The Red Die

by Alex MacBeth

  “Then why was Frangopelo’s convoy shot at outside Maputo?”

  “Maybe Frangopelo has disappointed somebody and they have sent him a warning.”

  Felisberto thought that his assistant’s deductions were particularly sharp that morning.

  “Who could the minister have disappointed?”

  “Well, chefe, any number of domestic or multinational oil and gas companies, any of their thousands of lobbyists or any of those lining-up to take a handout when the fruits become ripe,” said Samora.

  “You should direct movies,” Felisberto told his deputy. “But let me remind you that this is police work and that presumptions are a bastardisation of straightforward facts. That Stokes knew more than was safe for him to know is a fair assumption at this point. And I suppose we have to assume that the comando was targeted in relation to Stokes and Frangopelo. Which means we need to be double as careful in everything that we do. Nothing about Stokes’ case can be written down or filed.”

  “But boss, Nampula will—”

  “Nampula can’t know about anything we do on this case. Anything we leak will get back to Maputo and whoever we are after will be gone in no time. We are a step behind,” said Felisberto, looking out to sea with a Monomotapic gaze. “Whoever is behind this, knows we are beginning to join the dots. We need new mobiles, a codename.”

  “We’ll think of one, Comandante,” Samora assured him.

  “Everything stays between you and me, you understand?”

  Samora was afraid of the implications of what his boss was saying. He had only recently graduated and was still near the beginning of his career. Such a blatant disregard for internal regulations and procedures could see Samora condemned to a life of employment exile, maybe even prison. The young officer, named after Mozambique’s first president, Samora Machel, knew what he had to do.

  “I understand, Comandante,” said Samora. “But people will see resources and time going into a case and we’ll need to say something.”

  “We say we are working on the case of the farmer who was killed during the robbery in Matibani last week.” An old man in Matibani, deep in the wilderness, had been killed during a night robbery a few days before. The offender had torn his shirt on the fence getting away with a few plastic containers, tools and tins.

  The arrival of the bloodstained shirt to the comando had coincided with the arrival of two officers from SAPS, the South African police, as part of an international programme to develop the capacity of the Mozambican force. Felisberto couldn’t help but find the whole thing patronising but his superiors had forced him to take part.

  The programme entailed dozens of enormous South African police officers messing up everything in comandos from Nacala to Namina, across Nampula Province. Two had trickled down to Mossuril with ‘dynamic capacity building seminars and workshops’ and Samora had managed to keep them out of the comando most of the time.

  Samora’s phone rang. “The South Africans are leaving in an hour,” he told the Comandante.

  “Good,” replied Felisberto.

  “They’re at Branco’s,” continued Samora. “You should have a drink with them. They’ll be seeing General Carlos tomorrow.”

  Felisberto felt outraged that his deputy was blackmailing, worse, threatening him to drink with two South Africans. He grabbed his coat and left in a huff.

  As he shuffled in his pocket to find the keys to his car he heard a foreign voice calling him from behind. “Cooomaaarndaanti,” cried Piet Jan, the senior officer, a large man with purplish, rough skin. Felisberto was cornered.

  As they later drank cold beer in one of Mossuril’s three bars, the Comandante took the chance to bemoan the negligence towards DNA testing in his force. Piet Jan, the senior of the visiting South Africans, retorted that even in South Africa the use of DNA tests was restricted.

  Felisberto didn’t particularly like these two South Africans. The truth was he had never been able to like white South Africans since the war. Right now he sensed an opportunity though. “I need DNA test,” said Felisberto in his broken English. He took a swig of his beer and reverted to Portuguese:

  “Some fucker stole some shitty buckets and a couple of worthless trinkets and left an old man dead for them. The village is awash with gossip. Five, ten, maybe twenty neighbours have fingered the perpetrator. No one will testify out of fear of what the same psychopath will do to them. He could slay his next victim for a pair of shoes or a sack of rice,” said Felisberto, swigging on his 2M.

  “I have his hair and saliva samples and a bloodstained shirt,” he continued. “With DNA, I have him. Without it, I have nothing and he gets away with it.”

