Dark Traces

by Martin Steyn

  He saw Magson.

  For a moment their eyes locked.

  The man turned and ran. Magson started running after him, but he was probably a hundred meters away. His old man’s legs would never chase down the younger man.

  “Stop! Police!” yelled Menck, running down the row of walls forming the borders of the adjacent properties. It had no effect.

  Magson swore inside his head. If only they had come closer before he’d noticed.

  A boy ran past Magson, one of the high-school boys who had stood watching the search. He ran at an impressive pace, with the ease of an athlete. The other boy came past as well, running after his friend. Magson’s body began protesting, his left knee threatening to give way. He had to jog slower. The first boy was past Menck, gaining on the man with the red beanie. What if the man was armed? At the end of the block, the man turned left into a side street and Magson couldn’t see him any longer. The boy followed. And then Menck.

  When he finally came around the corner, Magson saw Menck handcuffing the man with the beanie. The second boy was congratulating his friend.

  “You should’ve seen it, partner,” said Menck once Magson joined them. “It was beautiful. A tackle any Springbok would’ve been proud of.”

  “Dries is our first team’s wing,” said the second boy. “No one outruns him.”

  “If it weren’t against the law,” said Menck, “I would buy you a beer.”

  “Thank you,” said Magson, still catching his breath, and shook Dries’s hand.

  “It’s a pleasure, Oom. We’re all sick of the crime. One of our friends was carjacked with his dad.”

  “Gun against the head and everything,” said Dries’s friend.

  “And they broke in at my aunt’s house in Bloemfontein and beat her for no reason. She had to go to the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Magson. “Is she all right?”

  “Ja, Oom, but she had to move, because she couldn’t stay there on her own anymore.”

  Magson thought of Karlien Pretorius.

  He looked at the man with the beanie. Close up he looked disheveled, his hair sticking out in tufts underneath the beanie, his beard uneven, his clothes a size too large. His eyes never stopped moving.

  “No weapons, no identification,” said Menck.

  “What is your name?” asked Magson.

  The man’s face was turned downwards. He shook his head. “You’re not going to do it,” he muttered, “not going to do it, not going to do it, not going ...”

  Magson glanced at Menck. “Let the three of us go back to the office. We have a lot to talk about.”

  They took the man to the seventh floor of the SVC office, where they turned right, unlocked the security gate and followed the corridor. The man had not said anything meaningful, only muttered a few phrases. Magson unlocked the interrogation room and motioned the man inside.

  He only gave a couple of steps into the room, looked around and stopped. “No! No! No-no-no! You’re not going to! You’re not going to!”

  “Calm down, sir,” said Magson, “and please sit down.”

  The man was getting increasingly agitated and animated. “No! I won’t be like that! I’m not! You’re not going to make me! No! You’re—”

  “Sir, please, calm down.”

  “—not going to! I don’t want to! I don’t want to—”

  “We just want to talk.”

  “—be like that! No!”

  Magson and Menck each grabbed hold of an upper arm and tried to subdue him. He struggled and fought and Magson was relieved his hands were cuffed.

  “Sir, please calm down. We’re not going to do anything to you.”

  “Let me go! Let me go! I know what you want to do! Let me go! Let me go!” He had become like a wild thing.

  “We’ll have to take him back to the cells,” said Menck.

  The man seemed to settle down a little once they had him back in the elevator. However, his eyes never stopped moving and his breathing was hard and rapid.

  On the ground floor they escorted him to the holding cells and locked the door behind him. Contrary to Magson’s expectations, the man offered no real resistance, entering the cell rather calmly.

  “What is your name?” Magson tried again.

  No reply.

  They left him and went to the operational room.

  “You think this is the start of some or other insanity defense?” asked Menck.

  “I don’t know.” Magson paced up and down along the wall of dead girls.

  “Well, either he’s putting up an act, or he’s got other issues. Our murders are much too organized to be the work of some loon.”

  “No, he is smart. Smart enough to have a plan in case we catch him.”

  “Hmm. Interesting how it was at the interrogation room where he started to really freak out.”

  “Well, either it’s him or it’s not. Whatever the case, Sarisha Uys is still out there and she can’t afford us standing around here, wondering what’s what.”

  “She also can’t afford us being rash and doing something stupid.”

  Magson thought of Lizl Uys pleading with him through her tears. “Well, we have to do something.”

  “I know. All I’m saying is we have to be calm and think things through. As you said, he is smart. That means we have to be smarter.”

  “I’m not dragging him to Valkenberg. You know how long those psychiatric evaluations take.”

  Menck shook out a cigarette, stamping it against the pack. He pushed it back inside. “I have an idea.”

  A little more than forty minutes later, Magson and Menck dragged Patrick Theko to the holding cells. He didn’t make it easy, but they managed to get him into the cell with the man still wearing the red beanie, and locked the door.

  “We’ll come get you when we’re ready,” said Menck.

  Theko raised his right arm and smacked his left fist into the crook of his elbow.

  They turned and left.

  “White dogs!” the black man yelled after them.

