Dying to Live
Page 6
“Hello, Kubu,” Ian greeted him. “Well, let’s find out what’s missing. If Zanele doesn’t chase us out, that is. I’m sure it’ll be the bodies they were after.”
They soon determined that Ian was right, or at least partly right.
“Just the body of the Bushman. Why that one specifically? I was sure they would’ve taken the body of that young girl in number three. The hit-and-run victim,” Ian said, puzzled.
“And nothing else?”
“Well, I had a number of organ samples from the autopsies in there. Some from the Bushman and some from the man in number eight. Those are all gone.”
Kubu’s heart sank. This certainly seemed to be an organ hit. Where would he start? The witch doctors who made potions from human remains were a secretive group. He wasn’t likely to catch the perpetrators, and if he did, they would never divulge who was behind the thefts. They were far too scared of the powerful black magic for that.
For a moment he wondered about the missing Kgosi Ramala. Could this somehow be linked? Could the witch doctor have dropped out of sight to pull off this robbery?
“I suppose we should be grateful that they stole body parts from someone who’s dead,” he commented. “The ones who murder people for what they want are far worse.”
“It’s all the same principle.”
Kubu nodded. “Is everything from Heiseb gone?”
“Heiseb?”
“That was the Bushman’s name. That’s really about all we know about him so far.”
“Well, I have my notes, of course. They’re on my computer at home. I back up everything through the cloud.” Kubu wasn’t sure how a cloud was involved, but he didn’t interrupt. “And there’s this.” Ian dug in his top desk drawer and produced a pillbox. He opened it to display three brownish molars. Kubu wasn’t sure if the cloud or the teeth was the more confusing.
“Teeth?”
Ian nodded. “Luckily, I extracted them yesterday. I’m going to send them to Denmark.” Seeing Kubu’s expression, Ian laughed for the first time that morning. “Remember we wanted to know how old he was? Well, I did some research, and it turns out there is a way to find out. Do you know about carbon-14 dating?”
“That’s used to check how many years something’s been dead, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. While an organism is alive, it keeps replacing its cells with new ones, and the carbon it uses to do that is a mixture of different isotopes that occur naturally in known proportions. Once the organism dies, the radioactive carbon-14 isotope continues to decay, and so there’s less and less of it as a percentage as time goes on. So, when one measures that proportion, you can estimate how long the creature has been dead.” Ian paused.
“Now the trouble with estimating how long someone was alive is that the carbon keeps getting replaced—except for the lens in the eye and the enamel in the teeth. Molars are developed at around two years of age, and the enamel is then sealed. So, from the teeth, you can make an estimate. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but there’s a lab in Denmark that reckons they can get the estimate to within a few years.”
“Interesting. Will they do it?”
“I spoke to a Professor Dinnesen yesterday. He said they’d try.”
Kubu shrugged. “Well, it probably won’t help us with either the murder or the robbery, but it’ll be interesting to know if you were right about him being so old. Did you get anything back about the bullet?”
Ian nodded. “Well, it’s something like a forty-five caliber, but that doesn’t say a lot. A hunting bullet they think.”
“That doesn’t help much.”
“No, but I have another idea. I did some searching on the internet. I wonder if it could be a Mauser forty-three bullet.”
“A German one? Do they still make those? They go back…”
“More than a hundred years. Yes.”
“You still think he could be that old?”
Ian shrugged. “It’s just interesting. Those guns are still around today. But they use black-powder cartridges. I’ve asked the ballistics people if there’s any way to tell if it was that sort of cartridge from the old bullet. They’re looking into it.”
Kubu felt Ian was going a bit overboard with his theory, but at least it was taking his mind off the burglary.
“Well, I’ll get onto investigating the break-in. Maybe someone at the hospital noticed something. At least, they must have a night guard. And you’ll need to talk to them about better security.”
“I certainly will. Damn body snatchers!”
Kubu headed off to hospital reception. He was disgusted, but not surprised, by the lengths to which witch doctors would go to get what they wanted. But there was a niggle in the corner of his mind. Why leave the body of the girl? Surely a young female corpse—perhaps a virgin—was a more valuable prize than the wizened Bushman? Somehow, it didn’t quite add up.
CHAPTER 10
When Kubu returned to his office at the CID, he was still mulling over the events of the morning. He had little recollection of the drive back from the hospital; his mind had been elsewhere, and the driving had been on autopilot. When he arrived, he wasn’t surprised to receive a message that Director Mabaku wanted to see him. News of the break-in at the morgue would already have reached him.
The director waved him to a chair. “What the hell happened at the hospital? I thought the morgue was supposed to be secure.”
Kubu shrugged. “They cut the mounting for the padlock and forced the door. That would have made a noise, but no one seems to have heard anything. I spoke to the night guard. He remembers seeing a black van heading round the back of the hospital sometime after midnight. He thought it was going to the morgue to leave a body there, not remove one. He didn’t take much notice and didn’t get the license plate number. He’s about as useful as a blind man watching over goats.”
