A Carrion Death & The 2nd Death of Goodluck Tinubu

by Michael Stanley

  “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 Nyamandhlovu 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.
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  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.

  Chapter 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.

  So Gomwe was not a murderer, or at least not the murderer of William Boardman. He had been safely asleep at the Nata hotel on the night of the murder. But he was not an innocent either; his false-bottomed briefcase had turned out to contain traces of heroin. If he was buying, the delivery hadn’t been made, or the drugs had been stolen; if selling, where was the money?

  Tatwa was sure he was at least half right; Gomwe was involved in a drug operation that spanned Jackalberry Camp and Elephant Valley Lodge. The key lay in Gomwe’s murder, and was held by his murderer.

  The autopsy had been inconclusive. Indeed, Gomwe’s chest had been crushed and ribs snapped by heavy pressure. It could be an elephant, or it could be the wheel of a vehicle as Kubu had suggested. Indeed, the neck was snapped and cheek crushed by a vicious blow. It could be a raging trunk, or it could be a blunt instrument. But the forensic evidence had been more incisive. The murder scene contained little evidence, but that was to the point. There was too little blood, which on its own was not compelling; when related to the lack of the victim’s footprints into the area, it was convincing. Tatwa wondered why a bush-wise guide, coming on the death scene undisturbed, had been unable to make these deductions and had carelessly moved the body and trampled the area destroying evidence. There might be an obvious answer.

  Parrots, he thought. Allison’s parrots. She said she had shown them to the guide; the guide said she had just described them. One of them was lying, perhaps both.

  There was another interesting item in the forensics report. The victim’s clothing contained no traces of elephant skin or hair, but there were particles of a canvas material. Were they from the tarpaulin Douglas had used to transport the body, or had the body been wrapped to prevent tire marks on the clothes?

  On a whim he phoned Gomwe’s record company in Johannesburg again.

  It was before 9:00 a.m., but the branch manager was already at his desk.

  “Detective Mooka? We’re still all in shock. Gomwe was one of our best people. Great guy. We’re really going to miss him, professionally and personally. Do you have more questions?”

  “Just some background information. Who knew Mr. Gomwe best at a personal level? Socialized with him and so on.”

  “Well, he didn’t have really close friends at work. But he and I were quite friendly. Both single, I guess, and interested in football.”

  “Did you ever jog together? Anything like that?”

  The manager laughed. “Hardly. Boy said the best exercise took place in bed. Sex was his idea of heavy breathing.”

  “You sure he didn’t jog or go to the gym or do other exercise?”

  “Well, pretty sure. He’d hardly keep it a secret. Most men like to boast about their fitness. He certainly had no reticence about his bed workouts!”

  “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “I have?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  Tatwa said good-bye and hung up. Parrots, he thought. Why did a man who did not like exercise go for a jog instead of watching birds with his girlfriend?

  Tatwa decided he needed another interview with Allison Levine. He also wanted to know more about what was in her luggage. But when he phoned the lodge he was told she had left at first light. She was driving, on her way home to South Africa. Of course, he thought, she was always scheduled to l
eave this morning. He tried without success to reach Kubu. He had better speak to the director.

  Mabaku had no hesitation. “Pick her up in Francistown. She can’t be further than that yet. Have them go over every nook and cranny of her car. I think we’ve got a decent chance she’s carrying some sort of contraband.”

  “What if she objects?”

  “Well, she wants to leave Botswana and enter South Africa, right? If she won’t let us search her car, I’ll get customs to take it apart rivet by rivet. I’ve got a hunch on this one, Tatwa. We’ve got them! I want to hear Beardy start singing when we introduce him to Miss Levine!”

  Tatwa wondered if it could be that easy. But armed with Mabaku’s instructions, he phoned the police in Francistown and asked them to set up a roadblock on the main road from the north. He gave them a description of the girl and, more helpfully, the details of her four-by-four vehicle, which he had obtained from the lodge. Unlike most guests, she had driven to the lodge herself.

  Well, if she was carrying contraband, she would need her own vehicle, wouldn’t she? thought Tatwa.

  Chapter 55

  The Bulawayo central police station brooded over Leopold Takawira Avenue, an attractive colonial building spoiled by heavy security mesh. Kubu parked his car in the parallel parking area in the middle of the wide road and made his way inside. Strange, he thought. Why do I feel uncomfortable in a police station? He checked in with the duty officer and was told that Superintendent Pede was at the CID offices, down the street at the Central African Building Society building. Five minutes later Kubu was ushered into the superintendent’s office. Pede was about the same age as Kubu, and about the same height, but much slimmer—in fact quite thin. That, thought Kubu, at least suggests he’s honest.