A Carrion Death & The 2nd Death of Goodluck Tinubu

by Michael Stanley

When they approached, two policemen who had been chatting outside the room stood up and greeted them. Dingalo turned toward Kubu. “Constable Mosime will join us inside. He speaks pretty good Portuguese and may be of help. We’ve read the prisoner his rights in English and Portuguese.”

  Normally Kubu preferred to work without the presence of an armed guard, but decided having a backup, especially one who spoke Portuguese, would be a good idea. It wouldn’t bother Red Beard to add a detective to his list of victims. Kubu nodded to the policeman to open the door.

  Red Beard was a stocky bald man, about five foot nine. He was shaven but red stubble was rapidly laying claim to his face. His mouth was small and unfriendly, with thin lips. A small gold ring hung from his left ear.

  The prisoner’s hands were handcuffed and on the table in front of him. Kubu glanced down. Red Beard’s legs were strapped to the legs of the chair.

  Kubu and Dingalo sat down opposite Red Beard. Kubu stared into his envy-green eyes. Red Beard stared back. Kubu knew he wouldn’t win this contest, and put his pad on the table. “Mr. Antonio de Vasconcelos, or is it Mr. Manuel Fonseca? I’m Assistant Superintendent Bengu from the Botswana CID. I’ve been looking for you for some time. I’m delighted to meet you under these circumstances.”

  Kubu took a pen from his jacket pocket. He leaned over, turned on the tape recorder, and provided the necessary introductory information for such an interview.

  Kubu looked again into Red Beard’s eyes. “Please give me your full names. Como se chama?” he said, drawing on one of the few phrases he knew in Portuguese. No reply. “You know we will find out all we want to know, given time, so there is no benefit to your silence. In fact, the less you cooperate, the more determined I will get.”

  Silence, with a hint of a sneer on the thin lips.

  “For the purposes of this interview, I will call you Mr. Fonseca, which may or may not be your real name. More than likely it is not.”

  Kubu shifted to get more comfortable on the small wooden chair.

  “Fala Ingles?” Kubu tried one of his remaining Portuguese phrases. Red Beard made no indication that he understood. “Fala Portuguese?” Again no response—not the vaguest indication that Red Beard had even heard the question.

  “Mr. Fonseca,” Kubu said. “We can and will charge you with assaulting a border official, assaulting the driver of the car you stole yesterday, and hijacking his vehicle. Also various immigration violations, including traveling on false documents and illegal entry into Botswana. I am sure those will keep you in jail in Botswana for ten to twenty years. And that is without the charge I really want to bring—murder. I am quite sure that by this time tomorrow, I will have a match on the bullet that killed a person whose nickname we believe to be Sculo. We think it came from the Beretta you had with you yesterday. Then it’s life inside. If you don’t cooperate, we may decide to push for the death penalty. To some extent, your fate is in your own hands.”

  Red Beard remained impassive, not even blinking. Kubu began to feel the stirrings of anger.

  “Mr. Fonseca.” Kubu raised his voice. “Your silence is not helping your case.” He stood up and leaned toward Red Beard, his face but a few inches away. “Mr. Fonseca, or whatever your names is, you really should cooperate. It will be much easier for you.” Red Beard’s response was unexpected. He spat in Kubu’s face. Kubu’s anger burst into the open, and he raised his fist.

  “Easy, Kubu. Easy!” Dingalo jumped up and grabbed Kubu’s arm. “Don’t do it. He wants you to hit him. He’s playing you.” Kubu struggled for a moment, then relaxed and sat down.

  Kubu looked at Red Beard, who now had the hint of a smile on his face. “You can play games, Mr. Fonseca. But I will win in the end. You will wish you had cooperated with me.”

  Kubu leaned over the tape recorder. “The time is 11:30 a.m. Interview is over.” He turned the recorder off. “Until next time.” He looked once more at Red Beard, and walked out of the room.

  “Bastard! Bloody bastard!” Kubu said vehemently. He and Dingalo were sitting in the canteen with cups of coffee steaming in front of them. “Bastard!”

  Dingalo said nothing, and both men sipped their coffee.

  “What an animal!” Kubu continued to rant. “He nearly got to me!”

