Detective Kubu 01; A Carrion Death

by Michael Stanley

  Relative to many in the Gaborone area, they were well off, because they had running water—a huge boon—and sporadic electricity whose availability was totally unpredictable. Kubu wasn’t certain whether his father even realised that there was a charge for the electricity, because he and Joy paid the monthly bills.

  And they had a mobile phone—another present from Kubu and Joy. Although he and Joy spoke to them quite frequently, he was sure they never used it themselves. Nevertheless, his father religiously turned it on each morning and off each evening. On Saturday nights, he recharged it whether or not it was flat. The routine was the important thing.

  As Joy stopped the car at the edge of the dirt road in front of the house, they saw, as they always did, Wilmon slowly lifting himself out of his favourite chair. Ilia, of course, was ecstatic; they had arrived at a place where she was much more spoilt than at home.

  “Shut up, Ilia!” Joy said.

  “Quiet. Quiet!” Kubu hissed, to no avail. As soon as the door was open, Ilia raced along the fence, skidded around the corner at the gate, and jumped up on the elder Bengu, who smiled broadly and lifted the dog affectionately off the ground. Ilia was delighted and licked all available skin. Kubu walked up to his parents and formally greeted them, “Dumela, Rra. Dumela, Mma.” He then extended his right arm to his father with the left crossed over it as a mark of respect.

  Wilmon responded solemnly: “Dumela, my son.”

  Kubu followed with: “I have arrived.”

  “You are welcome, my son. How are you, my son?”

  “I am well, Father. How are you and Mother?”

  “We are also fine, my son.” Wilmon’s voice was strong, but quiet. It was the same proud greeting that they had heard every Sunday for seven years.

  Joy gave Wilmon and Amantle non-traditional hugs, even though Ilia was between them. Then the three of them settled in their favourite chairs, and Amantle went into the house to make tea. Even Ilia relaxed on Wilmon Bengu’s lap.

  “Father, I am well, even though I have been travelling too much, and my wife has been trying to starve me to death. Women today have no respect for their husbands.”

  “David, you are lucky to have found any woman to marry, let alone such a wonderful one as Joy,” Wilmon said with a straight face, while Joy suppressed a snigger.

  “Father, you are a wise man, and I listen to you.”

  Kubu’s mother came out of the house carrying a bent and battered tray with a large aluminium teapot, four enamel mugs, a white milk jug, and a bowl of sugar.

  “David and Joy,” she said. “Please have some tea.” She put the tray on the table. Joy stood up and insisted that she serve. As she did, she opened her handbag and took out a packet of Marie biscuits, Amantle and Wilmon’s favourites. She poured four cups of strong tea, added milk and sugar, and handed the mugs around together with three biscuits each.

  For the next few minutes there was a comfortable silence as everyone either bit into their biscuits or dunked them in the tea. Kubu loved to put half the biscuit in the tea and see whether he could lift the sagging half to his mouth without it falling back into the mug or on to his trousers. Joy thought this behaviour was very childish, but knew better than to say anything. She nibbled at her dry biscuits. Kubu slipped Ilia a small sliver of biscuit from time to time, but he made sure his parents weren’t watching. They would surely remind him of all the hungry people in Africa.

  “Joy,” Kubu’s mother said, pretending not to notice what Kubu was doing, “how is Pleasant, and how is Sampson?”

  Joy’s parents were dead, and her only close relatives were her younger sister, Pleasant, and an older brother, Sampson, who was working in Francistown. Her parents had both been educated at a mission school up north near Francistown. Her mother was a schoolteacher who loved children and was able to impart her passion for learning to them. Her father had started a small clothing shop that was successful, due to his energy and the fact that he was willing to go to Johannesburg to buy his stock.

