Dying to Live

by Michael Stanley

Mabaku frowned. “Do you have any better ideas?”

  Kubu shook his head. “Not really. All I know is that it doesn’t add up.” He turned back to Ian. “Nothing had been removed from the body, had it? Organs, bones, anything?”

  Ian shook his head. “Not as far as I could tell. I wouldn’t have picked up a blood sample or something like that, but anything significant I would’ve noticed.”

  “We’ll trace these murderers the way we always do,” Mabaku said. “Routine and hard work. These people moved the body. They had to carry it in a sheet. They had to drive it some distance. They had to dig a new grave and dump it there. They can’t have done all that without leaving any traces. Where’s Zanele? What does she have?”

  “I spoke to her before the meeting,” Samantha replied. “The sheet isn’t anything special—common material—and she hasn’t come up with anything else useful so far either, I’m afraid. But she’s working on it.”

  “Check out the houses around Gampone’s,” Mabaku said. “Someone may have seen something. And ask at the police college. Sometimes the students sneak in late at night.”

  Samantha nodded and jotted down notes.

  “Did you get anything on those companies shipping stuff to China and Vietnam?” Kubu asked her.

  Samantha shook her head. “I haven’t had a chance. I’ve been focused on Ramala.”

  “Well, fit it in,” Mabaku told her. “Now what else do we have, Kubu?”

  “First, we’ve made no progress on locating Collins. There’s no record of him leaving Botswana, and none of him entering Namibia. Second, we’ve got Gampone under surveillance, both to keep an eye on him and for his own safety. It’s very discreet. He’d have to be very good to notice. And we’ve a tap on his phones—at least the ones we know about. But he’ll anticipate that.”

  Mabaku nodded.

  Then Kubu filled them in on his meetings with Ross and Festus.

  Mabaku frowned when he heard about the supposed Chinese abductors. “Find out who that informant is and grill him.”

  Kubu nodded, wondering how he was going to do that. Next he reported on his conversation with Ixau.

  Samantha perked up when Kubu mentioned Professor Thabo and his search for Heiseb in New Xade. “Do you know his first name?” she asked him.

  “No. Why?”

  “The name Thabo is familiar. I think…” She hesitated. “I’ll check after the meeting.”

  “Check now,” Mabaku said. “We need some progress here. This is going to be a media circus when they hear about Ramala’s body being found. He’s become a celebrity since he went missing.” Samantha nodded and hurried out. By the time Kubu had finished the rest of Ixau’s story, she was back, carrying a well-used notebook.

  “This is Ramala’s appointment book,” she explained. “I’ve only followed up the appointments from a few days before he disappeared, but I did look through the whole lot. About six weeks ago there’s an appointment with an S. Thabo. I thought I remembered the name. It’s not that common.” She paused. “I just checked the professor online. His first name is Sichle.”

  “Good work, Samantha,” Kubu said. “So our professor not only went searching for Heiseb, but he had links with Ramala also. I’ve always suspected that he knows more than he’s telling.”

  “Right!” Mabaku said. “Ian, let us have your report as soon as possible, and give us your opinions on Kubu’s queries as well. Samantha, follow up on the door-to-door around Gampone’s house and the police college and find out about those shipping companies. Get some help. Kubu, you need to talk to this professor, and also find out who the witness was to the abduction.” He checked his watch. “I have to see the press liaison officer. We’d better have some progress by tomorrow. We’re going to have to let the press in on this pretty soon.” He rose and gathered his notes.

  “By the way,” Samantha said, “I also checked Ramala’s file while I was out. He was fifty-three years old. Pretty well what Ian thought, so no surprise there.”

  Mabaku glanced at her, nodded, and headed for the door. A few moments later, Ian followed him, leaving Samantha and Kubu sitting at the large conference table.

  “I’m really frustrated, Kubu,” Samantha said. “I’m not making any progress on any of the murders.”

