"So the son just walked in here this morning and decided to give a statement that incriminates his father?" Capitan *Ngcobo asked looking surprised.

"Yes." Dlamini said sipping on another coffee that she should really not have been drinking. She had a slight headache from the alcohol she'd consumed last night. Her tolerance was clearly low. But that wasn't the worst of it... she was consumed with guilt and had no idea what she was going to say to her sponsor later on.

"And you've taken his statement? "He asked.

"Yip. Done."

Ngcobo shook his head. "Do you think the son was involved in some way?"

"No. I think the poor kid stumbled across some shit he shouldn't have when he was younger, didn't understand it at the time and only figured it out when he was older. His only crime was not coming forward when he realized what it was."

"So now what?"

"He's going to tell the family-"

Ncgobo clicked his tongue and shook his head, "I don't envy him."

"No," she said looking through the glass window into the interrogation room where a pale, sick looking Edward Jnr was sitting wringing his hands. He also probably had a headache this morning after the amount he'd consumed. She had made a private deal with him last night, she wouldn't arrest him for attempted evidence tampering and breaking into a crime scene if he came in in the morning and gave a statement.

After making the agreement she and Eddy Jnr had stayed at the father's house for a few more hours together- each nursing a couple of drinks. They had mainly drunk in silence together, and finished off the bottle of whiskey. And when they had spoken it had been mundane; the cricket, the political climate the strange heat wave they were currently having. It had been strangely enjoyable actually, despite the situation that had brought them together in the first place. She felt sorry for him. He was torn, trying to protect the memory of his father and subsequently, his entire family. This would throw them into total disarray and they would never be the same again. But he was also trying to do the right thing. She respected the guy.

"I'm going to morgue now, still need to figure out cause of death."

"And the girl on the tape? Does the son have any idea who she is, other than recognising her as one of the girls he saw in the photos?"

" No." Dlamini shrugged, "And I still don't know what I'm looking at to be honest."

"So she might not be dead?"

"I don't know."

The Capitan thought for a moment, "Take the tape to the corner, get his opinion. He knows what death looks like."

She nodded. She was already doing that. She had a copy of the video on a memory stick in her bag and had planned on showing the coroner when she got there.

"And we're sure it's him on the tape?" The Capitan asked again. There was a slight desperation in his voice. Everyone around her had taken on that tone. No one wanted this to be true. The implications would be far reaching and it was certainly not anything that they had ever dealt with either. God, she suddenly wished she lived in America and the FBI or some brilliant behavioral unit would sweep in and take this off her hands and make sense of it for all of them.

She nodded again. "His son identified him. And I identified him from some older photo's of him. It's him."

"Sick fuck." he said. She had never heard the Capitan speak like that before. He was usually the picture of professionalism, but this had unnerved everyone.

**

Detective Dlamini hated the morgue. Not for the obvious reasons, like dead bodies. That's the thing that would freak most people out, but she was accustomed to death and dead bodies. What she hated about it was the cold. She hated the cold. It reminded her of that night...

It had been winter. A particularly cold one at that, and after they had left her alone, bound and naked, she had spent the night shivering until someone had found her behind the *shebeen the next morning. The rape and attack was one kind of torture, but the cold had been another kind altogether. It had been relentless and painful. Like a million blades slicing at her sensitive flesh all night long. She shuddered at the thought and closed her warm coat even tighter. She always kept a warm coat in the car for cold situations.

Detective Dlamini walked in as the autopsy had just come to an end. The coroner, a strange stooped over old man that had been working in the same job for almost fifty years was writing up the final report. She had worked with him before, and each time, she hadn't been any closer to understanding the guy. They had never said two words to each other that weren't work related.

"And?" She said standing behind him.

"Asphyxiation," he said not even turning around.

"From what?" she asked.

"No idea." The coroner said closing the file and passing it over to her. She took it in her hands and opened it, scanning the pages.

"No idea?" she asked. "So the guy just sat in his chair and stopped breathing?"

The coroner shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, he asphyxiated and I can't find any clear reason for it."

"Ok..." she said tentatively trying to figure it out. "What are the possible causes of asphyxiation, normally?"

"Choking, asthma attack, sleep apnea, drowning, strangling, carbon monoxide poisoning, suffocation and some drugs." He rattled the list off.

"What drugs?"

"Mainly the paralytics, but I didn't find any obvious puncture wounds but I am running a toxicology, that will take a while though."

"So basically what you're telling me is that you know fuck-all. You can't tell me if this is a suicide, a homicide or a fucking act of God." Her voice was loud and she felt somehow detached from it.

The corner turned around and smiled at her. This was the first time he had ever smiled in all the years they had been working together. "Basically." He echoed looking amused. This was far from amusing and she knew of something that would wipe that smile off his face.

"I need to show you something and ask your professional opinion."

She walked over to him computer and without asking, stuck the memory stick in. He walked over and sat down, looking completely unperturbed that she had just raised her voice to him and was now fiddling with his personal computer. She didn't need him to watch the whole thing, only the last bit. That was where his expertise would be needed.

She stopped before pressing play, for a second she thought about warning him about what he was going to see, but she was pissed off. She was irritated and despite the coat, she was feeling fucking cold. She pressed play and turned away from the screen. He barely flinched as he looked at the images. He had probably seen a lot of shit working as county coroner for 50 years- unless of course he was a sick fuck too. She wouldn't put it past him.

The video ended and she turned to him. "So, is it real?" she asked.

He paused for a moment, took his glasses off and cleaned them on his lab coat. "If you are asking me whether or not I think that poor girl is dead, I would have to say she is."

"So it's real? He strangled her?"

He put his glasses back on and pressed play again, he watched slowly, frame by frame for a few moments and then stopped. "You see there, the slight change in color of her lips, the appearance of a broken blood vessel in her eye, that looks real to me."

She nodded slowly. In her gut she had known it was real, maybe she just hadn't wanted to admit it to herself. Because if she had to acknowledge what this was, then she would have to admit to watching the moment in which a girl's life had been snatched away from her and robbed in the most horrific and brutal of ways.

"She would have died of asphyxiation brought on by strangulation, Detective," he said in a meaningful way and then he got up and walked out of the room.

Her mind started ticking away. Was this a coincidence? Or had someone killed Eddy in a similar way as he had killed that girl years and years ago?

*In one of our many black languages in South Africa, Xhosa, the "c" and the "x" are pronounced with a click of the tongue.  Here below is a lesson in Xhosa clicking sounds below! Enjoy. 

https://youtu.be/31zzMb3U0iY

*Shebeen a local tavern/ pub that illegally serves alcohol (for the most part) most are located in the informal settlements or the townships of South Africa.