  When Joy was about fifteen, her mother died of tuberculosis, leaving a hard-working thirty-five-year-old husband to care for three young children. He was devastated by his wife’s death. In typical African fashion, both his family and his wife’s family absorbed the children into their lives and homes, while he engrossed himself in his work. He became obsessed with the shop as a way to handle his grief. Five years later, he suffered a massive heart attack and died within a few days. Sampson was twenty-one, Joy was twenty, and Pleasant eighteen. None of them had any experience running a business, so they decided to sell the shop. The amount they were offered sounded like a fortune to them. It was only years later that they realised they had sold at a price far less than the shop’s real worth. Nevertheless, by local standards they were well off.

  Joy and Pleasant took a secretarial course and decided to move to the capital, Gaborone, which had more opportunities for work and a larger pool of single men. Joy found a job with the police department, while Pleasant joined a travel agency, where she soon upgraded her qualifications to become an agent rather than a secretary. Sampson stayed in Francistown and went to work for the government, in the Ministry of Lands and Housing.

  Joy and Kubu saw Sampson about once a year, but Joy and Pleasant were inseparable, talking to each other several times a day on the phone, as well as frequently having lunch together at one of the fast-food outlets near the travel agency. Joy wished Pleasant lived closer to them, but that was not to be. She lived a couple of kilometres away on the north side of town, where there was a better nightlife and more young people.

  “Mma Bengu, we have not seen Sampson for several months. He is well, but still single.” The tone of her voice conveyed the inherent contradiction that one could be well and single. “As for Pleasant,” she continued, “she too is well, but also still single.”

  Kubu’s modier seemed to shudder. “The children of today have no sense of responsibility. If your parents were still alive, they would be living in sadness for your brother and sister. I know what they would feel. Just look how long it took before David got enough sense to marry you. I thought I would never smile again, and my heart was always dark.”

  Kubu concentrated on his last Marie biscuit, willing it not to fall into the tea.

  “It has worked out well,” Joy said with a smile. “It was important for David to do well in his career so he could support me, and I am a patient woman. I knew in my heart that we would marry, so I did not worry too much. And now David and I are very happy.”

  “I am proud of my son.” Wilmon’s comment startled the group because he rarely participated in domestic conversations, thinking them silly and repetitive. He continued as though Kubu was not present. “He is an important man. He makes Botswana safe for us. He is very clever—much more clever than the crooks.”

  Joy took advantage of Wilmon’s presence in the discussion. “David has been working on a difficult case. Last week some rangers found part of a skeleton in the desert. It was being eaten by hyenas. There is no clue as to who it could be.”

  “Aaiiaa!” Amantle let out a wail. “Another Segametsi. Aaiiaa.” She covered her face with her hands.

  Amantle was referring to the ritual murder a decade earlier of a young girl, Segametsi Mogomotsi, who lived just up the road. The murder had reverberated through the community, pitting old against young, women against men, community against the police. People had taken to the streets to protest the barbaric desecration of human life—the sexual abuse, mutilation and killing of a beautiful young girl, all in the name of tradition. Crowds had protested the inability of the police to solve the murder. They accused them of not doing anything because prominent people were involved, perhaps even policemen. And the murder was never solved, even though the government took the unusual step of inviting Scotland Yard to take over the case.

  “No! No!” Joy said quickly. “This was a man—a white man. Not one of us.”

  “Thank the Lord!” exclaimed Amantle. “That was a
very bad time for Mochudi and the country. David, I hope you solve the problem of the skeleton quickly. Do you think it was a murder?”

  Kubu returned to the conversation at last. “Yes, Mother. I am sure that the man was murdered. But it is a difficult case because we do not know who the victim is, and no white man has been reported missing. We can ask the usual questions, but until we know who the victim is, we have little to go on.”

  “Just remember,” Amantle continued, wagging her finger at Kubu, “just remember that most men are killed about women or money!”

  “Yes. Thank you, Mother. I will remember that, and I am sure you will be right as usual.” Kubu smiled at her. “May I have some more tea?”

