Hluhluwe Police Station, South Africa
12:30pm
The SAP sergeant behind the counter rubbed his chin. ‘Kidnapping. No, that happens in America, not here in Africa.’
‘He hit him over the head, and took off in his bakkie, I’d say that what he did was kidnapping,’ Wayne argued.
The sergeant nodded.
‘He has my business partner, I gave you his numberplate, what more do you need to find him?’ Wayne asked.
The sergeant scrounged around the counter looking for a pen.
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ Wayne swore. ‘We are not asking you to solve world peace, just stop him killing Jamison. We have to find him—’
‘We will. His bakkie is easy enough to spot with his Zimbabwe number plates,’ the policeman said. He took the piece of paper that Moeketsi had written the numberplate down on, and disappeared into the back room.
‘Why is it always so hard to get the police to move at anything other than Africa speed?’ Wayne complained.
Gabe shrugged his shoulders, knowing it was a rhetorical question. ‘I’ll be with Tara and Josha in the truck. I know Moeketsi is with them, but I—’
‘Thank you, Gabe,’ Wayne said, putting his hand on Gabe’s shoulder. ‘It’s better with you there too. Can you make sure that Moeketsi has checked in on Ebony again. It’s been half an hour already, the extra guards should be at her house.’
‘Will do,’ Gabe said and he walked out the police station into the parking lot.
He opened the door of the Mack truck. ‘No news from any truckers yet?’ he asked Moeketsi, as he climbed up and sat next to Josha.
‘Nothing. I’ll give it another five minutes then repeat the emergency call out. If that bakkie is in this area, they will close their net and someone will call it in. The truck drivers will want the reward for information that Wayne offered when he first radioed the details. Big cash offered just for spotting the bakkie and keeping tabs on it was a smart thing to do.’
Gabe nodded. ‘Only it could create other problems for him further down the track—’
The truck’s CB radio crackled and then an African voice shouted loud and clear into the cab.
‘Wild Translocations, Wild Translocations, this is Donkey Freight 1, come in—’
Moeketsi reached for the mouthpiece. ‘Donkey Freight 1. Moeketsi from Wild Translocations here.’
‘Just saw that white bakkie with the Zim plates you guys were looking for, driving into your Kujana Farm driveway. I have pulled off and am watching that he doesn’t come out again.’
‘Thank you, Donkey Freight 1. Either wait now, and once we get there we can sort out your reward, or next time you are in the area, drop in. We will keep a beer cold for you.’
‘Counting on it! I have time. I’ll wait until I see you, just to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.’
‘See you soon. Thank you, Donkey. Wild out.’
‘Donkey out.’
Gabe jumped out the truck and ran for the police station. He pushed the station door open. ‘He went to your place. Donkey Freight 1 just called his location in on the radio, Buffel turned into Kujana Farm!’
The policeman pushed through the internal door speaking at the same time. ‘That registration comes back to a Kirchman Bernard Potgieter.’
‘Thank God,’ Wayne said. ‘Who?’
‘So you found him?’ the policeman asked, both speaking over each other again.
‘Kirchman Bernard Potgieter,’ the policeman repeated. ‘No Buffel in his name.’
Wayne looked at the policeman. ‘Okay, thank you.’ He took a moment, then added. ‘And yes, the truckers came through for us, they have located him. Now get your vans to Kujana Farm, we are going to need help to stop a murder!’
Together Wayne and Gabe sprinted back to the trucks.
Wayne didn’t need to open the driver’s door, because Moeketsi was busy jumping out. He already had the engine started and running for him.
‘Thanks,’ Wayne said as he climbed in, and Moeketsi slammed his door.
‘You okay back there, Tara?’
‘Dandy. Always wanted to be hunted like an animal, kicked in the chest and travel at high speed in a huge Mack truck. Just get home so we can save Jamison.’
Wayne smiled. This was the woman he knew. The woman he loved. The fighter. The one whose dry sense of humour made him laugh at inappropriate times.
His wife.
He glanced at the gold ring on his own third finger, that she had so recently put there, and he couldn’t help but smile. They were together now, and they were living their happy ever after they should have been allowed to choose when they were just teenagers and in love.
