“What did you want to tell us Mindy?” Debra asked her.

“You know, I couldn’t say it that day in the principal’s office and in front of Mr Reynolds and all, but Lana had a huge crush on Mr Reynolds. She knew he was old and all, and she was never going to act on it, but she did have a crush. She thought everything he said was so amazing.”

“Did she ever tell you about Mitch sexually abusing her?” Jade asked.

“Mitch sexually abusing her?” Mindy seemed confused. She thought for a minute and then she laughed a bit. “You mean when she saw him masturbating?”

“Yes. Was she very traumatised by that?” Debra asked.

“Traumatised? No ways. We used to laugh about it. I have a brother so I’ve seen a real penis, but she never had. She was so disgusted by it. We used to laugh a lot about it actually.”

Jade was paging through her notes while Mindy was talking, then she stopped and reread something she’d written.

“You know Mindy, on Friday, you never said anything about you and Lana having a date to go to the cinema. Did your mother pick you guys up at school?” Jade asked.

“Friday? No, I think you wrote that wrong. Lana had Kids’ Club. I had to go home straight away. My mother organised this whole big thing for my brother. He won the regional spelling bee so my grandparents came down from Windhoek and we went out for dinner. I had to get home right after school.”

“You’re sure about that?” Jade asked.

“Absolutely. I tried phoning Lana after we got home but her phone was off.” Then she remembered, and Jade could see the tears building. “Maybe she was already dead by then.”

Jade dropped Mindy at her house and then they quickly rushed back to the school.

“That asshole purposely lied, at least twice,” Jade said. “Lana never told him Mitch sexually abused her. And there was no cinema and being picked up. Why would he lie?”

“You know why,” Debra said. “We need to bring him in.”

“We don’t have any solid evidence,” Jade said.

“He’s the last one who saw her alive. He lied twice to us. And there’s the DNA. We’ll get a sample from him.”

The school looked deserted when they arrived. Debra asked a student leaving the front entrance for directions to the biology lab and they rushed upstairs to where she directed them. They were in luck. Reynolds was inside at his desk, marking papers.

He looked up when they entered his classroom.

“Detectives, do you have news on Lana’s murder?” he asked.

“Yes,” Debra said. “We think we know who did it.”

Today Reynolds was wearing a T-shirt, Che Guevara on the front, trying his best to stay hip with the kids. The last time, he’d had a long-sleeved shirt on. That’s why they hadn’t seen the three long scratches down the outside of his left arm. He saw Jade looking at them.

“A cat,” he said.

“Really? What a coincidence. I recently got a new cat too.”

Debra stepped forward and snapped the handcuffs on his right hand holding the pen, then whipped his arm to the back while grabbing his left hand and putting the cuffs in place, all before he knew what was going on.

“I … you can’t do that …”

“Bill Reynolds, you’re under arrest for the rape and murder of Lana Fourie.”

Debra continued explaining his rights to him as they took him out towards the car. He hadn’t accepted that he’d been caught – in the passage, as he passed the few students still lingering around, he greeted them.

* * * * *

The next day Al from forensics came to Jade and Debra at their desks. “The DNA’s positive. You got the guy. Good job.”

“That’s a relief,” Debra said.

“But get this, his DNA came up for two more girls, both raped and strangled. One in Joburg, one in Durban. The cops on those cases are on their way here to question him,” Al said. “It looks like you guys took down a serial rapist and killer!”

As Al walked away Debra said to Jade, “He wasn’t quitting those teaching jobs; he was running away from his murders.”

Jade couldn’t believe it. And it could have been so easy to have passed him by; he didn’t look like a monster. Jade shivered to think about the girls they might have just saved by catching this guy. Sadly, Lana was not one of them.

“Good job, Debra,” Jade said.

“Ten points for the good guys today,” Debra said.

They sat a bit, thinking over what had just happened, and then Debra remembered something. “Did you really get a cat?”

“I’m still trying to make a decision on that one. Either I have to take the full responsibility of a cat – or of a live-in boyfriend.”

Debra laughed. She stood up, grabbed their coffee cups and headed toward the break room.

“Come on, I’ll buy you a cup and you can tell me all about it.”

*****

Tell us what you think: How would you feel if you’d put a monster like Reynolds behind bars?