Free Strong Medicine by Angela Meadon Page B

long.
    When I came back down to the kitchen, cleaner than I had been in days, Busi and Besta were chatting over a cup of tea. It seemed almost normal, two women of roughly the same age, enjoying a morning gossiping together. The veneer of normality was less than skin deep, though. Busi was black, for a start, and under normal circumstances Besta would expect her to be cleaning the kitchen, not socializing in it. Twenty years may have passed since the fall of the old regime, but some things did not change.
    “Ah, there you are.” Busi stood up and folded me in a warm, soft embrace.
    “Busi was just telling me about an idea she’s had for finding Lindsey,” Besta said.
    “You’re full of ideas.” I sat down at the kitchen table. I didn’t add that I hoped this idea didn’t include appealing to the imaginary spirits of our ancestors. I did not want to insult the woman who had shown so much concern for me.
    “Well, we have to keep thinking if we are going to find your daughter.”
    “What’s your idea?” I asked.
    “We should make a Facebook page.” Busi sat down opposite me, her eyes wide and her hands darting about as she explained her idea. “We can put up photos and maybe a video of you asking for her safe return. Things like that get a lot of attention.”
    “Ja,” I said. “That’s a good idea. We can ask people to share her picture. If anyone has seen her, they might recognize her.”
    “Do you know someone who could do that for us?” Besta asked.
    Busi nodded and was about to answer when the phone rang at her elbow.
    “Hello?” she answered, one hand reaching for a pen as the other pressed the receiver to her ear. “Yes, this is.”
    I watched her hand hover over a piece of paper, one corner stained brown and crumpled. I was holding my breath and couldn’t force myself to let it out even though my chest ached.
    “Yes, we are looking for a young girl. Blond, nine years old.”
    Busi started writing.
    “She went missing on Monday on her way home from school, in Edenvale.”
    Her eyes went wide and she looked sharply at me.
    “You did? When?”
    “Who is it?” Besta leaned forward in her chair, pressed herself hard up against the table and made it wobble.”
    “Can you remember what he looked like?” Busi’s handwriting crabbed across the page as she scrawled notes.
    “Yes, sir. Thank you Mr. Gwala. Your number is zero eight two, six six eight, seven three two five. We’ll be in touch. Thank you.”
    Busi put the phone back in its cradle, her hand shaking so hard the receiver rattled against its base. She looked up at me, and then her gaze darted to Besta and back again.
    “What is it?” I almost screamed the question at her.
    “He thinks he saw Lindsey talking to someone on Monday afternoon. Down by the veld on Third Avenue. He says she was talking to a well-dressed black man, maybe thirty years old. He might be able to identify him.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWENTY
     
     
    Transcript of Interview
    Inmate Number: 7865649
    Bongani Zulu
    18 August 2005
    CMAX Prison, Pretoria
    Detective Tshabalala (DT): Do you know what happened to the body parts once they were taken from people?
    Bongani Zulu (BZ): The inyanga uses them to make muti and sells it to people.
    DT: Did you see him giving them the muti ?
    BZ: No, but he told me sometimes what he did.
    DT: What kind of people use the muti ?
    BZ: All kinds. You get muti for every problem. If you are sick, or you want your business to make lots of money, or you want your lost lover to come back. Everything.
    DT: Can you give me an example of someone who was sick who took muti ?
    BZ: There was a lady from the village who lost her baby before it was born, but she wanted it back. She came to the inyanga for muti .
    DT: What did he give her?
    BZ: He gave her something to drink. It had blood and fat inside. There was also a piece of an organ that he told her to eat a little every day. And he gave her a belt to wear under her clothes that