When he saw Kubu battling the gate’s rusty hinges, he tensed. The hoe moved to his right hand, and he held it by the middle, off the ground. It had become a defensive weapon. Kubu closed the gate with care although there seemed nothing to be kept in, and it was useless to keep things out. Kubu took in the vegetable garden with the drunken fence around it, the little house, neat but in need of paint, the chassis of a bicycle with no wheels leaning against a wall.
“I’m Superintendent David Bengu,” he offered in English. “Are you Paulus Mbedi?” He saw the flash of fear in Mbedi’s face and the stiffening of his body, and added quickly, “I’m with the Botswana Police, not from Zimbabwe. Everyone calls me Kubu, which means hippo in my language, because of my shape.” Mbedi relaxed slightly, but did not smile or accept Kubu’s offered hand.
“I am Paulus Mbedi. What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you about Goodluck. Goodluck Tinubu.”
Paulus hesitated for just a moment. “I don’t know anyone with that name. Goodluck is a very strange name for a man.”
“I didn’t say it was a man.”
Paulus shrugged. “I don’t know anyone called Goodluck,” he repeated.
“Paulus, I’m very sorry to tell you this, but Goodluck is dead. He was murdered three weeks ago in Botswana. I want to find out who killed him and why, and make sure the murderer is brought to justice. I need you to help me. You helped Goodluck before, didn’t you? He needs your help again.”
Paulus stood in silence. Death was a regular in this part of the world, and Paulus expected to bump into him from time to time. But this meeting left a taste of bile, and the fight went out of him. “You’d better come inside,” he said, putting down the hoe.
They sat at a wooden table in the kitchen, and Paulus gave Kubu tea. It was in a kettle on the wood stove, and he simply added extra water and reboiled it. The taste was bitter from stewing but cut by the sugar Paulus added without asking. He measured two spoons each and stirred it in well. There was not much sugar left.
“How did you find me?”
“The money from Goodluck.”
“There won’t be any more?”
“At least not for a while. Perhaps in the will…” Kubu wished he had checked. Remembering the cigarettes and chocolates, he reached into his jacket and passed them to Paulus. He should have brought some real food instead. But Paulus accepted the gifts politely with both hands and his thanks. Then they disappeared into a drawer in the small kitchen unit by the stove. Barter was the real currency of Zimbabwe these days, and cigarettes and chocolates would fetch a good exchange.
Kubu was not in a hurry. They talked about the late rains and the bad crops, and drank their tea in peace. When the cups were both empty, Paulus asked Kubu how Goodluck had died, and Kubu told him what had happened. He concluded by saying that Goodluck had been loved and respected in his adopted home and had built up a very successful school. Paulus nodded, knowing this.
“How can I help you? It was very long ago.”
“I need to know who Goodluck was and what happened before he came to Botswana. Then, perhaps, I can understand why he was murdered.”
Paulus thought where to start. This was a story he had told no one before, and one he had expected never to tell. But now there could be no harm in it, if this policeman was telling the truth. And Paulus believed that he was.
“My wife and I worked at the hospital at Nyamandhlovu,” he began.
“Your wife?” asked Kubu.
“Mary is dead,” replied Paulus, firmly closing that topic. “She was a nurse-aid, and I cleaned the equipment and the rooms.” He paused. “I don’t work there anymore. The money is worth so little, and I don’t have transport.” Kubu thought of the remains of the bicycle.
“It was the terrible time,” he continued. “There was the war, and you didn’t trust the whites and couldn’t know who to trust among the blacks. We thought we were poor, but that was before…” He shrugged not wanting to mention the president’s name aloud. “Anyway, it was bad. There were terrorists and freedom fighters and police and army. Most people wanted to live in peace. We didn’t understand about politics. We still don’t.” He wanted to offer more tea but was afraid of running out of sugar. So he continued. “My friend Msimang had a bakkie. He used it for fetching and delivering electrical appliances like fridges when they needed fixing.”
