Dying to Live

by Michael Stanley

  “You’re sure it’s Ho?” She could hear that he was excited.

  “Yes. I only saw him for a moment, but I was right next to him.”

  “And he doesn’t know why you were there?”

  Samantha hesitated. “I told the man who works there I wanted to check the car, and he showed it to me. Perhaps Ho will guess what I was after.”

  “I’ll grab a couple of armed constables and come right away. Call me on my cell phone if there are any developments. And don’t try to take him by yourself. It’s too risky.” He was gone before she could reply.

  After several minutes, she heard a vehicle coming up quickly behind her. It passed, pulled up outside the house, and a man jumped out of the passenger side and hurried inside. The car raced off.

  Samantha checked her watch, wondering how long Kubu would be. Although it felt like ages, it had only been ten minutes since she’d phoned. If they make a run for it, I’ll have to follow them and hope Kubu catches up, she decided.

  Suddenly she heard a car approaching, moving fast. It slowed, and then pulled up in front of Sin’s house, blocking the driveway. Kubu’s unmistakable bulk emerged from the front seat, and two uniformed men jumped out to join him. Hugely relieved, she drove up to join them.

  * * *

  KUBU SENT ONE of the constables round the back of the house and positioned the other at the side of the entrance. Then he hammered on the door. “Police! Open the door! Police!”

  There was no reaction, so Kubu repeated the demand and banged on the door again. Eventually the door was opened by a man who was clearly Asian and, like Ho, heavily built. But it wasn’t Ho.

  Kubu held up his identification. “I need your ID,” he said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  The man said nothing, but he reached for his back pocket, turning so Kubu could see what he was doing, and pulled out a Chinese passport, which he passed over to Kubu.

  “You are Sin Gowei?” Kubu asked, as he checked the passport. The man nodded. “And you’re the owner of the double cab parked at the back?” Again the man nodded. “Is there anyone else in the house?” Another nod. “Call them all out here. With their identification.” Kubu didn’t offer to return the passport.

  The man called out, and another Chinese man and a black man appeared. Kubu decided Samantha was right: this was definitely Ho or Hairong or whatever his real name was. His Chinese passport, however, showed him as Hairong Feng.

  “What you want?” Hairong asked.

  “You know very well what this is about,” Kubu told him.

  The other man was Joshua Mfundi, a Motswana. He looked very scared and had a bruise around his right eye. That’s because of me, Samantha thought with regret. Because he was trying to be helpful.

  “We’re taking you all into custody,” Kubu told them.

  “Why?” Hairong asked.

  “On suspicion of smuggling illicit materials, illegal removal of human remains, kidnapping, and murder. That’ll do for a start.”

  Hairong looked at him impassively. “We arrested?”

  “Not yet,” Kubu replied. “Turn around and put your hands behind your backs. You have to be handcuffed for the trip to the CID.”

  “I had nothing to do with this!” Joshua burst out in Setswana. “I just work here for Rra Sin. Clean house. Cook rice. Why’re you arresting me? I’ve done nothing!”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about,” Kubu replied in the same language. “Now turn around and put your hands behind your back. Don’t make me tell you again.”

  Joshua may be the weak link, Kubu thought. Maybe this is going to be easy.

  * * *

  BUT IT WASN’T. By six o’clock the detectives had had enough and called it a day. After the three men had been taken away, Kubu and Samantha headed to Mabaku’s office to fill him in.

  “Well?” Mabaku asked as they came in. “What’ve you got?”

  “Very little, dammit,” Kubu replied, allowing his frustration to show. “After three hours of questioning.”

  Mabaku frowned, but waited for the story without comment.

  “First there’s this Joshua character. I think he knows nothing. He’s scared to death, and I think he’s what he says he is: a domestic worker for the man called Sin. He showed Samantha the car at the back of the house—it’s a double cab and has the Chinese flag sticker in the window, just as the witness to the abduction described—and why would he let her in if he was involved? And our guess is that he took a punch to the face for doing so. He denies that, but we’re sure that’s what happened.”

