“She heard a vehicle outside her house,” Joseph said. “It stopped for a minute or two, and then it left. She didn’t think about it until now.”
Zoe felt a chill. “Did she hear any voices?”
He put the question to Agnes. “She didn’t hear people,” he interpreted, “but she heard something that reminded her of a drum.” The woman spoke again, and Joseph clarified: “Two drumbeats. Perhaps they were car doors being shut?”
Zoe left the alley and stood in the lane, staring at Abigail’s house thirty feet away. She imagined Kanyama huddled against the night, its narrow streets lit by porch bulbs and the glow of the moon. Then headlamps appeared in the darkness, followed by the flash of an upmarket SUV and the sound of an engine. The driver had pulled into the alleyway beside Agnes’s house and left the girl. It explains why no one has seen her before. She’s not from around here.
Her eyes wandered the scene and focused on a group of children playing a game in the dirt. They were the same children who had showered her with curiosity when she got out of Joseph’s truck. She had an idea. She asked Joseph for the camera and walked toward the children. They looked up from their game. There were five of them, and they were seated around a circle drawn in the dirt. At the center of the circle was a pile of rocks.
“How do you play?” she asked the oldest boy while Joseph translated.
Instead of speaking, the boy gave a demonstration. He threw a ball into the air, grabbed a few rocks with his fingers, dragged them outside the perimeter of the circle, and caught the ball again with the same hand. The second time he threw the ball into the air, he moved all but one rock back into the circle, and placed the orphaned rock in a pile beside his knee.
“Chiyanto,” Joseph said. “I played it when I was a kid.”
Zoe held up the camera, showing it to the children. “Can I take a picture of you? I’d like to show it to my friends back home.”
They began to talk excitedly. “Photo,” said the oldest. “Muzungu lady take photo.” They wrapped arms around each other, smiling and waiting for the camera to flash.
She laughed. “They’ve done this before.” She captured the moment in the digital frame and showed the picture to the kids. The oldest boy asked her to take a photo of him alone, which she did. It was then that Zoe brought the camera down to the level of the youngest and displayed the picture of the girl. The children crowded around and stared at it without speaking.
“Have you seen her before?” Zoe asked. “She was on this street last night.”
The oldest boy tilted his head and shrugged. He looked around, seeking confirmation. All of them shook their heads—except one. The child was no more than seven years old, and his eyes were too large for his head. He smiled at Zoe shyly. The oldest boy pushed him and said something in Nyanja, but the child continued to stare at Zoe.
“Girl,” he said, nodding.
Zoe took a sharp breath. “Will you translate?” she asked Joseph.
“I’ll talk to him,” he replied.
He sat down beside the child and spoke to him softly. When the child responded, Joseph bobbed his head and smiled. Joseph’s performance had the intended effect. The boy spoke without restraint, using his hands to emphasize his words.
Eventually, Joseph looked up at Zoe. “His name is Dominic. He lives there.” He pointed at a green-painted house close by. “Last night he was in bed. But he had to use the latrine. He saw the truck when it stopped. He saw a man with the girl. The man got back into the truck and drove away. The girl walked toward Abigail’s house. She looked like she was crying.”
“Did he see the man’s face?” Zoe asked excitedly.
Joseph shook his head. “It was dark. He said the man was tall—taller than his father.”
“And the truck: did he see the license plate?”
Joseph translated the question into Nyanja. Dominic’s eyes widened and he drew something in the dirt. Zoe stared at the sketch as it materialized. The boy had traced what looked like a misshapen rectangle with an X at the center.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Joseph said. He talked with the child further, and Dominic drew a second rectangle to the right of the X. “He saw something like this beside the license plate. He doesn’t remember anything about the plate itself.”
She tried not to feel disheartened. Dominic was an extraordinary discovery, but his testimony couldn’t be valued on the street. It had to withstand cross-examination.
Joseph pulled a pen and notebook from his jeans. He filled a page with notes and reproduced Dominic’s sketch. Then he and Zoe followed the boy home and had a conversation with his father—a sturdy man with salt-and-pepper hair. Joseph punched his mobile number into the man’s phone and patted the boy on the head.
“Zikomo,” he said. “It is a good thing you have done.”