Kubu pricked up his ears. “Post mortem? You mean he was beaten after he was dead?”
Ian nodded. “Perhaps the attackers didn’t realize they had killed him.”
“And the cigarette burns?”
“Yes, several to the face and chest.”
“Were they before or after he died?”
Ian reflected. “Hard to say for sure. They might have been after death, but then it could be no more than a few minutes later.” Ian started to explain why, but Kubu pressed on.
“Ian, this may be really important. Is it possible that all the torture was actually just a disguise for the murder? That someone—Gomwe, say—wanted it to look like the thugs attacked, and were looking for something, but actually it was a neatly executed murder? I’m suspicious of a torture angle. How do you torture someone for information in the middle of a resort complex?”
“But there were the screams,” Tatwa pointed out.
“Yes, reported by cell phone by a witness who conveniently disappeared.”
Ian looked worried. “Really I can’t say, Kubu.”
“Is it possible Boardman was killed, then beaten up and burned, and the room trashed?”
Ian thought carefully. “Yes,” he said at last, firmly. Tatwa looked unhappy. Kubu nodded, satisfied. Deliberately forgetting his diet, he took advantage of the pause to order ice cream, with hot chocolate sauce in a separate jug. “So that it stays warm,” he explained.
Once the enthusiasm for coffees had been satisfied, Tatwa drove Kubu back to the Toro Lodge, where they learned little new. The maid who had found the body described the scene between sobs. Everything was consistent with what they had been told. The manager showed them the bungalow, but it had been cleaned and freshened on Notu’s authorization. There was nothing to indicate the grisly events of three nights before. And the receptionist confirmed the late night call.
“It was about half past one. I was asleep. Well, who needs reception at that time of the morning? I’m sure about the time because I looked at the clock when the phone woke me.” He indicated the electric clock on the wall behind him.
“Do you remember what the caller said? What sort of voice was it? Man?” asked Tatwa.
“Definitely a man. Sort of gruff, but really angry about the noise. Told me to get them to shut up.”
“As closely as you can remember, what exactly did the man say?” asked Kubu.
“It was something like: There’s shouting and screaming coming from the row in front of me. Bastards having a row. No consideration for other people. It’s after one in the morning! I’ve been woken up, and I can’t get back to sleep with the noise. You bloody well get him to shut up.”
“Did the man say ‘him’ not ‘them’?”
The receptionist thought, and then nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
“And what did you do after that?”
“I asked him where he was, but he hung up. So I went outside and wandered around a bit. Asked Albert—the security guard—if he had heard anything. He hadn’t, and everything was quiet. So I went back to the office. No one else called.”
Kubu and Tatwa went back to Kubu’s bungalow where Kubu collapsed into the single comfortable chair, leaving Tatwa to perch, heronlike, against the desk.
“They’re making a noise but you must get him to shut up. I don’t think that call came from the hotel at all. I think it was phoned in, perhaps to confuse the time of death. I’d bet that the murder took place earlier. Perhaps the murderer wants to create an alibi. Make sure you trace the call. It’ll be really interesting to know what phone it came from. You never can tell.” Kubu pouted. “Maybe Gomwe was involved. Or Zondo. But why kill Boardman? A curio dealer? How could Boardman have anything the drug smugglers cared about? How could he have known about whatever was in Tinubu’s briefcase? I don’t get it.”
“Perhaps he saw something, or found something,” Tatwa suggested. Suddenly he jumped up, excited. “Kubu, remember the lost keys!”
Kubu looked at him, puzzled. Then he said, “Oh my God, Tatwa. You may be right!”
Chapter 32
It was early Friday morning, and Mabaku had skipped breakfast. His stomach complained of the black coffee it had been offered instead, while he tried to concentrate on Kubu’s phone report from Maun. What an insufferable idiot that Notu is, he thought with disgust. Kubu and Tatwa had achieved more in a day than Notu had in three despite all his resources.