  “I know what you mean,” Kubu responded. “But we need to keep plodding along, step by step, concentrating on the details, following up on everything.” He winced as he realized he was beginning to sound like Director Mabaku. “You never know when something will turn up, but you have to have your eyes open to be able to see it. Go back over everything. See if we’ve missed anything.”

  “I know that’s what I have to do, but I want things to move faster.”

  “Don’t we all,” said Kubu.

  CHAPTER 42

  After his meeting with the press liaison officer, Director Mabaku was not in a good mood. The media were hounding them about the Ramala murder. And he was far from happy about the situation with Gampone, who was also under pressure from the press. So far, he’d had the sense not to comment.

  Mabaku was also worried about his upcoming meeting with the commissioner. He wondered how he could keep his promise that the CITES story would go no further. He hoped that he hadn’t misjudged the situation, so he had mixed feelings when Miriam phoned and told him Gampone was on the line.

  “The devil himself,” he muttered. “Put him through.”

  “Director Mabaku, Gampone here. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “What have you found out?”

  “Yes, I do have news. I may have information about the local source for rhino horn and ivory.”

  Mabaku grunted, waiting for him to go on.

  “As I told you, I got a lot of useful information in China and Vietnam when I was there, but there were missing pieces. The trail led back to Gaborone, all right, but I didn’t know how. I think I have that missing link.”

  “And what is it?”

  “I had a call last night from China. They’re interested in what they call a ‘trial shipment.’ And they’ve told me how to do it. I’m to speak to a woman at a shipping company called Botswana Logistics and give her a package of statues, with the rhino horn powder concealed in one of them. Apparently she has a way of shipping it without customs problems either side.”

  “How?”

  “They won’t tell me that! There’s no reason for me to know. But that’s how they get the goods out of Botswana. Now we have the company and the contact there, it should be easy for you to break the whole gang—provided they’re not protected from above.”

  Maybe too easy, Mabaku thought.

  “Give me the details,” he said.

  * * *

  KUBU WONDERED WHAT was up as he made his way to Mabaku’s office, following the urgent summons from Miriam. He didn’t have long to wait. Mabaku waved him to a chair and said, “Gampone says he had a call last night from someone in China—he gave me the name—who told him to send them a package as a test. He’s to talk to a Mma Tomale at a company called…” He checked his notes. “Botswana Logistics. Apparently they arrange the transport.”

  “Botswana Logistics? That’s interesting. That’s the company that shipped what we think was the body of the Bushman to China. If they handle the contraband, then maybe the same group is involved in the murders. But how do they deal with customs and so on?”

  Mabaku shook his head. “Gampone didn’t know, but it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Some grease is applied at the sticking points.”

  Kubu frowned, sure that Mabaku was right. “But there’s a problem,” he said.

  “There certainly is. Maybe the whole thing is a test for Gampone. His Chinese friends will be watching and, if we go after this company, they’ll know. I wouldn’t want to be in Gampone’s shoes in that case. And we’ll be left with nothing.”

  “Even if it isn’t a trap, if we go after these people, they’ll know Gampone’s tipped us off, and they’ll be alerted. But I have an idea. I�
�ll do the follow-up with Botswana Logistics about the address the coffin was shipped to, instead of Samantha. Maybe I can tease out something about this Tomale woman. If she’s involved in smuggling, the chances are she helped ship the coffin as well.”

  “That makes sense,” Mabaku said. “But there’s a third possibility, you know.”

  Kubu nodded. “Yes. That the whole thing has been dreamed up by Gampone, and it’s a red herring. Well, we’ll have to live with that until we can check his phone records.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to deal with the commissioner and all these hyenas from the press. Anyway, what else have you got?”

  “I spoke to Thabo, but he’s slippery. I think he was concerned by my questions, but he had a good story. He researches the practitioners of traditional medicine, so he interviewed Ramala. That was the only time Thabo saw him, and he summed him up as a charlatan. For the same reason, he was interested in the traditional remedies from around New Xade. He claimed he wasn’t looking for Heiseb, specifically, until that was suggested by the guide he hired. I’ll ask Constable Ixau to check if that’s true.”