  “Nearly?” Dingalo said quietly and took another sip of his coffee. Kubu didn’t reply for a few moments.

  “You’re right, Dingalo. He did get to me. Spat right in my face, the bastard! Hitting him would have been a huge mistake. Thank you.”

  The two men drank their coffee in silence. After a few minutes, Kubu said “Dingalo. I want Red Beard in Gaborone. I want to have an official Angolan embassy translator with me when I interrogate him again. I want to make sure the Angolans see that everything is aboveboard. Would you be willing to release him to us?”

  “I’ll have to talk to my boss about that,” Dingalo replied. “But I don’t think keeping him here is going to move things forward. The paperwork will take a couple of days. Do you want to work on what happened yesterday as well?”

  “No!” Kubu said. “You’re closest to all of that. I’d be happy if you could prepare those cases. Let’s keep in touch.”

  “Of course,” Dingalo said. “I’ll call you when we are ready to ship Red Beard off.” Kubu grunted—his mind already planning his next steps.

  “I’ll give the airport a call,” Dingalo continued. “Let the pilot know you are ready to leave.”

  “Tell him we can leave at three,” Kubu said. “I can’t fly on an empty stomach! Show me what eating establishments Kasane has to offer.”

  Chapter 75

  Red Beard’s break came on Thursday morning at breakfast time. The wife of one of his guards had severe cramps at breakfast, and her husband thought she might be having a miscarriage. It was their first child, and they were understandably anxious. He took her to the local hospital.

  Meanwhile Dingalo was expecting an army plane from Gaborone. He had sorted out the paperwork, and he wanted the two guards to take Red Beard to meet the plane. When the duty sergeant told him one of them was at the hospital because his wife seemed to be in labor, Dingalo lost his temper.

  “Why can’t the men leave their wives to get on with these things?” he said angrily. “There’s not much they can do, you know. They’ve done their bit already.”

  The sergeant nodded and went on with his paperwork. He had seven children.

  “Well, we can’t hang around. Is anyone else available right now?”

  There wasn’t. The sergeant took some time to explain why this was so.

  “Oh, all right. They’re already getting Fonseca—or whatever his name is—up here. Mosime will have to go by himself. At least he only has a pregnant girlfriend! He can take the van and drive the prisoner to the airport.” But he felt uncomfortable. He would have preferred two men on this job.

  “Ah, Mosime, there you are. I want you to take the prisoner out to the airport. Park at the drop-off area and wait for the guys from Gaborone. Don’t leave the vehicle. I’ll get them to come out to the car and take delivery of our silent friend. Make sure they sign these forms, or we’ll be in big trouble from the boss.”

  Mosime nodded proudly. He was very young, thrilled by the responsibility. He saluted smartly. Dingalo winced and had second thoughts. “Perhaps we should wait for someone to go with you?” he asked. The young man’s face fell. He could not have been more wounded if the sergeant had slapped him. Dingalo took a deep breath.

  “No, it should be fine. Check out a firearm. Here’s Fonseca now. Just follow your orders,” he said. He would regret the decision for the rest of his life.

  Red Beard slumped in the passenger seat in shackles and handcuffs. The fight seemed to have gone out of him. He said nothing until the constable had turned the van out of the police station. Then he turned to the young man and spoke to him in Portuguese.

  “I won’t talk to them. Not the fat cats. They’re only after the money anyway, you know. As though t
hey don’t get enough from turning their backs on children being murdered for dipheko. That’s what they want, just the money. Sometimes the dipheko too. That’s how they get to be big wheels.” He shook his head sadly at the evil of the world. Then he went on.

  “I won’t talk to them.” He shook his head again. “Once they know where the money is, I’ll be dead meat.” He noticed the sideways look from Mosime. “They didn’t tell you about the money, did they? Some bullshit about me trying to escape from Gaborone? Why drive halfway across Africa?” He sat glumly as they negotiated the traffic.

  “I don’t mind talking to you, though. Because we share a language, don’t we? A language they don’t understand.” He pointed with his head to the two-way radio. “And I can tell you are okay. You would be fair with me. I know I made a mistake.” He slumped again. The earnest young man said nothing and concentrated on the driving.

