*
Detective Katana also read the item in the Nation newspaper that morning. A range rover, it must be the one that that shit Rubia and his men were looking for. The phone rang on his desk, it was the provincial boss. ‘Good morning Katana.’
‘Morning Sir.’ Katana ever alert recognised the voice.
‘Detective I have had a call from Chief Rubia. He is on an important job right now and I want your full co-operation.’
‘Sir, there has been a murder and what looks to be a carjacking.’
‘I don’t care, it is not our affair. I want you to extend any help you can to Chief Rubia without question. Is that understood?’
‘Yes sir, very good sir.’ After the call Katana sat at his desk, fuming. ‘Corporal!’ He yelled out. ‘Tell the driver I want the land rover ready, I’m going to Lugard’s falls. Who is on duty this morning?’
‘Moses and Ali Bakari Sir!’
‘Tell Moses I want him with me.’ Katana could smell a cover up a mile away. He knew he should leave it alone, but it was within his jurisdiction, and he was annoyed Rubia had gone over his head. He picked up the phone and called the Wild Service office in Voi. ‘Hello, can I speak to the Chief Warden, Justin Bazo. It’s Detective Katana, Voi Police.’
‘Morning, what can I do for you?’ Bazo responded.
‘Have you read today’s paper, the range rover at Lugard’s falls? What can you tell me?’
‘Not much, the first I knew of it was when I picked up the paper,’ Bazo replied.
‘Who is this spokesman they refer too?’
‘Not me that’s for sure, I radioed Manyani Gate and asked the rangers to investigate.’
‘Can you contact your rangers and tell them not to touch the car, very important. Do you want a trip to Lugard’s falls?
‘Yes, why not, will you pick me up?’
‘Ok, see you soon.’
*
Cyrus had a hangover and a dry mouth. Sleepily he scratched his crotch, trying to recall how he got here. Looking around the room he spotted female clothing slung over a chair and on the bed, a sleeping form was beside him.
‘Ahh,’ he pulled back the sheets. The woman stirred, he recognised the barmaid from the hotel. ‘Out - toka,’ he prodded her roughly. She woke up and looked at him in panic.
He walked naked across the room to the bathroom and pissed noisily into the toilet bowl farting loudly as he did so. Finishing, he turned to see the girl still in his bed; she smiled at him coyly and lifted the sheet to show her breasts. Cyrus picked up her clothes off the back of the chair and threw them at her. ‘Get out you smelly whore,’ he told her.
The girl scowled at him. ‘You think you fuck me for nothing? Give me my money,’ she demanded, ‘or I go to the police.’
Cyrus in one stride reached the side of the bed and seized her by the arm roughly pulling her out, with his other hand he grabbed her clothes, and hauling her across the room pushed her out the door. ‘I am the police you silly bitch,’ he said as she fell on the floor in the corridor.He tossed her clothes after her, turning back into the room he gathered up her shoes and hooked her wig on a shoe heel and threw these at her, ‘so fuck off.’
He showered and rubbed himself down as best he could with soap. ‘I hope that bitch was clean,’ he muttered. He dried his body with a small threadbare towel and with no toothbrush hand rubbed his teeth with his index finger. He then rang his companion on his mobile. ‘Come on let’s go. See you downstairs.’
Cyrus sat in the dining room and dunked lumps of bread into his tea. He sipped and chewed at the same time, nodding wordlessly as the other man joined him.
‘Shouldn’t we call the Boss?’ his companion asked.
Cyrus frowned. ‘The hell with him, he can call us, he knows where we are.’ They didn’t have long to wait, Rubia was on the phone issuing instructions for a new assignment.
*
Katana and Bazo reached the park gate at Manyani. The detective leapt out of the car and barged into the office. ‘Let me see the park entries for yesterday,’ he demanded.
The man hesitated. ‘Sir?’
‘It’s ok ranger,’ Bazo said entering the office behind Katana. ‘He is a cop, do as he says.’