“Motive?”
“Ian thinks the witch doctors are behind it. After body parts for their potions.”
“And what do you think?”
Kubu hesitated. “It makes sense.”
Mabaku knew him too well. “But…?”
“But they only took the body of the Bushman. Why leave the others? One was a young girl.”
Mabaku frowned.
“However, there might be a link with Samantha’s case,” Kubu continued. “She’s following up on a witch doctor who was reported missing last Thursday. He calls himself Kgosi Ramala and claims to have the power to prolong life. If he heard about the very old Bushman, it would make sense for him to want the body to make life-extending muti. Makes sense from his perspective, that is.”
Mabaku nodded. That was the way muti was supposed to work, he thought. Take the genitals of a virile man to make a potion to improve sexual performance; take the breasts of a girl to help a woman conceive. It was disgusting, but many people believed in it, at least to some extent. And such things can be self-fulfilling: if you believe that your sexual prowess is enhanced, it may become so.
“So you think this Ramala disappeared to arrange or pull off this body snatch for muti for his clients?” he asked.
“That’s one possibility. Of course, the question is how he knew about Heiseb in the first place.” Kubu hesitated. “Ian told me that a visiting professor from the US was talking about something similar at the university.”
“I don’t think witch doctors spend a lot of time at the university.”
“Maybe not. But the story could’ve reached ears with different interests. Maybe someone else wanted to study the corpse, perhaps to try to find the secret of the Bushman’s extreme old age and what caused it. The thieves took everything connected with him—the organs that Ian had removed, the computer with all the records. Fortunately, Ian has the records backed up, and he still has three teeth.”
“Teeth?”
Kubu explained about the age assessment. If the Bushman was as old as Ian thought possible, that would be enough to make the body of real medical interest.
Kubu nodded. It was a reasonable approach, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ramala’s fingers were in this pie. Then he had an idea. “Let’s set a trap. Why don’t you put out the word that you’re looking for an anti-aging potion, Jacob?” he asked. “I’m too young. But you could do it. Not that you’re old, of course,” he added hastily.
Mabaku sat and thought for what seemed a long time, but at last he shook his head. “It’s not a bad idea, Kubu, but I’m not going to do it. I have a wife and children and grandchildren. Of course, I don’t believe in this magic nonsense, but I’m not going to take any chances with it.”
Kubu was stunned for a moment. Was Mabaku suggesting there might be something in the black magic of these abominable witch doctors? But then he realized Mabaku was thinking about belief. No one knew what people carry in their heads from childhood. Suppose Mabaku’s wife believed in the powers of witch doctors. What might happen to her? For that matter, I wouldn’t want a witch doctor putting a spell on my mother. If Amantle knew about it, anything could happen. At last he nodded, accepting that they needed to keep their distance. “You’re right, Director,” he said. “I’ll talk to some informants on the street and see what turns up.”
Mabaku nodded and glanced down at his paperwork, but Kubu remained seated. “There’s another possibility too, and not a nice one,” Kubu said. “Maybe there’s something about the body that points to the murderer. Something we’ve missed. Perhaps some subtle poison? But then, why break his neck? I’ve really no idea,” he added quickly, forestalling Mabaku’s objection. “Anyway, if that’s the case, we’re not going to find the body. The murderer will make sure of that.”
“But the autopsy has been done,” Mabaku said, “and the body’s been carefully screened by forensics. We would’ve released the body for burial soon anyway. Why wouldn’t the murderer just wait for it to be safely underground?”
Kubu thought about it. “Maybe the murderer doesn’t realize that. And maybe he’s worried that something will turn up to make us search deeper.”
Mabaku shrugged irritably. “Okay, follow up all these ideas, but witch doctors make the most sense to me.”
“Of course, the last possibility means I need to investigate Heiseb’s death. If there’s a secret, it lies there.”
“Yes, yes, do that. Just don’t stand on Ghanzi CID’s toes. Just concentrate on those damned witch doctors.”
The director turned his attention back to his paperwork, and this time Kubu took the hint. He intended to get to the bottom of Heiseb’s death, as well as the subsequent theft of his body. Although he had no evidence whatsoever, Kubu had a hunch that the two crimes were somehow connected.
* * *
AFTER LUNCH, KUBU called Ian to bring him up to date with developments, or rather the lack of them. Expecting the same reaction as he’d received from Mabaku, he mentioned the idea that it was the Bushman who was the target of the raid, rather than human corpses in general. After he’d finished, Ian was quiet for so long Kubu thought he’d lost the connection.
“I don’t know, Kubu,” Ian said at last. “It seems pretty far-fetched, but there was something very odd about that man. I got the report back on that bullet I found in him. They believe it did come from a black-powder cartridge. They stopped making those a hundred years ago.”
“Are you saying he was shot before World War I?”
“Well, we can’t really deduce that. There’s always an awful lot of surplus ammunition after any war. It was probably all over the place for decades, particularly in out-of-the-way places like South West Africa.”
