Detective Kubu 01; A Carrion Death

by Michael Stanley

  Now Aron was faced with a different problem. Who was stealing the gems? A few disappearing here or there would mean a failure of their substantial and expensive security system, but it would be possible to blame the miners or team bosses. But Aron mentally calculated that if the peaks of gem production were the norms, then upwards of half of the larger stones were being stolen. That required a very different type of scenario. Aron found this new type of puzzle exciting. There are seven suspects, he thought. Well, six, since I’m not the culprit. Intriguing as it was, he felt this was a matter for the boss, and that was Jason. But he didn’t trust Jason. He might be in real danger if the thief was Jason himself.

  He rummaged in a cupboard and took out his journal. It was a hardcover notebook that filled the dual roles of diary and record book. He carefully entered his new theory and the logic behind it in longhand. Then he turned on his laptop computer—same vintage as the air-conditioner, he thought wryly—and typed a careful letter to the mine’s owners in Gaborone. While he accused no one of anything, he set out all his scientific work and summarised all his concerns. He felt disloyal to his boss, but he also felt that he needed the letter as insurance. He printed two copies and tucked one into the journal. The other he signed and sealed in an envelope addressed to Mr Cecil Hofmeyr at BCMC in Gaborone.

  Jason was in Johannesburg buying some equipment for the mine, so Aron had a few days of grace. He didn’t have to find the thieves, only confirm beyond any reasonable doubt, as the lawyers would say, that Jason was not one of them. Motive isn’t an issue in geological puzzles, so this was new territory for him, but obviously no one would commit such a serious crime if there was no personal gain. So he considered the case against Jason.

  Jason owned a share of the mine, so in part he would be stealing from himself. Obviously if he could take the diamonds and sell them for much more than his normal share, then he would be doing extremely well. But he would be lucky to get half the value for stolen diamonds—probably more like a quarter, with the Kimberley Process making stones harder to move on the grey market. Then there would be accomplices to pay. It made no sense. However, there was one issue to check.

  The next morning Aron shaved for the first time in several days, dressed as though he worked for De Beers rather than Maboane, and made his way to the administrative offices. He presented himself to Shirley Devlin—an attractive Welsh girl he had chatted up once or twice.

  “Hello, Shirley,” he said, his nervousness bringing out his German accent. “I need some help from you this morning.” She gave him a smile, but mentally noted that he had had plenty of time since their last meeting to follow through if his intentions had not been honourable. She wasn’t particularly interested in honourable intentions.

  “I need to check all the KP records against the individual gems we have reported to the Botswana revenue office for the last three months.” Aron didn’t expect this request to go down at all well, and had prepared what he hoped was a plausible explanation.

  She looked at him as if he were crazy. He was suggesting a great deal of work, and moreover it was right in the middle of her territory. And it was pointless. Everything balanced because it was her job to make it balance. The only point of checking would be to suggest that she was either dishonest or incompetent. It was not a good way to start a conversation with her, and she told him so in no uncertain terms.

  “No, no!” Aron protested. “There is a query, and I need to follow it up. They are concerned about a possible discrepancy between the number of carats we declare for tax and the number we declare for the KP. It’s just a check to make sure all the taxes are declared. No one is suggesting that you have not done your job. But everything has to be cross-checked and double-checked. They’re concerned that we are declaring more diamonds on the Kimberley Process than we are declaring for tax purposes.”

  “It’s impossible for there to be a discrepancy. The diamonds are classified in the sorting room and weighed in batches. Then they are brought here and weighed again and described for the KP document. Mr Ferraz signs off on both numbers and also checks the mine returns.”

  “But suppose extra diamonds were described for the KP, but not weighed at the plant?”

  “I just told you that Mr Ferraz does that check. In case I’m not trusted.” She seemed to regard the last question as doubly insulting.

  “That’s the concern, Shirley. The government now wants us to check the mine records themselves directly against the returns. The easiest way will be to check against the KP records.”

  She threatened to refer the issue to Jason Ferraz. His shrug suggested that she had that choice. Then he just stood and waited. Eventually she told him what he could do with all his red tape, but then settled down to help.

  By lunchtime it was done. Every diamond was accounted for, every KP certificate linked to a declared diamond for tax and thus for production. Whoever was stealing the gemstones was not getting a KP certificate for them. That had been the only possible way in which Jason could get the real value for the stones. Aron was satisfied. To thank her for the help, he invited Shirley over for a drink that evening, which perked her up a bit.

  It looked as though Jason was in the clear. But perhaps he had missed something. He stood outside the administration office, unsure what he should do. Despite the morning’s work, he couldn’t bring himself to trust his boss entirely. At last he went back into Shirley’s office.

  “Shirley, I forgot to ask before. Would you kindly put this letter in the outgoing mail for me?” He handed her the letter to Cecil Hofmeyr, hoping she wouldn’t notice the address.

  She nodded, barely glancing at it. Then she made it clear that she needed to catch up on her real work.