  “You need DNA test?” said Piet Jan in broken Portuguese. The Comandante nodded. Piet Jan and his beefy partner took a moment to confer in Afrikaans. Andre, Piet Jan’s partner, didn’t speak a word of Portuguese and had been largely absent from the conversation up until this point. He nodded nonchalantly and swigged on his beer when Piet Jan explained Felisberto’s request. “Just this once,” said Piet Jan finally. So the samples left for Pretoria the next day with the beefy South African police chief.

  The Comandante could have had the samples sent to Maputo, via HQ in Nampula, but the process was notoriously slow. Felisberto bought the South Africans another round of 2M beers. He felt he had not only helped solve a murder case, he had overcome the first slice of another of his prejudices.

  The next day in his office, Felisberto turned on the fan and paced the wide empty space between his desk and the door. He realised that Mossuril now had seen more murders in a single week – three – than in the entire three years before. The South African had taken the DNA sample, which would hopefully solve one. Then there was the cholera killer.

  “Samora, I want you to take João, Amisse and Albertina and follow Officer Raquel’s orders when she calls,” Felisberto instructed, packing his keys, his cigarettes and a spare lighter.

  “Wait!” called out Samora. “I called the six casinos I could find nationwide and sent all the managers a photo of Stokes. Four have already confirmed from CCTV footage that Stokes was not there in the last three months. Two will get back to me later today.”

  “Ok,” said Felisberto, getting into his car.

  “Wait, there is more,” said Samora. “Li Le Tian was seen at the Polana Casino in Maputo last week.”

  “So the Chinese engineer likes to gamble.”

  “I also spoke to Nampula about the potential organ lead,” continued Samora eagerly. “Somebody in General Carlos’ office said there was a case of 43 children found in containers at Beira port. But it was nine months ago, Comandante. Get this though: the anti-drugs squad said they have been monitoring a Chinese company at Nacala Port. Carlos’ office says whoever it is has been bringing in containers every night. The officer says the company has protection from high-up so they can’t seize any of the containers.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Could be anything according to General Carlos. Some of it is big machinery. The containers disappear without trace. Could be liquor, cars, diamonds,” added Samora. “Could definitely be diamonds,” he repeated.

  “Where are you off to anyway, chefe?” he asked, but before he’d had time to lift his head from his phone, Felisberto was gone.

  Lieutenant Samora Marcos gazed at the space where his boss had been with dismay. Samora didn’t like surprises. For all that he admired in his boss, the Comandante’s habit of disappearing was infuriating. Such distractions only encouraged Samora to indulge in private pleasures. Like his beautiful Mora, whose spell he now lived under.

  Samora grew up in the city of Nampula. As soon as he could touch things, he became interested in telephones: where to buy them, where to sell them, how to tear them apart and how to mend them. The passion led him to hire a small warehouse to recycle electrical goods in his teens. He had made good money but the endeavour had also served to show that not every electrical device could be passed on. He had learned this lesson when a b
rothel that had been closed by the government had sent him a box of worn-out vibrators. A fire at the warehouse however soon prematurely ended his career as an entrepreneur. Six months later he had reluctantly enrolled at the Police Academy in Nampula.

  He had never wanted to be a policeman; he had grown up hating the police. Had it not been for the concerted efforts of his Uncle Sansao, a retired officer, he may never have enrolled at all. When he announced to his friends on his 21st birthday that he had enrolled at the academy, at least two spat out their drink. It was as if he had betrayed a pact he had taken with his neighbourhood friends to always fight the system. Samora had hated those months. The way his friends had insulted him had shown him that he would have to rebuild everything from scratch if he continued with his police training.

  After a year Samora surprised himself by realising he was actually very good at police work and was inadvertently sitting top of his class at the academy. The more he tried to be mediocre, the more the senior training officers were impressed. “The cadet displays outstanding analytical qualities and isn’t too shabby a shooter either,” said one internal report. Dumped by his girlfriend, abandoned by his friends and perhaps flattered by his newfound status, Samora graduated top of his class and was posted to Mossuril.