The man passed the entry book over. Katana ran his finger down the list and found what he was looking for. ‘Tell me about this Range rover?’ The detective continued to quiz the ranger closely as Bazo looked on. Katana finished and stepped out of the office. ‘Ok, shall we proceed to Lugard’s falls?’ An hour later Katana and the chief warden drove up to the look-out point for the falls, immediately spotting the rover. Two rangers sitting in the shade of a nearby tree watched as they arrived. They quickly stood to attention when they recognised Bazo.
‘It’s ok men, stand at ease,’ he told them.
Detective Katana walked around the rover first, examining the ground for tracks. There wasn’t much to see, most of the tracks were of baboons and as he looked inside the open window, his fears were confirmed, they had been inside. Faeces and urine were smeared all over the interior of the car obliterating any fingerprints. The back seat was a mess; the monkeys had got the top off the cool box and spread its contents everywhere. Brian’s rucksack had been torn open, a field day with the wash bag, deep puncture marks in the toothpaste tube.
Katana opened the passenger door and found an earring in the foot well and a crumpled bloodstained T-shirt. Gingerly he fished out Brian’s rucksack, opening it on the ground and taking out the clothes. He looked through them for any identity of the owner while the others stood around watching idly. Other than obviously male, there was nothing else. A further search in the car revealed a locked brief case lying on the floor between the rear seats. He took it out and tried the catches. The others looked on curiously.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Bazo asked.
‘No, it’s locked. Can you send your men downriver to look for a body?’ Bazo instructed his rangers to walk to the bottom of the falls and check along the length of the river.
Katana called Moses over. ‘Get some water from the river and clean up this car. I want to drive it back to the station.’
Moses looked helpless. ‘There’s nothing to carry the water in sir.’
Katana pointed at a barrel with the word rubbish painted on it.‘See if you can find an empty water bottle in there.’
Bazo asked. ‘Did you find any clues?’
‘Not really, the earring could be the Indian woman’s. I’m sure this is the same car that your rangers refused entry earlier, the one with the motorbike.’ He pointed at the tow hitch. ‘It was driven here by someone who switched the number plates. After some physical violence took place in the car. There’s no point in taking fingerprints, as you can see, the baboons got in.’
Bazo nodded. ‘It’s amazing how people don’t read the signs,’ he pointed to a signpost clearly stating not to leave car windows open.
‘So if this driver didn’t end up in the river, someone else must have met him here to get him out of the park. Can you get me the vehicle entry list for the past 24 hours at the other gates?’
‘Yes, once we get back to my headquarters. How did the report get into the paper so quickly?’ Bazo asked.
‘That’s a good question, looks to me like a premeditated crime has taken place.’
‘Why don’t you open the briefcase? Do you think it’s full of money?’ Bazo asked grinning.
Katana laughed. ‘If it is, I will let you know of course.’
‘Yes of course you will. You know it’s not the first time someone has disappeared at these falls,’ Bazo announced, ‘local legend says there is a devil that lives here that will lure you to your death.’
‘And you believe that?’
‘No of course not, I’m not a local. Do you want to see the falls? They are very noisy and quite impressive.’
‘Ok show me,’ Katana invited.
Bazo walked towards the river and Katana followed. The crackle of a radi
o interrupted them. It was the rangers at the foot of the falls. Bazo told them to continue searching down the river until they got to Sala Gate and get a copy of all the vehicle entries and exits for the past two days, before returning to Voi.
‘So you record exits also?’
‘Of course,’ replied Bazo.
‘And when do you check them.’
‘Now and then,’ he said, not elaborating. They reached the edge of the river, and walked alongside it.
As they got closer to the falls Bazo stopped. ‘This is as far as I go.’
‘Why, think that devil thing will get you?’
‘No I’ve seen the falls. Just have a quick look, don’t stare into the water, you may get dizzy and fall in,’ he advised.
‘You’re serious?’
Bazo shrugged and pointed at the drop off. ‘Go on,’ he urged.
Katana walked to the edge and peered over. The noise was indeed deafening, the water crashing against the rocks boiled and frothed like a living creature, it was quite mesmerising. No one falling in could survive. He looked back to grin at Bazo, but he was already walking back to the cars.