  ∨ A Carrion Death ∧

  CHAPTER 20

  After Jason’s return from Johannesburg, Aron gave him a day to settle down and then went to see him. Jason kept him waiting for half an hour. Aron was nervous by the time Jason arrived and waved him into his office. Jason, however, seemed to be in excellent spirits. He had managed to acquire the needed equipment at good prices and for quick delivery. He listened to Aron’s new idea with concentration and seemed to consider it carefully before he spoke.

  “You are suggesting that the mine would normally produce the sort of diamonds we’ve been getting in patches? But that someone has been skimming off the cream?”

  “I thought there might be sorters who are in on it,” Aron said. “They select some gems and hide them in the plant. Then they smuggle them out afterwards.”

  “What about all the security?” Jason asked. “The video cameras in the sorting room? And you can’t get in or out of the processing plant without going through the scans. There’s a security guard on duty there at all times while the plant is operating. After work the plant is locked and secured, and only Dingake and I have override keys. No one else can go in or out without setting off one of the alarms. So how do these hypothetical thieves get the diamonds out of the plant?”

  “Yes, I thought about that quite carefully. You and I aren’t involved.” Aron didn’t mention that he had checked that. “There’s one other person who could manage to get the stones out of the plant.”

  Jason thought for a few seconds. “Jacob Dingake?” Aron nodded. Jason leant back in his chair and looked at Aron steadily.

  “You understand that you are making a very serious accusation against one of our trusted colleagues?”

  Aron shook his head and said quietly, “I am proposing a theory. You are coming to the conclusions.”

  They sat in silence for what seemed a long time. Then Jason laughed. “I don’t know, Aron. I still think there are other possibilities, including the idea you suggested last time. I’m quite interested in that. I think we should keep all these options open. Perhaps I’d rather mistrust the geology than old Jacob. I think he’s a bit too thick to pull off something like this.” He laughed again.

  “Let’s have a couple of beers at my room tonight. Bring over your stu
ff. We’ll go through the geology again. Maybe we can find your second pipe. That would certainly tip the balance on the new exploration with Mr Hofmeyr.” Then he added, “In the meantime, I’ll keep a close eye on our Mr Dingake.”

  Aron left with mixed feelings. He was pleased that Jason had taken him seriously. He was surprised by Jason’s new-found interest in his geological theories. And he was confused by Jason’s lukewarm concern about the possibility that upwards of half of his best diamonds were being stolen. He wandered back to his bungalow wondering which way up he should hold his graph after all.

  ∨ A Carrion Death ∧

  CHAPTER 21

  For several weeks, that was more or less where matters stood. Aron spent some time exploring ideas with Jason, but he felt that Jason’s heart wasn’t really in it. Aron might have settled back into his more comfortable geological puzzles if one night he hadn’t had too much coffee while he finished his monthly production report. He spent time on his graphs and tables and wrote up his journal detailing his rising concerns about the mine management. He had another cup of coffee. Eventually he realised it was two in the morning and that he was wide awake. He decided to walk up to the vantage point above the mine and watch the moon over the desert. As he was about to leave, he went back in and took down his revolver from its hiding place behind some textbooks. Recently, there had been rumours of a leopard about.

  By this time of the night the ground had cooled. For once it was really pleasant walking outside. He felt invigorated and almost jogged along the road. When he reached his favourite spot, he looked over the hills in the full moonlight for some breathtaking minutes before he realised that something was not as it should be. There were lights on inside the plant, and the perimeter fence lights were off. A single mine vehicle was parked at the entrance. It looked like one of the security vehicles.

  Aron knew he should raise the alarm, but he was sure that the answers to his puzzles were in the building. He fingered the gun in his pocket and walked down the road towards the mine. He felt very exposed in the moonlight, but there were no signs of life at the mine—just the wrong lights on and the lone empty vehicle. He found the perimeter gate locked, as it should be. He had his keys with him. Years of habit in big cities and some petty theft some months ago at the mine compound made him lock his bungalow.

  He let himself through the gate, locking it behind him. He couldn’t avoid some clatter, so he stood behind the vehicle until he was sure that there was no reaction. Then he worked his way round to the plant door, keeping out of sight of the windows. The main door was ajar. He peeked in, trying to see what was happening inside. This was the security entrance to the plant. There would normally be a guard on duty, putting packages and overclothes through the X-ray, while their owners went through the personnel scanner in a double-door chamber like an airlock. The room was empty. The sensors were off, and both doors stood open. One could walk straight through the chamber, which he did. It was eerie. The plant was always either busily active or closed tight upon itself like an oyster hoarding its pearl. No one passed through it without authority. It felt as though the plant was deserted, abandoned.

  Then Aron heard voices coming from the sorting room.

  For the first time he was scared. It was stupid to have come here alone. He should have gone straight to Jason, and the two of them could have looked for Dingake and let him take charge, if indeed he could be found. He considered going back, but the sorting room was open-plan. It should be easy to see who was in it. He took the revolver out of his pocket and pulled back the hammer. It made him feel silly rather than secure. I’m a second-rate actor in a B-grade American movie, he thought. Nevertheless he moved quietly up to the open door and looked in.