  Now the Comandante had disappeared again, Samora didn’t know if he dare risk a visit to Nampula. Would she see him today? Could she get off work? Was she off with one of his rivals? Would the Comandante get back before him and have a fit if he, Samora, was AWOL? Maybe his boss had only gone home, or just gone to Naguema or Ilha, and would breeze back in demanding to know where he was. Samora agonised and settled for fulfilling his boss’ instructions as well as spending a couple of hours sweet-talking Mora.

  He sent João, Amisse, and Albertina to spruce up the old comando, while Samora locked himself inside with Mora and his phone. Amisse, sensing an opportunity for a quick getaway, wondered quietly out of the back and walked towards his home. In the garden, Albertina watched João dig when he wasn’t looking. She fantasised how it would be if they married. Just the previous week João had proposed to her again. He often sent her gifts: bananas, cakes and crabs. Once he’d sent flowers for her on Women’s Day. She hadn’t told him yet, but she was going to accept him.

  Chapter Eight

  Felisberto covered the 180 kilometres to Nampula in less than three hours, an impressive achievement given the dire state of the roads. He drove past Namitatar, where the health worker had been killed, and pulled up beside a cluster of hamlets. A group of women with jerry cans were gossiping about something or other. All turned and stared at Felisberto, who lit a cigarette and stared back. A few young men gathered around his police Jeep before the Comandante drove on to Monapo, past the railway station and the oil factory in Namialo and onto Nampula.

  He found Naiss in his office lambasting some fresh-faced cadet about the need to file documents accurately. Naiss’ head was shaven, just as it always had been.

  “Need a hand there, Officer Naiss?”

  “Who called me that?” said Naiss, turning in fury, before swinging an arm round his friend excitedly.

  “What brings you to the big city, Matola?” Naiss blushed as he ushered the cadet he had been cajoling towards the exit. When he was sure they were alone, he closed the door to his office and pulled a bottle of Scotch from a compartment low down in his desk. “I’ve been waiting for a man worthy of baptising this baby,” said Naiss. He poured two glasses of the 25-year-old prized double malt.

  “Cheers.”

  Both men drank and looked out of the window at the sharp contrasts below. The smell of stale rubbish wafted through the air. Each road crossing hosted hawkers of everything from razor blades to abandoned puppies and rocks of crack. Then there were the immaculately dressed bankers, secretaries, taxi-drivers, interpreters, bakers, witchdoctors, sales people and priests – all going about their business between the city’s volcanic hills. The heat bathed everything in a yellow light, which enhanced the raw beauty of the ugly city.

  “I need your help,” said Felisberto.

  “Don’t be polite, Matola. We’ve been through too much for that. Spit it out.”

  “Someone tried to blow up the comando.”

  “Someone what? I thought it was a gas leak,” said Naiss, dribbling some of his premium scotch.

  “Maybe it was,” said Felisberto. “Just over a week ago a body washed up dead in Quissanga Bay.”

  “Stokes?”

  “Right. When I went to Pemba—”

  “When you went where?” Naiss asked, chuckling to himself at his colleague’s brazen narrative.

  “When I went to Pemba to track a lead we found on Stokes, I felt like I’d been followed. I think what I found in Pemba could be linked to the explosion at the comando.”

  “What did you find?” Naiss asked, now delicately sipping his scotch, enthralled in his old friend’s adventures. If only Immigration was this much fun, he thought.

  “I found a link between two Chinese citizens resident in Mozambique and Stokes,” said Felisberto.

  “Well, it’s hardly a crime to be friends with the Chinese, is it? Everyone else in Africa is busy going Sino. Stokes was probably just making some money on the side. I used to see him here in Nampula at the Atlantic Cafe drinking coffee in the mornings.”

  “Where did he live?”

  “There,” said Naiss, pulling aside the window curtain and pointing to a tall but well-kept block of communist-cream flats across the road. “Don’t get any ideas though,” chuckled Naiss.

