by Kurt Ellis
‘We didn’t kill her.’
‘Then who did?’
‘I don’t know.’
Creed could see that Baloyi was physically shaken. The union leader took a step back. ‘See here, Siya came to the gathering today with this bucket.’
‘Siya?’ Meyer asked.
‘Ja, Siya Shezi. He’s one of the strikers.’ Baloyi wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘He … he told … he said to the other miners that he got this from a strong inyanga. In Jozi. He said that it’ll make bullets bounce off us like rubber.’
‘You heard him say this?’
Baloyi nodded. ‘But I didn’t know what was inside it. I mean, I don’t believe in muti. I’m a Christian. But others do, and if they were taking strength and … and determination from that belief, then so be it. It’s all good for the cause.’
Meyer scribbled in his notepad. ‘Is “Siya” short for “Siyabonga”?’
Baloyi nodded.
‘How can I get hold of him?’
Baloyi snorted. ‘You’ll need a sangoma for that. Someone who can speak to the dead. Siya was one of the first people killed.’ Meyer scribbled this down. ‘But I remember he said he got this … he said the inyanga was … was …’ he whispered. ‘Umthakathi.’
‘Who?’ Creed furrowed his brow.
‘Not who,’ Zwane said softly. ‘But what … Umthakathi. It means a witch.’
52
‘You mean, like a sangoma?’ Meyer asked
Zwane shook his head. ‘No. That is where you white people get confused. You don’t know the difference between a sangoma and an inyanga.’
The three of them stood at the back of the police station in a cordoned-off courtyard. There were double-storey red-brick buildings on all four sides, offering them protection from the frigid wind.
Creed took the opportunity to put a cigarette to his lips and light up. The sun was blindingly bright, yet it offered little in terms of warmth. ‘So,’ he said, inhaling deeply, ‘what’s the difference?’
‘Okay. A sangoma is someone who talks to the ancestors. They throw the bones and can hear what the ancestors have to say. But not anyone can be a sangoma. You must get the calling from the ancestors, you see, and only a few get the calling. But a sangoma does not use muti. An inyanga – they are the ones that make the muti. Anyone can be an inyanga. It’s a healer. A healer who uses herbs and potions.’
‘Okay,’ Meyer scribbled this information down in his notepad. ‘So then what’s a … uthakathi?’
‘Umthakathi,’ Zwane corrected, his face suddenly ashen. ‘With an “m”. Umthakathi. You see, an inyanga is a healer. That is what they try to do with their muti. They use it as medicine and they try to heal your sicknesses and to lift curses. But, sometimes …’ He paused, clearly nervous. ‘Sometimes you get those inyanga who only want to hurt people, who are willing to use their muti for evil. Umthakathi. Witches. The inyangas that put curses on people and send evil spirits to people. For money or for fun.’ He locked eyes with Meyer. ‘Evil things like uTokoloshe nemfene.’
53
Reggie Mthembu wanted to smoke the nyaope with Clement and Nhlanhla, but he resisted the urge. The drug – a concoction of ground-up anti-retroviral medication and marijuana mixed with crystal meth or heroin – called to him in a voice that only he could hear. Although the high it offered was indescribable, Reggie needed to keep his wits about him that night.
The three men huddled around a flaming drum just outside Clement’s shack in Alexandra. The orange flames made the shadows dance on their faces; shadows that made Reggie feel fearful. He chose not to smoke, but stood gripping an icy bottle of Black Label beer, a newspaper clasped under his arm. He brought the bottle to his lips and gulped down some of the contents.
‘You’re lucky, mfowethu,’ started Clement. ‘I hear they all died.’
‘It was like they couldn’t see me.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Like I was invisible. And the bullets, they just wouldn’t hit me.’
‘Eish. I told you, that one has strong muti, Reggie,’ said Clement, taking the beer from him and drinking.
Reggie licked his lips. He didn’t doubt the strength of that woman’s muti. In fact, from what he had seen, there was no doubt the umthakathi was all-powerful. That’s why he had to go see her again with this newspaper. Just one more time. He needed her help to escape the police for good.
