by Layton Green
Nya opened her hand towards the cushioned floor. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”
Grey eased his battered body into a nest of cushions, and Nya returned with two steaming cups of tea, a towel, a medical bag, and a bowl of warm water.
Grey accepted the tea. “It’s just you here?”
“I have a gardener and a housekeeper. They used to live on the grounds.”
“It’s such a large house, I…” he trailed off.
“You’re wondering how I came to live here alone?” He caught half of a bitter smile as she positioned herself behind him. “Why don’t you remove your shirt? It’s soaked with blood.”
Grey complied, and heard the small intake of breath he’d expected. She’d seen the scars and tattoos.
She withdrew a washcloth from the bowl of warm water, and cleaned the blood off his shoulders and face. Grey stiffened as she moved to the back of his head. “What’s it look like back there?”
“A small army of bruises and a nasty gash. You’ll live without stitches, though it wouldn’t hurt to see a doctor. I’ll clean and disinfect it for you.”
He grunted. He’d live.
She dabbed at the wound, holding his matted hair back with her other hand. “Most people with tattoos that large wish for them to be seen,” she said.
“I’m not much for public displays of… anything.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Are you trying to distract me while you poke around my open wound?”
“Well-spotted.”
“The ones on the backs of my upper arms are two halves of a whole.”
“It’s artfully crafted. Is it tribal?”
“Look closer. Each is half of a woman wrapped in robes, holding a scale in one of her hands.”
“Oh—yes, I see now. Very clever. Justitia? The Roman goddess of justice?”
“You know your mythology.”
Nya was still dabbing at his head. “We get quite the classical education in Zimbabwe. Doesn’t she usually have a sword in one hand?”
“I modified it a little.”
“Why’d you split her in half?”
“I wanted the tattoo to represent two different principles.”
“Justice and…?”
“Balance. I believe strongly in balance, in all areas of life.”
“I like that. But whose justice? Yours? Your country’s?”
“Would you accept universal justice with a dash of Mandela, a pinch of Macbeth, and a whole lot of Dominic Grey?”
“Maybe if I knew more about the last one.”
Grey rolled and stretched his neck. “Not sure if I’m up for a philosophical discussion tonight. Try me most other nights.”
“Why not? Do you have evening plans?” She said this deadpan, with her usual just-below-haughty reserve.
He smiled. “I’ve already had my jog.”
Nya put down the washcloth and patted his head with the towel. “Keep still,” she said. “I’m going to apply antiseptic cream.” Grey gritted his teeth; it burned.
“And the larger tattoo?” she asked. “Across your back?”
“You’ve asked me more questions tonight than the entire time I’ve known you. A lot more.”
“As you said, I’m keeping you occupied.”
After a moment Grey said, “Those are Japanese symbols. They involve an art I study. Zen-zekai Jujitsu.”
Nya stopped applying the cream and began to bind the wound with gauze. “There are different styles of Jujitsu?”
“Many.”
“What kind is this one?”
“A very brutal one.”
“Which explains the scars.”
Grey didn’t answer. He didn’t want Nya to know that his scars were from the street, and from the various implements his father had used to express his parental love.
And the ones hidden within the design of the tattoos, she’d never see at all. The ugly round pockmarks from the tips of his father’s cigarettes.
She said, “Where’d you learn it?”
“Japan.”
He could sense her eyebrows rising. “You lived in Japan?”
“My father was stationed there.”
“What was it like?”
“I love Japan. It’s beautiful, and I miss parts of the culture very much. And the fresh food… I don’t think I’ll ever get over that.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“That’s too many questions.”
Nya didn’t reply, and Grey turned to face her. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, and they sat quietly for a moment. “I’ve never seen anyone fight like that.”
“You were the one that saved us.”
She seethed. “Bastards.”
“These are very bad men, Nya. This is all above and beyond the call of duty of a civil servant, don’t you think?”
“You’re a civil servant.”
“You know what I mean.”
She finished binding the wound, and moved to sit cross-legged facing Grey. “Not sure that I do.”
“I’m with Diplomatic Security, and I’m ex-military. I’m still not sure exactly what you do, but I’m pretty sure it’s not this. You can take care of yourself, but you’re no…” he trailed off. “You don’t have to be this involved, and we both know it.”
“And how many times in the line of duty have you searched for someone kidnapped by an African cult?”
“You’re avoiding the question. I need to know why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said, her voice guarded.
Grey covered her hand with his and searched her face. She didn’t remove his hand. “I know there’s something going on, and if it affects this investigation, I need to know about it. Both of our lives are at stake. Whatever this is, we’re in it together. And I-” he hesitated, “whatever it is, I want to help you.”
Grey started to withdraw his hand, but she kept it in place with an intertwined finger.
“I need to trust you,” he said. “Talk to me.”