He heard Gabe close the passenger side door. ‘All aboard?’ Wayne asked as he put the truck in gear and took off. ‘Josha, how are you holding up?’
‘Fine,’ Josha said, sitting in the middle seat between his dad and Gabe.
‘Would you like to hail Ebony on the radio for me?’
Josha grabbed the CB and called on their private channel. ‘Wild Translocations home base two.’
‘Home base two,’ Ebony said, obviously waiting by the radio for some news on Jamison.
Josha passed the mouthpiece to Wayne.
‘Ebony, keep your house locked up and the alarm switched on. Stay inside. Buffel is on his way into Kujana. I’m hoping that the police will not be that far behind us. We just left the station. Only they called him Kirchman Bernard Potgieter, not Buffel.’
‘Okay,’ Ebony said.
‘Hang in there, Eb, we will get him back—’
‘I know,’ she said quietly.
‘Those extra guards should be at your home, Ebony, you know those men. They are all black, don’t shoot them. Don’t let any white man in that house, Eb, even if he says he is the police. Wait for us.’
‘I know him,’ she said softly. ‘I won’t let him in.’
They heard a child start to cry in the background and then someone else soothed it.
‘Ebony, who is inside your house with you?’ Wayne asked.
‘Your mother. She has been listening in on her CB radio, and she put your ridgebacks in her Mercedes Benz and drove down the farm road and came to be with me.’
‘My mother?’ he said.
‘Yes, she wanted to help. I have your dogs inside my fence and I gave her the kids to look after while I got everything else ready.’
‘Ebony, you are a genius. Hang in there. Stay safe.’
‘Oh Wayne, your mother said she knows how to use a weapon, I’m assuming that giving her a hunting rifle would be alright.’
Wayne smiled. ‘I don’t remember her ever shooting, but that’s not to say she doesn’t know how to use a weapon … I wasn’t always at home—’
‘Hurry, Wayne,’ Ebony said.
‘I’m pushing, Eb, we are flying, believe me. We’ll get there in no time.’
He handed Josha the mouthpiece, and put both hands on the steering wheel. The junction in the road to turn off left towards the farm was coming up, and he needed both hands and to use his exhaust breaks to slow considerably to navigate it safely. Despite the urgency to get home to Kujana, he had his family in the truck with him and they were precious to him. The Mack slowed down to a crawl and rounded the steep turn, then Wayne pushed his foot on the accelerator and picked up speed again, quickly passing the speed limit.
Suddenly Gabe snapped his finger. ‘The connection, I know the connection. I got it, Tara, I found the connection. It’s so him! The link as to why Buffel could so be the same man who is killing the girls now, because he saw a killing like that when he was just a kid.’
‘What?’ she asked from the back.
Gabe turned towards her. ‘Impendla. I knew that name. He’s one of the dead children mentioned in that newspaper cutting. Now the police have called Buffel by his whole name, Kirchman Bernard Potgieter, it makes perfect sense. Kirchman Bernard Potgieter – the mission reverend’s child – was the survivor who didn’t get used in the tree ritual from that article that I found when I first worked in the Bulawayo paper. The old one from 1946 about native witchcraft and sacrificing children in the Karoi area when a chief died, and hanging them in a tree.’
‘So why would he kill the girls?’ Wayne asked.
Tara said, ‘It all fits. When Jamison told us of his cousin Gibson watching him, he said Gibson spoke of his mumblings, of wanting the butterfly to save Impendla. In his own warped way, he probably believes that by replicating the ritual he witnessed, that this boy Impendla was involved in, he would save his friend. Save his soul, help him cross over to the light, the other side to be with the ancestors. The belief in the afterlife is strong in the black community in Zimbabwe, perhaps Buffel was influenced more by that than his father’s Christian ways.’
‘You knew this man’s name all this time, Gabe?’ Wayne said.
‘No. No one called him that when we were growing up, it was always just Buffel. I never put two plus two together. That he was the young missionary’s son. The big neighbour from next door. We were kids, Tara was twelve and I was twenty. We didn’t have the training or experience we do now. But if it is him, only he knows where the missing girls are, or what happened to them,’ Gabe said.
‘Shit,’ Wayne said.