Strong Medicine (9 page)
Authors: Angela Meadon
- Villager, Limpopo province, South Africa
#
I couldn’t shake the listlessness that had settled over me as I’d stood outside the cop shop pulling in bitter lung fulls of cigarette smoke. Detective Brits’s weird response to Mr. Gwala’s statement worried me. He’d shut us down almost before we got started. An eyewitness should, surely, be mined for information. Okay, so they couldn’t do a line-up, but surely they could have done a sketch?
But Brits had taken a few notes and dumped us out of the door. On top of that, they hadn’t come back to me on the backpack. A sick knot of fear grew in my stomach. Were the detectives really not interested in finding Lindsey? Would she be lost forever? Nothing more than a memory. The little girl in the photos. Not here anymore.
“What’s troubling you honey?” Busi asked.
The fear in my heart changed, suddenly and violently, to anger. White hot. Irrational. Fuck the cops for not caring. Fuck that man for taking my daughter. My skin burned with rage, my fingers twisted with it. I let it all out, taking aim at the nearest easy target — Busi.
“What the fuck do you think is troubling me?” I stood, the chair toppling over beside me with a hollow plastic thump. Even as the words tore out of my mouth I wanted to put them back. I knew it was wrong. Busi had done nothing to deserve my anger. She’d been nothing but sweet and understanding and she’d given her heart and soul to help us find Lindsey.
I slammed my fists on the table, turned and stormed upstairs to my bedroom. I couldn’t be around other people now. All the frustration and fear spilled out of me as I slammed my bedroom door and collapsed onto my bed.
My pillow was wet with tears when the bedroom door opened slowly behind me. I lay still, my face buried in the damp foam, and waited for the intruder to speak. It was probably Besta, with another cup of tea.
The bedsprings squeaked as someone sat down next to me, I could feel the warmth from her body so close to mine.
“I’m sorry if I upset you,” Busi said, her voice so soft it was almost a whisper. I started crying again and she put one hand on my shoulder. She started humming a lullaby, her warm voice as comforting as the smell of fresh bread.
I lay, shaking as sobs rolled through my body. I cried like a toddler denied his momentary demand — messy, loud and from the deepest pit of my stomach.
“I’m so sorry.” I rolled over, looked Busi in the eyes, through a haze of tears. “I shouldn’t have
vloeked
you like that.”
“You’re allowed a few slip-ups when you’ve lost your child,” Busi said. “I’m surprised it took you so long to let go.”
“Still, it wasn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, that’s just how it goes.”
“I’m so worried about Lindsey.” I sat up, grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and blew my nose noisily into it.
“Of course you are,” Busi said. “But the police are doing everything they can to find her.”
“I really don’t think they are.”
The sobs started again and Busi patted my back gently while I cried, as though by saying what I had, I’d made it true, that admitting my lack of confidence in the police cemented their lack of concern for Lindsey.
“I’m sure they’re doing what they can,” Busi said. “But sometimes it takes more than clues and questions. Sometimes you have to ask questions that policemen can’t answer.”
I knew where she was headed and I didn’t like it.
“I’m not going to see a
sangoma,
Busi. I don’t believe in all that crap. It’s superstitious nonsense.”
“Just because you don’t believe it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” Busi smiled at me while she spoke. Her voice was so full of confidence and reassurance.
Was she right? Could there be something to the stories after all?
“You should at least try. Even if nothing happens, what harm is there in trying?”
“It’s just not something I’ve ever considered doing.” I wiped my nose again with the tissue. “I have a few ideas I’d like to check out first. I’m going to speak to Patrick, Lindsey’s father, and a few other people. If none of them come through, I’ll think about going to the
sangoma
, okay?”
Busi nodded and smiled. There was no harm in trying, and I was prepared to do whatever I could to help Lindsey. But appealing to the fanciful spirits of my granny didn’t seem like the best option.
The lock on the door clicked and the door swung open with a sound like an old man breathing. Footsteps echoed on the cement floor, coming closer to her. The door locked again.
The blindfold slid off her head and she squinted her eyes against the bright light that flooded her.
Two figures swam into view, an old man and a boy. The boy was a few years older than Lindsey. The old man looked bored, the boy’s eyes were wide and his lips twisted in a skew smile. His hands twitched into fists at his sides.
Lindsey wanted to ask them what they were going to do to her. She wanted to ask them to let her go home to her mom, to give her some Panado because her arm hurt so bad it was all she could think about. But she couldn’t form the words around the balled-up panties in her mouth.
“Who is she?” the young man asked. He walked up to Lindsey and leaned over her. “Her arm is broken.”
