Chapter 6

Your mind breaks when you lose a child. You have to go a bit insane, because there’s no actual logical way for the human mind to deal with something like that.

It’s like your limbs have been torn off, like some demon has injected an empty void into every waking moment of your life and you know you’ll never be able to fill it again. Memories are torture. Reminders of your failure. A lead ball forms in your stomach and weighs down every single moment of your life. Guilt is no longer a simple emotion, something you feel then eventually get over. It becomes the dominant presence in your life. A new companion to everything you do. A treacherous whisper in your ear. Why are you smiling? Why have you woken up without tears? Why aren’t you thinking about Cally? Who are you to think about the future? How dare you contemplate a life that might some day involve happiness.

Anything that gives pleasure becomes a catalyst for the guilt, until your whole life, every waking moment, revolves around the pain and loss.

And then you give in to the guilt. You have to. There’s no other way. Like an abused spouse you realise it’s right, even as it’s hurting you. You let it destroy your life, your marriage. You let the pain win. Because the pain is right.

And then three years have passed and you realise you’re still no closer to finding the people responsible.

 

It’s always worse in the mornings. When I wake up covered in sweat, the facade built up the day before hanging in bloody tatters, my soul exposed to the harsh reality of life without the daily filters in place.

On bad days, like today, when the nightmares last all night, I just want to make the world burn. For everyone to suffer, for everyone to feel exactly what I’m feeling. I’m utterly . . . enraged that other people have normal lives. How dare they? Who the fuck do they think they are? Nothing is normal anymore. Everyone should know that. The whole world should know that.

Other times, when I’m not so angry, when the dreams fade into dull grey images that hover just out of reach, I want to warn everyone that the world is bad. That the world is a horrible place and they need to take their kids and hug them and never let them go. To play with them. Read to them. To take those moments and hold them tight. To remember them now, because the bad days are coming, and these little moments will be all you have left. You have to stack them up inside your soul. They’re what keep you alive when nothing else seems worth it.

And you have to fight for them. Because your mind will forget, it will just let them drift away like ash from a fire.

And other times, when I wake up remembering Cally from before that night in the mountains, when the memories aren’t of blood and horror, but of us playing with her Star Wars toys, or us goofing around in the pool, I want to protect everyone. I want to go out and catch every bad guy alive, round them up and drop them into the ocean. I want to show the world that there’s still someone out there who wants to help. That no matter how it looks, not everyone is corrupt.

Those days are few and far between.

I crawl out of bed and into a scalding shower, trying to burn away the dreams. I only partially succeed. I blink, realising the water has turned freezing cold while the images from the nightmares play over and over in my head.

I get dressed and retrieve my mobile phone from beneath a snoring and snorting dog. I take it out the zip lock bag and check it. There are five missed calls from Armitage, all from last night. No text messages or voicemail, though.

I’m about to call her back when there’s a knock at the door.

I open it to find Anders from OCRU and a young woman waiting for me.

The woman is wearing the pale blue shirt/dark blue pants of the police. Anders is in a neat suit, cheap, looks like he bought it from Woolworths.

‘Yeah?’

The guy actually holds up his I.D. ‘Sergeant Anders, SAPS. This is Constable Ndlovu.’

‘Yeah, I know who you are, Anders.’

‘We’d like you to come with us, Mr Tau. We have a few questions we’d like to ask.’

I sigh. Was this about yesterday? Giving him attitude back at the kraal? I have a sudden thought. Maybe it’s about the kids’ hospital? Had Moses the car guard sold me out?

‘Does it have to be now? We’ve got a murder to deal with, Anders. You know that.’

‘It has to be now, yes.’

Might as well just get this over with. If it is about the hospital I’ll just deny everything. I should be back at work for a bollocking from Armitage by noon.

I glance over my shoulder to see the dog watching all this. ‘See you later, dog.’

‘You want to phone someone to come take care of . . .’ Anders looks at the dog and his face furrows with distaste, ‘. . . it?’

I frown. ‘Why? Am I going to be gone long?’

‘That all depends on you.’

That sounds ominous. ‘He’ll be fine,’ I say.

Anders leads the way down the stairs while the constable walks behind me. There’s a white and blue police van waiting for me outside, another worrying sign. I’m one of them. I should be transported in an unmarked car, not a meat truck like every other perp they pick up.