He looked at his own fridge, now a cupboard. He could not afford to get it fixed, and Msimang was long gone. “He drove here at ten one night and woke us up. We were soundly sleeping because there was work the next day. Perhaps I had drunk a beer or two because it was Sunday. He said he had found a man collapsed by the road. At first he thought the man was drunk, but then he saw all the blood. Msimang thought he’d been shot by the army or the police or vigilantes. He looked around but no one else was there, so he lifted the man and dragged him up onto the metal floor of the bakkie like a slaughtered pig. We thought he was dead. He should’ve been dead. But he was alive. So Msimang and I took him into the house and put him on the spare bed despite all the blood. Mary was a very fussy housewife but she made no complaint.
“I asked Msimang if he wanted some tea, or even brandy, while Mary looked after the man, but he said no. He was keen to go. He didn’t want anyone to know he’d been out late at night, and he certainly didn’t want anyone to know he’d found this man who might be a freedom fighter. That was why he came to us. He knew the hospital would hand the man over to the army and that he would die. I thought he’d die that night anyway. We wondered what we would do with his body in the morning. Mary said he had three bullets in his back. She bandaged up the wounds, but she said he’d die. We looked through his pockets to see if we could find his name, but there was nothing. So we prayed together for the soul of this young man whose name we didn’t know. But God knew his name.”
He seemed to be finished, but his mind was searching through the thirty-year-old scene.
“The next day he was actually conscious but in great pain. I wanted to take him to the hospital, but Mary said we couldn’t move him again, and we would get into a lot of trouble. So I stayed with him while Mary went to the hospital. She told them I’d hurt myself and wouldn’t come in to the hospital because I’d seen people die there. She was good at making up stories.” For the first time he smiled, and his face was changed. Kubu could see that this man had once been happy.
“She came back with what she could get – pain pills, a scalpel and forceps, which she stole, lots more bandages, penicillin, antiseptic. We had no anesthetic though, so I gave the man some brandy and put a stick with a cloth around it in his mouth so he wouldn’t bite his tongue.”
“Did you learn that at the hospital?” asked Kubu, incredulous.
Paulus gave a wry twist to his mouth. “Actually I saw it in an American cowboy movie. But it didn’t matter. He passed out immediately, and Mary dug out the bullets. I made boiling water and cleaned up. It was as though she was the doctor – a surgeon! – and I was the nurse-aid,” he concluded with pride.
“And he survived?”
Paulus nodded. “It was touch and go for several days. He was delirious, screaming, then passing out. I stayed with him. Mary went to the hospital and got drugs. She said he was amazingly lucky that not one of the bullets had hit a vital organ or cut a major blood vessel. Amazingly good luck.”
“And that’s how he got the name?”
Paulus nodded. “When he started to improve, and we could talk to him, he would only shake his head if we asked him his name. At first we thought it’d gone with the shock, that he’d lost his memory. But I began to realize that he was scared. That there were people who had wanted him dead, and that it was best for him to stay dead. So we called him Goodluck. And he liked that. He seemed to find it appropriate and funny at the same time.”
Paulus went on, detailing Goodluck’s recuperation and how they had pretended he was a family member who’d had an accident and was staying with them to be near the
hospital for check-ups. He related how Goodluck started to think of the house as his home, and Paulus and Mary as the uncle and aunt they pretended to be.
“When did you find out what happened the night he was shot?” Kubu asked, sorry to end Paulus’s happier memories.
Paulus shook his head. “We never spoke of it. It was better that we didn’t know some things.”
“Well, when did you learn his real name?”
Again Paulus shook his head. “He never told us that either. Tinubu isn’t his real name. Perhaps you know that?”
At once Kubu was intrigued. He asked Paulus why he thought that. Paulus stared at Kubu wondering if this was a test of some sort. Then he shrugged and looked down at his empty cup.
