The house is big, with a section of it still under construction. There is one of those recycled large, rectangular metal shipping containers in the yard. It’s the size of a small room.

Kasi Chef goes into the house and switches on the lights. After few minutes, he walks out and opens the shipping container. Lights come on inside. He steps back out of it and walks to his car and opens the boot.

He lifts up what Zandile now suspects to be his missing wife’s body, and carries it over his shoulder into the shipping container. Kasi Chef returns to the car to take the axe and saw from the boot.

Zandile decided to calls for urgent backup.

“Cynthia, can you pick up where my car is?”

“Yes,” says Cynthia. “And the other detectives are here.”

“Give them the phone,” Zandile says in a hushed tone.

“We are on our way, Detective Cele,” says Detective Mdluli.

“Please hurry! You need to get here as soon as you can. I think he is about to chop up her body. You stop where his car is parked, where there is a shipping container in the yard. I’m switching my phone to silent. I’ll try to disarm him.”

“Wait for us!” shouts Detective Mdluli. “It might be dangerous.” But Zandile has already dropped the call.

Her heart rate races with each step she takes towards the slaughterhouse. She knows she should wait for backup, but thinks of the trauma that will befall the wife’s family when they hear that the body of their daughter was chopped into pieces. She decides to break protocol. She has to stop Kasi Chef right now!

She tiptoes across the yard towards the shipping container.

The hum she hears coming from inside the shipping container sounds like a refrigerator. But the doors of the container are closed shut; Zandile cannot see what is happening.

But she shivers as she hears that Kasi Chef is chopping with the axe. It is a sickening sound. At times he seems to miss what he is chopping and the axe bangs into the metal body of the container.

Zandile has never been this scared in her life. Sweat drips down her forehead, her heart is racing. She takes a few steps back and whispers into a cellphone.

“Detective Mdluli, how far are you? I have to go in right now.”

“Ten minutes away,” says Detective Mdluli.

Zandile tiptoes towards the shipping container again. She presses her ear to the cold metal. Kasi Chef is still chopping inside … but now there is another sound in the air. It is a menacing growl – and it comes from behind Zandile.

She turns to find a large pit bull staring into her eyes. She aims her weapon at the dog and takes a step towards it. The pit bull takes a step back. Zandile can feel there is someone behind her. She whips round to see the large fist of Kasi Chef rushing at her face. Her world turns pitch black.

***

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