A Carrion Death & The 2nd Death of Goodluck Tinubu

by Michael Stanley

  Waiting for his order to be delivered, Kubu took advantage of a benefit that Wimpy offered: plenty of copies of the Daily News. His eye was drawn to a front-page headline, “BCMC Control Changes Hands.” The article outlined what had happened at the board meeting. Dianna Hofmeyr had become the new chairman—chairperson, he thought, for the politically correct. Angus Hofmeyr, her brother, who had become the majority stockholder on his thirtieth birthday, had proposed that his sister run the company that her father had started. Cecil Hofmeyr, the brother of founder Roland Hofmeyr, would step aside as chairman, but would fill the new position of CEO. Board member Roger Mpau told reporters this was the beginning of a new era for the company, enabling it to build on the strong foundation prepared by Roland and Cecil Hofmeyr.

  “The world is changing,” he said. “The company needs to help guide that change, at least in Botswana. I think you will see the company embrace the community to a greater extent than in the past. BCMC will grow internationally and become more Botswanan at the same time.” Kubu snorted. He had seen those sorts of promises before.

  The article then provided such scant background information about Dianna that the reporter must have been caught off guard by her appointment. There was much more detail about Angus, whom the reporter had obviously thought would take over.

  Kubu was lost in thought. He, too, was surprised. It was hard to believe that Angus would give up control. Angus had always wanted to be the main man, at the center of things. This was a different Angus from the one Kubu had known at school. Even more surprising, the recipient of Angus’s largesse was his sister. Angus had never seemed close to her. Why hadn’t Angus let Cecil stay on for a few more years, if he wasn’t ready to take over himself? Very strange. At this point the aroma of his breakfast approaching claimed his attention. He hastily folded up the newspaper and cleared space. He hated cold eggs.

  When he arrived at his desk, Kubu immediately left phone messages for Edison and Zanele to meet him at 8:30 a.m. in the conference room. He needed help in brainstorming. He needed a lead, an insight, even an intuition. He had nothing other than a growing number of bodies, all linked in some obscure way to BCMC.

  Edison and Zanele both arrived early. Everyone poured a cup of tea or coffee and settled in the conference room. After a minimum of social chatter, Kubu briefly summarized what they knew. They had three bodies. The first, an unidentified white male, had been found at Kamissa on Monday, February 27.

  The second was a black male, Thembu Kobedi, thief, blackmailer, and pornographer, beaten and shot on the afternoon of Friday, March 10. Kobedi had recently stolen a letter from Cecil Hofmeyr, who had paid five thousand pula to retrieve it. The police had the letter, written by a BCMC geologist, Aron Frankental, critical of the abilities of his boss, Jason Ferraz, as manager of a BCMC mine, suggesting something about diamonds being stolen from the mine. The letter hardly seemed grounds for either blackmail or murder. Part of a copy of one page of the letter was found near Kobedi’s body.

  The third body was that of a black man, also unidentified, but a prime suspect in Kobedi’s murder. He was shot in the head late in the evening of March 10 or early in the morning of March 11.

  They had one missing person—the same Aron Frankental who had written to Hofmeyr. Meanwhile Ferraz had disappeared. Everyone thought he was in Europe on business, followed by a vacation. However, the police had not been able to contact him, trace him, or even verify that he had left the country.

  Finally, Kubu had been assaulted by the now-deceased black man.

  “So that’s where we stand,” Kubu concluded. “We need to make some progress.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Zanele, I know you haven’t had much time to process all the stuff you got from the mine, but I need to know whether you have anything at all at this stage.”

  “I do have some information, but not as much as I’d hoped,” she said. “I did find enough material at both sites to run DNA tests. There were a few hairs with follicles in Frankental’s bathroom, trapped in the shower drain. He also left a hairbrush, which had a few hairs on it. We found plenty of hairs in the farmhouse, some curly and some straight. Then there was the blood in the bathroom and in the yellow Landy. It’s definitely human blood. Unfortunately, none of the DNA reports are back yet. I’ve told the lab it’s a high-priority job, but they have a backlog, and it’s going to take a while.”