“It happened when he got her.” The old man jingled a set of keys in his hand. “I don’t know who she is. It doesn’t matter. She will be your first. You have a lot to learn.”
“I want to learn, Tata,” the young man said. “Where do we start?”
“First, you have to learn to see them as we see the goats and sheep. They are nothing more than animals. We catch them and take what we need from them. With the animals it’s food and skins. With the people it’s
muti
.”
Lindsey wanted to scream.
Muti
! They were going to cut her up for
muti
! Her mom had always warned her about this. Tears welled in her eyes and she squeezed them as tightly as she could to try make them stop. She didn’t want these men to know how scared she was.
“You have to get used to the sounds she will make,” the old man said. “It will be loud. Take the gag out of her mouth.”
The young man bent forward and stuck his fingers into Lindsey’s mouth. The gag came out with a soft
pop
and she drew a deep shuddering breath. She let it out in a single scream. The young man winced and shoved the gag back into her mouth. She kept screaming until the cloth blocked her throat. She choked, tried to push it forward a little with her tongue so that she could breathe again.
“Yoh!” the young man said. “She’s loud.”
“It’s good,” the old man said. “The louder she screams when you cut her, the stronger the
muti
will be.”
He leaned in and pulled the gag out again. Lindsey stared at him, but she wouldn’t scream. Not this time.
“Come on.” He jabbed at her with one crooked finger and chuckled. “So much spirit in this one.”
The men laughed at her. She wanted to scream, to call for help, to beg them to let her go. She bit the inside of her lips to stop herself.
The boy reached toward her left arm and grabbed her wrist where the twisted bones pressed against the skin. Pain blossomed in her like flames on a petrol fire. Her back arched and her head hit the wooden headboard on the top of the bed. Her feet kicked, pulling tight against the ropes that held her in place. She opened her mouth and screamed as loudly as she could.
“Good,” the old man said. “Now keep at it until you don’t feel sorry for her.” He sat in an old chair in the corner and closed his eyes. Soon his snores punctured the wails and pleas for help that echoed in the small shed.
When she was only three months old, still in her colicky phase, he’d tried rocking her to sleep one night before dropping her in her cot, punching a hole through the pink plywood door on her bedroom, and storming out of the house.
He had a temper on him, and a violent streak he struggled to control when he’d had too much to drink. I couldn’t believe that he’d suddenly kidnap the daughter he’d all but abandoned a decade ago. But I wouldn’t put it past him either.
I could phone him and ask him, but he’d lie to me if he did have her. I’d have to hunt his ass down and ask him in person. Look him in the eye and ask him straight. He could never lie to me. That’s how I found out about the affair.
Ten years was a long time, it was unlikely that he’d still be living in the apartment we’d shared. But there were other ways of finding someone. I picked up my phone and punched in a familiar number. Jenny picked up on the second ring.
“Oh my God! Erin!” Her voice rose to such a high pitch that I had to move the phone away from my ear. “I heard what happened, I’m so sorry. Have they found your daughter yet?”
Jenny worked at the local small-town newspaper. I’d known her all my life, from when we started nursery school together, all the way through primary and high school. We’d lost touch a little after school when Jenny met a guy who was into the kinds of drugs I didn’t do, then we met up again through Facebook and it was like we’d never been apart.
“Not yet,” I said, forcing the tingle out of my eyes and focusing on why I’d called her. “I need to ask you a favor.”
“Anything you want, you just have to ask.” A soft rasping sound climbed down the phone line and clawed up my spine. She never put that damn nail file down.
“I’m trying to find Lindsey’s father, can you look him up on LinkedIn?”
“Oh my God, did he do it?” Jenny asked, breathless with the prospect of juicy gossip landing in her lap.
“I don’t know. I want to ask him if he’s heard from her. His name’s Patrick Till. I want to find out where he works now.”
“Okay, just a minute.”
Jenny’s nails clicked across the keyboard, and I spelled Patrick’s name out again when she asked me to.
“Oh, you’re going to love this,” she said with a little chuckle. “He works for SANRAL.”
“SANRAL? Like etolls and shit?” I asked.
“Yep! He’s in IT, at the national call center in Midrand.”
“Okay, that’s great. Thanks.”
I fended off Jenny’s invitation to go out for drinks and hung up. Jenny was a good friend, and it would be great to have someone to speak to. But, every moment without Lindsey hammered nails into my heart. I couldn’t face a bar full of horny drunks while Lindsey was in some perverts clutches.
I forced myself out of bed and down the stairs. The silent house swallowed the
thunk-thunk
of my shoes on the carpeted stairs. I glanced into the kitchen on my way past, planning on telling my mother that I was heading out, but the room was empty. It was uncanny. The house was never this quiet in the middle of the day.
