Death of the Mantis

by Michael Stanley

  “Did he tell you that he found a body?”

  Ilse gasped. “A body? Whose body?”

  “It was the body of someone who was following him.”

  “Oh no! And you think he killed him?”

  “We didn’t say that, Ms. Burger,” Helu replied. “We just want to ask him some questions. You’re sure you don’t know where he is? He’s not answering our calls.”

  “You’ll have to wait until he comes back. I’ll tell him to call you as soon as he can.”

  “Did he tell you he’d been fired from his last job?” Kubu asked.

  “He wasn’t fired. He left because his boss wouldn’t listen to him. Wolfie said that he could have made both of them rich, and the company. But they just laughed at him. He didn’t like that.”

  “Do you think he took the map from the company?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t even want me to see it. But it didn’t look like the sort of map a company would have. It was in pencil on a piece of paper.” She looked up at Kubu. “You’re after the wrong man, Mr. Policeman. Wolfie would never kill anyone—even for diamonds or gold.”

  For a woman in a precarious position, Kubu thought, she’s got a lot of grit.

  Helu and Kubu asked a few more questions, but learned nothing more.

  “Thank you for your help, Ms. Burger. If you think of anything else or if Mr. Haake contacts you, please call Detective Sergeant Helu immediately.”

  “What do you think?” Helu asked Kubu as they drove back to the police station.

  “I’d like to get hold of that map. It might give us more information about where he’s been in Botswana. Maybe Muller could check whether it’s got anything to do with the data Haake stole. That would be a strong motivation.”

  “And the woman?”

  “I’m sure she knows nothing important. She’s a convenience for Haake. But if he’s close to a big find in Botswana, he may not want anyone else to know about it. That could be a strong motive to get rid of someone who got too close.”

  “Or gets too close! We’d better find him quickly.”

  At about 6:30 p.m., Helu received a call from the Mamuno border post. Haake had driven through into Botswana at about 2:00 p.m. on the previous day.

  “Perhaps he’s back looking for the diamonds or whatever,” Helu said to Kubu. “And he’s not trying to hide his trail.”

  Kubu wondered about that. Obsessive people lose track of reality, he thought. Perhaps Haake is so focused on his discovery that he doesn’t realize we’ll find the connection with Namib Mining and come after him.

  He turned to Helu. “This has changed from enquiry to manhunt. I’m going back to Gaborone tomorrow.” He grabbed the phone and reached Lerako in Tsabong. He was to alert all police stations to be on the lookout for Haake and to treat him as dangerous. Lerako could use the photo from Haake’s passport to make Wanted signs, which should be distributed throughout the southern Kalahari and to the border posts. It was very important to question Haake as soon as possible.

  And, thought Kubu, it was important not to have any more bodies piling up.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Lerako had tried everything he could think of, but he had nothing to show for it. He looked down his checklist. He’d contacted the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and asked them to look out for Bushmen they didn’t know. He had contacted the resettlement villages outside the park and asked the officials there to show the villagers pictures of the three Bushman suspects. No one had recognized them. No one had been any help. But they wouldn’t be, would they? he thought bitterly. They’ll all stick together. He had alerted all the police stations. He had asked the charter pilots who regularly flew over the desert taking tourists to their comfortable camps to be on the lookout. Nothing.

  The last item on the list was heavily underlined: Helicopter search? Mabaku had vetoed that until Lerako at least had direct evidence to link the Bushmen to one of the killings. So what else could he do? Explore on horseback? Or ride one of the camels that had served the Kalahari police so well in the old days? He thumped his fist on the desk in frustration.

  But he had to admit to himself that part of his frustration was generated by Kubu’s success in Namibia. While Kubu hadn’t been able to corner Haake, he had discovered enough about Haake’s motivation and movements—and his connection with Krige—to make the man a serious suspect. And there was something suspicious about Monzo’s activities. Lerako rummaged on his desk and found Monzo’s bank-account details. There was a variety of cash deposits scattered between his salary payments with no obvious pattern. They weren’t large, but they were significant. And, of course, neither Vusi nor Marta knew anything about them. Lerako drummed his fingers on the desk.