  Kubu nodded, but looked despondent. “Zanele. I need some good news. Please have some!”

  Zanele pulled a brown envelope from her briefcase. “I do have some positive information. We found some fingerprints in Frankental’s room. Some were from the person who cleaned it—I’ve his name here somewhere. Some were Jason’s, and the others were Frankental’s—at least, we’re pretty sure they are his. They matched some found on his résumé in his file. I would say we can be ninety percent certain. The strange thing is that there were no prints on the hairbrush. It had obviously been cleaned. Someone tried to clean up at the farmhouse too. But we found a variety of prints there anyway. We found several matches with those of the third victim—the huge black man. We also found one that’s a perfect match for Jason Ferraz. But none of Frankental’s prints. There were also other prints we haven’t been able to identify, including some in the upstairs room—the one with the heavy lock. We got a clear thumbprint on a bent five-thebe coin we found in the bathroom and some partials on the underside of the table. We were lucky there—most of the room had been wiped clean.”

  All three sat silently, digesting this new information.

  Again Zanele checked her report. “The vehicle we found abandoned near the farmhouse was Frankental’s, though. The engine numbers matched.” She paused.

  “Personally, I think Frankental is dead. But what happened to his body? There wouldn’t be a lot of predators or scavengers in the area around the mine, but it might be buried somewhere nearby. We’ve done a careful search around the farmhouse itself and around the area where we found the car, but we’ve found nothing. Yet I’m not convinced he is the Kamissa body.”

  Kubu raised his eyebrows. “Why do you think the Kamissa body is not Frankental’s? Nobody else seems to be missing.”

  “It is my intuition,” Zanele replied. “Why didn’t we find any of his prints at the farmhouse? And it doesn’t make sense to drive Frankental’s body all the way to Kamissa, but hide his Landy near the farmhouse. It seems too much work. It would’ve made more sense to hide the Landy somewhere else and bury the body nearby.”

  Kubu nodded. “Well, I think we all rely on intuition to some extent. So we’ll keep that in mind. Now, let’s narrow the focus. Disentangle what we know. Keep the issues separate. First, the Kamissa body. We don’t really know who the person is. We’re certain he was murdered. We’re also sure that the murderers used a yellow vehicle—which Zanele’s report suggests is the one we found at the farmhouse. Ferraz was definitely at the farmhouse. In my interviews with him, I sensed he knew more than he was saying, but my intuition is that he isn’t a cold-blooded murderer.”

  He paused, took a deep breath, and continued, “Second, Frankental is missing. His vehicle is found burned out in a riverbed and then camouflaged. It had been at the farmhouse. Frankental had criticized Ferraz in a letter to Cecil Hofmeyr and said that he thought diamonds were being stolen from the mine. Ferraz had been at the farmhouse. So, Ferraz has to be our main suspect, even though we don’t actually know Frankental is dead. Now, we can’t find Ferraz.” Kubu paused once again.

  “Third, Kobedi is murdered. That much we know. We think he was blackmailing Cecil Hofmeyr, using the letter Frankental wrote to Hofmeyr. If the letter we have is genuine, it’s difficult to understand why it could be used for blackmail. Nothing really sensitive in it. We’re pretty sure Kobedi was murdered by the large man, who was subsequently also killed. When I spoke to Ferraz, I was sure that he knew who the black man was. But I don’t think he knew about the murders. He seemed shocked.” Kubu took a deep breath. “Three bodies
. One missing person, who may also be dead. One missing suspect.” He paused as a new thought struck him. “I wonder if he’s also dead?”

  Edison pulled some notes from a folder. “There is a small lead on the murder of the big black man. Last night one of the detectives, Peter Tiro, talked to a homeless boy who lives between some of the stalls on the mall. He told Tiro that he saw a big black man and a white man together on the night of the murder. He said the white man sounded angry, but he didn’t understand what they were saying. It was a strange language he couldn’t understand. A little later the white man came back along the mall—walking fast. He was alone. And he had a beard.” Edison referred to his notes. “Tiro’s still talking to the boy.”