Moses had finished cleaning the rover. ‘Want to ride with me?’ Katana asked Bazo.
Bazo looked inside the car and sniffed. ‘Not sure.’
‘Come on, we can keep the windows open once we are going. It won’t be two bad, besides, we can talk in private.’
Bazo gingerly opened the door and climbed in. ‘What did you think of the falls?’
‘I saw that devil thing.’
‘No!’ Bazo wide eyed, exclaimed. ‘What did it look like?’
‘It was too terrible to describe. You will have to go and look yourself,’ the detective informed him.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Bazo, ‘I have work to do.’
They set off for the park gates, Bazo kept his head out of the window to avoid the stench. ‘Bloody baboons,’ he muttered. They had travelled about ten miles, when his radio started squawking, he motioned for Katana to stop. Getting down from the vehicle, he spoke with his rangers. ‘They have found a body,’ he told Katana.
‘A white man?
‘Hard to tell.’ Bazo said listening to the excited directions. ‘It’s about fifteen miles downriver.’
‘Ok tell them to wait and not to touch anything.’ Katana turned round driving back the way they had come. They met the police land rover who pulled off the road to let them pass. ‘Follow me.’ He yelled out to Moses without slowing down, leaving him in a cloud of dust. With Bazo coordinating on the radio and relaying directions they reached the place where the rangers had left their 4x4 and proceeded on foot down to the river’s edge. Katana was impressed and said so. ‘My guys would have driven straight to the gate, you have some good men.’
Bazo nodded at the compliment. ‘We are rangers,’ he said.
Walking a mile over rough ground, they came upon the two rangers waiting on a small mud flat at an indentation in the river. As Katana got closer he could see something about fifty yards away in the water, marked by splashes, as one of the rangers periodically threw stones at it. The detective got closer until he could see clothing and what appeared to be part of a torso, it bobbed up and down as two crocodiles braving the hurled stones alternately tried to drag the body into deeper water - the body had snagged itself round a partially submerged tree.
Bazo picked up rocks and joined in, shouting at the top of his voice. This new assault made the crocodiles back off, but not far. Katana took out his service revolver and taking aim loosed off two shots. Ineffective spumes of water spurted up near the crocks heads, which then submerged out of sight.
Katana was breathing hard with excitement. ‘We need to get that body. Quick, cut some branches of that bush, we can slap them on the water keeping those mambas at bay, while we retrieve the body.’
The rangers looked at him askance. ‘Go in the water?’ one of them asked.
‘Yes, come on, quick before those buggers come back.’
The rangers stood looking at their boss to intervene against this mad idea. Instead Bazo urged them on. ‘Do as the man says, there are enough of us here to scare those crocks away.’ Without enthusiasm, one of the rangers cut branches off a nearby bush with a panga, muttering and eyeing the detective like he was mad.
Katana took off his shoes and socks and rolled his trousers up to the knee, picking up a branch with the pistol in the other hand, he stood ankle deep in the river. ‘Come on let’s go.’ The two rangers followed his example.
Bazo said. ‘Go ahead I will keep throwing stones.’
Katana gave instructions. ‘Spread out and slap the water as hard as you can.’ The three of them approached the body. Feeling their way along the muddy bottom with their bare feet, slapping the water with the branches, the noise startled a pair of Egyptian geese who took to the air squawking and hissing loudly in alarm. The rangers hung back letting Katana go first, soon the water was up to his knees and they were only half way to the body.
Katana stopped. ‘Ok, new plan,’ he announced pocketing his gun. ‘Let’s get into single file, here quickly,’ he instructed the nearest ranger, ‘grab the end of my branch and you hold onto the other ranger’s branch, we will make a human chain, quick man there’s no time to lose! And whatever you do, don’t let go!’
Katana, all caution to the wind, waded in and reached the body. The water now at his waist, he gripped a portion of torn jeans and holding the branch in the other yelled. ‘Pull! Pull!’
