Poison City (8 page)

‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

Armitage grins wickedly. ‘Well . . . BFFs is what I heard.’

She’s talking about Kincaid, King of the East Coast vampires. I helped him out a couple of years ago when an orisha from North Africa was trying to muscle in on his territory. Since then we’ve had an understanding. He doesn’t break the law in any overt manner, he feeds me any information he thinks I might find useful, and I let him know if any of our work turns vampire-related.

‘London and Kincaid, sitting in a tree,’ sings Armitage. ‘K-i-s-s-i-n-g.’

‘Oh my
God
. You are
such
a wrinkled little child.’

We carry on driving for another twenty minutes, going deeper and deeper into the sugarcane fields. My window is down and I can hear the dry stalks rustling in the warm breeze every time Armitage slows down to avoid another pothole. I close my eyes, feel the wind against my face. It’s peaceful.

I know it won’t last.

There’s a certain quaint image associated with the word
kraal
. It conjures up pictures of wattle and daub huts topped with thatched roofs. Of men dressed in animal skins, women grinding down mielie-meal. Kids running around with stray dogs. Dust and heat and sun.

The reality – at least here – is very different.

This kraal is more of a compound, completely surrounded by a ten-foot-high electric fence. We have to sign in, and the guard manning the boom takes note of Armitage’s licence plate as we drive past his little shed.

So those wattle and daub houses? Change them to white-painted houses with brick-walled gardens. Fine, the roofs are still thatch, but you’ll see thatched roofs no matter where you go in this country. Suburbs and villages alike.

There are about thirty houses in the compound. Most of them pretty small. But one dominates the rest. A double-storey structure with a landscaped garden and a sparkling blue swimming pool. That would be the Chief’s house.

Armitage ignores it completely and drives up the slope of a small hill that overlooks the little village. Police vans and unmarked cars are parked at the top of the hill, clustered around a tiny house like vultures around a body.

We park around the side of the house, far away from the other vehicles (Armitage is paranoid about getting her car scratched), and head towards the house. We’re not greeted by the Crime Scene Manager, something that immediately puts Armitage in a foul mood. She’s always quick to anger, but nothing gets her goat more than careless or stupid police.

There’s a box of blue paper suits on the doorstep. We put them on, then pull the paper slippers over our shoes.

Armitage pushes the door open with her arm, careful not to touch it with her fingers. I’m following right behind her as she strides into the house and surveys the open-plan lounge with rage.

‘And just what the actual
fuck
is going on here?’ she shouts.

Everyone in the lounge jumps. And there are a lot of them, (the reason for her rage).

‘This is a crime scene, not a bloody social club. Did none of you pass training? Or are you just so bloody stupid you don’t know how to act during a murder investigation? If you’re not out of here in three seconds I’m bringing you up on report. Actually – bugger it! I’m putting you all up on report anyway. Out!’

Armitage has a point. There are four uniformed officers, plus three plain-clothes, all of them standing around the lounge, staring down at the body of the ramanga. And not one of them is wearing protective clothing. Which means they’re dropping DNA all over the place. Hair, threads, footprints, you name it.

This crime scene is well and truly contaminated.

The uniformed officers scamper quickly out of the house, doing their best to avoid eye contact. But the ORCU guys just glance at their boss, Mark Anders, a prick of the highest order. He waits a while, then casually tilts his head, indicating they can leave. Only then do they make a move.

Anders stops before Armitage. Armitage isn’t tall. Plus, she’s pretty old, but she radiates . . . 
something
that makes people not want to mess with her. Anders tries to stare her down.

Tries.

Anders looks away first, frowning and glancing around the room as if he has a choice in the matter. I grin at him. He says nothing, walks straight towards me as if expecting me to move. I don’t.

He tries to shove me out of his way with his shoulder. I’m a pretty big guy and I just shove back. He stumbles, hits the wall. Straightens and takes a threatening step towards me, his face flushed red.

I smile at him. ‘Come on then, prick. Have a go.’

He hesitates, then storms out, slamming the door behind him.

‘What an absolute cock,’ says Armitage. She pulls two pairs of gloves out of her pocket, passes one pair to me, then moves deeper into the house.

Probably pointless now, but I blow into the gloves to loosen them and put them on. Only then do I follow Armitage.

I look around. A small sitting area. A tatty lounge suite, holes covered over with grey duct tape. A breakfast bar to the right, three cupboards on the wall and a two-plate grill covered in grease and old food next to the sink. One door, leading into the bedroom.

And one very dead Jengo Dhlamini.

He’s lying on the floor next to the coffee table. Both his hands are resting in his chest. Literally
in
his chest, where a huge hole has been gouged out of him. There’s blood and meat on the couch. I glance over at the wall behind the couch. Pieces of flesh, major blood spatter. I follow the trickle of blood down and, sure enough, sitting on the floor, the actual heart. Whoever did this ripped out Jengo’s heart and flung it against the wall.

His head has also been removed. It’s sitting a few inches away, perched upright on its stump. The head is facing the body, the features stretched into a look of horror and pain.

Armitage leans down to study the corpse. I stay back, feeling my stomach lurching. Never really liked this part of the job. Plus I’ve got to contend with the magical hangover I’m currently experiencing.

‘Weapon?’ I ask.

‘Come and look.’

‘No thanks.’

She looks at me with amusement in her eyes. ‘Come on, you big jessie.’

‘I’m good.’

‘Well, to answer your question, it looks like whoever did this used their hands.’

‘Those are pretty strong hands.’

‘Agreed.’

‘And chance of fingerprints?’