I pulled the front door shut behind me and stepped around Mr. Botha on my way out.
#
The park itself was nothing like the wave pool and water slide crammed resorts of my youth. Base44 consisted of a dam with a cable-ski system rigged up in it, and a swimming pool. The girls had a great time, kneeling on a foam board and hanging on to a water-ski cable with white-knuckle determination, then being ripped off the board and landing head-first in the dam when the cable hook came around and snagged the line.
It took Lindsey seven tries before she managed to launch, keeping her balance and somehow managing to keep the board under her as the cable yanked her off the wooden launch platform. Her friends had shrieked and whooped with joy as she skidded off along the surface of the dam.
I watched her from a blanket beneath the only tree in the park. She waved and grinned at me as she went past, joy radiating from her in luminescent waves. Then the cable hook turned the corner at the end of the dam, her cable went slack, then yanked at ninety degrees, and she went face-first into the dam with a huge splash.
The girls were waiting on the edge of the dam when Lindsey finally made it back to shore, shivering and bruised, but flushed with happiness. She was the only one who made it up onto the board the whole day, and she even learned how to compensate for the corners.
I turned off the highway and navigated a mess of roads under construction, which led through a hive of newly-built townhouses to the front door of the National Roads Agency, SANRAL. Two bored-looking security guards waved me through the boom gate and I parked under threadbare orange carports.
The reception area was a narrow, double-volume space with stairs leading up to a second floor landing on the left. A perky receptionist with pink hair and too much lipstick greeted me with half a smile as I walked up to her desk.
“How can I help you today?” she asked. Her voice was surprisingly deep and resonant coming from her petite frame.
“I’m here to see Patrick Till, is he in?” I asked.
She studied the PC monitor in front of her, eyes squinting slightly as she searched. “Patrick…Patrick…Yes!” Her finger shot up to the screen, marking Patrick’s presence in the building. “He’s in. May I ask your name?”
My chest felt hollow and heavy at the same time. This was crazy. I shouldn’t have come to Patrick’s work. What was I thinking?
“Your name, please, miss?” The receptionist fixed me with an impatient glare, the only slip in her performance since I’d walked in.
“Um, it’s a surprise. Please, tell him it’s a special surprise.”
“Okay then,” she said. She pointed at a row of steel seats that looked like they’d come straight out of the airport. “Please take a seat.”
I shifted uneasily on the steel chairs, with a view of a pair of wilted ferns inside the dust-streaked window, and the parking lot outside.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up when heavy footsteps echoed down the stairway behind me. It was Patrick. Even after so long apart, I could recognize the sound of his footsteps. I resisted the urge to turn around. I wanted to see the surprise on his face when he saw me.
#
“Erin?” He stopped short, his outstretched hand hovering in mid-air between us, the handshake he was about to offer his surprise guest utterly lost between us.
“Patrick.”
I stood, stuffed my hands into my pockets and tried to smile at him.
“What a surprise,” he stammered. The shock of seeing me painted his cheeks bright red. “Why are you here?”
“I need to talk to you about Lindsey. Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
“Ah, sure, hang on a sec.”
Patrick walked over to the receptionist and had a quiet conversation with her, then waved me over to a row of doors on the right side of the reception area. Each door was marked “Meeting Room” with a number below it. We went into Meeting Room 3.
We sat at opposite sides of the small, round table. Patrick fidgeted with a pen and tried to avoid my gaze.
I struggled to find the words I needed. I was here to demand he return Lindsey, but looking at him now I couldn’t convince myself that he’d had anything to do with her disappearance. He looked nervous, sure, but not guilty. I’d always been able to read Patrick. He couldn’t hide anything from me. His eyes gave him away if he did.
“I heard about Lindsey from the cops,” he said before I could find my voice. “I’m surprised it took you so long to contact me.”
“I was waiting to see if she would turn up. She hasn’t contacted you or anything, has she?”
Patrick stared out the window and shook his head.
“The cops asked the same thing, and more. They think I took her.” He chuckled at that, as if the suggestion were actually funny. “What would I do with a pre-teen girl?”
I didn’t want to answer him, the things that came to mind were too awful to suggest. Patrick had been a poor excuse for a partner, and a sorry father, but he wasn’t abusive.
“I shouldn’t have come here,” I said. I pushed the chair away from the table and stood, my heart hammering in my chest as I shoved the door open and ran through the reception hall. My heels struck the tiles and the sharp
tack-tack
echoed through the building. It almost drowned out Patrick’s shouts for me to wait.
I wiped tears from my eyes as I burst out into the parking lot. Patrick had nothing to do with Lindsey’s disappearance, so who did?