about him. He started to chuckle again.
Witness turned to him angrily. “Can’t you see? He’s changed himself into a man but he still has hyena fur! He’s a witch doctor. He has Tombi!” Witness clambered to his feet, but Gordon grabbed his arm.
“Witness, my friend, it’s just a man. He has torn clothes, not fur. No one is with him. Come, sit down again.”
Tense, Witness watched the man until he was out of sight. Then he collapsed back under the tree and smoked more dagga. He started to count the branches of the tree, but they kept moving, confusing him. He laughed aloud. He tried to explain the joke to Gordon, but he was laughing, too. Witness closed his eyes. It was much easier to count the branches that way. Gordon watched him for a few minutes while he finished the joint. Then he climbed to his feet.
“Witness will be all right here,” he said to himself. “He’ll sleep in the sun with good dreams.” He shook his head. “But he’ll wake again to his pain.” He rose to his feet and shambled away.
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, rra?” The young female voice seeped into Witness’s mind.
“Tombi!” He jumped up. “Tombi, where have you . . .” He stared at the young woman, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and the smiling man next to her.
“You’re not Tombi! You’re not my daughter.” His temper flared. “I’ve lost my daughter. How dare you pretend to be her!” He gave her a shove but was so unsteady that he nearly fell over and had to grab the tree for support. He glanced at the man and shouted, “You’re old enough to be her father! Leave her alone!”
The girl looked at him in surprise. “It’s a poster, rra,” she said hesitantly. “We’re putting up posters for the election. I was going to put it on the tree here. It’s just a poster.”
Witness shook his head vehemently. “You’re too young to have sex!” he shouted at her. “You’ll die of AIDS! That man could be your father!”
Still holding the poster, the young woman backed away, turned, and ran to a couple of other women taking posters out of the trunk of their car. She pointed at him. They talked for a few moments, stacked the posters back in the trunk, and drove away, shouting something he couldn’t hear properly.
Witness leaned against the tree and closed his eyes, his mind swirling.
WHEN WITNESS EVENTUALLY PULLED himself together, he decided to go home, grab some lunch, and then call the hospitals again. And the morgue. If there was no information, he’d go back to the police and make them do something.
As he drove home, he noticed that each telephone pole had a poster, but not of Tombi. One poster read FREEDOM PARTY. PUBLIC MEETING. SATURDAY. MOTSWEDI JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL. 11 A.M. The next showed a picture of the handsome man who had been with the young woman. He smiled down at Witness, teeth glistening. VOTE FOR FREEDOM was splashed across the bottom.
“There’s nothing to smile about!” he shouted. “My daughter’s gone!”
But the man continued to smile, and Witness felt his eyes following him down the road.
EIGHT
SAMANTHA HAD ARRANGED TO meet Lesego’s family on Saturday around six, when they all gathered before supper. Driving to Mochudi, she recalled Kubu’s advice and comments, and admitted to herself that she was a little nervous about how the meeting would go. But when she arrived at the house, her confidence returned, and she knocked firmly on the front door.
She was greeted by a man who introduced himself as Tole Tobogo. He was polite, but she disliked the appraising way he eyed her. A bitter-looking woman sat stiffly on the threadbare couch with a teenage girl next to her. The teen must be Dikeledi Betse, the missing girl’s sister, she thought. Two boys squatted on the floor. Tole introduced her to Constance Koma and told her the names of the others. He pulled up a rough-wood chair from the dining table for the detective.
Constance spoke for the first time. “So the police are interested in Lesego’s disappearance now. It’s a bit late. Nearly five months late.”
Samantha had talked to the investigating officer and agreed with the woman’s opinion. Not much investigating had, in fact, been done. The police had asked around the town and found nothing. They’d filed a missing-persons report, and then they’d lost interest. Nevertheless, she felt obliged to defend them. “The police have always been interested in the case, mma.