The township of Alexandra, better known as Alex, was one of the poorest areas in Johannesburg. Ironically, it was situated right next to Sandton, the richest square mile in all of Africa. A slap in the face of the poor and hungry – opulence a stone’s throw away from abject poverty – as most of the homes in Alex were shacks, and very few of the houses had indoor plumbing or electricity. The people lived in squalor, yet across the road they could see Sandton’s bright lights taunting them.
The Michelangelo Hotel stood proud: here, the penthouses sold for upwards of R28 million, and Porsches and Ferraris were a common sight on the roads, as opposed to the minibuses and foot traffic used in Alex. It made Reggie’s stomach tighten with anger.
Why didn’t he have the nice things like these people? And what angered him even more than the rich white people were the rich black people. His own brothers and sisters who turned their noses up at him and his like because they were not the children of politicians and tenderpreneurs. Like they were dirty. Like he was lower than a dog. Those were the people he hated the most. The type Lorraine had tried to become. Ever since she got that job, she thought she was too good for him. Better than him.
Reggie glanced at his watch. Midnight was approaching.
‘Ma’gents,’ he started. ‘I’m off.’
‘Hayi, no, Reggie,’ Nhlanhla said. ‘You don’t need to see her again, mfowethu. I’m telling you, just run for it. Zimbabwe. You can get there sharp with a taxi and be done. Stay there for a year, maybe two, then come back and the police will have forgotten all about you.’
‘I want to run, Nhlanhla. But this worries me,’ he pulled the newspaper out from under his arm and waved it at him. ‘I’m on the front page of every newspaper. They’re looking for me.’
‘That’s why you need to run now,’ Nhlanhla said.
‘Right into the arms of the police?’ he shook his head. ‘No, I need one more visit with her.’
54
She was called Nomtakhati, and her shack was located at the heart of the township. Even those who had lived their entire lives among these streets would have lost their bearings looking for it.
But Reggie had a unique strategy to conquer this labyrinth. He looked for the scariest path to take, felt the little hairs on the back of his neck that told him to turn back – and disobeyed them.
That night, they led him right to her. They were now screaming at him to get up off the straw mat in her shack and run as though his life depended on it. Because it did. But he ignored those voices.
A small, blackened cast-iron pot bubbled on an open flame in the corner of the hovel. A brownish-grey liquid caused the fire to hiss as it overflowed, filling the enclosed space with a putrid stench that was like hot disease.
Reggie felt the back of his throat tighten. She sat opposite him on the straw mat, her face hidden in shadows and her over-hanging hair braided heavily with colourful beads. Slowly, she rocked back and forth. The beads clicked together and sounded almost like the clicking of insects. Her naked breasts hung low and hefty, almost to her navel.
It wasn’t only the witch he feared, but her Imfene too. It stood in the corner of the shack. Only the lower half of his body was visible in the moonlight seeping through the smoke vent in the roof. It cut him at an angle, from just below the right of his ribcage across to his left knee. His penis looked monstrously large and veined. The muscles on his legs were like large stones stuffed into tar-black leather.
But it was his breathing that shook Reggie. The grunting made his bones feel like new ice – frozen yet brittle. Imfene could easily ri
p him to pieces in a second.
Nomtakhati stopped rocking and drank from a Coca-Cola bottle filled with a milky substance. She pursed her lips and exhaled hard, spraying the liquid all over Reggie’s face and upper body. ‘Drink,’ she commanded, handing the container to him.
His hands were shaking as he took it from her. It was hot to the touch. He raised it to his lips and took a gulp. The drink was tart and caught the back of his tongue. He fought the urge to vomit. He drank again and forced the fluid down. He handed the empty bottle back to her.
‘Thank you, Mama.’
‘Hayi, don’t thank me.’ She spoke softly and rhythmically, the last syllable of every word dragged out. ‘You, you have some dangerous people after you.’
‘Yes, Mama. The police. Look here.’