“Say that again.” Mabaku’s annoyance and heartburn had distracted him.
“I said we’ve contacted about three quarters of all the guests who were staying here at Toro Lodge on the night of the murder. Some of the others are tourists now on bush trips; three were here for their last couple of nights on holiday and have now left Botswana. But the important part is that we have spoken to all the guests who were no further than two rows away from Boardman’s unit. None of them remembers any unusual disturbance or noise that night. Obviously no one called reception to complain.”
“And your point is?” Mabaku growled.
“There was no disturbance. The call was made later, probably from a cell phone. I’ve asked Edison to trace it. I doubt Notu will be interested.”
“Now, Kubu, keep him informed. No need to cause unnecessary trouble.” This produced a grunt from Kubu not dissimilar to what might be expected from his riverine namesake.
“It’s consistent with Ian’s findings too. He thinks the injuries—other than the fatal blow to the head—may have been post mortem.”
Mabaku whistled. “Even the cigarette burns? What’s the point of that?”
“Misdirection. Like the phone call. The object of the attack was to kill Boardman. All the rest was to make it seem the attackers were thugs searching for something. A briefcase, for example.”
“Who knows about the attack on Jackalberry Camp last Friday?”
Kubu paused, following Mabaku’s line of thought. “Ah, you mean who knew enough about the attack at Jackalberry to make this look as though it was committed by the same thugs? Good point. All the people at the camp, of course, including the guests who were there when the attack occurred. The attackers themselves would know. But why point suspicion at yourself? And the police in Maun knew. I think Notu could be corrupt, but he’s so inept he couldn’t organize a paper clip onto a piece of paper. I don’t think he’s involved.”
“There was a short piece in the Gaborone Gazette about it too,” interrupted Mabaku sourly. “Unavoidable. We couldn’t get them to drop it, but they did tone it down. No one would react unless they knew the camp and the recent history.”
“Like Boy Gomwe,” said Kubu thoughtfully.
“And our literary ladies from England. They’re waiting to see me now. Apparently they showed up here half an hour ago to see you. I’m taking your place with great pleasure.” Mabaku didn’t like to be crossed, and Kubu felt a twinge of sympathy for the Munro sisters. “I don’t believe they killed anybody,” he said. “And they have an alibi for the night Boardman was killed.” It was Mabaku’s turn to grunt. He came to a decision.
“Stay up there for another day, Kubu. Check the forensics—prints, anything. Keep checking the hotel. See if you can get any connections through the curio dealers. You better have a word with Boardman’s widow too if she’s up to it. I’ll ask Edison to get on to the cell phone issue. And I’ll talk to the Munros.” Mabaku’s voice rose. “We have to get this tidied up. We’ve the African Union meeting coming up, remember? It can’t look as though we’re less secure and law-abiding than Zimbabwe, for God’s sake!”
Kubu sighed. He’d hoped to get back to his home-cooked meals, his own bed and, most important of all, his wife. She would understand, but would be disappointed.
Mabaku fixed Trish and Judith Munro with an unforgiving stare. He couldn’t judge their ages; the smooth complexions of a certain type of English woman seemed timelessly wrinkle-free. But their body language showed them to be nervous at being shown into the office of the Director of t
he CID.
“We wanted to see Superintendent Kubu,” Trish blurted.
“Assistant Superintendent Bengu is busy right now, madam. So I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for me.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean…” Trish started, but Mabaku interrupted.
“He’s investigating the murder of William Boardman, who was tortured to death four nights ago at a tourist hotel in Maun.” He watched closely to judge their reactions.
Both sisters were clearly shocked.
“Oh my God,” said Judith, pale.
“He was such a nice man. So keen and knowledgeable about birds. Why would anyone want to kill him?” said Trish, fighting back tears.
But Mabaku was not sympathetic. “I hope you can help us answer that. If you are willing to tell the truth this time, that is.”
“What do you mean by that?” Judith snapped.
