Detective Kubu 01; A Carrion Death

by Michael Stanley

  As he helped himself to a large plate of fresh fruit salad—the perfect way to start breakfast—Kubu acknowledged that there were, of course, many more questions. His skin tingled—a sign the chase had started.

  Spotting Bongani on his own, Kubu ignored the waiters efforts to show him to his out-of-the-way table and walked up to Bongani’s instead.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked. Bongani nodded with his mouth full and indicated a chair. He didn’t look very enthusiastic. Kubu put down his fruit salad and rewarded the unsuccessful waiter with an order for lots of coffee, with hot milk, and brown toast. He then went back to the buffet to place his order for eggs, bacon, tomato, mushrooms, and fried bananas. When he returned, Bongani had finished eating and was sipping his coffee.

  “Where did they come from, the murderers, and where did they go?” Kubu asked as he settled into his food. “They obviously weren’t living around here. This is a major conservation area. How would they get in and out of it without anyone seeing them or checking their credentials?”

  Bongani had thought of this too. “This is a huge area, one of the largest controlled areas in the world. Dozens of tracks lead into the reserve from the surrounding hunting and cattle areas. If you know your way around, it’s easy to drive in without being seen.”

  Kubu digested this information along with the last piece of bacon. He called the waiter over for more coffee, but changed his mind and instead ordered a plate of hot mielie-meai porridge with full-cream milk, sweetened with honey.

  “My wife is always putting me on diets at home,” he explained to Bongani. “So I try to get just a little extra when I travel.”

  Bongani folded his paper napkin and prepared to leave. Kubu said quickly, “You know, you may be on to something about the sweet water at the waterhole. A ready-made disposal system for dead bodies could well be worth a bit of a drive. I didn’t see it as that important yesterday, so we didn’t stop at the waterhole and, of course, they dumped the body in the watercourse so that it wasn’t visible from the road. Is there a ranger who could take me out there?”

  “I’ll take you,” said Bongani immediately and unexpectedly. “I didn’t have a chance to get the water samples I need to find out why the animals like it so much. Andries was in too much of a hurry to get back after we found the body. We can go as soon as you’re ready. I’ll get the Landy and meet you outside.” And he was off before the surprised detective could even offer his thanks. Bongani seemed relatively at ease this morning. Perhaps he had been so nervous the previous night because of something that had happened during the day.

  On the drive back to the waterhole Kubu learnt a bit more about Bongani’s background. He came from a small Kalahari town called Sojwe and had a spectacular school and university record. After graduating from the University of Botswana, he had won a scholarship and completed a PhD at the University of Minnesota, in its renowned Ecology Department. His current research project was linked to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks’s thrust on the carrying capacity of and regions.

  “I am based at the University of Botswana, but spend much of my time in the field. I’ve seen most of Botswana now.”

  “So they fund you for all this travel and so on?” Kubu asked him.

  Bongani laughed. “Oh no, the university doesn’t have money for research, and Wildlife and National Parks has its own people. They just open doors for me—like this lodge.”

  “It must be expensive,” Kubu commented, “travelling around like that. Petrol is so expensive these days.”

  “Oh, I don’t pay for it. I have a grant from the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company. It’s important for them to be seen supporting conservation.” Bongani looked a little embarrassed. “I’m not proud of where my money comes from, but there are no strings attached, and it allows me to do what I want.”

  Kubu said nothing. A second connection with BCMC, he thought.

  Bongani decided to turn the tables. “What about you?” he asked. “What made you become a detective?”

  “I was very lucky, really,” Kubu replied. “I went to primary school in Mochudi and thought I would have to drop out to earn money for the family. But our priest, Father Thekiso, thought I had the brains to go further and managed to arrange a scholarship to the new private school in Gabs—Maru a Pula. It was wonderful. My parents wanted me to be a teacher when I finished, but I had a hankering for something more exciting, so I joined the police. I was lucky again, because they sent me to university to study criminal justice. I studied full time and spent as much time as I could at the offices of the Criminal Investigation Department. We call it the CID. They had offices just down the road from the university. As soon as I graduated I became a detective. I never even was a constable on the beat. I’ve been a detective all my career.”

