Dying to Live

by Michael Stanley

  Festus leaned across the desk, glaring down at the clerk. “This is a formal request! You have satellite tracking systems on these vehicles. Activate it and find out where that Land Cruiser is.”

  The clerk moved back in his chair, but didn’t give any ground. “I can only do that if we get an official report that the vehicle is stolen or a request from the police or—”

  “Just activate it and say it’s a test. A man’s life could be at stake here!” Festus allowed his voice to move from insistent to angry.

  “There’s a cost to doing that. I can’t—”

  Again Festus interrupted. “A cost? How much?”

  The man hesitated, then glanced down at his desk. “Hmm, two hundred pula, I think.”

  Festus took out his wallet, removed five one-hundred-pula notes, and spread them on the desk. “That should cover it,” he said. “Now get the information. Right away.”

  * * *

  A FEW MINUTES later Festus jumped into his truck and powered up the GPS. He punched in the coordinates from the tracking system and waited for a view of the area to come up. When it did, he saw that the indicated point wasn’t on a marked road, but that didn’t surprise him. There were lots of dirt tracks that didn’t make it onto GPS maps, even those for 4x4s. He zoomed out too quickly, and the image became a low-resolution map of Ghanzi province. After he’d slowly zoomed in again, he estimated that the vehicle’s location was in the desert, some twenty miles northeast of New Xade. He sighed. It could be a lot more than twenty miles if he had to pick a way through the scrub.

  I better stock up with food and water and fuel and get going, he thought. If I get three or four hours’ driving in tonight, I can get to New Xade tomorrow morning and start searching.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Detective Khama? Constable Malaka here. We’ve found the white VW Golf you’re looking for.” Malaka’s voice was excited.

  “Where are you?” Samantha asked.

  Malaka explained that they’d found the car in the parking lot at Game City, not far from the Wimpy. “We have to thank one of the security guards. He told us that he’d noticed a couple of kids hanging around a car, looking into it, then looking around. He told them to move on a couple of times, but they came back, so he called us. When we looked into the car, we saw why the kids kept coming back. There was a new, big-screen iPhone 6 lying on the passenger seat. It was just luck that we remembered the APB about the VW Golf.”

  “That’s excellent news. Thank you. Please secure the area. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” She hung up.

  This is not good, she thought. If Ramala’s in town, why would he leave the car at Game City? And if he’s left town, it’s the same question. And why leave an expensive phone lying in plain sight? I don’t have a good feeling about this.

  Then Samantha dialed forensics and asked for Zanele. When she answered, Samantha explained the situation and told her where the car was. “I don’t know if there’s anything of use there, but we need to check,” she said.

  “Of course. My team will leave right away,” Zanele said. “See you in a few minutes.”

  * * *

  SAMANTHA COULD HAVE walked to Game City from her office at Millennium Park, where the Criminal Investigation Department was housed. However, she decided to drive, in case there was something to bring back to the office. And, truth be told, she was always a little nervous of the troop of baboons that occasionally came down the hill, hoping to find open windows and available food. Several people in the complex had been terrorized by the impudent animals, particularly when fruit was left lying around.

  Samantha arrived before Zanele and spoke to the two policemen who had called in the vehicle.

  “Good job in remembering about the APB,” she said. “Did the security guard tell you when he first saw the car?”

  “We didn’t ask.”

  “Constable Malaka, please go and ask him. Also see if there’s CCTV footage of the parking area. If there is, please get all the tapes since last Thursday morning.”

  The constable nodded and headed toward the mall.

  “Did you try to open the doors?”

  The other policeman shook his head. “We didn’t touch a thing,” he said.

  “Excellent. Well done,” she said.

  Then she inspected the car. When she saw the iPhone, she cursed Orange’s tardiness in responding to her request to track it. Had they been on the ball, they might have found the car a day earlier.

  Again she had a bad feeling about the case.