  Joy stood up and took Kubu’s cup. “Anyone else for more?” Everyone was in the mood for more, so she went inside to make a second pot.

  Once everyone had another cup, they gossiped about Mochudi and its inhabitants, caught up on friends and relatives not recently seen, and listened to Wilmon get heated about how the country was being badly governed and how the youth of the day were all up to no good.

  Often at this time Wilmon would take Kubu for a walk around the few blocks near their house, ostensibly for ‘man’ talk, but in reality to show off his only child to his neighbours and friends. “My famous policeman detective son,” he would say proudly. Meanwhile Joy and Amantle would talk about things they would not discuss in front of the men. These activities were opportunities to maintain strong family ties. Both Kubu and Joy understood how important these times were for Kubu’s parents.

  This particular visit ended shortly after a lunch of stewed meat and pap. One took a blob of pap and dipped it into the stew, which usually comprised meat, tomatoes, carrots and onions. It was delicious and filling. Kubu usually ended the meal with the wish that his bed was nearby.

  After one more cup of tea to wash the meal down, Joy and Kubu headed back home, leaving two happy people to congratulate themselves on having a fine son and daughter-in-law. As Kubu drove south back to Gaborone, he decided that he would think about work on his bed, and not go in to the office. It could all wait until Monday morning.

  ∨ A Carrion Death ∧

  CHAPTER 25

  Kubu had just settled himself on his bed for his nap when the phone rang. Not a good sign, he thought, when the phone rings on a Sunday afternoon. It wouldn’t be his parents, because they didn’t know how to use their mobile phone. He didn’t think it would be Pleasant, because she was out with some friends and would only be back in the evening. Kubu willed the phone to stop ringing, which it did, because Joy answered it in the kitchen.

  “Kubu! It’s for you,” she shouted. Kubu sighed and picked up the telephone next to his bed. “Yes?” he said abruptly, intending to make the caller feel embarrassed for calling at such an inconvenient moment. “Assistant Superintendent Bengu here.”

  The caller was Bongani. Kubu had not given him much thought recently.

  “Detective Bengu. Detective Bengu,” rushed Bongani breathlessly, “I may have found something about the murder. I think I have a picture of the vehicle.”

  “You have a picture of the vehicle? Who took it? Where is the vehicle now? Can you read its number plates?”

  “No! No!” Bongani said. “It is not that sort of picture. I was looking at the satellite data that came yesterday, and I may have found the vehicle that was used in the murder.”

  “A satellite found the vehicle?” Kubu asked incredulously.

  “No! No!” Bongani said more sharply. “Of course the satellite didn’t find the vehicle. I did. I found it from the images the satellite took. I think you should come and see for yourself. It’s difficult to explain over the phone. You need to see it. It isn’t certain, but I think it could be useful. Can you come over immediately?”

  “Take a breath, Bongani. Are you still at Dale’s Camp?”

  “Of course not. I am at the university. You could come straight over. I’m in the Biological Sciences Building on the north side of the campus. Room 212.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Kubu said.

  Kubu put down the receiver, hoping that this was not a wild goose chase.

  Kubu was proud of the university, and proud of earning his degree there. It was an attractive campus set out in spacious grounds with pleasant courtyards and well-kept gardens. His only minor complaint was that he would have preferred exclusively indigenous trees and plants. But he loved the road along the east side of the campus, which was lined with Acacia xanthophloea. In English it was called the fever tree because early white settlers to northern South Africa believed it was associated with malaria. As is often the case, cause and correlation had been confused; the trees loved the swampy areas where the anopheles mosquito also felt at home. In spring the trees would be covered with small mustard-yellow pompoms, but their greenish-yellow chlorophyll-rich bark made them attractive at any time of the year.