I’m bundled into the back and the door slams shut behind me. I sit on the bench behind the metal grill as Anders and Ndlovu climb in to the front, Ndlovu driving. The back of the van smells of vomit, sharp and vinegary. There are stains on the wooden bench opposite me, very clearly old blood.

The police radio is crackling and beeping. Anders turns it down as we pull into the traffic, heading west through the streets of Durban and finally out onto the M3 freeway. I frown. Why are we heading out of Durban? There are plenty of police stations inside the city limits.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

Anders glances over his shoulder. ‘Hillcrest Station.’

Hillcrest? Why the hell are we going there?

Hillcrest used to be one of those sleepy villages, a one-road town all the way up to the early 2000s, when the rich people from Johannesburg suddenly realized it was there and started buying the land up cheap and building their huge houses. Now it’s a bustling town with shopping malls, housing developments, and a way-too-high cost of living, and it still only has one main road, although they had widened it to two lanes each way.

Oh yeah – and they’d put traffic lights up every thirty feet or so, just to make your blood pressure rise every time you needed to get anywhere.

It takes us about fifteen minutes to get into Hillcrest from Durban, a thirty-kilometre trip, and then another ten minutes to travel the two kilometres along the main street to the police station.

We turn left at the traffic lights, then left again into the Mr Price Home parking lot. (Mr Price is a huge furniture shop with a massive parking lot, while the actual police station across the street is tiny, and hasn’t been upgraded since the 1980s. Priorities. Gotta love them.)

Anders opens the back door of the van and I climb out. The three of us cross the road and enter the brick building. A tiny reception area no bigger than my kitchen lies beyond. It’s packed with people waiting to fill out reports on stolen cars or housebreakings. Anders takes me around the back of the faux-marble worktop and into a dingy corridor, walls painted nicotine yellow, then into a room with a steel foldout table and three plastic lawn chairs.

‘Wait there,’ he says.

I sit down. Anders comes back a moment later with some paperwork, a couple of thick files, and an ink pad. He puts everything on the table and gestures for me to stand up.

‘Hand,’ he says.

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘Just give me your hand.’

‘You’ve got my prints. They’re on file.’

‘Hand.’

‘Do I need a lawyer?’

Anders finally looks at me. ‘Yeah, reckon you will.’

I’m starting to get a bit worried. I thought this was just a basic questioning. I don’t think there’s any real evidence to tie me to the destruction of Addingtons, except for Moses’ say so. But this looks more serious. They had something on me. Had Moses taken pictures on his cell phone? Was there CCTV footage?

I put my hand out and Anders takes my fingerprints, smearing them across the little boxes on the arrest report. He gestures to the corner of the room. There’s a tiny cracked sink there with a hard, ink-smeared block of soap. I do my best to get the stains off my fingers, then tear some paper towel from an industrial-sized roll sitting beneath the sink.

Anders leads me deeper into the station, into another room. A scratched wooden table and two chairs, foam padding poking out through slits and holes in the material.

We sit down and I wait to see how Anders is going to handle this. If there’s no evidence it means they need me to confess. The fact I haven’t been put in cuffs means they’re not a hundred per cent sure what I’ve done, or if I’ve done anything. I don’t know whether to be hopeful or not.

Anders opens one of the files and starts copying information from it onto the arrest report. I peer across the table and see it’s my SAPS personnel file.

‘The fuck is going on, Anders?’

He smirks at me. The prick is loving this.

I lean back in my chair, give him the dead-eye stare. (I learned that from Armitage. She has a look on her that could melt iron into a puddle of molten metal.) ‘What are you? Twenty-seven?’

‘Twenty-nine,’ said Anders.

‘Whatever. I’m not going to sit here and have some snot-nosed fast-track gym-bunny judge me because he’s got an inferiority complex and a power buzz. Tell me what’s going on. Now.’

He smirks at me. Again. I’m pretty proud of the fact that I don’t lean over the table and punch him. I really want to.

‘Where were you last night between nine and three?’

I blink. Wasn’t expecting that.

‘Last night?’

‘That’s correct. Can you account for your whereabouts?’

Why the hell does he want to know that? All that stuff at the hospital happened two days ago.

I straighten up in my chair. ‘What’s this about?’ I ask. ‘Why am I here?’

‘Do you know Major Olivia Armitage?’