  Then she walked slowly around the car. The license was up to date; all the windows were closed; there was some mud in the wheel wells—not unusual when half the roads in the city weren’t paved. And there were a few colorful advertisements and other papers on the backseat.

  Just then, Zanele arrived with her team.

  “Anything suspicious?” Zanele asked.

  “Hard to say. There’s a new iPhone 6 on the passenger seat. It’s strange that someone would leave it there. For the rest, I hope you can pull some prints off the car or find something else we can work with.”

  “Okay. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have something.”

  Samantha nodded, experiencing her normal frustration that nothing happened quickly in an investigation.

  “Thanks, Zanele. Speak to you later.”

  As she walked back to her car, Constable Malaka walked over to her.

  “The security guard says he only noticed the car this morning, when the kids started hanging around it, but he has no idea when it was parked here. The good news is that there are CCTV tapes on a seven-day rotation. The management is happy to get the last week’s to you. They’ll deliver them this afternoon. I told them where your office was.”

  “Thanks very much. Maybe we’ll learn something from them,” she said, and headed to her car.

  As she drove back to the CID, Samantha thought about what Mma Gondo had said: Where water plays, but plays no more. That certainly didn’t describe the Game City Mall parking lot!

  She grimaced. She hated to admit that she was actually paying attention to the old woman’s nonsense. Where water plays, but plays no more. She had no idea what it meant, if it meant anything at all.

  * * *

  IT WAS NEARLY five o’clock before Samantha was able to bring Kubu up to date on the Ramala case.

  “Have you had a chance to look at the surveillance tapes yet?” he asked when she’d finished the story.

  She nodded. “I worked backwards from when the security guards first noticed Ramala’s car. It arrived at ten thirty-one on Monday morning, using the entrance from the Kgale Hill road. One person got out and walked back towards the entrance. It’s very difficult to tell from the tape, but it looks as though the person got into a bakkie that was parked just outside the mall area.”

  “Can you see the person’s face from the tapes?”

  “No. He or she was wearing a hoodie and never looked towards the mall. And I couldn’t see the number plates either. The color of the bakkie was probably white or, at least, something light.”

  “What about cameras at any of the businesses near the entrance?”

  “I checked, and the only one there showed the person walking towards the entrance, but the face was covered. It didn’t show the car outside.”

  “Anything from any of the buildings across the road? Maybe from The Gazette’s offices?”

  Samantha shook her head. “There are some cameras on those buildings, but all look away from the mall into the Park’s parking areas.” She paused to see if Kubu had a comment. When he remained quiet, she continued. “I called Orange two days ago and asked them to put an urgent trace on Ramala’s phone and where it had been since Thursday afternoon. They said it would take a few days to get the results. Perhaps you could add some pressure—they don’t know me. Or perhaps the director could call them.”

  Kubu nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.” He paused, then continued. “I’m sure you’ve heard about
the old Bushman who was found last week, and that he was murdered.”

  Samantha nodded.

  “And that Ian was puzzled by how old he seemed, yet had a young man’s organs, as well as having a bullet embedded in a muscle with no obvious entrance scar.”

  “Yes, that’s really weird.”

  “Well, last night his body was stolen from the morgue. No others were taken, just his. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the body of a Bushman who appears to have been extraordinarily old and a witch doctor who promised people near immortality have both disappeared at about the same time. There has to be a link, but I’ve no idea what it is at the moment. Let me know when you find Ramala, alive or dead.”

  “You think he’s dead?”

  “I’ve no idea. But this whole thing is just so strange that anything is possible.”

  Samantha thanked Kubu and returned to her office to catch up on paperwork.

  She was about to leave for the day when the phone rang.

  “Samantha, it’s Zanele.”

  “That was quick,” she exclaimed.

  “Don’t get too excited. I haven’t got much for you. But there is one piece of important information I thought you should know immediately. The phone didn’t belong to Ramala.”

  “Didn’t belong to Ramala? Who did it belong to?”