  Kubu lifted himself a little in his chair. “Were you able to locate the safe deposit boxes for the keys we found in Kobedi’s safe, Edison?”

  “Yes. Yesterday afternoon I found both. The first was in his name at the Barclays bank on Luthuli Road—that was easy to find. Nothing much of interest in it. Paperwork for his house and car. About eight thousand pula and five thousand U.S. dollars in cash. Some other innocuous papers. The second was more difficult to find, since it was not in his name—it ended up being in the name of a fictitious company, Pink Flamingo Enterprises. It was in the industrial area branch of the Stanbic bank on Old Lobatse Road. Finding the bank wasn’t too difficult, because they use a different type of key from Barclays. However, the director had to get a court order to persuade the bank to open the box. They were reluctant, and it took some time to match the key with its box. They keep the key numbers separate, for security reasons.”

  “What was in that one?” Zanele asked.

  “It could be a gold mine!” Edison’s eyes lit up. “A large box with thirty-one videotapes in it—all from Kobedi’s little studio! I wasn’t able to look at them because the director took them and said he would review them. Scared of who could be on them, I guess.”

  “That has the potential for being a huge scandal, if the tapes are of what we think. Government officials caught with their pants down—literally!” Zanele said with a giggle. “No wonder the director doesn’t want anyone to see them. Kubu, do you think he will tell us who was on them?”

  “Mabaku needs these murders solved. He’ll let us know whatever’s necessary. But he’s also well aware of the chaos it would cause, if all the details came out. We can trust him. I’m not so sure about his superiors, though.”

  All three were silent. All imagining who could be on the tapes, and picturing the outcry if they became public.

  Kubu brought the discussion back to the Kamissa body. “I spoke to the German embassy about Frankental, as well as to the German police. The police know nothing of him, and he has no record of any sort. Not even speeding fines. The embassy contacted his parents. They’re arriving in Gabs today. The embassy asked them to bring any of his medical records they could obtain. I’ll go and see them after lunch. Obviously they are very upset and, apparently, don’t think that the Botswana police can be any good. But I’m hoping they may be able to help us decide whether or not the corpse is their son.”

  Kubu changed tack again. “Do the guys from the CID Diamond Branch have anything to say about the mine? They were there on Wednesday.”

  “Not yet,” Edison answered. “I spoke to Afrika Modise this morning before I got here. He said the report would be finished in a few days. I asked him for a quick summary, but he said it was premature to say anything.”

  At that moment the door swung open, and Mabaku walked in.

  “I hope you’re making progress!” he said. “I am beginning to get flak from the commissioner. He says some higher-ups want to know what’s going on.”

  “The same higher-ups who enjoyed Kobedi’s comforts, I bet!” Kubu said with a hint of anger in his voice. “They’re worried about what may come out. What else has the commissioner said, Mr. Director? Does he want the Kobedi case closed?”

  Mabaku’s face hardened, and he stared at Kubu, eyes angry. After a few seconds, he sat down. “Kubu, don’t push me! I should have you disciplined for your insinuations about the commissioner.” He paused. “But I have some sympathy with your sentiments. I’m tired of being pressured. It’s time everyone lived by the same rules as we do.”

  Kubu, Edison, and Zanele looked at Mabaku in astonishment.

  Mabaku stood up and said, “You never heard me say that! Okay? All I can say is that the big black man we think murdered Kobedi was not on any of the tapes I’ve watched. Now, where are we with all these bodies?”

  It took Kubu fifteen minutes to lay out what they knew. Mabaku paced up and down, occasionally stopping to stare out of the window. He didn’t say a word. At the end, he turned toward Kubu and said, “Kubu, we need to make progress. I know you’re doing what you can, but we need more, and soon.” With that he turned and walked out.

  Almost immediately, there was a knock on the door, and detective Tiro walked in with a big smile. “Portuguese! They were speaking Portuguese! We played a number of tapes to the kid, and he lit up when the Portuguese tape came on. He mimicked it well, with lots of ‘sh’ sounds at the end of words. I think we can deduce the big guy was from Angola, and that he was shot by someone else from Angola.”