  Could Kubu be right? The assistant superintendent might be fat and sedentary, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d allowed himself to be led by the nose by his activist Bushman friend from Lobatse and had fallen for the fake footprints, but his analysis of the cases made sense.

  Coming to a decision, Lerako picked up the phone and called Tau in Tshane. Tau had found a crucial link between Haake and Krige. Maybe he could use his local contacts to come up with something else useful.

  “Tau. It’s Lerako. I want you to see if you can find out anything about what Monzo did on those bush trips. There is extra money in his account. Paid in cash. Just as the assistant superintendent thought. Ask around. See if anyone knows anything.” Tau asked what he should do, but Lerako wanted him to use his initiative. “Do what you did last time. Think about who might know something and go and chat to them.” He paused. “Just be careful. If Kubu is right, and Monzo was up to no good, this could be dangerous. And we don’t want to scare anyone off.” Lerako didn’t really believe that was likely. He listened to Tau’s enthusiastic suggestions for a moment, but then interrupted. “Yes, good, do that.” He paused. “Nothing on the Bushman suspects, I suppose?” But there, Tau couldn’t help.

  Tau started at the scene of his first success, the Endabeni Guest House in Hukuntsi. Once more the manager was affable. He carefully examined the photographs of Monzo that Tau offered him.

  “Yes, he used to come in sometimes and spend the night. Usually had a few people with him. Not hunters, but people who wanted to visit the desert.” He shrugged. “Fine by me. Good money.”

  Tau could hardly believe his luck. “What was Monzo’s connection with these people, Rra?”

  “He was showing them around.”

  “What for?”

  “Sometimes the tourists went with him on his field trips. Sometimes he took them someplace else they wanted to go. I don’t want to say bad things about the dead, but everyone likes a little extra money, don’t they? I suppose the government could spare him for a week or so.”

  “But how do you know all this, Rra?”

  The man shrugged. “It wasn’t a secret. I’d hear them talking in here, or planning what food to buy for the trip.”

  Tau made careful notes, partly to make sure he didn’t miss anything and partly to give himself time to think of more questions. But he already had the answer he wanted. He knew what it was that Monzo did with his extra time in the bush, and where those mysterious cash deposits came from.

  Before he heard from Tau, Lerako had a visitor. He had met the man before—Tsabong was not a big place—but didn’t much like him.

  Craig de Wet was in charge of the mining prospect to the west of the town. Its owner trumpeted it as the world’s largest kimberlite field, covering the remarkably large area of five thousand square miles. Lerako would have been more impressed if the prospect had generated a working mine and jobs, rather than simply PR. But De Wet was a straight talker, even if he talked too much. Lerako greeted him and offered him a seat.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. de Wet?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s really the other way around.” De Wet shoved a flyer across the desk. “My security people picked this up.”

  Lerako recognized it at once. It was the Wanted pos
ter for Haake.

  “Wolfgang Haake. You know the man?”

  De Wet nodded. “Bloody nuisance. He was snooping around our mine. Taking samples on our lease! Can you beat that? And when we caught him, he had the cheek to tell us we were wasting our time, that this wasn’t an important kimberlite! I was tempted to call your people and have him arrested for trespassing and prospecting without a license, but in the end I got a couple of our larger guys to throw him out.” He paused. “They may have been a bit rough with him,” he finished with satisfaction. “He took a punch at one of them. Couldn’t expect them not to defend themselves, could you?”

  Lerako sat back and digested this news.

  “When did all this happen?”

  De Wet thought about it. “About six or seven weeks ago.”

  So it wasn’t part of the trip to Tshane. In that case, what had Haake been up to on the mine property?

  “Do you know any more about what he was doing out here?”