  Magson and Menck remained just outside the door, heads cocked to listen.

  “Nothing against you,” they heard Theko saying. “Because you are white. You are not a dog!” This last was presumably hurled in their direction, followed by a kick or something against the bars.

  Silence.

  “So why did they put you in here?”

  Silence.

  “Why don’t you speak? Are you one of them? Hey, is this one of your dogs!”

  “Shh, you mustn’t talk so loud,” came the muted voice of Theko’s cell mate.

  Magson had to concentrate to hear what he was saying. Fortunately, the bare walls of the cells assisted in carrying the sound.

  “I don’t care if they hear me,” Theko replied loudly.

  “You must! You must!” Hushed, but desperate. “Otherwise they will mute you. They take your thoughts. They take them away so you can’t hear yourself. Or ...”

  “Or what?”

  “Worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They will only mute you, so you can’t think. But they know about me. They found out.”

  “What did they find out?” asked Theko.

  “They know I know. They know about my plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “I can’t tell you! No. No-no-no. I have to save them.” So softly that Magson could barely make it out. “Only I can. I have to save them, have to save them, have to save them, have to—”

  “Who do you have to save?”

  “But they got to me. How did they know? How did they know?”

  “Maybe I can help you,” offered Theko.

  “No, I must do it. My plan. Mine! Only I can do it. Only I. Only I.”

  �
�Maybe I can help you get out of here.”

  “How?”

  “They will come get me soon. They didn’t search me properly.”

  Silence.

  “But then I want to know. Tell me your plan, or I leave you for the dogs when I go.”

  Silence. “They take the souls.” Barely audible. “They throw the bodies away, because they’re going to build new ones. They only take the souls. I know. I have a plan, but it’s not complete yet, not ready. Need more time. They have eyes everywhere. Watch you. I was so careful, but now they know. How do they know? That’s why I am here. There is a room at the top. A machine. That’s where they take the souls. I saw it. They had me in the room. The soul is the most important part, the most important part.”

  Magson and Menck went back in.

  “Ah, the white dogs return,” said Theko.

  “We’ll have to teach you some respect for the police,” said Menck, while Magson unlocked the cell door.

  They escorted Theko to the operational room. “I don’t know,” he said. “If it’s an act, he is very good.”

  “You weren’t bad, either,” said Menck.

  “It’s in his eyes. The man is not well.”

  “Souls being taken and bodies thrown away,” muttered Magson. “Where does he get this shit from?”

  “I don’t know,” said Theko, “but I think he believes it.”

  As the elevator slowly descended, Magson looked at his watch. Lunch had come and gone. The search had moved on to the route Sarisha Uys would have walked home. None of the possible evidence found thus far would assist them in tracing the girl’s whereabouts. Captain Kritzinger had informed him that someone was asking about a missing man—one resembling the man with the red beanie. Uniforms had brought the woman to the SVC office. Furthermore, media reports that had appeared this morning had not yielded anything of assistance, either. There had been a number of phone calls with potential, but further investigation led to dead ends.

  We argued ...

  Magson pressed his thumb and index finger against his eyelids. The lack of sleep was beginning to catch up to him. His head had systematically progressed from a dull to a proper ache. One of those insidious headaches that started at the back, slowly extending tendrils until finally overwhelming your entire brain.

  What if that ...

  The elevator’s doors stuttered open and he walked to the reception area, where the woman was waiting. “Mrs. Lamprecht. I’m Warrant Officer Magson.”

  “Where is my brother?” She was probably around thirty, her light brown hair neatly tied back to fit with her clothes, dark pants, white blouse and black jacket. Her face, however, had creases in several places and her eyes focused sharply on him.

  “We had to put him in a holding cell, Mrs. Lamprecht. He got a bit violent.”

  “Violent ...” She pressed her fingers against her lips. “Did he hurt someone?”

  “No. No. Maybe ‘violent’ isn’t the right word. He was upset.”

  “Oh. It’s the pills.” Her shoulders sagged. “He doesn’t want to take his pills, because he says they’re stealing his thoughts. I don’t know what to do with him. I can’t afford to put him somewhere he will be taken care of. My brother is schizophrenic, Warrant Officer. If he would just take his pills, he’d be okay, most of the time. But I have to work; I can’t look after him the whole time.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lamprecht.”

  “I’m not married.” She shrugged. “I have to take care of him. He’s my little brother and there is no one else. Psychiatric institutions are so expensive. And the government won’t take care of him anymore. They say he is functional as long as he is on medication.” She dropped her head, looked back up. “Where is he, Officer?”

  Magson led her to the holding cells.

  “Danie? Oh, Danie, what did you do?”

  “You, too?” He tapped with his fingers against his teeth. “No, no, no. Betta. How did they get you?”

  “No one got me, Danie. I came to take you home.”

  “You can’t trust them, Betta. They know.” Two fingers tapped his head. “They know!”

  “This is the police, Danie. They are the good guys.”

  “No. No!” He paced up and down in the cramped area, shaking his hands at his sides. “They have a machine, Betta. They have one of the machines!” He slammed up against the bars. “They wanted to take my soul,” he whispered.