  “That’s the bad news. We don’t know—the SIM was unregistered. The phone has a couple of clear prints, but we’ll have to check if there’s a match in the database. They’re not Ramala’s.”

  “What about calls made or received?”

  “Half a dozen calls to another unregistered number and three to Ramala, including one at two on Thursday afternoon. Of course, I’ve asked Orange to trace where it had been since Thursday. Maybe we’ll learn something from that.”

  “I did the same for Ramala’s number, but they said it would take several days.”

  “What’s Ramala’s number?”

  Samantha opened her notebook and read the number to Zanele.

  “We’ll have the results tomorrow,” Zanele said.

  “How…”

  “I know a guy in their technical department. He’s single.”

  “Zanele!” Samantha exclaimed.

  “We’re just friends,” Zanele responded. “And he sometimes needs a date at company functions.”

  “I don’t want to know any more! Anyway, thanks. Please let me know as soon as you’ve anything else.”

  After she’d hung up, Samantha groaned. What bad luck that the phone wasn’t Ramala’s, she thought. But after a few moments, she realized that perhaps she’d just received some good luck. If she could track the movements of the mystery phone, perhaps it would lead to whomever Ramala was planning to meet.

  Encouraged, she tidied her desk and went home.

  CHAPTER 13

  Kubu knew the University of Botswana well. He’d spent three years studying criminology there on a scholarship from the Botswana Police Service and had been back often. He liked the yellow fever trees, the views of Gaborone from the upper stories of the buildings, and the general bustle of the students.

  Tumi and Nono will be here one day, he thought.

  He smiled. His little girls were only four! But time moved quickly.

  Professor Thabo’s office was in the social sciences complex.

  On the top floor, of course!

  Kubu didn’t exactly rush the stairs, but took them one by one. Still, he was out of breath when he reached the third floor.

  The professor wore an open-necked shirt with a jacket and sported a carefully trimmed beard. He seemed more puzzled than disturbed by a visit from a CID detective. They shook hands, and he invited Kubu to sit.

  “So how can I help you, Assistant Superintendent? The secretary mentioned something about Dr. Collins. I haven’t seen him for some time. What’s this all about?”

  Kubu wished he knew the answer to that. “There’s been an incident with a Bushman near New Xade,” he replied. “We think Dr. Collins may know him or know of him.”

  The professor rubbed his beard. “Well, he’s been on a number of research trips to that area. He came through and introduced himself earlier this year. I invited him to give a seminar, but I rather regretted it. He was very keen to push his theory, and spent rather more time than I wanted discussing it with me. I wasn’t really convinced.”

  “What was this theory?”

  “He believes the Bushmen—or at least the group he was studying—have a sort of oral memory, a method of passing on their history to the next generation through stories. That happens with peoples who don’t have a written language, you know. He believes that some individuals are selected to almost live the history themselves, that they would see themselves not as narrators but participants in the actual events. Possibly these visions of the past, as he called them, are facilitated by hypnotic dancing or hallucinogenic plants. I was particularly interested in that aspect because some of my own work is around the societal significance of medicinal and recreational local plants. Anyway, he thought he’d met a Bushman who did exactly that, so he was very excited, of course.”

  Kubu nodded; this was pretty much what Ian had told him. “What was the name of this Bushman?”

  Thabo shook his head. “He didn’t tell me, and he refused to answer that question at the talk. He said it was a matter of making sure no one stole his work, and also a matter of protecting his subject’s privacy. The feeling I picked up from people after the seminar was that they thought he was much more concerned about the former than the latter. Without any corroboration, people were pretty suspicious of the whole hypothesis.”

  He frowned, and Kubu deduced that Thabo had been annoyed about not being taken into Collins’s confidence.

  “Collins did give me a transcript of one of the stories the man told him,” Thabo continued. “I could let you have a copy.”