  De Wet shrugged. “We didn’t exactly have a social chat. I think he was staying out at Berrybush. You could ask Jill.”

  Lerako nodded. “I think I’ll do that,” he said.

  De Wet got up to go. “Remember, Detective, you owe me a beer.”

  Lerako headed northeast out of town. He could’ve just phoned Jill Thomas, owner of Berrybush Farm, but he liked her, and she would give him coffee. And his time was not in heavy demand right at the moment.

  While he drove, he thought about the phone call from Tau. So Monzo had been moonlighting, showing tourists the desert instead of concentrating on his national park work. He might be fired, but it was hardly likely to get him killed. Unless, of course, he was guiding people who were not tourists at all, but criminals. Was it possible that he’d found out too much? Become a liability to someone dangerous?

  He reached the clearly signed turnoff to Berrybush Farm. It was simply a dirt track heading into the arid landscape. Berrybush Farm attracted its share of tourists and business people, who preferred the guest farm setting and personal attention to the hotels in the town. Many of the guests became Jill’s friends. Many had liked and respected her husband, who had been very well known in the area.

  When he came to the border of her property, he had to stop. A herd of camels was crossing the track. Jill supplied them with the little water they needed, and let them wander through her piece of the desert. They were the remnant of the herds that had once been the police transport of the Kalahari.

  When the herd had crossed, he drove past Jill’s modest house with its one luxury—a small swimming pool shared with guests—and pulled up outside the main buildings. He got out of the car and wandered into the wide lounge that opened onto a covered veranda overlooking the desert scattered with the wild raisin shrubs that gave the farm its name. He found Jill watching a program on an elderly television set whose life support was an inverter attached to two car batteries.

  Jill rose to greet him. “Detective Sergeant Lerako! What brings you to Berrybush? Want your camels back?” It was a standard joke between them.

  Lerako laughed. “Not yet! You can keep them a while longer, Mma Jill. I just wanted to chat.”

  She nodded, knowing there was more to it than that. She settled him in a comfortable chair and went to make coffee. He watched her. She was past middle age, slim, and comfortable with herself. When he’d first met her, he thought it odd to find a single white woman living alone in the Kalahari. But as he got to know her, his opinion changed. She was of the desert, loved it, knew its peoples and its plants. It was impossible to imagine her anywhere else.

  She brought the coffee and for a while they chatted. She told him she was pleased with the water reticulation from the town, which had recently replaced her well’s supply. And the springbok herd was doing well; it had been a good lambing season. At last when the coffee was drained, she asked, “So who are you looking for this time, Detective? More smugglers or rustlers?”

  Lerako shook his head. “I wanted to ask you about a Namibian. Evidently he was a guest here. A man called Haake. Wolfgang Haake.”

  She nodded. “Yes, he stayed here for two weeks. About two months ago, I think.”

  “What was he doing? Did he tell you?”

  She met his eyes and held them. “He was quite secretive in a way, but he was very interested in the history of the area. Asked me all sorts of questions. He went out to the diamond mine. I told him he wouldn’t be welcome out there, but he went anyway. Came back with a black eye and several bruises, and his wrist was swollen. I thought it might be broken, but it was just a sprain. I made him a sling, and he was all right after a few days. He had a temper, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started it. He wouldn’t hear of reporting it to the police. Or seeing a doctor. He insisted he would be fine.”

  “So he didn’t tell you what he was doing here?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “He didn’t tell me, but I knew. When he’d been here for a while, he showed me a hand-drawn map . . .”

  “A map?” Lerako exclaimed. Could it be the same one Kubu had mentioned? he wondered.

  “Yes. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was supposed to be, or where he’d got it. On one side it looked like a drawing of a few koppies, with some arrows and letters, and the other had what could have been a geology sketch. He wanted to know if I could help him find the area the map was supposed to represent. But I don’t know about geology.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s all under the sand, isn’t it?” Jill’s gaze wandered past the braai area and out into the desert. “There’s supposed to be a city buried out there too.”