  “I’ll tell you where the money is. How to get there. It’s close. I can show you.” Red Beard moved his hands, causing the chains to clatter and jerk, emphasizing his helplessness. “You can be a hero, if that is what you want. Get fast promotion. Go work in Gaborone and fetch sandwiches for the fat superintendent.” The car had slowed down. The muscles in Mosime’s cheeks were tensed. He had yet to say a word. Red Beard looked at him like a father. “Or you could be rich,” he said quietly. “Very, very rich.”

  The plane landed fifteen minutes late. The pilot radioed police headquarters at Kasane and asked for instructions.

  “Welcome!” said a friendly female voice. “Constable Mosime will be waiting for you at the drop-off zone at arrivals. He radioed in about twenty minutes ago to say he was on his way.”

  “Will he bring the suspect to the plane?”

  “No, he is on his own. Please send your constable to the police van, and then both of them can take the prisoner through to the plane. I’ll tell him you are on your way.”

  But the dispatcher couldn’t raise Constable Mosime, and no police van waited at the airport. They found it about an hour later in a small clump of trees outside the town. Constable Mosime was there too. He lay on his back with a bullet hole in his head.

  The Toyota Hilux four-by-four drove unhurriedly out of the Chobe National Park exit gate at Ngoma. From there it headed southwest along the rutted dirt road paralleling the Chobe River. It was early evening, and the driver did not want to attract attention. His passenger seemed very nervous, tugging his ear and shifting his feet. Periodically he looked back to see if they were being followed.

  Soon they arrived at the river. The passenger pointed to a smaller road, a track that took off to the right. Half a mile farther on, the passenger pointed to some dense trees. The driver negotiated some low-hanging branches and parked out of sight of anyone on the river or flying overhead. The two jumped out. The driver pulled out a police-issue revolver. He waved it at the passenger. But the man stood his ground. “I want the rest of my money now,” he said. Red Beard shook his head. “When I’m safe across, you get money. Perhaps bonus. You don’t trust. I don’t trust.” The man looked sullen but led the way.

  The two pushed through bushes and reeds to the river’s edge, where a mokoro lay hidden. It was a carefully seasoned, hollowed-out log from a sausage tree, which would slip silently through shallow water, propelled by a poler standing at the back. Local tribes had used mokoros for transport in the area for centuries.

  The passenger pulled it onto the water and motioned to Red Beard to get aboard and in front. Red Beard complied, handgun still at the ready. The other man pushed the mokoro out into the water, jumping on at the last minute, pole in hand. He was grateful the river was still low; when the floods came, the area would resemble a lake.

  A ten-foot crocodile watched, just his nostrils showing above the water. This was his patch of water, and he resented intruders. He wasn’t very hungry; fish were plentiful. But alone among the African predators, crocodiles regard man not only with fear, but also as food.

  Red Beard scratched his developing red stubble, anxious to get into Namibia, on the other side of the river. From there it would be a two-hour hike back to the Linyanti road. There should be a vehicle waiting for him there. It was sixty miles across the Caprivi Strip, a tongue of Namibia licking Angola and Zambia, resting on Botswana, and with its tip touching Zimbabwe. The plane should be at Katima. That is, if they had managed to get out of Vic Falls in time, and if they hadn’t given him up as a bad job. He wouldn’t blame them if they had. But he’d still hunt them down. It would be a matter of pride.

  The young black man expertly poled the mokoro around some sandbanks and rocks. He remained very nervous. The tricky part would come when they crossed the deeper water. But he judged it expertly and maneuvered past the sandbank and across into the shallows on the Namibian side. Soon he had them into a backwater where they could pull the boat ashore.

  The boatman was keen to get back while there was still some moonlight. “You here now,” he said. “Give me my pay.”

  “Yes,” said Red Beard. “And the bonus I promised you.”

  The shot disturbed the roosting water birds, which took to the air with a flurry of indignant calls and screeches. The croc sank deeper in the water and waited. Then he swam over to the far bank to investigate the splashing of something big and injured in the water.