He handed her the folded newspaper at his side. The front page of The Daily Standard was dominated by a grid of photographs. The largest was of him, a photograph taken when the police had arrested him two years earlier. The others were passport size. Different faces. All members of the Psychological Investigation Unit. All searching for him.
‘These people are after me. This one,’ he pointed to the picture above the name Detective Luke Meyer, ‘almost got me.’
Nomtakhati hummed before she spoke. ‘No. You don’t need to worry about that one. You need to worry about this one.’
She pointed to another man. Beneath his picture, it read: Former FBI profiler Nicholas Creed.
She mumbled something to herself that Reggie didn’t understand and began to rock back and forth again.
‘Why, Mama? Why’s he dangerous?’
‘His eyes, you stupid boy. His eyes. He has the eyes of a man possessed by uSatan. By the Devil. This man is an evil man. A dangerous man.’
‘So what must I do, Mama?’ he pleaded. ‘Please, help me.’
A hiss came from her mouth. ‘Kill him. Kill this one, and bring me his body.’
Reggie paused. ‘But, Mama, why don’t I just run?’
‘You stupid boy. You can’t run from uSatan. Anywhere you go, he will find you.’
He nodded slowly, resolved. ‘Okay. I’ll kill him. But I need muti to keep me safe when I go for him. Strong muti.’
‘Hayi. The last one I gave you, very strong. Used body of your loved one in it.’
‘I know, Mama.’ He swallowed a tiny speck of regret and reminded himself that Lorraine deserved what happened to her. ‘And it worked. The police, they couldn’t see me. They shot and killed my friends who didn’t use it, but not me. The bullets, they went right through me. They fell away right in front of me. But I need something stronger if I need to go after uSatan.’
A giggle escaped from the innards of the shack, from the corner opposite Imfene, behind Reggie. He hadn’t noticed it until now – that something had been in that corner the entire time. His focus and fear had been on the monster and the witch. Looking into the pit, he saw a dirty fleece blanket covering what looked like a large box.
There was another giggle and the sound of metal clanging. No, he realised, it wasn’t a box at all but a cage. UTokoloshe. He had forgotten about uTokoloshe. The little monster that had climbed up the balcony of Lorraine’s flat and through the bathroom window to unlock the door for him was in a cage under the blanket.
‘You want stronger than that muti?’ she repeated. ‘Then I’ll need skin. And not black skin. No. White skin. White skin is more powerful.’
Reggie nodded. ‘Okay, so must I find you someone like the last time, and you will—’
‘Thula!’ she demanded. ‘Shut up! I’ll get it. And I’ll give it to you, but in return, you must bring me the body of this one.’ Again, she tapped the picture of Nicholas Creed. ‘Muti from him will have great power.’
‘But what if …’
A low, guttural growl emanated from the corner. Imfene shifted his monstrous weight from one leg to the other. The entire shack seemed to shudder. As if in response, there was another giggle and rattle of metal from beneath the blanket.
Reggie had the sudden and urgent need to get out of the shack. ‘Yes, Mama,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Mama. I will get uSatan.’
Reggie scrambled to his feet and backed out of the shack, careful not to take his eyes off Imfene. Once outside, out of the mouth of hell, he rushed off, wanting to put as much distance between himself and the monster as possible. He ran through the maze of box-like houses and felt eyes on him. Watching him. Evil eyes. He turned around and looked into the blackness. Nothing. Silence. Stillness. But he could still feel it. Eyes. On him. Imfene? UTokoloshe? Or maybe something else? He didn’t hang around to find out.
55
The journey home seemed much longer than the journey to Rustenburg. The case had taken a far more interesting twist in the last two days. Creed had proposed muti murder to Grey at the crime scene, but the spurned-lover motivation had fitted the scene much better than anything else. Meyer had called Grey during their drive back to update him on what they had learnt. It was agreed that the unit would meet at 06:30 the next morning to discuss this new development and to adapt the investigation accordingly.