“When Superintendent Bengu asked you how you learned about Jackalberry Camp, you told him that a colleague had written a travel piece about the place. Is that correct?”
Trish nodded. Judith met his eyes, but said nothing.
“Mr. Du Pisanie confirmed that no such person had ever visited the camp.”
“Well,” said Judith. “We must have been mistaken. Someone else may have mentioned it, or perhaps we just found their website.”
“They don’t have a website,” Mabaku guessed.
“Well, what difference does it make? We were there on holiday.” This was Trish’s contribution. “There were those awful murders, and now poor William too!”
“And you said you had no knowledge of Goodluck Tinubu, is that correct?” The two women did not reply, uncomfortable. “Then I wonder why you visited his school in Mochudi? The deputy headmaster showed you around. It’s a good operation, but not exactly a tourist attraction, I would’ve thought.”
The sisters exchanged glances, but Judith tried to stand her ground. “You must understand, Mr. Mabaku, that we are journalists. Our sources are privileged.”
Mabaku was not impressed. “That doesn’t give you the right to lie to the police! You may have your privileged sources, but I have three vicious murders. Now are you going to help us or face charges of obstructing justice?”
The two sisters looked at each other. “We’ll tell you everything we can,” said Trish.
Judith began. “I suppose we’d better tell you the story from the beginning.” Mabaku nodded approval. “We write pieces for the Sunday Telegraph in London, Director Mabaku. We write about people, people with interesting stories, but who aren’t necessarily famous or even well known. We loaned Kubu one about the vet who looks after the Queen’s corgis.” Mabaku nodded. He wanted to see where this was going.
Trish smiled. “Kubu said he liked it.”
“Well, we wanted to try something different, something that might lead to a series of articles or even a book,” Judith continued. “So we had an idea—actually I had the idea—and we took it to our usual editor, Chezi Makanya. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? He left South Africa during the apartheid era and is quite well known as a writer, in addition to being a senior editor of the newspaper.”
“We wanted to try for something deeper,” Trish added. “We wanted to be taken more seriously. You don’t win awards for pieces about handling snappy royal dogs. Sunday readers enjoy that stuff, but it’s frothy and doesn’t keep you awake long—like a decaffeinated cappuccino, I suppose. We wanted to come up with a double espresso.”
“So you needed a black man for that?” offered Mabaku. He thought it quite witty, but neither woman smiled.
“Chezi is incredibly sharp. Usually he’ll decide right away whether a premise has merit or not. But on this occasion he seemed disturbed and said he needed to think about it.” Judith stopped. There was silence for a moment.
“And what was this premise?” Mabaku encouraged.
“We wanted to follow the lives of people who’d been in the Rhodesian war thirty years ago. What had become of the whites and the blacks who’d been sucked into it. Whether there was reconciliation, where they had gone, how their lives had been changed. Some would be in the UK, some in Zimbabwe, some in other African countries.”
Mabaku could see Chezi Makanya’s problem. “Do you think you have the background to try something like that?”
It was Trish who replied. “We don’t know much about corgis either, Director. The question for a writer is how hard you are willing to work, how much time you are willing to invest, and how far you are willing to travel. Well, here we are.” She seemed to think the question was answered.
“Ladies, we have three people violently dead. What has this to do with my murder cases?”
“When we met Chezi the second time, he explained the problems to us. That Zimbabwe would not admit writers from an English newspaper, that many people on both sides had emotional scars, some of the scabs were still raw, and that people who’d left Africa would be the ones for whom negativity would be a form of self-justification. But he said we could try, and that he’d look at what came out. No promises and no advance. But we decided to give it a go.”
Trish took up the narrative. “We started in the UK, doing research and interviewing people. But Chezi was right. Lots of people were willing to talk to us. But most were Whenwes. Do you know the term? Whenwe were in Rhodesia we did this and we did that, and whenwe hunted and whenwe farmed and so on. It was all reminiscence. And if the war came up, it was always about how it would’ve been won if only Britain and South Africa hadn’t betrayed the Smith government. Rather pathetic that this perspective has survived thirty years. Nothing with heavy caffeine.”