  After exchanging further tidbits of personal information, the two lapsed into a comfortable silence. After a while, Bongani turned off the main road, and soon they pulled up under the trees close to the waterhole.

  “This is it,” said Bongani. Kubu clambered out of the truck. He stood concentrating on the area around the waterhole. A small herd of springbok stood nervously around it.

  “What do you expect to find?” asked Bongani. Kubu took in the mass of tracks around the water.

  “People always talk about the perfect murder,” he said. “There isn’t any such thing. Murderers always make mistakes. It’s not a natural thing to do—kill another human being in cold blood. It never works out quite the way you expect. You’re tense. You’re nervous. You make mistakes. You leave clues.”

  “But not all murders are solved,” Bongani commented when it seemed that Kubu had nothing more to add.

  “Ah, but that is because the police don’t always pick up the mistakes, don’t always find the clues. They don’t always find the pieces of the puzzle you need to see the complete picture. The only way to find them is to look. And most of the places you look won’t have any pieces.”

  With this, he stomped off towards the water. Bongani was sorry he hadn’t gone first: Kubu walked over all the interesting animal and bird tracks. But when Bongani caught up, Kubu was carefully examining a variety of boot tracks still visible in the sand around the trough. He hadn’t disturbed any of those.

  “They came down to the water,” he said. “They were careless. They left tracks. At least two people.” He pointed to two different boot prints. “It wouldn’t have been a neat business, you know. It never is unless you are a comfortable distance away with a gun. You wouldn’t believe the amount of blood you’ll get by smashing someone’s skull. Then there is the business with the teeth and the jaw. The killers wouldn’t have been very presentable after that.” Another thought struck him. “But of course the victim was probably dead when they got him here.” He paused and pointed out an area slightly away from the trough. “Look at this spot here, Bongani. What do you think?” The area looked as though it had a slight stain which made it a little rustier than the grey of the riverbed.

  “It could be anything,” said Bongani. “Perhaps it’s animal urine that’s dried there. Maybe just a slightly different composition in the sand.”

  “Could it be a stain remaining after water mixed with another liquid has dried there? Could that liquid have been blood, do you think?”

  “I suppose it’s possible.” But Bongani didn’t really believe it.

  “Let’s take a sample anyway,” said Kubu. “Would you get my bag from the vehicle? It’s got some sample bottles in it.” He stood looking at the stain as though it might escape if he fetched the bag himself. When Bongani returned, Kubu made casts of two different boot prints. Then he opened a sample bottle, knelt, and carefully scraped the surface stain into the container with a spatula.

  Suddenly the wind came up, and dust blew into Kubu’s face. He swung around to have his back to it and, from that position, something unusual caught his eye. About twenty metres away grew a small thorn bush. It was tightly packed to the ground, cherishi
ng its personal area of dirt with its touch of moisture leaked from the waterhole. A small patch of white in the centre of the bush would have been almost impossible to see from any other angle or might have been mistaken for a cyst on the bark of its spindly trunk—a small patch of white that now flapped in the breeze. The breeze dropped, and the patch became just a white mark again.

  Kubu rose with surprising speed and agility and grabbed a pair of tweezers from his bag. Bongani followed him, puzzled but not interrupting. Kubu lay down next to the bush and started fishing with the tweezers.

  “Damn!” he said. The first round went to the thorn bush. It scored a couple more direct hits before Kubu managed to winkle the whiteness carefully out between the armed branches. He held it up for Bongani’s inspection.

  “It’s a cash slip for petrol,” he told Bongani, being careful not to handle the slip or let any blood from his scratches stain it. “It’s lucky the wind blew it into the heart of that little bush. Otherwise it could be in South Africa by now! I can’t read it. I guess that the sun has bleached the ink. Maybe the lab guys can see what was there.”