  Kubu closed his eyes and let his mind tumble this new information. BCMC and Angola and diamonds and some small coins from a petrol station. They seemed to mesh. He was starting to see a pattern at last.

  Chapter 46

  Kubu was tired when he returned to his office after his meeting with the Frankentals. The meeting had been difficult. Not only was there the language barrier, but also an unspoken accusation that the police could be, and should be, doing more to resolve the issue. On the positive side, the Frankentals were sure that their son had never broken either of his arms, and fairly recent medical records they had brought with them corroborated that. Given that information, Kubu felt confident enough to give them the good news that the Kamissa body was not Aron, but cautioned them that he did not think their son would be found alive.

  He collapsed at his desk with patterns and people in his mind. He was trying to force them into focus, but they remained hazy, peripheral. He needed to change the perspective, add another dimension. Angus used to say that about cricket. When the bowlers were making frustratingly little progress, you had to change the perspective, reshuffle the deck and pull a new card. That reminded him that Dianna had given him Angus’s South African mobile phone number. He decided to give Angus a call. Perhaps he would draw an ace.

  Kubu dialed the number, but it rang for so long that he thought it wouldn’t be answered. But then he heard a click as the connection was made.

  “Hello. This is Angus Hofmeyr.”

  Despite the indifferent quality of the mobile phone, Kubu recognized the voice of his old friend. “Angus,” he said. “It’s Kubu. How are you?”

  “Kubu! Wonderful to hear from you.”

  “Angus! Are you ok? I gather you’ve been quite ill.”

  “Well, first they said it was malaria, then tick-bite fever, then they became more honest and said they didn’t know. I’ve been stuck here for over a week. Thank God for the cricket test match on television. I would have died of boredom without it. Did you manage to watch any of it? Great that the South Africans beat the Aussies, wasn’t it!”

  Kubu admitted that he had had little time for cricket recently but had seen some highlights over the weekend.

  “Good God, man. No time for the cricket? What’s happened to you, Kubu? You need taking in hand.” He sounded scandalized.

  Kubu laughed. “Actually, I’ve been battling with a case. Or maybe it’s two cases, or even three. I phoned to find out how you are, but now I realize that you are just malingering so you can watch the cricket in peace! Didn’t want to be interrupted by silly board meetings and changes of control of Botswana’s largest public company, and so on.”

  “Well, actually the board meeting was a problem. Uncle Cecil was absolutely furious that
I wasn’t there. But he’s probably even crosser now!” He laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh.

  “I understand that Dianna’s taking over as chairman. I have to admit I’m surprised. I thought you were pretty set on taking the helm yourself.”

  “Well, actually, I’ve got lots of other things to do with my life. Important things. So many beautiful women. So little time! Di’s the one who wants it, you know, and she’s got the qualifications. Worked for it like a dog. London School of Economics and all that. And she’s really smart.” There was a pause. “She really deserves it, actually. And she was my father’s favorite too. He would have been really happy to see her take over. Really happy.”

  Kubu didn’t know what to say. The thought of the misogynistic Roland Hofmeyr wanting a woman—even his own daughter—to run his company was just too peculiar. Angus had always been the apple of his father’s eye—sometimes embarrassingly so. It certainly seemed that Angus had changed. Well, he thought, it’s been many years. Perhaps even Angus has grown up.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” he said blandly. “Where are you, by the way? What do you intend to do when they let you out of there?”

  “I’m at a private clinic in the Cape. After this I’ll go up to Plettenberg Bay and spend some time there at our beach house. Relax. Get my strength back. Swim. Work on my tan. After that, I’ve got lots of time to decide. All the time in the world.” He laughed again, but Kubu wasn’t sure why.

  “I guess you have.”

  “Well, Kubu, it’s really great to hear from you. We must get together as soon as I’m back in Gaborone. Go watch the cricket. Now, was this a social call, or can I help you with your multiple cases?”

  It was Kubu’s turn to laugh. “You see through me, don’t you, Angus? As a matter of fact, I do want to ask you a couple of questions. It seems this case is somehow connected with BCMC, but I’ve no idea how or why. We’ve got enough bodies to stage the final scene of Hamlet.”