He seems to understand. “Do you have any leads as to whether this is an organised crime ring?”
“No, but I won’t be surprised if it is. Muti-murder cases are popping up more frequently in every corner of the world, so it’s plausible. Who knows, maybe the sex-trade rings have branched out.”
“That is not a comforting thought, Esmé.”
“Oh, believe me, I know.”
We make our way up the steep hill, past the blue devil’s fork fence surrounding the back of the Sasol garage.
Detective Mosepi—huffing and puffing from the exercise—leans against the side of my car to catch his breath. After a minute, he recomposes himself and looks around the busy petrol station, before his lips thin into a tight line and he shakes his head.
“Tell me why these things happen,” he says.
I’m surprised. He’s twenty years older than I am. Surely I’m supposed to ask him those types of questions, not the other way around.
“Murder?” I ask, unsure.
“Muti-murders,” he clarifies. “Why are those bastards almost never prosecuted when we catch them?”
I inhale deeply and configure my thoughts. Before I can answer, Detective Mosepi shakes his head again and puts up a hand to silence me. If he hadn’t, I would have told him how socio-economic circumstances play a huge role in the cultivation of superstitions. I would have gone on to say the feeling of hopelessness breeds fear, which often leads to violence or idleness, depending on the person. I could also have explained how humans, in general,
want
to believe in something greater than themselves; something to fix everything in a blink of an eye. I don’t say any of these things, though, because I suspect he has already contemplated and considered these points.
He fumbles in his breast pocket for a packet of Marlboros, takes a cigarette and holds the packet out towards me.
I decline.
“Aren’t
you
scared of these things?” Detective Mosepi grimaces and lights his cigarette. A cloud of smoke exits his lungs. “Don’t you believe in witchdoctors’ powers?”
I shrug. “I believe if a person believes hard enough in those sort of things, their beliefs might come back to bite them in the ass.”
Chapter 2
In order to be invincible one needs only to be invisible.
This morning, the so-called victim, Valentine Sikelo, had gone out of her way to avoid a group of particularly troubled-looking youths on her daily route to the taxi rank. But she never spared a second glance at her killer. He wasn’t anyone special. He didn’t look like a threat. In fact, she barely noticed him whenever they passed one another on the street.
Did she know him? No. Would she be able to accurately pull him out of a line-up without an inkling of doubt in the back of her mind? No. Does he look like a killer? No.
Anonymity is thus an integral part to the implementation and success of his murderous intentions.
The next pivotal step is not half as difficult as it might sound, but it can scare off the victim if the execution is flawed.
In Valentine’s case, a young mother who still relied greatly on her maternal instincts, it was simple. All he had to do was create an emergency situation to draw her attention away from her usual routine. This was accomplished by scouting out the local school children in search of one with a serious condition, like diabetes, epilepsy, or a deadly allergy. The information was not easy to come by, much to his dismay. Thus, he had to improvise a minor accident for a lonesome boy who’d been unlucky enough to enter his immediate vicinity.
This wasn’t ideal, but it worked all the same.
Valentine Sikelo rushed away from her regular route to help a child in need, and her killer snatched her out of the crowd without anyone being the wiser.
Valentine put up a good fight, as he knew she would, but her efforts were futile.
He’d been stalking her for months, biding his time by smoothing out the kinks in his plans until they were both ready for the inevitable. She never stood a chance.
He knocked her unconscious with a swift blow to the head, carried her limp form to his van, and bound and gagged her. Then they made the ten kilometre trip to an abandoned agricultural holding near Erasmia, where a slaughterhouse is conveniently located on the premises.
Four hours later, she was long cold and ready to be moved.
Good muti is hard to find. Fortunately, Valentine yielded a sacrifice even his vicious, bloodthirsty ancestors approved of.
It’s a messy business trying to stay in his ancestors’ good graces, but when he does make a grand gesture they reciprocate by blessing him with the power he desperately craves. And offering them Valentine’s most valuable organs had given him a boost of energy few others’ had yielded.
An electric current filled with ancestral magic rushed through his body. Every molecule lit up with renewed vigour. Every muscle contracted with a fresh burst of eagerness.
More. More. MORE!
His spirit was exalted to new heights. For the briefest time, he felt as though he might levitate and float away, but even he could not defy the laws of gravity. Not yet, anyway.
The exceptional pay-off from his ancestors, however, wasn’t the highlight of his day.
People generally accept the killer always returns to the scene of the crime. In this case, it’s not completely true. He can kill anywhere, but he prefers to return to where he’d dumped the body. To him these are their last resting places where he can visit and reminisce when they’ve long since been buried elsewhere. The magic happens
there
.
Watching the cops chase their own tails while trying not to look so incompetent is just bonus entertainment.
That’s how it always was, until he saw her.
She looked competent enough to be a worthy opponent. She would be the perfect adversary in his game of predator-and-prey. She would be the one he could finally test his accumulated powers and wit against.
A name is all he needs.
Chapter 3
File: case53-ES_interview.wav
Duration: 0:15:39
Date: 01/06/2012
Esmé: This is an informal interview with Solomon Mahlangu, a muti-crime survivor. Please note; Solomon’s name and voice were changed to protect his identity, in the event this recording is accessed unlawfully. With us is my co-worker, Howlen Walcott, a B.A. Criminology graduate from Oxford University, who is currently researching his doctoral dissertation.