  “No slipups?”

  Kubu shook his head. “It was almost too consistent.”

  There was a pause, and then Kubu said, “By the way, I’ve been planning that mentoring project you and the commissioner gave me, and it made me think of Constable Ixau. He’s a lot of initiative and did a great job discovering that Thabo was snooping around New Xade. What about putting him up for detective training? He’s really keen.”

  Mabaku thought for a moment. “A Bushman? Well, Samantha was our first woman, and she’s worked out pretty well. Okay, I’ll put his name forward. Now let’s get back to the case. Have you traced the informant who saw Ramala abducted?”

  Kubu shook his head again. “We questioned Festus’s contact. His nickname’s Legotlo—‘the Rat’—and he gave us the name of the man who saw the abduction. But he’s disappeared. I think he’s been tipped off. This Legotlo loves to play both sides against the middle.”

  “Find him and lean on him,” Mabaku said. “I bet he knows more than he’s telling.”

  “There’s something else, too. The American, Ross, called me. He said that Mrs. Collins got another email on Sunday from her husband—at least it claimed to be from him. It says he’s fine, and she mustn’t worry. Helenka from IT checked it out. It was sent from here in Gaborone, like the previous one. She traced it through an ISP here in Gabs to the Orange cell network and to a phone, but the phone was unregistered, like the one we found in Ramala’s car.”

  “So, no help there. Do you think these messages can be genuine?”

  Kubu shook his head. “I very much doubt it. I think whoever had Ramala had Collins too. My guess is they’re after whatever Heiseb was using, supposedly, to keep young, and they wouldn’t want anyone else knowing about it.”

  Mabaku digested that. “You think Collins is dead?”

  “That seems the only thing that makes sense. There’s no record of him leaving the country. If he knows we’re looking for him, he’s hardly likely to be hiding under our noses, and if he doesn’t, why not catch a flight home?”

  “So where’s his body?”

  Kubu shrugged. “Maybe they killed him in the Kalahari when they grabbed Heiseb. They had Heiseb, and Collins was an inconvenient witness.”

  “And the emails are just misdirection? Trying to make us think that Collins is still alive and behind all this?”

  Kubu nodded.

  “But then why kill Heiseb?” Mabaku asked.

  “My guess is that Heiseb’s death was an accident. They would want him alive to study and question. No one would’ve missed him. He was probably lucky they were rough enough with him to break his neck right when they grabbed him.”

  Mabaku pondered. “It does all add up that way. Three people dead for some hocus-pocus that no one with any sense would believe.”

  Kubu said nothing for several moments, thinking back to Ian’s reaction and to his experience with Joy about Nono.

  “That’s not the point,” he said at last. “What matters is what these people believe.”

  “But who are ‘these people’?”

  Kubu shrugged.

  Mabaku shook his head. “Go after that shipping company. Their name is on the manifest for shipping the coffin, and now Gampone has linked them to smuggling to China. I don’t believe in coincidences any more than you do.”

  Kubu nodded, already thinking how best to handle the delicate job of investigating Botswana Logistics.

  CHAPTER 43

  When Kubu arrived at Botswana Logistics the next morning, a receptionist greeted him at the main entrance and escorted him to the manager’s office. The man introduced himself as Rra Mendepe and seemed completely cooperative and at ease.

  “I can assure you that we keep very strict records; we have to, in our business. You said this matter is about a delivery that you’re investigating?”

  “We’re investigating a particular shipment that this paperwork indicates was handled by your company. Please take a look.”

  Kubu passed him the manifest and sat back. Mendepe spent a few moments going through it. At one point, Mendepe glanced at Kubu, looking puzzled, and then returned to his reading.

  At last he said, “The papers look okay, but I can’t remember this matter at all. I don’t think we’ve ever handled the shipping of a dead body, and it would certainly have been referred to me. Also, I don’t recognize the signature. Frankly, I think it’s a fake. Someone stole one of our blank forms and filled it in. Let’s go and check with shipping.”