  “What can you tell me about these two Chinese individuals, Li Le Tian and Jao ze Zhao,” Felisberto asked, pulling out a photo of the two Chinese engineers and handing it to his friend.

  “Zzzzz,” said Naiss, waving his hands and lifting his legs to imitate a giant mosquito. The sight of his friend, Comandante Nequeias Naissone – head of the Provincial Department of Immigration in Nampula – imitating an insect made Felisberto laugh. He pretended to recoil in fear.

  “That’s what we called them both,” continued Naiss. “Zhao has been investing in anything he can get his hands on in Mozambique for years. If it’s not bananas, it’s coal. Then it was hotels. Then crabs. One year it was cars, the next year it was cashews. The guy keeps eating. The other guy does all Zhao’s dirty work. He’s a nasty piece of work, Li. Former Red Army colonel. Our colleagues in China say his criminal record is long enough to carpet the Great Wall of China. Special Squad here and in Maputo have him pinned for several murders, but nobody has the balls to move on him. Interpol have been trying to extradite him for years. A word of advice, Matola: whatever it is you are involved in with these people, let it go. It’s not worth it. “

  “You make it sound as if this were Maputo all over again,” said Felisberto, dragging his friend towards uncomfortable memories. Naiss stood up and poured himself another scotch. He drank half straight and topped up again. “I don’t like to think about what happened back then,” began Naiss, his trembling voice somehow not fitting with the stocky frame. “Maputo was so long ago that sometimes I feel like it was just a bad dream and it never happened.”

  “But it did.”

  Naiss shuffled in his chair again.

  “What happened in Maputo was unfor… no, it was a punishment from a different time,” said Naiss, lifting himself with his rhetoric. “What Palma tried to make us do, it broke us both. It interrupted our loyalty to a cause and a country we both love. We were led astray, Matola, by those who were meant to guide us. Don’t you ask yourself what we could have become if Palma hadn’t collapsed in our car that day? What happened to us was the reward for fifteen years spent in the homes of snakes, mosquitoes and landmines. We fought the enemy, we built a nation for others to undermine. The coke, the lies. Palma broke me, Matola,” Naiss reflected. “Now he’s pretending he’s a philanthropist with the Palma Foundation while I served eighteen months.”

  Felisberto looked down at the ground. He had always felt guil
ty that his partner had served jail time while he had received a temporary honourable discharge, which had only amounted to eighteen months unpaid time. While Naiss had suffered the humiliation of serving time at Beira Prison, Felisberto had used the time off to get his FIFA coaching badges and train his local childhood soccer team, Ferroviário de Beira. As player-manager, Felisberto guided the team to a respectable 8th place finish in Mozambique’s LIGA2M premier division in 1999. His darting runs down the wing had earned him the nickname ‘Matola’.

  A Junior Officer with some papers interrupted them.

  “Forgive the intrusion, Senhor Director, but the Brazilian Embassy just sent a fax regarding these residency applications for the airport engineers in Nacala. They require your signature, Senhor Director.” Naiss waved his subordinate out and continued to sip his drink. Felisberto surveyed his old friend’s office. The wall behind his enormous rosewood desk was lined with Naiss’ well-thumbed books and his chair was so grand it was practically a throne. Felisberto felt glad that his friend had found a place to work where he was so obviously respected.

  “The important thing is that we both moved on,” Felisberto said.

  “Although some of us managed to keep a lower profile than others,” retorted Naiss, scrunching one eye into a tense, tight ball to show his concern to his former colleague. “Your office gets blown up and you waltz in here as if you’ve been handling the same old cases of coconut thieves and speeding trucks. What shit have you gotten yourself into, brada?” Naiss persisted.

  “It’s nothing,” said Felisberto. Naiss looked at him questioningly.

  “Okay, okay. Some young boys, sons of former rebels… well, I arrested one of their leaders and some of the gang didn’t like it. Last month we got a new gas cooker. Rumour spreads fast where we are and someone must have thought they could play Rambo with their friends and blow up the comando. So they did,” said Felisberto, shrugging his shoulders.