The rangers in single file energetically hauled the detective back in towards the shallows. The head of a crocodile appeared behind the body. Bazo desperately hurled rocks. All the men were shouting and splashing, a brief tug on the human chain in the opposite direction as the beast took hold, but the men kept pulling and the body broke free, or what was left of it. They cheered triumphantly as they got it to the shallows and Bazo enthusiastically stepped into the water, shoes and all, to help haul in the macabre prize.
A pall of silence fell upon the group as they individually looked at the gristly remains, and then stepped away distancing themselves. Katana was the only one who looked pleased, grinning at Bazo.
‘No white man here, eh?’ he said conversationally and took off his wet trousers, emptied the pockets, wrung them dry and hung them on a nearby branch. Looking incongruous in a pair of red underpants and shirt, he turned the body over in the shallows for a closer look.
The body was headless, the right arm, leg and shoulder were missing exposing the chest cavity, the torn flesh bleached white and pink by the water. The remaining leg still encased in jeans had a sock on the foot. Katana fished around in the pocket of the jeans, taking out a waterlogged wallet, a puncture mark through it. ‘Good,’ he muttered, tossing this prize onto the bank. He continued to fish in the pockets, only finding some coins and a set of what looked like house keys. Next he turned the hand over examining the fingertips. ‘We will be able to get some prints from these,’ he said with satisfaction.
This was too much for one of the rangers who ran away and started to gag uncontrollably. Bazo also turned away and finding a convenient log sat quietly and removed his wet shoes and socks.
Leaving the body, Katana turned his attention to the wallet. The group were so engrossed they did not notice the detective’s men arrive. Wide eyed they stared at the scene. ‘Oh good,’ said Katana. ‘Moses get the tarpaulin from the land rover, we have to take this body to the mortuary and see if you can get the land rover closer will you?’
Suddenly all hell broke loose in the shallows. A large crocodile lunged in, huge jaws clamped round the torso; the croc turned back and dived beneath the water with a mighty splash. Katana was the first to react, seizing his pistol he shot repeatedly at the disappearing croc until the gun was empty.
‘Bastard,’ he shouted, as the rest of his evidence disappeared. ‘Did you see that!’ He exclaimed to no one in particular. The others stood transfixed as the croc surfaced briefly mid strea
m, adjusted its grip on the torso and once more sank out of sight.
‘So that’s that then,’ Katana said with finality, pocketing his gun. He opened the wallet and sifted through its contents. A police ID revealed the body to belong to a Titus Ouma from the same police force as Loda. ‘Well, well, well,’ said Katana, holding the ID aloft. ‘Yet another cop from Rubia’s unit - the plot thickens.’
‘Who is Rubia?’ asked Bazo.
‘He is head of the Special Crimes Unit and has been giving me and my men a hard time.’
‘So what was this cop doing on his own in the park, driving that range rover?’ Bazo queried.
‘I doubt that he was sightseeing,’ replied Katana.
‘So how did he fall in the river?’
‘Fell in or was pushed. I must have those exit and entry records of yours as soon as possible.’
Bazo nodded and instructed his men, now dressed, to carry on to Sala Gate. The group broke up. Katana put on his shoes and socks, but his trousers were not yet dry so he tossed them over his shoulder and made his way back to the range rover in his underpants.
‘Did you see that huge crocodile? Man! It took the whole body in one go,’ he said to Bazo. ‘How long was it?’
‘At least fifteen feet, I told you there is a river devil here.’
Katana wound down the passenger window, pushed the waist band of his trousers through it and wound the widow back up ‘Soon dry out.’ He smiled.
‘You cops are weird people that’s for sure,’ Bazo said as they drove off, the trousers flapping in the wind.
FIFTEEN
After their walk, Brian helped Doug change his bandage. Despite the angry purple bruising, the stitches were holding and the cut was healing nicely. Brian then went and had shower and as he got dressed he heard dogs barking and a car door slamming. He found Doug and Firdus on the veranda.
‘Hello Brian,’ Firdus said with a wry smile, ‘according to the paper, you went swimming at Lugard’s falls yesterday,’ he pointed at a newspaper Doug was reading.
‘Yes,’ Doug chipped in, ‘at least we know where your car is,’ and handed the paper to Brian.
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