[Paper rustles in background]
Solomon, could you please take us through your experiences of the day you were attacked?
Solomon: I stayed home from school with a toothache on the 23
rd
of March, 2009. My mother went to work, promising to make an appointment at the dentist for the next day. So, I was alone. Everyone in the flats was away, except the old woman who lives on the first floor. Our flat was on the fourth floor.
[Pause]
I went back to bed after my mother left for work and my brother went to school. But it was too difficult to sleep because of my tooth. I remember I went to the sitting room and put on the TV, but I can’t recall what I watched. Then, I fell asleep for a while on the chair.
[Pause]
Esmé: Did they break down the door?
Solomon: No, they came in through an open window in the bedroom.
Esmé: I thought you said your flat was on the fourth floor?
Solomon: It is. It was. There’s this ledge where the pigeons used to sit and make noise, around every floor. They broke into the flat beneath ours, climbed out on the ledge and somehow scaled a storey, before entering though our flat’s bedroom window. Fucking monkeys.
Esmé: Okay, what happened next?
Solomon: There were two of them. The one had a scar over his lip, like a cleft-lip, but not entirely. He also had these maniac eyes, demon eyes. Yeah? And I remember him having monster feet. He wore big, black boots, filthy with dried mud, and around his neck hung a leather necklace with a human tooth. I will never forget it, because it hung in my face when he held me down.
The other one was scrawny; my age. About sixteen at the time. He looked worried, like this wasn’t something he really wanted to do. But he was acting brave in front of the other guy, for brownie points.
[Pause]
Esmé: Take your time.
Solomon: I screamed at them in Sotho to get out.
“Fuck off! Get out of my house or I’ll call the police! Leave!”
On and on I screamed, before the big guy punched me around a bit to subdue me. I was scared when he took out his gun and said I should strip naked. I couldn’t move. My whole body shook. I thought he wanted to rape me, but when I was naked he held me down on the couch and the little guy brought out a knife instead. He didn’t look well, but I was too worried about myself to care about his well-being.
Esmé: Who didn’t look well?
Solomon: The little one. He didn’t want to be there.
[Pause]
“Take his penis,” the big guy said in Sotho.
“I can’t,” said the kid, shaking his head.
“Do you want to get paid or not? Take the fucking dick.”
[Sob]
It’s difficult for me to relive what happened, because the pain is still fresh in my memory.
Esmé: Should we stop?
Solomon: No, I’d rather rip the Band-Aid off one time.
[Pause]
My whole ordeal has been painful, the after effects, too. I thought I would die often, since they took what doesn’t belong to them.
[Inaudible]
They didn’t castrate me completely, because the kid couldn’t stomach the blood. And although I’ve had reconstructive surgery, the doctors told me I will never be able to have children.
Esmé: What else did they take from you, Solomon?
Solomon: After the little one cut me, and made a mess of it. The big one took my hand, too. They would’ve skinned me alive and murdered me if they didn’t get spooked by the police siren outside. Turns out, the old woman on the first floor heard my screams and called them, luckily. I could’ve been another statistic if she hadn’t. Well, a statistic on another list, I suppose.
Esmé: Were they caught? Did the police catch these men?
Solomon: Yes, one was. The kid is serving a long sentence in prison now, for an unrelated crime.
Esmé: And the other one?
Solomon: He’s still out there. I still have nightmares about him.
Howlen: For what reason do you think they targeted you?
Solomon: As you can see, I’m an albino, otherwise known as a “ghost” or a “zero”. In Africa, we’re believed to be spiritually powerful, and our body parts are used for a variety of muti spells. They use our blood, skin, hair, bones, and all the other parts to improve their own lives, while disregarding ours completely. Also, if you’re black and are born with red hair, you’ll be targeted. It’s just the way it is.
Esmé: Are you still being targeted?
Solomon: While I live in Africa, I’ll always be a target because of my light skin tone. It’s not only here. It’s everywhere. In Mozambique, Nigeria, Kenya, anywhere there’s a traditional following, there’ll be people wanting albino muti. The albino community is dropping like flies, man. Especially now, with the recession and economic problems, it’s becoming too hard for people to cope, so they reach out to sangomas for help.
Esmé: What are your feelings toward traditional healers, sangomas?
Solomon: In general, I hate them. I hate how they prey on the fears and weaknesses of people. It’s greedy how they take people’s money and then sit back and feel guiltless about the lives they’ve ruined or ended. But I also know not all of them are like this. It’s the bad ones who use human parts for their muti; the witchdoctors, I mean.
Esmé: So you believe there are good and bad traditional healers?
Solomon: Yes. The real ones, the ones who were gifted the ability to heal people, the ones who don’t care about the money rather than helping the people, aren’t killers. They use traditional medicines made from plants, and herbs, and other natural ingredients, to heal. These other ones though, the witchdoctors [pause] the ones who did this to me and the other people [pause] they aren’t
real
sangomas. They are imposters preying on desperate people.
Howlen: Have you taken preventive measures to stay safe?
Solomon: No matter what you do or where you go in the world, there’s always the possibility of being killed [pause] or worse [pause] for whatever reason. Nobody’s ever truly safe, not here. Not anywhere. Not me, and not you.