‘Don’t be stupid. You know I do. Christ, what’s she done? Is she here? Have you locked her up for something? I told her to stay away from Point Road.’

‘She’s not locked up, no.’

I lean forward, feeling a small tug of satisfaction when Anders leans quickly back. I’m not a small guy. Six-two without my shoes. I can be scary if I want to.

‘Then what’s this about? Why are you asking me about Armitage?’

‘Because she’s dead,’ says Anders, biting off each word and watching me carefully for my reaction.

I don’t say anything. I hear his words, but I don’t believe him. It’s that cliché, isn’t it? When you’re involved in some tragedy or another it doesn’t feel real. It’s like you’re watching it in a movie.

‘No, she’s not,’ I say stupidly. ‘She can’t be. I just spoke to her yesterday.’

‘Nevertheless, she’s dead. Murdered.’

I blink. I shake my head slightly. My thoughts are racing, my heart hammering as if to keep up. I feel sick. It can’t be true. It’s a joke. Has to be. This whole thing. This can’t happen again. I can’t go through all this a second time.

‘You’re taking the piss. Where is she?’

Anders pulls some glossy photographs out of one of his files and lays them out on the table. I glance at them, then look away, feeling the bile rise in my throat. My insides are churning. My heart sinks into my stomach.

I don’t want Armitage to be dead. I always thought she’d outlive me. I could easily see her giving the finger to Death when the skeletal bastard came for her.

I force myself to look at the first photograph.

Armitage lying on tiles. I recognize them as being from her lounge. Suddenly it makes sense why I’d been hauled all the way to Hillcrest Station. She lives here. The death happened on their patch.

Armitage’s chest has been ripped out. Exactly like the ramanga. A huge gouge scooped away revealing her spine. She’s baring her teeth in a snarl. I can almost hear her thoughts, the anger at going out this way. Her fury at being killed.

Another photo shows her heart sitting on the couch, a little numbered marker pinpointing it as evidence.

Armitage’s hand is reaching out to the side, her fingers covered in blood. There are smears beneath her fingers . . .

Anders slides another photograph on top of the previous. Not smears. Writing. Armitage had dabbed her fingers in her own blood and written on the tiles. How that was even possible is beyond me, but she always was a stubborn old cow.

But it’s what she’s written that makes everything clear. I suddenly understand why I’m sitting in this interview room.

Written on white tiles in her own blood is what looks like the word:

Tau.

‘Got anything to say for yourself, Tau?’ asks Anders.

‘Come on!’ I snap. ‘You think I did this? Because she wrote my name? We were working on the same case. Chasing down whoever did this . . . !’ I stab the pictures with my finger.

‘I’ll ask again. Do you have anything to say in your defence?’

I lean back in my chair. ‘Yeah. I want my fucking phone call.’

 

I call Parker and tell her to get over here and get me the hell out of jail. While I’m waiting I get to enjoy the comforts of our wonderful state hospitality. A Spartan cell with a plastic-covered mattress and a toilet that doesn’t work.

I pace. I keep thinking of Armitage. It was obviously the same killer that had murdered the ramanga. Which meant someone didn’t want us investigating the case. Really didn’t want us investigating.

The angel. Michael. He’d told us to back off. Warned us away. Could he have done this? Surely not. Even sanctimonious angels would stop at cold-blooded murder.

Wouldn’t they?

I remember all the missed calls on my phone. She’d tried to call me. Probably even tried to leave messages, but I still hadn’t cleared out my voice mailbox. Shit. And while she was being murdered, I was out getting rat-arsed drunk.

I shout in frustration and punch the wall. Which does absolutely nothing except make my hand really hurt. I sink down onto the thin mattress and put my head in my hands. Stare down at the pitted concrete floor.

This was my fault. If I’d had my phone. If I’d answered the call, gone to her . . .

Then you might both be dead, says a voice in my head.

I can’t believe she’s gone. My mind won’t accept it. Doesn’t want to accept it. I think back to the cases we worked on, the nights we spent drinking together. We even drank here in Hillcrest. A place called The Station Masters Arms, a pub built in an old train station building, the outside tables butting right up against the unused tracks.

I shouldn’t be feeling like this. After everything with Cally, I thought I was immune to feeling anything for anyone else.

In this job, you’re supposed to develop an acceptance for the end of life, and you deal with it in one of two ways. You either become a pragmatist – you live, you die. It’s all random, and there’s nothing after you croak.