  Kubu accepted, grateful for anything that could provide some insight into Heiseb, assuming that, indeed, Heiseb was Collins’s subject. The professor scratched around in a filing cabinet and handed Kubu a stapled bunch of A4 pages. Kubu glanced at the front page and was disappointed that it was titled “Story of a Raid in South West Africa as Told to C. Collins by Subject X.” The date was blank.

  No name for X. No date. No location. He read the first paragraph.

  It was Wind who told us they were coming. Wind brought us the sound of the horses’ hooves and the smell of the men. Smells not part of our world, smells of unnatural things. We spread out quickly to hide. These men didn’t see, but their horses might smell. I had my bow and the arrows that bring death, but they had guns. So we spread out and hid …

  Kubu sucked in his breath. Even if this was just a story, he felt its power. He was drawn to the past, drawn again to the Bushmen, angry at their appalling treatment then and now. Thabo nodded. He saw Kubu’s reaction but didn’t comment.

  “Do you know where Dr. Collins is now?” Kubu asked.

  Thabo shook his head. “He visited me a few times, discussing his theory, showing me stories like that one. One was about what happened to the Bushmen in the war—the war between Germany and South Africa in South West Africa. He went up to Windhoek to see what they had in common with the white settler records.” He paused. “The last time I saw him was about a month ago. He told me he was returning to the US to write up his research.” He hesitated again, but seemed to have more to say. Kubu knew the way to handle that was to let the silence stretch.

  After a few moments, the professor continued. “It was quite strange. He seemed to have changed. He wasn’t pushing his theory the way he had before. And he prevaricated when I asked him when he would be back. I had the feeling that he wasn’t as concerned about the oral history theory anymore. Something else was interesting him.”

  “Did he give you any hint what that might have been?”

  Thabo thought for several seconds. “Not really. But there was one thing he said that struck me as strange. I told you he’d bee
n trying to verify the facts of the stories he’d been told?” Kubu nodded. “Well, he said that all the facts in X’s story agreed with records he’d found—at least if you made an allowance for the perspective to be changed to that of the Bushmen. I congratulated him and said that supported his theory. He looked at me for a moment and said, ‘Perhaps not,’ but didn’t elaborate. That wasn’t like him at all.”

  Kubu was intrigued, but his immediate need was to find this man, Collins. “What university is he with in the US?”

  “University of Minnesota—the main campus in Minneapolis. They should know how to get in touch with him.”

  Kubu thanked the professor and rose to leave, but Thabo stopped him.

  “Do you know the name of this Bushman who was killed?”

  “I didn’t say anyone had been killed.”

  Thabo hesitated. “Perhaps you didn’t. I just guessed that if the CID was involved, it would have to be pretty serious.”

  Kubu accepted that for the time being. “We believe his name was Heiseb. Does that ring any bells?”

  The professor quickly shook his head, but not before Kubu had detected a flash of recognition. He allowed a few moments for Thabo to reconsider his response, and then wished him good day. Since the professor showed no sign of leaving his desk, Kubu let himself out.

  Thabo sat deep in thought for several minutes. At last he came to a decision and reached for the phone. Quickly he punched in the number he wanted and then waited impatiently for a reply. The answering voice, which Thabo recognized at once, asked who was calling and what his business was.

  “Good morning, rra. This is Professor Thabo here,” he said. “I have some news for you. I think it may be quite important.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Festus Moeng stayed overnight in Kang, about halfway to New Xade. He had a short night’s sleep and a light breakfast, then made an early start. It took another two and a half hours along the main road to Ghanzi before he reached the turnoff to New Xade. Then the road became worse than he’d expected, and when he neared Collins’s reported position, it took a long time to find a track to get there. The last mile was through the bush, some of it dense, forcing him to make some long detours. Finally, when he reached the location the rental car man had given him, there was nothing. He was in the middle of nowhere, with no car in sight and no wheel tracks. He cursed. He knew coordinates could be off by as much as a hundred yards, which meant he had several acres to search. To make matters worse, he was surrounded by man-high shrubs.