“Until Chezi put us on to Tito Ndlovu,” said Judith. “He was different. He had fought for the Patriotic Front and became something of a hero, but he was from the Nkomo faction and had fallen out with the new government.”
“He was an awful man,” said Trish. “He wanted to tell us about rape and murder as weapons of war. He wanted to tell us the details.” She shuddered. “The way he looked at us. I think he was sorry the war was over. He wanted to shake my hand when we left, but I couldn’t. And he just laughed at me.”
Judith was matter-of-fact. “He didn’t want to be interviewed on the record. Didn’t want people to be able to trace him, I think. But he did tell us some horrific stories. One was about a terrorist group that attacked a farm outside Bulawayo. Slaughtered the men and raped the women. I asked what had happened, and he said the army claimed they killed all the terrorists that night. But later there were rumors about one man who had escaped. Deserted, sneaked away, and fled the country. His name was George Tinubu. ‘You should try to find Tinubu,’ he told us and laughed. ‘He’s more your kind of kaffir.’ We would never use a word like that! I asked where this man was, and he told us he thought there was a Tinubu nice and safe across the border in Botswana. Maybe a brother or cousin or something? He thought that was very funny. He didn’t know if any of the settlers—as he called them—had survived the attack on the farm, but said we weren’t much good as reporters if we couldn’t find out.”
Mabaku was starting to see where this was going, and felt a surge of anger. “You did find out, didn’t you? Her name was Salome McGlashan. And you found Tinubu too. A refugee who had made a new life for himself in a small town in Botswana. What right did you think you had to hound these people thirty years after what had happened? And how did you engineer the meeting at Jackalberry Camp? Did Tinubu suddenly get a free offer of a week’s holiday?”
But now the sisters came to life, both talking at once and denying anything to do with the meeting. “It’s supposed to be another coincidence?” Mabaku asked incredulously. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Judith waved her sister to silence and said firmly, “We went there to meet Salome, of course, to talk to her about her experiences. When a salesman called Goodluck Tinubu appeared, we were surprised. We had discovered there was a Tinubu who was the headmaster of a school in Mochudi, and we asked Goodluck if he
knew him. He said he did not, that Tinubu was a common name in Botswana these days because many families had fled Zimbabwe during the Rhodesian bush war. We were looking for a George Tinubu. We thought Goodluck Tinubu must be a different person. Why would the headmaster of a primary school go on holiday to a bush camp and pretend to be something else?”
“We only realized he was the same Tinubu when we phoned the school yesterday,” Trish concluded. “That’s when we decided to come and see Superintendent Kubu.”
Mabaku calmed down. “How did Salome and Du Pisanie react to Goodluck?”
It was a few seconds before Trish replied. “They seemed fine. Treated him the same as the other guests. But we didn’t see much of Salome that day. She said she didn’t feel well. Dupie was his usual overbearing self.”
Mabaku stared across his desk at Judith. At last she dropped her eyes.
“This brings a completely different set of possibilities to this case. I have to insist that you stay in Gaborone for the time being. I want you to go over everything again in much more detail with Assistant Superintendent Bengu. He’ll be back tomorrow or the next day. I must also ask you to stay in the Grand Palm complex and not wander around the city. We don’t know why Boardman was murdered. He seems to have no connection to Tinubu or Langa except that he was present at the camp when they were killed. So were you.” He saw that this statement had the desired effect.
The sisters left chagrined and depressed, but they looked forward to the session with Kubu. They realized that the Goodluck double espresso was forever lost to them. But a strong black, with lots of sugar, based on the large and boisterous detective, was a real possibility.
Part Four
A WOMAN’S GUESS
A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty.
—RUDYARD KIPLING,
“THREE AND AN EXTRA”
Chapter 33
A Carrion Death & The 2nd Death of Goodluck Tinubu Page 59