Or you become spiritual. You decide there’s more out there, that maybe death isn’t all that bad because you move on to another plane, or you come back, or you go to heaven, hell, whatever. The point is there’s something more than you. Something more than the job.

I still remember the day I chose my own path. This was before Delphic Division. Before Becca, before Cally. Back when I was a normal cop. I was called to a crime scene in the suburbs. High walls. Electric wires running along the top. Burglar bars on all the windows. Two cars. Swimming pool. Pretty standard stuff.

The husband had lost his job, racked up gambling debts. Wanted to commit suicide. But could he do the decent thing and just take himself out? Hell no. He killed his family first. Two daughters, one son, and his wife.

Then he chickened out. Couldn’t do it to himself. He eventually got off. No jail time. Mentally unfit to stand trial.

Where’s the justice there?

I worked that crime scene all morning, trying not to look at those three kids lying on the kitchen floor. I can still see that image in my mind, fresh as if it was yesterday.

I left work that day and drank myself into a stupor, and when I woke up I just felt . . . hopeless. Like I was a tiny sandbag against a metaphorical flood. That nothing I did mattered.

I took a week’s leave and I thought about where I was, what I believed, what the job was making me believe. I just kept thinking, if this is all there is to life, I might as well shoot myself in the head right there and then. I even considered it. I really did. Why not? Nothing I did was going to make a difference anyway.

But over the course of that week I came to realise, to wish, and eventually to believe, that there had to be something more out there. Had to be more to life than simply – you’re born, you live, you die. I couldn’t accept that this was the sum total of human existence.

I wasn’t talking about God, though. Fuck no. Any God who puts up with the shit that I’ve seen can fuck right off. I just felt there was something . . . else. And I didn’t know what.

A few months after that I met Becca. Then we had Cally and my world changed. She gave my life meaning. There was hope. And I realized that this was part of the reason we kept going. Our kids. We lived to protect them from the world.

Something I failed to do.

Christ, I would give anything to have Cally back. Switch places with her in a micro-second. Die every day for eternity if it only brought her back to us.

But failing that I decided I could only do what I believed was right in the face of evil. Because, yeah, that’s one thing I did come to believe in this job. Evil is real. I’ve seen it. I saw it that night in the cabin up in the mountains. I’ve seen it hundreds of times since.

The Devil is not some hideous monster ruling over the many courts of Hell.

He walks among us.

And I will not stand by and let him win.

So what do I believe now that I failed my daughter?

One thing.

I believe in justice.

Not the law. That’s a different thing. The law is man made.

Justice comes from the soul.

 

An hour later Anders arrives at the cell with his keys. He unlocks the door and holds out a form on a scratched Perspex clipboard. ‘Sign.’

‘What is it? Admission of guilt?

‘You’re being released.’

‘About time.’

I thrust the clipboard back at him, sending him stumbling back a few steps. I head down the hallway to the front desk and find Parker waiting for me. Her eyes are red. She doesn’t say anything, just folds her arms around me. I freeze. Physical contact has never been my thing.

But then I just let it happen, meld my arms around hers. It feels good. The human contact.

She breaks first, leaning back and looking at me. I look away, worried I’d see accusations there. Why weren’t you with her, London? You should have been with her.

The desk officer tosses a brown A4 envelope onto the worktop. I take out my watch and my wallet. I check inside. Cards, driver’s licence, but no cash.

‘There was five hundred bucks in here,’ I say.

The desk sergeant looks down at his form. ‘Not according to this.’

He hands it over. Sure enough. An itemized list of the cards inside but next to the column for Cash was a big fat zero.

‘It was here.’

‘That your signature?’ The sergeant taps the bottom of the form.

It is. I hadn’t even bothered to read it. Had other things on my mind. I toss the clipboard back at his face. He flinches and catches it, half-rising from his chair. I stare at him, waiting, hoping he’ll do something. I want to lash out. To hurt, to cause pain. I don’t care who to.

‘Get out,’ he says.

I don’t answer, just head through the door and across the street into the parking lot. I wait for Parker to catch up.

She leads the way to her old silver BMW. I open the passenger door. The seat is covered in junk. Old CDs, newspapers, fast food wrappers. I sweep them to the floor and climb in, glumly staring out the window.