Kubu thought about it for a few moments, but there didn’t seem to be any more to say, so he thanked Ian and was about to hang up when Ian said, “By the way, I remembered his name—that anthropologist from the US. It was Collins, Christopher Collins.” Kubu thanked him again and said good-bye.
The most likely scenario was still the witch doctors, and the most likely witch doctor was Ramala. He’d need to find out if there was any link between him and Heiseb. All he knew at the moment was that Heiseb had been seen with a white man near New Xade, and he wondered if Collins might have been that man. It seemed a good place to start.
He phoned the university and, after some effort, discovered that the right person to talk to was a Professor Thabo in the Department of Sociology. The department’s secretary informed him that the professor had already left for the day, so Kubu made an appointment to see him the next morning.
He scrabbled in his drawer and popped a cookie into his mouth. Play what if, he thought. Was there something about the body that might point to the murderer? Something Ian had missed? Kubu thought it unlikely. Ian had done a very thorough job, and Kubu had great respect for his work. Still, it was worth checking, and if someone wanted the body destroyed, there was an obvious way to do that. Kubu phoned the undertaker who dealt with cremations in Botswana, but drew a blank. There were no recent requests. Local people seldom chose that way of disposing of a body.
On the other hand, suppose someone wanted the Bushman’s body for analysis or dissection or whatever. What would they do with it? Put it in a chest freezer somewhere? But then what? They wouldn’t be able to work on it safely in Gaborone. There was too much chance of being discovered.
On impulse, he picked up the phone and called customs. Once he found the right person, a Rra Tole, he got a quick answer to his question.
“Yes, as a matter of fact there was a dead body repatriated this morning. All the paperwork was in order. Is there a problem, Assistant Superintendent?”
“Who was it? Who was the dead man, and where was the body taken?”
“A young woman, actually. A Chinese girl who died of malaria up north. The father went back home with her. Terrible. The girl was only thirteen. It was a charter to Johannesburg, and then they were changing to a scheduled flight to somewhere in China—Beijing first, then on to somewhere else.”
“Anyone else? Any papers filed for the next few days?”
“No, that’s all. It doesn’t happen often, you know. If you give me your number, I’ll call you if we get another request.”
Another blank. Well, it had been a very long shot. Kubu thanked the man and hung up just as his cell phone started playing the march from Aida. He saw it was Joy.
“Oh, Kubu, I heard from the doctor. Nono’s viral load is way up. I’m so worried about her.” She sounded close to tears.
“But the ARVs…”
“The doctor thinks her body’s rejecting them. As though she’s become allergic. I don’t really understand it. He thinks that’s what’s causing the nausea and listlessness. Anyway, I’m not sure I trust him anymore, so I’m taking her to a specialist on Friday.” There was a crash in the background, and a child started to cry. Kubu recognized one of the regular small crises of the day-care center where Joy worked.
“I have to go, Kubu. We can talk this evening.”
For the second time that morning, Kubu sat stunned. He’d always assumed that as long as Nono took her ARVs, everything would be fine and she would lead a normal life. He knew about potential physiological and psychological problems, and he knew that no one really understood what would happen to HIV-positive children as they grew to adulthood and beyond, defended only by ARVs. Both he and Joy knew these things, but both believed good nutrition, a disciplined regimen of ARVs, and lots of love would keep Nono healthy.
He took several deep breaths and, after a several minutes, he sat back, feeling calmer. This wasn’t about
some anonymous child. This was about Nono. Whatever it took, she was going to be okay. He and Joy would make absolutely certain of that. Whatever it took.
CHAPTER 11
Festus Moeng pulled his truck into the parking bay outside Gaborone’s 4x4 4U Car Rental, climbed out, and slammed the door, not bothering to lock it. He walked into the office and was pleased to discover that it was empty except for a bored-looking clerk, who glanced up at Festus and then returned his attention to his computer screen.
Festus walked over, spread his large hands on the counter, and announced, “I need some assistance here.”
The man looked up. Festus was pleased to see his expression become more respectful as his eyes scanned up Festus’s six-foot-six height with breadth to match. Still, the man held the home ground. “How can I help?” he asked casually.
“I need some information about a vehicle rented by a Dr. Christopher Collins.” He shoved a printout of an email across the counter. “Here’s the reservation confirmation. We need to know where the vehicle is now.”
The receptionist picked up the email and glanced at it. “And you are?”
“My name is Festus Moeng,” he replied. “I work with Dr. Collins. He usually communicates with us regularly by satellite phone, but we’ve been out of touch for several days. We’re concerned that something might be wrong. A breakdown or something. So we need to find his location and get someone out there to check on him.”
The clerk looked doubtful, but he turned back to his computer and rapidly entered information on his keyboard. Half a minute later he nodded. “Yes. Dr. Collins—Toyota Land Cruiser set up for camping. He picked up the vehicle on the eighth. He has it rented for four weeks. Here’s the reference number.” He wrote a string of letters and digits on a slip of paper. “That’s all I can do for you without a formal request.”