“When he became a little stronger, Goodluck said he had a good friend, a comrade, whose name was George Tinubu. He was very concerned about him. He asked me to find out if the police were looking for this man, if they knew where he was. I didn’t want to do that. It wasn’t safe to attract attention in those days. But he said it was very important, that he owed this man a great deal and had to have news of him. Eventually I agreed.
“So I went to the police station, not the one here in Nyamand-hlovu but the main one in Bulawayo. And I spoke to a man there, told him that George Tinubu was missing, and asked if he’d been arrested or if the police knew anything of him. The constable on duty wasn’t busy. Perhaps he was bored. He could’ve told me to go away. Who was I to ask after this person? But he was an Ndebele like me and instead he decided to help. Many people vanished in those days, and their relatives never found out about them. He asked me when the man had disappeared, and I told him the Sunday when Msimang found Goodluck.
“He went away for a while to check records. When he came back he said that Tinubu was dead. He was sorry for my loss. I asked him what had happened, but then a white sergeant came past and asked the constable what was going on. The sergeant looked angry, and he told me Tinubu was a terrorist, that he’d been killed after a raid on a white farm where the people had been murdered and raped. I was very scared of this man, because I could see he thought that I was also a terrorist, or at least a sympathizer. So I said I was very shocked, that I only knew him slightly, that I was looking for him because he owed me money. But there was hatred in this white man, although I’d done nothing to him. He shouted that Tinubu was in hell, where he belonged, and that his body was rotting in the bush, food for dogs and jackals.
He wanted to see my identity document but I pretended I had left it at home. I knew I was going to be in trouble with this man I didn’t know, who hated me. I was shaking. But then someone called him to take a telephone call. He told me to wait. I didn’t know what to do, but the constable indicated with his head that I should go, and he pretended to read some papers. So I left quickly, and when I was outside the station, I ran as fast as I could until I was far away. Then I found a bus to Nyamandhlovu and walked home.” He pursed his lips, the memory still degrading after thirty years.
“What did Goodluck say when you told him?”
“He was shocked, of course. He asked for all the details, but I could only tell him the little I had found out. Then he said something very strange that I still remember after all this time. He said, ‘They must have found the wallet.’ That’s what he said. I didn’t understand. Then he started to cry. He was still very weak, and he had lost his friend, so it was not unmanly to do so.”
Kubu waited. After a few minutes of silence, Paulus said, “I will make some more tea.” He added water and put the kettle back on the hot plate. After a moment’s consideration, he added another spoon of tea leaves.
“The next day Goodluck told us that Tinubu had been a good man, a schoolteacher who loved learning and helping people to learn. But the school had been closed and the children sent away, and some of the teachers had left and gone to Zambia to join the ZAPU freedom movement. His friend had been one of those. Then he said that it was better that people didn’t look for him, that it would be better to be a dead person. So he would take his friend’s name, since he no longer needed it. But in our honor, so that every day he would remember our kindness to him, he would keep the first name Goodluck. That is how he became Goodluck Tinubu.”
Mbedi poured the tea and shared the remaining sugar between the two cups. Then he opened one of the bars of chocolate and shared that also. Kubu accepted both gravely, with thanks.
“Paulus, in fact Goodluck was asking after himself. He wanted to know if the police and the army were hunting for him after that raid. Probably he was scared of what would happen to you and your wife if he was found here with you. He must have been very relieved to know they thought him dead. So he could take back his name. I suppose that he left when he was better? He couldn’t risk meeting someone here who knew him, who would bring him back to life.”
Paulus drank his tea in silence. When it was finished, he said, “Yes, he left a few months later. But why do you think he really was Tinubu?” There was no great surprise in his voice; perhaps he had wondered before about the friend – the schoolteacher – whose identity and profession Goodluck had so comfortably assumed.
Kubu explained about the fingerprints. Mbedi nodded his head in acceptance.
Kubu considered what he had learned. It explained a lot but did not help explain Goodluck’s murder. A new thought occurred to him. Goodluck had apparently known Zondo. They had shared drinks together in Goodluck’s tent at the camp. Zondo and Goodluck were the same age. Was it possible that some hatred had been intense enough to stretch across thirty years? What actually happened on that night? What had Goodluck meant when he said ‘They must have found the wallet?’ Whose wallet? His own?