Parker climbs in the driver’s side and starts the car.

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘No one knows. She didn’t log her actions. She was on her own time.’

‘It’s the same killer. The ramanga we saw yesterday.’

‘Yeah. Jaeger said.’

‘Where’s her body?’

‘In the Division mortuary. You want to see her?’

‘Not yet. Let’s check out the crime scene first.’

 

Parker drives deeper into Hillcrest, turning off the main road and heading into the suburbs. We drive past the library then a primary school. Parents arriving in their cars at the end of the school day. Kids screaming and laughing, running around. Enjoying their lives.

I look away as Parker slows to let them cross the street.

‘I’m . . . sorry,’ she says. ‘I know you and Armitage were close.’

‘She was a pain in the arse,’ I say softly.

Silence. Parker starts moving forward again. ‘Ranson’s already talking about her replacement.’

‘She’s only been dead a couple of hours! Who is it?’

Parker scowls as she slows down for some speed bumps. ‘Don’t know. Some guy from Cape Town.’

‘Christ.’

I hate Cape Town. Everyone raves about it, saying it’s the jewel of South Africa. The ultimate tourist destination, yadda-yadda-yadda.

It’s not. It’s where all the pretentious wankers move to when they get money. Where all the rich people live. Give me Durban any day. Durban is the soul of South Africa. Johannesburg’s the heart. Cape Town is the rectum, shitting out refuse and pretension in a never-ending stream of hipsters and writers and filmmakers.

Parker turns into a cul-de-sac. Armitage’s house is easy to spot. It’s the one with all the police vans parked outside. We park behind them and climb out. A crowd has gathered outside the perimeter of blue and white tape. They have their cameras out, taking pictures and recording everything that’s going on. Scum. Vultures hoping to profit on pain by selling their images to the papers. I’d arrest them all if I could.

‘Get this lot out of here,’ I snarl at a uniformed officer.

He looks at me fearfully, the fear of a rookie given instructions he has no idea how to carry out.

‘Tell them it’s a gas leak. Health and safety.’

I grab a paper suit from the back of Parker’s car, duck under the tape, and trudge up the path. Neatly trimmed hedges flank me on both sides, flowerbeds carefully tended. I remember how surprised I was the first time I came to Armitage’s house. Gardening was the last thing I thought she’d be interested in.

I pull on the suit and overshoes, Parker doing the same. I take a deep breath. Then we enter the house.

The sharp, tinny smell of blood hits me. I don’t stop walking, even though I want to. Too many people around. Can’t look weak. Along the hall, past Armitage’s stainless steel kitchen, into her minimalist lounge.

It used to be white and grey.

It’s red now.

I blink, look away. But no matter where I turn I see it. Dark blood, frozen rivulets, dark spatters. Across the LCD television. Across the white tiles. Even up across the ceiling.

‘Evidence?’

‘Nothing yet,’ says Parker.

‘Was it quick?’

‘No . . . She put up a fight. It starts in the bedroom, ends up here.’

I sigh, look around the room. ‘Did Jaeger say when she can tell us anything?’

‘She’s already done the post-mortem on the ramanga.’ Parker checks her watch. ‘She started on Armitage a couple of hours ago.’

I nod.

‘Uh, one thing before we go.’

Parker leads me to Armitage’s bedroom. I enter the room and look around. More blood.

Lots of it.

And also medical equipment.

Lots of it.

An EEG monitor. A dialysis machine. Monitors, tubes, drips, and various other medical paraphernalia.

‘Was Armitage sick?’

‘That’s what I was going to ask you,’ says Parker.

‘Not that I knew of.’ I check the readouts on some of the machines, but it’s pointless. I have no idea what I’m looking at.

‘No charts?’ I ask hopefully. ‘Files?’

Parker shakes her head.

‘And then . . . there’s that.’ She points behind me.

I turn around. The entire back wall of the room is covered in crucifixes. There had to be over a thousand.

I look at Parker. She just shrugs. ‘No idea. Didn’t even know she was religious.’

‘She’s not,’ I say.

We both stare at the wall.

‘Maybe we can access her work records,’ I say. ‘If she was sick the Division might have been paying for it.’

‘Maybe.’

There’s nothing more to be done here. I had to come. I knew there’d be nothing left for me to do, but I had to take a look for myself. I owed it to Armitage.