  He parked next to the science complex and walked to the Biological Sciences Building. The complex was less than fifteen years old and completed in an attractive rust-coloured brick. The campus expansion had taken place when money started flowing from the diamond mines. To access the offices it was necessary to climb to the upper floors; the ground level was reserved for teaching venues. “He would be on the top floor,” Kubu muttered, plodding up the stairs. But he was rewarded at the top landing by a beautiful view of open country to the north of the campus. Once again he felt the privilege of living in a city that had open space close to its centre. He checked his watch. Twenty-five minutes since Bongani’s call. He made his way into the building, easily found Room 212, and knocked on the door.

  “Come in. Come in,” Bongani said loudly. “Grab that chair and come on over here.”

  They sat in front of a computer with a large screen used for examining image data. The screen showed a beautiful representation of the Kalahari dunes, and Kubu became intrigued at once.

  “It’s QuickBird data,” said Bongani. “Usually it’s too expensive to use over such a large area; but we got a big grant from BCMC to support conservation in Botswana. The resolution of this image is about two and a half metres. That means that each image point the satellite records is two and a half metres by two and a half metres on the ground, which is about six square metres.

  “We’re seeing the whole satellite scene here,” he continued. “I’ll zoom in to the area of the river where the body was found.” He did so, but as the image magnified, it started to break up into small blocks. “As we zoom in,” Bongani told Kubu, “each image point is magnified to a square on the screen. So everything looks jagged.” The edge of the river was no longer smooth but saw-toothed. Still, the riverbed was clear, and Bongani pointed to a greenish area which he claimed was the actual acacia tree where the body had been found.

  “Now let’s follow the route across the dunes from the tree to Kamissa.” The image panned over towards the left.

  “Look at that block over there,” he said, pointing with a pencil to the screen. To Kubu it looked much the same as all the other blocks. Some were a darker brown, some more reddish. This one was a somewhat lighter colour. “Let me zoom in again.” This time the picture collapsed completely into little squares. The image was no longer visually understandable, but two of the little blocks were now clearly lighter and much yellower than their neighbours. “Those two blocks, representing about five metres by two and a half metres on the ground, contain the vehicle,” Bongani explained.

  “Why should it be a vehicle? It could be a patch of lighter sand, couldn’t it? Even some springbok? Are all the image points equally reliable?”

  “Good questions. But I’ve also got the panchromatic data—that’s black-and-white data—recorded at exactly the same time. Let me show you that.” Bongani minimised the colour image and concentrated on his mouse and keyboard for a few seconds. A black-and-white scene opened on the screen. It was sharper and crisper than the colour image had been, with more detail, and clearly covered
the same area.

  “This is the panchromatic image of the same scene. Here the spatial resolution is much better—down to sixty centimetres, so one of the colour image points breaks up into sixteen black-and-white ones. Watch this.” Bongani again zoomed in to the riverbed, and now the tree where the body had been discovered was quite clear. Kubu could recognise it. Then he tracked from the riverbed through the dunes, stopped, and zoomed in. At this resolution, what had been merely two lighter blocks in the colour data became a collection of smaller blocks crudely outlining a vehicle.

  “I actually spotted it in this panchromatic data,” Bongani admitted. “That’s how I knew where to look in the colour data.”

  “All right,” said Kubu, relaxing, “let’s suppose that those blocks do represent a vehicle. That’s important, because then we know pretty well exactly when the body was dumped in the river. Would that by any chance have been the morning of the Friday before the body was found?”

  Bongani looked surprised, but nodded. “Yes. At about ten-thirty. The satellite always collects data at that time.”

  “And can we do any better than that?” Kubu continued. “Can you get more information about the vehicle itself?”

  Bongani smiled. He had been waiting for this and looking forward to it. “I can estimate the size of the vehicle from the black-and-white data—it’s about six square metres or roughly half of those two colour blocks. Let’s suppose that the rest of the area covered by those blocks is the same colour as the surrounding dunes. Then I can find exactly what colour we need to mix fifty-fifty with the dune colour to get the colour actually recorded by the satellite.”