  Chapter 76

  The service was disappointing, somehow bland, given the extent of the tragedy. The minister had clearly never met the Hofmeyr twins, and his comments, prompted by notes he found hard to read, were impersonal and generic. Kubu was glad when it was over.

  After the service, the congregation gathered in the old graveyard in the middle of town, not far from the BCMC headquarters. Kubu and Mabaku drove from the church and followed the other mourners toward the open graves. Kubu caught sight of Bongani and waved, but the ecologist was soon lost in the crowd.

  “The whole of BCMC seems to be here,” he said to the director.

  Mabaku nodded. “They are probably scared of the future. Where does the company go from here? Does Cecil take over again? What of the will and the trust? No one would want not to be seen here.”

  People come to funerals for different reasons, Kubu thought. The staff for solidarity, friends to support the family, the family for closure, and the police to watch the mourners for clues. Many come for the food! No one comes for the deceased. They are already in other hands. Why had Bongani come? Well, he had found Angus’s body. Perhaps he also came for closure. Kubu, too, wanted to say farewell to his friend. He had accepted that there was nothing he could have done to save Angus. It had always been too late for that. He was glad that guilt was behind him. But Red Beard still eluded him—now with six murders to his name, they believed. And who, in the end, was Daniel? A code name for Red Beard? Kubu didn’t think so. A code name for Cecil? That seemed unlikely too. Would Dianna have been talking in riddles as she lay dying in the ambulance?

  “Don’t worry, Angus,” Kubu said softly. “We’ll get them, Daniel and Red Beard, whoever they really are.” Mabaku glanced at him sideways but said nothing. Daniel meant nothing to him; he believed that Red Beard was the kingpin, and that Red Beard had long since slipped through their thinly stretched net. Botswana had too many miles of borders. They had only caught Red Beard the first time by sheer luck. Now they had to rely on the unenthusiastic cooperation of the Angolan police.

  The graveside services were short, one for each of the twins who had entered the world together and now entered the earth together. The policemen couldn’t see what was happening—they were too far back—and only heard the words because there was a public address system. After that, most of the mourners offered a handful of the sandy soil of Botswana to the graves, and then started to drift away. Kubu and Mabaku were among the last. Once they had sprinkled their soil on the already hidden coffins, they expressed their condolences to the family.

  “Thank you for coming today, gentlemen,” Pamela Hofmeyr said. “Are you making any progress with
this matter?” Mabaku assured her that they were doing everything in their power.

  “At least you don’t think he drowned swimming in the sea, as the South African police did. Idiots. Be sure to let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” She glanced across at the open graves. “This is the end of the Hofmeyr clan, you know. All my children lie here now, and my husband. All died unresolved violent deaths. Roland wanted us all to be buried here. But I won’t be joining them. I doubt I’ll ever come back to Botswana.” She gave her brother-in-law a spare look. “Of course, Cecil may want a spot here when the time comes. He’s always wanted to match Roland.” There was an uncomfortable pause. Cecil broke it by stiffly inviting the two policemen to the Gaborone Sun for refreshments. Both accepted, and Cecil walked off without another word, the warmth in his relationship with Mabaku a thing of the past. Pamela was already talking to another couple, and Kubu and Mabaku moved out of the way.

  “Well, I’ll see you at the Sun, then,” Mabaku said. They had come in separate cars. Kubu nodded, but had no intention of actually going to the wake. He wanted to be alone at the grave after everyone had left. But as Mabaku walked off, another man approached. It was Bongani.

  “It’s strange, Kubu. To be next to his body again. It’s more dignified here, but somehow so public.” Kubu understood. They waited together in silence until the gravediggers had filled in both graves and built a mound over each. Then Bongani said, “The witch doctor was here too, you know.”

  Kubu had certainly not known, and he looked at his young friend sharply. But Bongani seemed calm, even peaceful.

  “He was dressed in his suit again. Looked as corporate as the rest of them! I bet they all wondered which division he was in charge of!” He smiled.

  “He spoke to me, though. He said it was all right now. I didn’t understand, but he said the three were separate again—the drongo, the hawk, and the eagle—even though they were here together. He said he didn’t see them anymore. I think I misunderstood all along. I thought it was all aimed at me. But I was just the canvas on which his visions were painted.”