We leave the house and head back to Delphic Division. We use the front entrance, entering a huge, echoing foyer that looks like something from a seventies science fiction movie. All grey stone and high ceilings.

Through a second set of doors and into the corridor that leads to the central hub, then into our offices.

A heavy silence drapes across the room. There’s an emptiness that seeps into every corner, an Armitage-shaped hole that will never be filled. Everyone turns to look at us. No one says a thing. For all intents and purposes, Armitage was Delphic Division. She helped build it up. She recruited every officer in the room. There wasn’t a single person here who didn’t feel her loss as if it was a family member who had gone.

I glance up at the pulpit, half expecting to see her standing there waving her cigarette around while she debriefs everyone, ash raining down onto the desks below like snow.

I flop into my chair and stare at my monitor. Why the hell hadn’t I just answered the phone? Why hadn’t I stayed in?

Why, why, why? The questions everyone asks when something terrible happens. Why didn’t I leave the house when I meant to? Why did I go back for my sunglasses? Why did it have to rain? Why did God decide to take a dump on me? I played this game when Cally disappeared. It doesn’t end well.

My phone rings and I reluctantly pick it up. ‘Tau.’

‘London,’ says Jaeger. ‘I’m finished.’

 

Delphic Division has its own mortuary. It has to. The kind of bodies the unit deals with can’t exactly be taken to the morgue at the local hospital.

It’s nothing at all like the mortuaries you see in cop shows, though. You know the ones, with the mid-century cracked tiles, the exposed pipes, the old, porcelain tubs, all the moody lighting.

Our mortuary is state of the art. Brushed aluminium sinks and tables. Bright strip lights, plus a movable spot directly above the autopsy table that can be pulled down to inspect wounds more closely. One wall is floor-to-ceiling morgue drawers. The walls and floors are tiled. But the tiles are huge and spotlessly clean. Not a crack to be seen.

Jaeger is waiting for us. Her usual grin is absent. She just looks angry. Maddoc is standing in the corner holding a clipboard. She’s staring at the floor, not moving a muscle.

An involuntary shiver runs through me. I don’t like it when orisha act oddly. Most of them have adopted our mannerisms and behaviours so they can fit in. But when they get upset, all that falls away and I have no idea how to read them.

Two autopsy tables have been wheeled into place above drains in the floor. The ramanga – Jengo – and Armitage. Both bodies are covered.

I hover in the doorway, unwilling to enter. Parker keeps walking, then pauses and glances back at me. She reaches out her hand. I hesitate, then take it. Her fingers squeeze mine.

Goose pimples rise on my skin from the cold air. I shiver, wait for Jaeger to take the lead. I feel lost. Don’t know what to do. My eyes keep skittering away from Armitage. I find myself approaching Jengo instead.

‘You want to do this one first?’ asks Jaeger.

I nod, not trusting myself to talk.

‘Fine. Both injuries are identical anyway. Definitely the same attacker.’

Jaeger pulls back the pale green sheet and folds it over the ramanga’s stomach. Jengo’s head is absent. I look around and see it sitting on a table on the other side of the room. I feel like it’s watching us.

The hole in Jengo’s chest looks worse in the harsh fluorescent lights. Purple and deep red. Like meat at a butcher’s shop. The same smell as well.

‘OK, we’re talking major sharp force trauma to the chest. In both victims the chest plate has been ripped away. Crushed first. Then pulled out at the same time the attacker scoops out the heart. One movement. Not easy.’

Jaeger points into the hole with a ballpoint pen, although I’m not exactly sure what I’m meant to be looking at.

‘Carotid and subclavian arteries are torn. Happened at the same time as the heart was taken.’

‘What was the murder weapon?’ asks Parker.

‘Well, we have a combination of sharp and blunt force trauma. It’s more of a chop wound—’

‘So an axe?’

‘Let me finish.’

‘Sorry.’

‘The pattern of the wound is similar to those seen in animal attacks. But the margins of the wound indicate someone used their hand to do this.’

Parker frowns. ‘A hand?’

‘Yes. Look inside. See those furrows at the top of the lungs? Nail markings.’

‘Are we talking claws?’ I ask.

Jaeger taps the pen against her teeth. ‘I wouldn’t think so. The furrows are too wide. But whatever caused this injury is phenomenally strong. There are no probing wounds. This was one confident strike, scoop out what you want, and bye bye vic.’

