Zoo City

'Get in.' I pop the door lock for him. I still haven't got the window fixed. 'My car is less likely to get us hijacked.' He obliges with a dubious look.

'Where are we going?' he asks

'Did you pull the clips on the homeless guy killing I asked for?'

'Yep,' he digs into his pocket and hauls out a slim bundle of photocopies. 'Poor guy didn't get much in the way of column space. Here's The Star.'

The Star 23 March 2011

Homeless Man Burned Alive

[Ellis Park] The badly burned body of Patrick Serfontein, 53, was found under a bridge in Troyeville on Tuesday, Gauteng Police said. Captain Louis du Plessis said the homeless man was apparently beaten before his attackers set him alight. The man was identified by his South African ID, found on the scene. The police have opened a murder investigation and appealed for witnesses to come forward. – Sapa.

'And here's my paper.'

The copy features a grotesque photograph of a man's face, the skin black and bubbled, lips peeled back from the teeth, like he just got back from holiday in Pompeii.

The Daily Truth

POLICE FILE

Homefried Homeless.

I'm telling you straight. Some human scum burned a homeless ou to death on Tuesday. Patrick Serfontein lived under a Troyeville bridge in a cardboard box until he was beaten up and necklaced with a tyre over his head by one or more tsotsis who are still unidentified and walking around free and easy because no one saw anything.

The poor homeless ou's face was so badly burnt up that the cops had to identify him by what they hope is his ID book, which they found among some personal goeters in an old shopping trolley near the body. The SAPS refused to speculate on the motive behind the violent killing. Is this the first sign of another serial killer like Moses Sithole on the loose?

Other uglinesses that happened yesterday: The body of a missing nine year-old in Ventersdorp has been discovered, drowned in a farm dam. At least his parents can make peace because his body has been found. The number of people who just sommer go missing in this city never to be seen again is just sad, mense.

The rest is ripped off. I raise an eyebrow. 'That's some quality reporting.'

Dave shrugs. 'I just take the photographs.'

'Nothing about his having an animal.'

'Not every person living on the edge of society has to

have an animal. What's this all about?'

'Patrick Serfontein is a hunch. Let's just say his death coincides with an email. Is there a Before photograph?'

'Just his ID. I got a photocopy of it for you from Mandla. She says if we find anything good, it goes under her byline. You can have an 'additional reporting by'.'

'I don't know if 'good' is the word I'd use,' I say grimly.

'Where are we going?'

'To photograph a body that coincides with another email.'

The ruby acrylic fingernail I recovered from Kotze Street lies on the dashboard. The thread that leads away from it is black and withered, but still traceable, if a vision dream of yellow sand dunes gives you a hint about where to start.

'You got a killer sending you emails? Do you know him personally? Some kind of gloating thing? They do that, right? Serial killers?'

'I don't know who the killer is. I think it's his victims sending me messages.'

'But they're dead?'

'Exactly.'

'Okay, whatever.' Dave slumps back into his seat, fiddling with his camera.

I drive out south to where the last of the mine dumps are – sulphur-coloured artificial hills, laid waste by the ravages of weather and reprocessing, shored up with scrubby grass and eucalyptus trees. Ugly valleys have been gouged out and trucked away by the ton to sift out the last scraps of gold the mining companies missed the first time round. Maybe it's appropriate that eGoli, place of gold, should be self- cannibalising.

I pull off onto a dirt road lined with straggly trees and drive for exactly 3.8 kays. I measured the distance on my way back. As we get out of the car, a vicious little wind kicks up gritty yellow dust and stirs the trees to a disquieting susurrus. I haul the heavy blanket off the back seat and throw it over the barbed-wire fence. This time, I've come prepared, after shredding my jeans on my earlier foray. It was only after I got home that I noticed the gash in my pants, the dried blood on my leg.

'This is trespassing,' Dave says as I lift Sloth over the fence.

'Don't worry. I was here earlier. It doesn't count as trespassing the second time round.' I hold the ruby fingernail gently cupped in my hand. The thread is thicker now. We're close.

We scramble up the slope of the dump, the fine sand swallowing our feet to the ankle with every step. Away from the shelter of the trees, the wind is even more capricious. Eddies of dust whip and spiral around us, sandblasting exposed skin. I pull my hoodie up over Sloth, but it offers only scant protection. He ducks his head behind my neck and squeezes his eyes shut.

'Shit,' Dave says. 'I don't have the right lens protection for this.'

'Here.' I was hoping it wouldn't feel as bad the second time round. But the same mix of nausea and dread rises in the back of my throat. Dave raises his camera automatically and then lowers it again without taking a shot. 'How did you find this?'

'It sort of found me.'

The Sparrow boy/girl is sprawled akimbo on the sand, looking blankly up at the sky. There is dust embedded in every hollow and fold of her body, in the scooped palm of her hand, banked up against her lower eyelids like unshed tears, encrusted in the bloody gashes over her arms and legs and stomach and head. Her nails are broken, as if she'd tried to defend herself. Acrylic. Ruby-red with sequins. They must have matched her shoes.

Dave opens his mouth and closes it again. There's nothing to say. He takes cover behind the lens. The wounds are approximately three inches long, gaping like red mouths. It's hard work to hack someone to death. Ask the Hutu. Whoever did this had a lot of enthusiasm for the job.

'Notice anything missing?' I say as he stops to switch to a new memory card.

'I- No. I don't know. Is there something missing? Wait. There's not much blood. Which might mean she was killed somewhere else.'

'And her animal isn't here.'

'How do you know she had an animal?'

'She worked my street. It was a Sparrow.'

'A Sparrow? That's tiny. You could miss that easily.'

'Trust me. It's not here.' I know this because I have searched this dune sideways and backwards for the corpse of a small brown bird with matchstick legs clenched up under its breast. But also because I can feel it. 'It's lost.'

When the cops finally rock up, only an hour and a half after I call them, they are pissy. It's the dust and the wind and the dead boy/girl staring up into the sky as if she's cloud-watching. It's the paperwork. The evidence. It's the fact that I'm involved at all.

They send me up to the interrogation room for another two-hour session with the good Inspector Tshabalala. This time she cuts straight to the chase.

'How did you know where to find the body?'

'It's in my file. My shavi-'

'Your shavi is finding lost things.'