  Mendepe took Kubu on a rapid tour of the facilities, checking with each person they met, but no one could add anything. Eventually they came to Mma Tomale’s small cubicle, which was so stacked with papers and printouts that she hardly had room for herself and her computer. Mendepe introduced her as his bookkeeper and explained the problem to her.

  She frowned as she scanned the waybill. Kubu watched her carefully for any reaction. At first he thought she looked a little nervous, but she hid it well.

  “I’ve never seen it before,” she said. “We should check the manifest number.”

  “That’s not going to work,” Kubu responded. “I phoned last week and was told that there’s no record of that number.”

  “No record? That’s impossible!” she said. “Then it must be a fake. There’s no other explanation.” She handed the document back.

  “How difficult would it be to copy your documents? Or to get a blank form?” Kubu asked.

  She shrugged. “They’re just preprinted forms. There’re stacks of them all over the place. They’re not like checks, Assistant Superintendent.”

  She’s a cool customer, Kubu thought. If she’s up to her neck in this—and if Gampone is to be believed, she is—then she’s a good actress.

  “Let me fill you in,” Kubu said. “We think this document was faked to ship something out of Botswana, and it wasn’t the body of a Chinese girl, as the papers claim.”

  Mendepe was looking uncomfortable. “Assistant Superintendent, this issue has nothing to do with our company. We operate strictly within the law. No shortcuts.”

  “I think the people behind this simply wanted to get their goods shipped safely through customs. What interests us is whether this is the first time or if it’s an ongoing situation.”

  Before Mendepe could answer, Tomale said, “Impossible. We’d have a stack of invoices not matching our system. We’d have picked it up long ago.”

  Kubu tried another approach. “Can you check if other parcels have been sent to the same address—even the same city—over the past six months? Maybe smaller parcels were just sent through the usual channels with genuine documents. Then we might get a link to the sender.”

  “I can check,” Tomale said. “If Rra Mendepe says it’s okay, of course.”

  Mendepe nodded. “The police can obtain that information from customs anyway. We want to h
elp in any way we can.”

  “Thank you, rra, mma,” Kubu said. “You’ve been very helpful. I want to ask you to do two things. First, keep this to yourselves; don’t discuss it with your colleagues here.”

  Mendepe nodded at once. Kubu wasn’t surprised he was pleased to keep the matter private.

  “Yes, of course,” Tomale said, looking relieved.

  “Second, please come to the CID today and make a statement about what you’ve told me, and let us have the details of any other shipments to Qingdao, and their manifests, if possible. If anything else occurs to you, you let me know.”

  Again they agreed.

  Kubu left his card and took his leave. He didn’t really care about the statements, but he wanted a sample of Tomale’s handwriting to compare with the signatures on the waybill for the coffin. It was worth checking, but probably it wouldn’t lead anywhere. Tomale wasn’t stupid. His hunch was that if they were going to catch her, it would have to be red-handed, and in that case they were going to have to take a risk. Gampone was going to have to ship that package of rhino horn to China.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS he got back to his office, Kubu phoned Gampone.

  “Rra Gampone, this is Assistant Superintendent Bengu. We need to talk about your shipment to China.”

  “What about it?”

  “Director Mabaku wants to use it to see if we can smoke out some snakes. It’s a chance not to be missed.”

  There was no response.

  “We checked out the logistics company you were told to use.”

  “And?”

  “We think the company is legitimate,” Kubu continued. “We think that the manager doesn’t know what’s going on. That makes it much easier for us.”

  “How so?”

  “This is what we want you to do. You told the director that your contact in China told you to conceal the rhino horn powder in one of four similar wooden statues. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you find appropriate statues?”

  “No problem. That’s part of my export business. I have thousands. I’ll drill a hole in each of them from underneath the base up towards the head. I’ll put the powder in one and plug it with a bolt that’s flush with the bottom. For the other three, I’ll stuff the hole with sawdust and then seal it with an identical bolt. All four will look the same. As an added precaution, I’ll glue green baize on the bottom.”