She blinked and remained silent, the soft flick of her long lashes revealing and concealing her inner window.
“Nya, are you involved in this in some way? Do you need my help?”
“No! I—it’s not what you think.”
“I don’t know what I think.”
“Of course I’m not involved in any of this. I want to find the N’anga more than anyone.”
“That’s what I don’t understand. Why?”
She wrung her hands and bowed her head. When she raised back up, Grey met hollow eyes. “Wait.”
She rose and left the room through a doorway to Grey’s left. His hand that had covered hers remained where she had left it, still tingling from the touch of her skin.
His mind ran through the possibilities. What was she going to tell him? Oh, how he wanted to be able to trust—wanted to be able to trust her. But he doubted, as always. He found trust as readily available as the philosopher’s stone.
She reappeared with a newspaper. Grey started to speak, then quieted as she came and sat beside him, her shoulders brushing his as she carefully, almost reluctantly, laid the newspaper in his lap. The front page headline read: “Doctor murdered in home.”
He wondered how this connected to their case, and then he looked up after the first line, what he was about to say seeping away. Nya was focused straight ahead, unseeing. He read it again.
“Prominent Harare surgeon Jeremiah Mashumba was brutally murdered last evening in his Avondale West residence.”
A few sentences later, he found what he feared he’d find: confirmation that the murdered man had been survived by his only child, Nya Mashumba.
33
Nya hadn’t moved. Grey knew her aversion to commiseration stemmed not from lack of emotion, but from an inability to let people in. He knew it because he knew himself. He touched her arm. “I’m so sorry.”
Grey looked down at the paper again, and paled. April 7 - eight months ago, the same date of the incriminating photo. One day after Doctor Fangwa had arrived in Zimbabwe.
Grey took the paper in both hands. Armed robbery… house ransacked… died of knife wounds at approximately nine o’clock… No suspects…
“I still don’t understand the photo with Fangwa,” Grey said. “Did you know him before?”
Nya continued her catatonic stare. When she spoke only her lips moved, as if attached to a statue. “That night was the first time I laid eyes on him. He seemed interested in talking to me for some reason. I don’t know why.”
“It’s not hard to figure out.”
“What?”
“You’re attractive,” he said in a low voice.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I don’t know, though—does a man like Doctor Fangwa even have feelings like that?” She shuddered, snapping out of her trance. “He unnerved me from the start, but what was I supposed to do? I gave him clear signs I was uninterested, but it didn’t faze him. It was a state function, I had to humor polite conversation. And he was polite, it was just his manner—”
“You don’t need to explain. I’ve met the man.”
“What you don’t know, what that photo doesn’t show, is that the Minister of State was standing right behind me.”
Grey’s face opened with comprehension. “That’s why you look so conspiratorial. You were being charming because your boss was there, and you were trapped.”
“Whenever I look at that photo, I feel ill. I was smiling while my father was…” she swallowed.
“God, Nya. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
He examined the photo again, and felt a disproportionate sense of relief. She was sitting right beside him on the floor, and he felt her body weight shift into his. He realized how aware he was of the prickle of heat from her touch.
But there were still questions, and he had to be sure. “I still don’t understand why you’re so quick to discount the possibility of Fangwa’s involvement, in spite of the Juju connection. Is there something I’m missing?”
Nya took a deep breath before speaking. “I’m going to tell you why I’m so involved in this case. I’ll tell you because I need your help, which means I need you to trust me. And because I want you to trust me.”
Grey waited, unsure what to expect. She said, “Before I left for the reception, my father was alive. I visited with him before I went. The coroner estimated time of death at nine p.m. I was at the reception from eight to almost midnight. And so was Doctor Fangwa. He was at that reception when—when it happened. It couldn’t have been him.”
“Fine, Fangwa was at the ceremony and not at your house, but what does your father’s death have to do with what we’re investigating? Why does it matter where Fangwa was that night?”
“Because the N’anga murdered my father.”
• • •
The trance-like state overcame her again. She stood and motioned for him to follow, and led him to an oak-paneled room with a chestnut desk. “My father’s study,” she said dully. “I found him here. His throat was slit. His hands and feet were bound. His…” she started to break down, but caught herself, “his heart and his eyes were missing.”
Grey started to speak, but his words faded away.
“I convinced the police to keep it quiet, and I kept the reporters away. According to the coroner he ingested something that was the cause of death. A toxin that caused his heart to stop. It’s called Resiniferatoxin, and it’s derived from the Euphorbia plant. The Euphorbia plant is native to northern Nigeria.”
“Juju,” Grey said softly.
“Resiniferatoxin varies by dosage, but the coroner estimated my father died between one and two hours after ingestion.” She moved to the center of the wood-floored room. “I found him here, stripped naked, hands and feet tied, on the floor.”
Grey couldn’t even comprehend finding something like that. He understood Nya’s woodenness; she had to separate herself emotionally.