Creed’s headache from that morning had morphed into immense fatigue by the time he was dropped off outside his house, but he doubted he would get any sleep. During the drive back, he had dozed off for just a second when images of Megan bombarded him. His hand had instinctively dropped for the gun on his belt. Zwane hadn’t noticed it, but Meyer must have. His eyes were burning into him from the rear-view mirror.
Meyer glowered at Creed again as he dropped him off at the kerb. There was a steady, cold drizzle. The streetlight glistened off the mirror-like road surface and the rain susurrated on the black tar. Creed shivered – not because of the cold, but because the night looked so much like the night Megan was killed. He pulled his leather jacket tighter, trying to keep the cold out and the bad memories away. He didn’t want to be alone that night. As he pressed the remote button in his jacket pocket to open the gate, he made the decision to call an escort.
The gate creaked and groaned shut behind him. Three of his dogs came bounding down the steps towards him. The back door was yawning open. His home was in complete darkness.
Carly could have at least left a light on. He wasn’t concerned about the back door being left ajar. In fact, it was what he would have wanted, to keep his dogs out of the rain. His breath plumed in front of his face as he climbed the steps; his boots stomping on the cement and the rain slapping the earth were the only sounds he could hear.
At the door, he waited for the dogs to come back inside so he could lock up. That was when he heard it. A hint of a sound, in the blackest and furthest corner of the kitchen. Like someone sniffing. He drew his weapon in a single, easy motion. But even as his hand was pulling the Glock from the holster, he wondered: how had a stranger managed to get into the house with all his dogs about?
He didn’t raise his gun to firing level but assumed a shooting stance as he waited for his sight to adjust to the darkness. Another sniff. Slowly the figure in the corner began to take shape.
‘Carly?’
He slipped his gun into the holster and walked to the far wall to flick on the light switch.
With the room well lit, he could see the teenage girl sitting on the floor between his refrigerator and the rear wall. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her face buried in her forearms. Her shoulders shuddered uncontrollably.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
She didn’t respond.
‘Look at me.’
Slowly, she raised her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks and diluted the blood smeared across them. The blood had come from her nose. He saw the bruises on her neck, the betraying signs of a hand being wrapped around them. At the sight, he could feel those same broad fingers choking him. His fists and jaw clenched. He didn’t say another word to her. Creed turned and walked back into the rain. He crossed behind his bakkie and vaulted over the fence. His boot
splashed in a puddle in the neighbours’ yard when he landed.
A motion detector caught his intrusion and the light on the side of their house switched on. He climbed the stairs and pushed open the back door. The kitchen light seemed unnaturally orange. Perhaps it was the tangerine-tinted kitchen cupboards that gave it the tinge? A small woman, her back to him as she fried a steak on the stove, startled when he walked in. She gasped, eyes wide with bewilderment. Her bottom lip was swollen and split, the way his still felt. Her left eye was bruised and purple like the skin of an eggplant.
‘Who … what …’ Unable to produce a coherent sentence, she dropped the spatula on the floor and reeled away from him, pressing her back against the wall.
Ignoring her, Creed crossed the kitchen floor and pushed through the saloon doors that led into the darkened lounge, where the television set offered the only illumination. A man sat in a reclining chair, snickering at the happenings on an American sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. He wore a long-sleeved T-shirt and tracksuit pants; his legs were crossed on a pleather footrest and his hand gripped a beer bottle. For a split second, he reminded Creed of his own father. Feeling for the switch, Creed flicked on the lounge light.
‘Goddamn it, woman,’ the man cursed without turning around. ‘Leave the fucking light off. I don’t want to see your ugly fa—’
Creed walked in front of the television and stabbed the power button, turning it off.
‘Hey!’ The reed-like man stood up. His hair was long and greasy; black streaked with grey. ‘Who the hell are you?’
Creed stepped towards him and said in a menacing monotone, ‘Listen, and listen carefully. If you ever—’
‘Who the hell—’
Creed’s open palm cracked Carly’s father hard, more on the ear than the cheek. The slap threw the slight man off balance and he dropped down to one knee.