Armitage straightens up and grins at me. ‘That’d be a first, eh? Fingerprints
in
the actual death wound. I doubt it, though.’ She takes her cigarettes out and is about to light one before she remembers she’s standing in a crime scene. She reluctantly puts them away again. ‘Doesn’t look like the place was turned over,’ she says, glancing around. ‘Check the bedroom.’

I open the only other door in the house. A small room. Curtains are drawn, casting everything in shadow. I pull them open, letting sunlight reluctantly pick out the old faded bedsheets, the painting above the bed, the stained yellow carpet.

I frown at the painting. It’s one of those kitsch ones from the seventies, a boy and a girl holding hands and walking away from the camera through a corridor of autumn trees.

This is something I come across again and again with vampires. They all have absolutely terrible taste. In decor, in clothes, in
everything
. It’s like they’re aliens who decide to fit in by watching television shows from the previous five decades and adopting bits and pieces at random.

I check the bedside table. Antacid tablets (Huh? He’s a vampire. What the hell does he need those for?), a pen, a pad of post-it notes, and a diary. I flip through the diary but there’s nothing of interest. I even run the pencil lightly over the pad to see if there are any impressions. Nothing.

I check under the bed. Dust. I lift the mattress up. Nothing. Not even any porn.

The cupboards: old clothes, nothing interesting at all.

I head back out to the lounge. ‘Anything?’

Armitage shakes her head and sighs. ‘Time to ask around the village.’

I groan. Door-to-door inquiries are the absolute worst. ‘Can’t we get the uniforms to do it?’

‘No. They’ll just balls it up.’

I sigh, open the front door—

—and find myself staring into the glaring yellow eyes of two seven feet tall . . . 
creatures
. Man shaped. Lithe, ropey muscles, heads of dark skin with muzzles that are forced outward, skin pulled back in a snarl to reveal sharp canines.

It takes me a moment to figure out what they are.
Bultungin
 – were-hyenas from East Africa.

I tell you, therianthropy gives me the creeps. Always has. Never mind your boring run-of-the mill werewolves. That’s the cliché now. Nowadays they
all
come out to play. Were-hyenas, were-cats, were-panthers, you name it.

The two standing before me don’t make any threatening moves, which is reassuring. I wonder if they’re humans changed to hyenas, or hyenas changed to humans. (Works both ways for Bultungin.)

In the background I see a fat man in bright bermuda shorts and a string vest sauntering up the path towards us. He’s talking on his cell phone, acting cool, like he’s too busy to even notice us. I know immediately he’s the Chief. Everyone who thinks they’ve got a lick of power has that same attitude.
I’m more important than you.

He stops before us, but carries on chatting. ‘Uh-huh. Yes. No. Of course not, baby. Not to you.’ He listens a bit then breaks into a wheezy laugh. ‘Tonight, then. Looking forward to it.’

He hangs up and finally turns his attention to us. His eyes are bloodshot
and
jaundiced. An impressive feat. His stomach is so large it distorts the string around his belly. This is not a healthy man.

‘You are trespassing,’ he says.

Armitage holds out her identification. ‘Police. Major Armitage and Lieutenant Tau.’

I wave my warrant card, but the Chief barely glances at it.

‘You have no power here.’

I snort. ‘Don’t be stupid. What – you think this is a foreign embassy or something?’

The bultungin growl. I jerk my thumb at them. ‘And tell Thing 1 and Thing 2 to simmer down or I’ll have to neuter them. What are you doing with Bultungin anyway?

‘They are good bodyguards.’

‘Bullshit. They’re terrible bodyguards. They barely have two brain cells to bang together. Admit it. You think it gives you status, that’s why you have them.’

‘I do not
think
they give me status,’ says the Chief. ‘They
do
give me status.’

Annoying thing is, he’s probably right. People like him
would
be impressed by orisha acting as personal slaves.

I glance at Armitage. ‘Isn’t it against the Covenant or something?’

She shakes her head. ‘Not if they’re acting of their own free will.’

‘Whatever.’ I wave it away. ‘We want to know about Jengo Dhlamini.’

‘He is dead.’

‘Yeah, we got that, Sherlock. We want to know
why
.’

The Chief shrugs. ‘He was not a well-liked man. They never are, ramangas. People think of them as . . . unclean.’

‘So he had enemies?’ asks Armitage.

‘Many.’

‘Anyone specific?’ I ask. ‘Anyone threaten him recently?’

‘No. Not enemies like that. He stayed out of the way, and people stayed out of
his
way. I’ve no idea why he was killed. It is quite a pain, because now I have to apply to the vampires for a new ramanga, and it is quite a laborious process, let me tell you. So many forms to fill in. They do not like it when their ramanga are lost.’

I start to get even more annoyed. The Chief is trying to impress, letting it drop that he knows about Night and Day, about vampires and the like. I admit I’m curious. It’s not often civilians know about the behind-the-scenes stuff. But not curious enough to give him the satisfaction. He wants me to ask how he knows. Screw him.

‘He wasn’t lost,’ I say. ‘His chest was gouged out and his head ripped from his body.’

The Chief shrugs. ‘Same thing.’

I’m always suspicious when people don’t have a healthy fear of authority. You approach a normal member of the public, flash your badge, and they immediately think they’re guilty of something. Most of them trip over themselves to help.

Then you get those who actively antagonize you. The people trying to prove something. Either to their mates or themselves. Who try to act like they don’t give a crap who you are. They
do
, though. And all it takes is five minutes in handcuffs for them to start blubbing for their mummy.

But the absolute worst are the self-entitled. The rich. The powerful. Those with ‘friends’. Those who
honestly
couldn’t give a shit who you are. Who know they’re untouchable. People like the Chief here.