Lauren Beukes - Zoo City

An artificial fingernail, half an inch long, ruby red with silver stars painted on it, lying in a gutter. A private galaxy in the dirt. There are faded letters stencilled on the kerb. Kotch. Kozy. Kotze.

A supermarket trolley brimming with white plastic forks. It catches on fire. The forks twist and melt.

A snowfall of feathers. Some of the tips are clotted with red gobs of flesh. It turns into a rain of frogs.

Snap! Snap out of it. Snap out-

I open my eyes to find Sloth shaking me by my shoulders and whining.

"Okay, it's okay. I'm fine." I sit up gingerly, rubbing the back of my head, where I seemed to have smashed it against the floor, possibly repeatedly. My heels ache, as if I have been drumming them in a seizure. I'm lucky I didn't bite off my tongue.

Or break a nail.

"David Laslow," the voice on the phone drawls.

"Photographer Dave? This is Zinzi December. We met at the Biko?"

"I wondered if you'd call me," he sounds resigned. "You want to kak me out, I understand. It was a job. Gio was paying me. He didn't tell me what was involved."

"Forget it. That's not why I'm calling. I want to do a story, a real one. I want you to take the photographs."

"Whoo boy, did you pick the wrong week. I've got the Mbuli court case, the premier's portrait, the Springbok press conference, some new clinic opening – and that's not counting whatever comes up during the course of the day."

" This just came up. And besides, you owe me."

"I thought that wasn't why you were calling?"

"It isn't. But that doesn't mean you don't. Come on, I'll be your fixer on the zoo stories. Isn't that what you wanted? An all-access pass to Zoo City. You want drugs, sex, vice, dog fights? I can get you in. But you have to do this for me."

"You don't let up, do you?"

"No."

Dave is waiting by the One-Stop shop when I pull into the petrol station under Ponte. Once a glitzy apartment block famed for its round design, it's turned from housing project with gangsters, squatters, drugs and prostitution, garbage and suicides piling up in the central well, back to reclaimed glitzy apartment block. I suspect it will go through its own revolving door soon enough.

"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.