“He was lying on his back. When I moved him, I saw something scrawled on the floor underneath his body. He’d broken the skin of his hands with his own nails, or rubbed them raw against the ropes. He wrote something in his own blood. It was smeared, but unmistakable. It was N’anga.”
“You’re sure that was the word?”
“Absolutely positive.”
“Did your father know him?”
“No.” She faltered. “At least not that I’m aware. There’s something else. Something no one knows except me. My father was Nigerian.”
“What do you mean no one knows but you? What about the rest of his family?”
“I’m all the family he had. He moved here from Nigeria as a very young man—as a boy, really, after his parents died in a car accident. An uncle sent him to live in South Africa, close to the Zimbabwean border. He found work as a laborer in a small village in Zimbabwe, and he stayed. He came to Southern Africa at such a young age that he lost his Nigerian accent. I knew he’d been born in Nigeria, but always considered him Zimbabwean. And so did he—he never talked about Nigeria.”
“Didn’t you think that was strange?”
“My father was a very closed man. I knew his parents had died, and that he didn’t like to discuss it. He came to Zimbabwe on his own, and that was that.”
“You don’t have siblings?”
“No.”
“You loved your father very much.”
“More than I can possibly describe.” She then asked, in a clumsy attempt to divert attention from her grief, “Is your father still alive?”
Grey didn’t answer, and she waited. “I don’t know,” he said finally.
“I’m sorry if I-”
“It’s not your fault, it’s his. He’s a bastard.” Grey said it in a way that didn’t invite a response.
Grey concentrated on digesting the information he’d been given, unsure where to go with it. Nya was staring at a spot on the floor in the center of the study. Grey wondered if she’d found her father there.
“This wasn’t arbitrary,” she said. “It was too methodical. As Doctor Fangwa said, babalawos don’t act at random. The house was ransacked, but nothing was taken I’m aware of. That, combined with the torture… he was looking for something.”
“Do you think your father was involved in Juju?”
Her eyes flew to meet his. “Never. My father was deeply Catholic. In the village where he grew up in Zimbabwe, there was a Jesuit mission. My father was highly intelligent. A priest recognized his potential and arranged for my father to attend a Jesuit university on scholarship. He became a surgeon. He was eternally grateful—he worshipped the Church. He had more faith than anyone I’ve ever known. He wasn’t involved in Juju. That’s not possible.”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Not that.”
“Then it creates quite a mystery.”
“There’s no mystery as to who did this. My father told me it was the N’anga, and he’s going to account for it.” She said this with such icy calm, such certainty, that Grey was taken aback. Any doubts he had as to her involvement with the N’anga dissolved. Her all-consuming purpose, her hate for the man who had tortured and murdered her father, tumbled out of her.
Nya began to tremble, and Grey went to her. He put his arm around her and she sank into him. “Did you show the police what your father had written?”
“They did a rote investigation and issued a report stating there were no clues. Our police force is underpaid, understaffed and generally incompetent. I didn’t expect anything from them. I’ve thought of everything—the only connection I can think of is Nigeria. But it must be a mistake. He was a boy when he moved here, and he never went back. What could he possibly have had that the N’anga wanted?”
“Is there anything your father kept from Nigeria?”
“Only a c
hain around his neck with a small, ornamental wooden locket attached to it. He never took it off. I asked him about it once, and he said it was his father’s, the only piece of Nigeria he had left. When I searched the room I found the chain at his desk. The wooden locket had been smashed.”
“Could there have been something inside?”
“It couldn’t have been anything valuable,” she said in resignation. “It’s too small even for a diamond of any size. I’m sure it just had sentimental value.”
“Did you take it into evidence?”
“The shards showed a trace amount of the same toxin. It must have dribbled down when the N’anga forced it into my father’s—”
She started to choke up, and she turned away and rubbed her own shoulders. “I never come in this room alone.”
“Why do you stay?” He said gently.
“I moved back in after it happened. It’s my home. My father’s home. I couldn’t let it… someone has to take care of it.”
“I can’t imagine how hard it must be.”
“It’s my life now. I just-” She turned away from him again. This time he reached around her from behind and held her.
“I can’t believe I’m alone,” she whispered.
“I know something about being alone.”
She reached back and cradled the back of his head. He let his head rest on the gentle curve of her neck, and she began to stroke his cheek. They rocked back and forth until she turned to face him. She ran a hand through his hair and they pressed together and kissed, passion mingling with the bitter intensity of her sadness.
Grey disengaged and ran a finger across the moistened curve of her lips. She returned his gaze with tender eyes, but they couldn’t mask the turmoil below.
“I didn’t kiss you because I’m vulnerable,” she said.
“I didn’t kiss you because I thought you were.”
Grey drew her close again, and this time the kiss lingered and evolved.