  Samantha nodded.

  “As for Sin,” Kubu continued, “he’s said very little. He wants a lawyer, and we’ll get him one, but what he has said all backs up the other man, whose real name is Hairong. They’ve obviously aligned their stories. He agrees that he owns the double cab with the flag sticker but says lots of Chinese display their flag like that, and, of course, he denies having anything to do with Ramala.” Kubu shrugged. “That brings us to Hairong Feng, which is the name on his passport. He’s as cool as a Kalahari spring. The only thing he admits to is buying stuff from the herbal shop at Africa Mall and mailing it to China for testing. It was a commission from some herbal remedy operation in Qingdao, he says. He has an answer for everything.”

  “What about the coffin issue?” Mabaku prompted. “That was also shipped there.”

  “He denies it all, flat out. He was never in Kachikau; he knows nothing about the girl who supposedly died of malaria; and he’s never heard of a person called Ho and never called himself that.”

  “But we have the video from the embassy! Does he deny that too?”

  “No, but he claims he knows Chan at the embassy and visited him that day. He says that his job involves looking for import and export opportunities for China, and that Chan helps him with that. But that’s where there is a flaw in his story. Either Chan lied and deliberately gave us the wrong video, or he’ll contradict Hairong’s story.”

  “What about the man at customs?” Samantha asked. “Didn’t he also see Ho? And Muru may be able to identify him or the vehicle. One of them will break his story. And there’s a possible connection to Ramala. According to Ramala’s appointment book, he had a meeting with ‘Hair On’ the afternoon he was taken. ‘Hair On’ could be how he wrote Hairong.”

  “We need a search warrant,” Kubu said. “We need to go through that double cab and link it to Ramala’s grave—the first one—and build up a forensics case.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Mabaku said.

  Kubu paused before he continued. “The amazing thing is that there seems to be no link with the rhino horn smuggling. Nothing has come up there with a local Chinese connection. So this Hairong seems to be doing his own thing on the herbal remedies. But I don’t know what his connections are or where he’s getting his information.”

  “What about the third man?” Mabaku asked. He often surprised Kubu by how much detail he remembered about a case. “There were supposed to be three men who abducted Ramala, weren’t there?”

  Samantha nodded. “We think that’s probably the man who dropped off Sin at his house before we took them into custody. Sin gave us a name and address, but so far we haven’t traced him. Maybe he’s made a run for it.”

  “If he’s panicked, that could work for us,” Kubu added. “If we catch him, he may break. The other two are confident we can’t prove anything.”

  “It seems that they’re right,” Mabaku said sourly. “And you can’t hold them forever without charging them. You better get onto the embassy, the witness, and the customs guy first thing in the morning.” He started to pull a file toward him—a sure sign that the meeting was over—but then he shoved it away in disgust. “The hell with it! Look, we’ve made a lot of progress in the last few days, and we’ll nail these bastards, too. Great job tracing them through the double-cab truck, Samantha. Come on, let’s go get a drink.”

  Kubu and Samantha looked at one another with ama
zement. Mabaku passing out compliments and buying celebratory drinks was unheard of.

  Mabaku led the way out of his office with Kubu and Samantha following, speechless.

  CHAPTER 51

  The next morning did not start well. Samantha did manage to track down Muru and show him the pictures she’d taken of Sin’s vehicle. However, when he saw the one from the driver’s side, he said he didn’t think the color was right, and when she showed him the passenger side with the flag sticker, he said it was what he’d seen. He refused point blank to attend a lineup, and when she showed him a collection of pictures of Chinese men, including Hairong and Sin, he failed to select either of them. Samantha wasn’t sure that he would pick them out in any case; he obviously wanted as little to do with the matter as possible. Frustrated, she headed back to the CID.

  At about the same time, Kubu was speaking to Tole at customs. Unlike Muru, Tole seemed to enjoy being involved with the case—perhaps it was a break for him from the monotony of paperwork. He looked at all the pictures carefully, but then shook his head.