  “There’s nothing to say it has anything to do with the killers,” Bongani said, trying to be the scientist and not get excited. “It could have blown out of any car that stopped here.”

  “Yes,” said Kubu. “It could indeed. But let’s play what-if. What if the killers needed to wash here, perhaps even change their clothes? What if they left the car doors open—probably not wanting to handle things too much? What if they even had to clean some blood off the vehicle? It would give the wind a fair chance to help itself to loose bits of paper in the car, wouldn’t it?”

  And suddenly the wind was back, moving the heat around. Kubu nearly lost his slip of paper. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the wind dropped, and there was silence again.

  ∨ A Carrion Death ∧

  CHAPTER 6

  Much as he was hoping for a few hours’ respite on his return to Gaborone, Kubu was out of luck. As soon as he walked into his home just before three in the afternoon, his wife, Joy, told him that Director Mabaku was expecting him in his office as soon as he returned. Sighing, he asked her to make him a sandwich and decided to take a quick shower.

  Half an hour later he was on his way to New Millennium Park, where the Criminal Investigation Department had been housed for the past two years. New Millennium Park was a new office development on the outskirts of town on the Lobatse road and was situated at the foot of Kgale Hill, which thrust up from the dry plains. The development comprised a dozen low-rise buildings, housing both private and government organisations. Kubu thought that the director must have played a good political hand to have his department moved into premises so luxurious by comparison to the old and rather shabby buildings in town. He went immediately to Mabaku’s office. The director’s assistant, Miriam, greeted him and told him to go straight in.

  “Sit down, Bengu,” the director said. “Where have you been? I told your wife to send you here right away. I know you arrived in Gabs an hour ago.”

  Kubu wondered how Mabaku could keep such close tabs on everyone. He always knew where all the detectives were, when they got there, and how long they stayed. He most probably also knew what they were thinking and saying about him, which would explain why he was often so abrupt.

  “I had been on that dusty road for nearly four hours. I couldn’t walk into your lovely office leaving clouds of dust on everything I touched,” Kubu said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “When I say that I want to see you immediately, I mean immediately!” Director Mabaku glared at Kubu, who looked down demurely. “So what is going on with this thing at Dale’s Camp? Already there’s a big fuss about what it might do to the tourist industry.”

  “It’s a puzzle, Director,” Kubu said quietly. “The body was found at a waterhole called Kamissa, about an hour’s drive from Dale’s Camp. It appears that the deceased is a white male—there were still a number of straight hairs on the skull. I am confident that he was murdered because—”

  “How do you know it was a male?” Director Mabaku interrupted.

  “You are right,” Kubu said. “I do not know that it was a male. I used the word ‘he’ generically because it is easier.”

  “Bullshit!” Mabaku said. “You used the word ‘male’ specifically. Stop trying to bullshit me!”

  Kubu continued. “The hair still on the skull leads me to believe the deceased is Caucasian. There are three reasons why I am pretty sure that he or she was murdered. First, all the teeth are missing. They seem to have been knocked out, because there are some roots still in the jawbone. Second, we found tyre tracks behind the dunes near the waterhole where the body was found. The area where the vehicle turned near the top of the dune had been swept, apparently to hide the tracks from anyone who discovered the body. Third, there was no sign of clothing or footwear on, or near, the body.”

  “How close is the nearest habitation?” Mabaku asked.

  “As I said, Dale’s Camp is about an hour away. The nearest village is Kungwane, about seventy kilometres away—maybe two hours’ drive. There may be a few farms or ranches as well. I expect that BCMC will have land in the area.”

  “Why would anybody drive that far to a waterhole rather than leave the body in the middle of the desert? Maybe they wanted the body to be found?” Mabaku frowned.

  Kubu smiled inwardly. Mabaku was so predictable; he challenged every assumption. Even though it was often annoying, Kubu had to admit it kept him on his toes. Should he share Bongani’s sweet-water hypothesis? He decided against it.