  His sister folded her hands over his around the bars. “No, Danie. That is not what the machine does. This machine makes sure that you still have your soul. They wanted to make sure that you are okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Would I lie to you, Danie?”

  “They didn’t want to take my soul?” His eyes stopped moving for the first time, large like a child watching his dad promising him that the thing that had tried to grab him when he wanted to get out of bed was only the towel he had left on the floor.

  “No.”

  “Okay. I want to go home, Betta. I’m so tired.”

  “Miss Lamprecht,” said Magson. “Can we talk for a moment, please?”

  “I’m coming back soon, Danie,” she said and followed Magson.

  “Miss Lamprecht, do you know where Danie was yesterday afternoon?”

  “At home.”

  “Were you with him?”

  “No, I was at work. Why?”

  “A girl disappeared yesterday afternoon.”

  Her eyes narrowed, her face hardening. “And now you’re thinking it was Danie? Because he has problems?”

  “Miss Lamprecht, a schoolgirl is missing. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I don’t make sure.”

  “Well, it wasn’t Danie. He would never hurt someone.”

  “How can you be so sure, Miss Lamprecht?”

  “Because he has this whole elaborate plan to save people whose souls he believes will be stolen. His entire room is filled with little pieces of paper and things as he works out his great plan. I try, Officer. I try to keep him on his pills, but I have to work and take care of us and do everything. It’s not easy, but I promise you, Danie did not hurt anyone. When I got home yesterday, he was in his room. He was calm.”

  Magson arrived back at the SVC office just before half past five, parked and entered the building. The headache was like a clamp inside his skull. He pressed his fingers against the back of his head, groaning, while he went into the operational room.

  Captain Kritzinger was there. He looked exhausted. “Where were you?”

  “I took the Lamprecht girl and her brother home. Asked if I could look around.”

  “And?”

  “She didn’t mind. Simple little house. It used to be the parents’ house. They are both deceased. I had a look at Lamprecht’s room, in particular.” Magson shook his head. “The whole place is filled with scraps of paper with notes and pictures and scratchings. It wasn’t done overnight. Even the walls. The sister says she has thrown everything away before, but he just starts again. Apparently, it keeps him calm.”

  “Why isn’t the man in an institution?”

  “She can’t afford it. State thinks medication is good enough.”

  Kritzinger shook his head. “And then we have to mop up the mess when he unhinges.”

  “There is nothing of the victims. No underwear, no jewelry, nothing. Nor any weapons other than kitchen knives. The sister says her father had a pistol, but she claims she handed it in to the police after his death. In any case, I don’t think it’s necessary to look at him any further. The man is cuckoo. I can’t believe he would be capable of committing these types of murders. Not so neat and sophisticated. Plus, he doesn’t have access to a vehicle.”

  Kritzinger clicked his tongue. “Back where we started.”

  “Ja.” Magson pressed against his head, grimacing.

 
“Headache?”

  “Ja.”

  “Listen. Go home. Get some sleep.”

  “I can’t go and sleep now.”

  “You can and you must. Take something for your head. Sleep a few hours. I’m already rotating some of the others. It’s your turn.”

  “And if something happens?”

  “I’ll call you immediately. Now go.”

  At home he fed and watered Rommel, and took his burger and chips from KFC to the dining table. Despite his hunger, he ate listlessly. Too little sleep. Too much throbbing inside his skull. Too much stress about a missing girl. Too many thoughts.

  We argued. She left here angry. What if that was our last conversation?

  Sarisha Uys and her mother kept milling about inside his head. Her shoulder beneath his hand. Her face against his chest.

  I would give anything to get her back.

  All these parents—the Romburghs, Claire Gould, the Retiefs, Ronel Volschenk and poor Daniël Ferreira, and now Werner and Lizl Uys—how many times had each of them had that thought, said it, offered it during negotiations with a Higher Power? There was still hope for Sarisha Uys. For the others it was forever too late.

  And here he was. Jan Magson. His son was alive. He knew where he was.

  What would those parents not sacrifice to be in his situation?

  I would give anything ...

  Rommel came into the room, carrying the hoof Magson had bought a couple of days ago. He lay down next to the chair and began chewing on it.

  What if that afternoon after Emma’s funeral had been their last moment together?

  His chest tightened and he had to swallow and open his mouth to gasp for oxygen.

  Paws on his thigh. He looked down. Rommel’s head rested on his paws, his mouth closed, his eyebrows moving above the dark eyes watching Magson intently. He stroked the brown head.

  “It can’t ...”

  He got up. Walked to the phone. He didn’t want to think, because then he would put the phone down before it started ringing. He wanted this panic to drive him to go through with it. More than anything, he wanted things to be fixed.

  His finger automatically found the right buttons. Each digit emitted a beep closer to his son. Like a timer on a bomb, ticking. He took the phone away. Rommel sat motionless on the floor, watching him. The same way Doctor Hurter did. He pressed the receiver back against his ear. And kept it there. This time he would not defuse it.