  “I wasn’t really concentrating when Rra Ho was at the airport. I was talking to the people loading the plane. I just felt very sorry for him. It was so sad to lose a young daughter. But I didn’t really look at him closely. He was Chinese…” He went through the pictures a second time. “How tall are these men, rra? Sometimes Chinese people are short, but I remember thinking he was quite big for a Chinese person.”

  Well, maybe that’s worth something, Kubu thought. He thanked Tole and took his leave.

  Instead of returning directly to the CID, Kubu took a detour to the Chinese embassy. He had some trouble getting past the security guard at the entrance, but his police ID and his demand to speak urgently to Mr. Chan got him in. At reception, he was asked to take a seat and wait. After twenty minutes, he was still waiting. Eventually a man wearing a dark blue suit approached and addressed him in flawless English.

  “Good morning, Assistant Superintendent. My name is Zhang. I’m the assistant to the ambassador. Would you please come with me to my office?”

  Kubu was puzzled by this development, but he followed Zhang, and nothing more was said until they’d settled at a conference table in the man’s impressively large office.

  “Would you like some green tea?” Zhang inquired. “Or coffee perhaps?”

  Kubu accepted the coffee, and Zhang placed the order with his secretary.

  “Assistant Superintendent, you’re probably wondering why you’re talking to me when you asked to see Mr. Chan. In fact, the matter is rather embarrassing for us here. Mr. Chan has been recalled to China.”

  “Recalled to China? Why?”

  “That is why it’s embarrassing. There are indications that, perhaps, Mr. Chan was not following embassy procedures correctly.”

  Kubu waited. That didn’t sound like a reason either to recall Chan or to be embarrassed.

  “It may be,” Zhang continued, “that Mr. Chan had gone rather beyond his brief here and was involved in certain activities that are not appropriate for an embassy official.”

  “Are you saying he was engaged in some criminal activity?”

  Zhang hesitated. “I wouldn’t want to go as far as that. We’re not sure of the details at this point. However, we think his activities were likely inappropriate and certainly not sanctioned by our government.”

  “Mr. Zhang, right now I’m investigating two murders, as well as the illegal removal of human remains from Botswana, and—with the help of your law enforcement officials in Shanghai—the smuggling of rhino horn into your country. We believe Mr. Chan can help us with these cases. If he’s no longer here, I’d like to speak to him by phone.”

  At this point the tea and coffee were served by the secretary, who also handed Zhang a folder. Zhang glanced at it before he replied.

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Assistant Superintendent. Right now Mr. Chan is not taking calls.” He gave a formal smile, but held up the folder when Kubu started to protest. “Perhaps we will be able to obtain the information you need. I have here a list of Mr. Chan’s contacts in Gaborone. I think you will find some of the names interesting.” He passed the document across to Kubu.

  While he drank his coffee, Kubu scanned it. He spotted Hairong Feng’s name, but there was no one called Ho or Sin on the list. He did pause when he saw Jonah Gampone’s name. That was interesting, but then, of course, Gampone’s business cover was exporting goods to China. None of the other names meant anything to him. Zhang was looking at him as if he expected the list to be enlightening.

  “Would it be possible to see Mr. Chan’s diary for a certain date?” Kubu asked him.

  “If you have a specific query, I’ll check.”

  He’s trying to be helpful, but not too helpful, Kubu thought. I wonder just what Chan was up to. “I’d like to know who he saw on Thursday the twenty-ninth of October.”

  Zhang nodded, left the office, and was away for quite some time. When he returned, he passed Kubu a typed list of Chan’s appointments for the day. A Hairong was on it, but not a Ho.

  “Deputy Ambassador,” Kubu said, “when I interviewed Mr. Chan before, he told me that he’d met a Mr. Ho on that day and helped him with paperwork to return the body of his dead daughter to China. He also said he hadn’t asked Ho for identification because the man was so distraught. Subsequently he sent me video footage, from the security gate, of the man he said was Ho. The pictures turned out to be a Mr. Hairong Feng, who is on this list. There is no one by the name of Ho.”