  “I can’t figure it out either. But why would anyone want a body found, especially in such a remote spot?” He decided not to mention the cash slip he had found at Kamissa for the moment either, until he had confirmation that it was relevant.

  “What does the pathologist have to say?” Mabaku asked.

  “Director, I’ve just got back. Ian MacGregor promised to send his report to me tomorrow.”

  “Well, let me know as soon as you hear something. That’s all for now. I’d like to have your report first thing in the morning.”

  Kubu decided to stay at the office to complete the homicide report before going home. He called Joy and told her he would be home at about seven a.m. She said that was fine and promised a treat for supper. That motivated Kubu, and he set about the despised paperwork. At least he did not have to fill out forms in triplicate, handwritten, using carbon paper, as had been the case only a few years before. Now his word processor had a proper template that enabled him to do everything, including file the final report. His only problem was that he had never learnt to type properly. However, his two-finger approach proceeded with respectable speed.

  ∨ A Carrion Death ∧

  CHAPTER 7

  Bongani sips from his bottle of Castle beer in the staff compound at Dale’s Camp. Initially the beer is cold and refreshing, but the desert soon sucks up its coolness, leaving it tepid and unattractive. Yet again he asks himself what possessed him to agree to join this group on this particular night. But in fact he is enjoying himself.

  They sit outside in a semicircle, a fire providing primeval comfort. Between the men and the fire stands a camping table with a variety of arcane items, including a small rawhide bag, supposedly made from lion skin. The men sit on the sand or on stools. No women are present. There is some singing and traditional dancing, which Bongani joins tentatively, unused to the ceremony. Most of the time they sit and chat and pass round a calabash containing a mixture of maize beer and additives that are neither specified nor discussed.

  The proceedings are led by the Old Man, a witchdoctor, who lectures and trances and fiddles with items from the table. The witchdoctor is an important figure in any community. He will be knowledgeable about the healing properties of local plants, as well as offering a variety of spells and charms to help people achieve their desires or avoid the unpleasant. And he will throw the bones to foretell the future. He is an important
force for good or evil, and, Bongani thinks, usually a mixture of both. His is a self-made route to power. To be a chief, you have to be born into the right family, but a witchdoctor makes his own destiny. A successful one will be a consummate politician and will weave his community into a web of dependency. No chief will cross a witchdoctor who has that sort of hold on his people. The witchdoctor will become the power behind the throne.

  The Gathering is a cross between a boys’ night out and a seance. Bongani finds his immediate neighbour convivial and tries to explain what he does for the game reserve as an ecologist. Soon they conclude that this is too esoteric to be recognised as genuine work, so they tactfully change the subject to common friends and family. Without much surprise on either side, they discover that they are distantly related, as most Batswana are if one looks hard enough. The man on Bongani’s left wears a traditional garment of animal skins, but most of the others are in their everyday clothes. Bongani rolls up his shirtsleeves and relaxes on the plastic chair, which the group has saved for him as a guest of honour.

  It is the first time he has joined the local people socially. I should have done this before, he thinks, although not in this context. His young face breaks into an easy grin as his neighbour makes some small joke. Some of the men have brought beer or something stronger; others concentrate on the calabash and its contents. Bongani has never developed a taste for this native beverage and prefers the lager tucked out of harm’s way under his chair. Nevertheless he politely sips from the calabash each time it is passed. They spend a lot of time in companionable silence, allowing Bongani to concentrate on his thoughts.

  He watches the Old Man, who sits near the fire talking rather wildly to his companions. Bongani can’t hear what he is saying and finds the pronunciation hard to understand in any case. The man is old and gnarled. Are witchdoctors always old and gnarled? Bongani wonders. Are they somehow born that way? Perhaps they start as babies with serious frowns and the coarse markings of age, just growing larger until they fit the part. Or maybe there is a special cream that they use on their faces to age quickly—a sort of anti-facial, which causes wrinkles to develop with unseemly haste. Probably you can order it on the Internet. He smiles, visualising the flood of spam offerings with which modern-day witchdoctors would have to contend.