“Paulus, you have been a great help to me, and I’m very grateful. I just have one more question. Please think very carefully before you answer. Was there anyone you heard about, or, perhaps who came here after Goodluck had gone, who asked about him? Someone who might have been trying to find him? Perhaps to finally settle a score not completed on the night of the shooting?”
Paulus looked at him. “Why do you ask this?”
“I want to know about anyone – no matter from how long ago – who might have wanted to see Goodluck dead.”
Paulus concentrated. “Yes, there was such a man. Six months after Goodluck left, he came here with Msimang, in the bakkie. Msimang had told him the story, and he said he was looking for the man. I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he was one of the fighters, one of the hard men for whom the killing and the terror had become just a job. Perhaps a job he now liked. I told him the injured man had died. That we called the hospital to fetch the body. That they’d handed it over to the police. I knew he couldn’t check that. He stared at me for what seemed like a long time. I think he had heard rumors, and I could tell that he didn’t believe me. I think he was deciding what to do about it. But then Mary came out and asked what was going on. She told him the same story I had and asked him to leave. Just like that. And he did, without another word to either of us. We never saw him, or heard of him, again.”
“Do you remember his name?”
Paulus shook his head. “It was thirty years ago!”
“Could the man have been called Ndlovu?”
Paulus straightened. “Yes, that’s right. I remember thinking that he was named for the elephant. This village is named for the meat of the elephant. Ndlovu. That was his name.” He shook his head. “The elephant is a noble beast. This man was not noble.”
Kubu thanked Mbedi again for his help and for his hospitality. Knowing that Zimbabwe money was meaningless, and that Mbedi would find a black market for hard currency, he gave him a 100 pula note. “It’s a loan,” he said. “I’ll recover the money from Goodluck’s will.” Both knew this was untrue, but it enabled Paulus to accept the money with gratitude and dignity. But he had a gift for Kubu in return. He went into the bedroom and came back with a small glass jar containing three distorted metal objects. “The bullets we took from Goodluck,” he
said with a hint of his earlier pride in the achievement. “I kept them. Now you may have them.” Kubu accepted the jar gravely, politely touching his right arm with his left hand.
Kubu shook Paulus’s hand and wished him well. On the trip back he looked out at the empty shops and closed businesses around Bulawayo, and thought about Paulus Mbedi and his wife trying to live in peace. What had happened to Mary and what would become of Paulus? It was nearly dinnertime when he reached the hotel, but for once he was not at all hungry.
∨ The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu ∧
54
By Friday morning Tatwa felt that the pieces were falling into place. He was delighted with the progress they had made in only two days. He wondered if he could reach Kubu in Zimbabwe. Was Kubu’s phone on international roaming? Cell phones still worked in Zimbabwe.
Through receipts in his wallet, they had traced Gomwe’s movements prior to his arrival at the Elephant Valley Lodge. He had stayed in Nata on the Monday night when Boardman was murdered, which got Tatwa very excited. Nata was where the road from Maun joined the road from Gaborone. Gomwe could have murdered Boardman and then driven to Nata from Maun. But his heart sank when he read the receipt from the Nata Lodge more carefully. It seemed that Gomwe had dined there. He phoned the Lodge to check, and they confirmed that Gomwe had spent the whole evening there, and had left after breakfast early the next morning saying he had an appointment in Kasane. It was not possible for Gomwe to have eaten dinner in Nata, driven the three hours to Maun, committed a murder, and driven back another three hours before breakfast.
In Kasane, he had stayed two nights at the Mowana Safari Lodge. Tatwa checked at the hotel himself. Gomwe had arrived in his car. According to the barman, he drank a lot and also had a short meeting with a black man the evening before he checked out. The two didn’t look as though they were friends.
Detective Kubu 02; The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu Page 26