  Two men stood at the sorting table with their backs to him, talking. The table was covered with what appeared to be large uncut diamonds. So I was right, he thought. Somehow they hid them here, and now they’ll get them out. He couldn’t understand why this was taking so much discussion. Perhaps they were already arguing over the spoils?

  He had no intention of staying to witness the outcome, however. He needed to get away while they were preoccupied. He started to back away as quietly as he could, keeping his eyes fixed on them. The two men carried on with what they were doing. One raised his voice, and there seemed to be a brief argument, but all Aron could determine was that they were not speaking English. Then he was through the door back into the passage. He let out his breath. He hadn’t even realised that he had been holding it.

  Suddenly a huge hand closed around his forearm, the long, fat fingers reaching right around his wrist. He felt his bones grind and the gun slide out of his grip. He twisted around to see a massive black man dressed in khaki fatigues. He didn’t cry out, and for a moment the man said nothing. Then he called out quite casually, “Boss!” One of the men at the sorting table turned at once, a stocky man with a bushy red beard. He looked surprised and then angry. Aron was sure that he had never seen him before. An instant later the second man turned towards them. He was well built, with thick black hair and a heavy black beard. Aron recognised him at once. It was his boss, Jason Ferraz.

  ∨ A Carrion Death ∧

  CHAPTER 22

  “Sin? O que voce querem?”

  There were a few moments of silence on the line as the caller deciphered this greeting. Then, “Yes, hello. I want to talk to you.”

  “You talk to me. What you want talk about?” The voice had a heavy Portuguese accent. It sounded neither interested nor friendly.

  “I know what you are doing. I know why you are doing it. I think we need to talk about that.” The caller’s voice had the refinement and pronunciation of a graduate of an upper-class English school. The recipient was sure he had never heard it before, and yet there was something about it that seemed familiar.

  “Bullshit. You waste my time with bullshit. I hang up.” And he did so. No one should have his mobile phone number, except the few people who needed to know it. Probably this was a wrong number or some sort of scam. He didn’t expect to hear from the caller again, but almost immediately the phone rang once more. He checked the screen for the incoming number, but it was listed as private. He grimaced so that his red beard bristled. “What you want?” he shouted into the mobile phone.

  “If you hang up again, there are other people I can talk to. People who would be interested to know that you have kidnapped an important person and are holding him for ransom. The police, for example.”

  “What you want? You after money?” This was said more quietly as the man tried to work out who could have this phone number and know so much. He needed to know who this person was. He needed to know whom he now had to kill.

  “No, quite the contrary. I want to do a deal. One that will be very much to your advantage.”

  There was a long silence. It seemed that the caller did not intend to go on without encouragement. At last a response came: “What deal?”

  “You are holding this person until a specified date. There is a ransom to be paid, but you are going to hold him for another two weeks. Then you are supposed to release him, not so? He is supposed to accept what has happened, and you are supposed to have time to leave with your money. Lots of money, not so?” The voice paused. Then it resumed, calm but firm: “That’s not going to work, is it? The man will know too much about where he has been, whom he has seen, how long it took him to get there. You can’t let him go alive. That wouldn’t make sense, would it?”

  “Who you anyway? Who thinks he know so much about someone else’s business? Very dangerous know too much about other people’s business.”

  “You don’t need to know my name. Just think of me as a friend.”

  “So, friend with the bullshit. What you want? What’s your deal?”

  “I want what you want. I don’t want this prisoner of yours telling stories after you let him go. I want you to kill him.”

  There was silence while the man with the red beard digested this. The caller had
explained that his prisoner couldn’t leave alive, but he knew that anyway, so what was the game? Why was he having this conversation? Why didn’t the caller just sit back and wait for what was inevitable in any case? Obviously the caller wanted something else, or something more. Perhaps that would give a clue to his identity. “So what’s the deal?” he asked for the third time.

  “I want two things. First, his death must look like an accident, but not something crude that the police will see through. An accident that stays an accident. I don’t care how you do that—you’re the expert, not so? The second is that it happens after the date he was supposed to be released. You keep him alive until then. After that he dies. In an accident.”

  Again there was silence, but it was no longer hostile. Between these speakers there would never be any trust, let alone friendship. They recognised that each operated by a private set of rules, rules that had nothing to do with morality or legality or collegiality, only personal advantage. Right now, it seemed, their interests might be aligned. If so, they could cooperate, do business. But tomorrow that might all be different.

  “Sin. Much harder than just get rid of the body. Why I go to all this extra trouble?”

  “I’ll pay you two hundred and fifty thousand when he dies in an accident at the right time, and another two hundred and fifty thousand after the funeral. US dollars.”

  “I want money up front. Why I trust you?”

  The voice on the other end of the line laughed. “You don’t have much option, do you? If it doesn’t work out the way I want, the police get a road map. A road map that leads straight to you. And if it does work out, you walk away with another half million. Dollars. And if I don’t pay? Well, you’re home free, aren’t you? With plenty of time to come after me.”