  There was a long pause. “It seems that Chan lied to you, Assistant Superintendent.”

  “Yes, and that lie makes him at least an accessory to the crimes I’m investigating. It’s critical that I interview him.”

  Again Zhang took his time. “I regret that I must point out that Mr. Chan is covered by diplomatic immunity and so can’t be extradited from China. On the other hand, we will certainly follow up this matter with him as we pursue our inquiries into his conduct. We will share that information with you when we have it.”

  “Sir, that’s not good enough. It now seems to me that Chan was behind these murders—and everything else—using Hairong to do his dirty work, smuggling, and stealing medicinal plant knowledge from the local people. You can’t be serious that he can hide behind diplomatic immunity!”

  “I’m afraid that is exactly what I am saying, Assistant Superintendent. But rest assured that if you’re right, Chan will be dealt with very severely.”

  Kubu controlled his temper. He wasn’t going to make any progress by haranguing Zhang. The matter would have to be taken up with the ambassador himself, by the commissioner, or even the minister. However, Kubu was pretty sure that even they would learn only as much as the Chinese government wanted them to know, and not a word more.

  The worst part was that the evidence he had managed to obtain from Zhang supported Hairong’s story. Kubu couldn’t stand the thought that they might have to let him go.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS he was back at the CID, Kubu collected Samantha, and they both went to see Mabaku.

  “It’s Chan,” Kubu announced. “He must have been behind the whole business of trying to identify the longevity plant. He knows Hairong, who was obviously hired to do the dirty work—he and his friends. I’ll bet they attacked Heiseb and killed him by accident, and then they had to get rid of Collins too.

  “But Chan wanted Heiseb’s organs tested, so they stole the body from Ian’s morgue, and Chan used his position at the embassy to fake the documents needed to ship the body to China. Probably they went after Ramala because they thought he might already have the plant. And I’ll bet that the embassy sent Chan back to China when the arrests were made on the rhino horn smuggling—he’s probably involved in that as well! The whole thing is the Chinese again! You have to get the commissioner to pressure the ambassador to extradite Chan.” Kubu was fuming.

  Mabaku thought about it. “Calm down, Kubu. Let’s talk it th
rough.” He paused. “Why would they have moved Ramala’s body from the original grave?”

  There was silence for a few moments before Kubu responded. “Gampone always said that killing Ramala at his house was a warning to him. Perhaps when the rhino horn smugglers in China were satisfied about him, they decided to take off the pressure.”

  Mabaku and Samantha looked dubious.

  “And how did Chan find out about Heiseb in the first place?” Mabaku persisted.

  “Perhaps from that herbal medicine shop?” Samantha suggested.

  Mabaku shook his head. “That could be the connection to Ramala, but Heiseb was never involved with anyone here. Except Collins. Could there be a link there?”

  Kubu turned that over in his mind. “Thabo,” he said after a while. “The link could be Professor Thabo. I’ve never trusted him. I always felt he was hiding something. Maybe the Chinese were paying him for information. He knew about Collins’s work, and even tried to find Heiseb himself. From what we’ve learned about this, the only other person who knew about Collins’s work was Ross, and Ross had his own agenda. I can’t see him working with the Chinese.”

  “Why don’t you pay Professor Thabo another visit,” Mabaku suggested. “In the meanwhile, I’ll bring the commissioner up to date about what’s going on.”

  * * *

  KUBU FOUND THABO in his office at the university. “Dumela, Assistant Superintendent. I didn’t expect to see you again,” he said as he waved Kubu to a chair.

  “Why is that, Professor?”

  “Well, after your big breakthrough with the rhino horn smugglers, I thought you’d tied up the cases.”

  Kubu nodded. “Yes, we’ve arrested the smugglers, and we’re pretty sure we know now how that links to the murders, but we need to build a watertight case. We’re getting close, but the missing piece is how these people were getting information about Collins and Heiseb. We think you can help us with that.” Kubu stopped and waited.