I nod, take a deep breath, then turn to face Armitage.

Jaeger starts to pull the sheet down, but I stop her when it gets to her neck. I don’t need to see the wound. Don’t need to see her unclothed. Let her have some dignity.

I stare down into the pale face of a person who used to be my friend.

Blood spray covers her neck and chin. At least her head is still attached. The killer didn’t feel the need to decapitate her. Probably because she wasn’t a vampire.

‘What were you doing, you stupid cow?’ I whisper.

‘She seemed . . . agitated. Excited,’ says Jaeger.

‘What?’ I look up, confused. ‘When?’

‘Last night. She wanted me to get started on the ramanga’s post-mortem straight away. She stayed to watch.’

‘She was here? After hours?’

Jaeger nods.

‘When did she get excited?’ asks Parker.

‘When we emptied the contents of the victim’s stomach.’

‘What was in it?’

‘Goat. Salad leaves. Beer. And a coin.’

‘A coin?’

Jaeger nods. ‘An old-fashioned one. She took it with her when she left. This was about nine o’ clock.’

Right when Armitage first tried to call me.

‘Where are her possessions?’

Jaeger nods at a stainless steel table behind me. A clear plastic evidence bag sits in a tray. I open it up and tip the contents out. A box of cherry cigars. Her old pocket watch. (Really, who uses a pocket watch? What a poser.) Her purse. I open it up and look inside. Some money, business cards, a shopping list (Washing powder. Cake. Socks. Condoms – multi-pack. Massage oil.) I grin and shake my head, imagining her walking up to the checkout with those items in her basket.

I turn to Jaeger. ‘Where’s the coin?’

Jaeger points to a second metal tray on her desk.

I pick it up and examine it. It’s not really a coin. It looks more like a token of some sort. Like the sort you used to get at games arcades. But Jaeger’s right. It’s old.

‘Why is it in the tray?’ asks Parker, peering over my shoulder. ‘Why not with her possessions?’

‘Because it was in her stomach,’ says Jaeger.

I look at her. ‘In her stomach?’

Jaeger nods.

‘So . . . the killer made Armitage and Jengo swallow it before killing them?’ says Parker.

‘No. That’s a different coin.’

I frown, confused. ‘So . . . you find a coin in Jengo’s stomach. Armitage takes it, disappears somewhere, then she turns up dead with the same type of coin in her stomach?’

Jaeger nods.

‘And you’re sure they’re different?’ asks Parker.

Jaeger goes to her desk and picks up a photograph. She shows it to me. It’s similar, but the two are clearly different. The patina and colouring are distinct.

‘So the killer forces them into the victims’ mouths?’

‘Or Jengo and Armitage both swallowed them voluntarily,’ says Parker.

‘Why would they do that?’

She thinks about it. ‘To hide them from their killer?’

I study the coin again, but it still doesn’t reveal any secrets. ‘Can I take it?’

Jaeger point to an itemized list on her desk. ‘Sign it out first.’

I check the list and sign my name against ‘Stomach contents: coin – unmarked’.

‘What do we do with the body?’ asks Jaeger.

‘Keep it here. I don’t think she has any next of kin, but I’ll look into it.’

Jaeger nods. ‘Have you had a chance to look at the footage yet?’

‘What footage?’

‘From the kraal. We think the Chief’s CCTV picked up the perp.’

I stare at her, eyes wide with shock. ‘You’re kidding me. We have footage of the killer?’

‘Possibly. Not sure if it’s him or not. I uploaded it to the server couple of hours ago.’

I hurry back to my desk and log in to the Division intranet. I find Jaeger’s file and open it. Parker peers over my shoulder.

Four different images flicker to life. Different angles from the Chief’s cameras. Jaeger has trimmed them down to the exact point where the suspect comes into view.

My breath catches in my throat. My skin goes cold, prickling. Hair standing on end. Like seeing a ghost in an empty window smiling at you.

I stare at the image before me, my mind catching up with what I’m seeing. It . . . it can’t be. Can it?

I rewind the footage and freeze it. My heart is hammering erratically. I feel dizzy as I stare at the screen.

At the face of Armitage’s murderer.

At the face of the big man from the mountains. The guy with the shaved head and beard who ran out the back way with the other perp.

It’s him.

One of the people responsible for Cally’s death.