  Lerako snorted. He didn’t believe in old legends of lost cities and vanished cultures. He did believe in murderers, though. But Jill hadn’t finished.

  “I was sure I’d seen that map before, Detective. That’s how I guessed what Haake was after.”

  Lerako was interested in that. “Where had you seen it?”

  Jill sighed and thought for a moment. “Do you know the story of Hans Schwabe? He was a German prospector, also from Namibia—South West Africa it was then. It was more than fifty years ago. He was also after the diamonds. He was caught prospecting around the Kalahari where he wasn’t allowed to be. That map was supposed to have been drawn by him.

  “About twelve years ago a man named Herman Koch came out here. He wasn’t secretive like Haake. He was trying to discover where all the alluvial diamonds of the Namibian coast come from. Nobody’s ever found out. He actually thought it might be the big field of diamonds down the road here—the one that de Wet is trying to develop now—but it’s not nearly rich enough. Anyway, I remember he showed us a map and told me it was drawn by this Schwabe. He knew Schwabe’s family in Germany, and they had given it to him. The police here must have sent Schwabe’s belongings to them after he died. My husband and I had just settled here, and neither of us could make anything of it. Seeing the map again jogged my memory, and I remembered the arrows pointing at the hills. I’m pretty sure it was the same map that Haake had.” She shook her head. “I know you’ll laugh at me, Detective, but I think that map is unlucky.”

  “Why do you say it’s unlucky?” Lerako was intrigued.

  “Well, Schwabe was supposed to have drawn the map, and he died in the desert. The rangers from the Kalahari Gemsbok Park in South Africa followed his car tracks and found it abandoned. Not long after that they found Schwabe himself dead of exposure out in the desert. They buried him there; you can still see his grave.”

  She waited a moment while Lerako digested that story. Then she continued: “Herman died too. That’s why I remember the incident so well. It was shortly after he was here. He went up towards Mabuasehube. Some tourists found him at his camp. He was in a coma. They got him to hospital, but he never regained consciousness. So they could never ask him how it happened. The autopsy indicated he had died from some plant poison or other. There was some talk that the Bushmen killed him. But why would they do such a thing? Probably he ate something he shouldn’t h
ave.

  “I don’t know how Haake got the map after that. Maybe there was an auction of Herman’s belongings—he told me he didn’t have any family. Anyway, it seems to find its way to these prospectors with a fixation on fields of diamonds.”

  “Did you warn him?”

  “Haake? I told him to be careful. That the areas he was exploring are remote, the most isolated parts of the Kalahari. It could be dangerous.”

  “And how did he react?”

  “He was polite, but basically told me to mind my own business and that he knew what he was doing.”

  “Do you think he would kill someone who tried to stop this search of his, or to keep it secret?”

  Jill thought about that for a while. At last she said, “I don’t think he’s a bad man, Detective, but I think it’s possible. He has a filthy temper if you cross him.”

  They talked a little more, but Lerako learned nothing further. Haake had stayed for two weeks. He would sleep on a mattress on the concrete walkway that ran in front of the small block of rental units, finding it too hot inside the rooms. He liked the communal braai dinners, but kept to himself if there were guests he didn’t know. And he disappeared off on day trips, but Jill didn’t know where he had gone except for the day he went to the mine site.

  Lerako readied himself to leave, but on a sudden impulse he asked, “Mma Jill, did you know Tawana Monzo from Mabuasehube?”

  She nodded. “Of course. It was awful about his accident.”

  Lerako sat back. “How come you knew him?”

  “Well, sometimes he met people who spent a few days here. Took them on the next section of their trip. I suppose it was an arrangement with the game reserve.”

  “Was this often?”

  “Well, from time to time. Over a few years.”

  Lerako rubbed his chin. So, he had confirmation of Tau’s discovery. “We think it might not have been an accident,” he said mildly.