they both stiffened. Patrick’s right arm and Anneke’s left arm tensed. Scott could only imagine that they were sque
ezing their hands beneath the table.
Scott leant in and rested his hands on the desk. “Listen, we are here to help. Your son disappeared. We are awaiting confirmation via forensic analysis, but we believe the body that we’ve found is that of your son. If there’s anything that you know, that will help us to identify what happened to him, then I plead with you to tell us everything you know.”
Patrick licked his lips and shifted in his chair. A shiver raced down his spine, even though it wasn’t cold, he nevertheless trembled. “We went out looking for him. We knocked on a few doors of some other asylum seekers that we know. No one had seen him. We contacted the pastor, and he said he would deal with it.”
Scott and Raj exchanged glances as Raj continued to make notes.
“Is there anywhere else that Michael could have gone to in the time from when he disappeared?”
“Pastor Mabunda organised the childminder that used to look after many children in our situation. It gave us the opportunity to meet with solicitors and support workers from the council without having to worry about Michael.”
“What’s the name of the childminder?”
“Margaret Eze.”
“And where does Margaret live?”
Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Scott narrowed his eyes in confusion. “You don’t know where your childminder lives?”
“No. Every time we needed her services, the pastor would come and collect Michael and take care of it. Margaret does not have her papers to stay here. She is old.”
Pastor Mabunda sat stony-faced in interview room two. His disposition hadn’t changed from when Mike had seen him at the house. He appeared just as aloof and uncooperative. Following a debrief with Scott after his interview with the parents, Mike and Abby were ready to tackle the pastor.