Detective Kubu 01; A Carrion Death

by Michael Stanley

  Kubu made no effort to get up. His considerable bulk would be difficult to shift without his cooperation. “How did you learn of Angus’s death?”

  “It was on the radio. One of the nurses told me.”

  “Did you see it in a newspaper?”

  “No, we don’t get them delivered here. It often disturbs the patients,” she said, impatience creeping into her voice.

  “Just one last thing, Ms Kew. You’ve been very helpful, and I won’t keep you from your work any longer.” Kubu pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and extracted a passport-size photograph. He passed it to Ms Kew. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

  The manager looked at the picture carefully, thought about it. Then she returned it to him. “No. We have a lot of patients here for relatively short periods, but I don’t usually forget a face. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen that man before.”

  Kubu nodded, took the photo back and put it in the envelope. Then, almost as an afterthought, he withdrew another and handed it to Ms Kew. “And this man?” he asked.

  She glanced at it, and then looked at him sharply to see if he was having her on. But she met only a bland and marginally interested look. “Well of course I know him. That’s Angus Hofmeyr. He didn’t have a beard when he was here, though.” Kubu nodded again, and returned the second photo to the envelope.

  She rose, indicating that the interview was at an end, and this time Kubu took the hint. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” she said. Kubu shook her hand warmly. “You’ve been very patient,” he said. “Thank you.”

  And silently he added that she had been very helpful indeed. For now he knew for certain that Angus had been murdered, and roughly how, when and why it had been done.

  ∨ A Carrion Death ∧

  CHAPTER 63

  Kubu found the Knysna police station on Main Street without much difficulty and parked right outside. He stretched, allowing his body the space the sub-compact car had denied it, and enjoyed the warmth of the morning sun. He had spent the night in George and had driven along the beautiful coastal road to Knysna. There was a denseness to the air that he found unfamiliar. It must be the proximity of the sea, he decided.

  The building looked as though it had once been a 1930s tourist hotel. A balcony ran along the front, defined by an ornate wrought-iron railing, the windows evenly spaced. He walked into the reception area, which certainly could have been the reception for a hotel. The constable on duty told him that Detective Inspector Swanepoel’s office was upstairs to the right. He buzzed Kubu through a security gate and pointed out a set of wide stairs. Slowly Kubu went up, wishing that the station’s budget had included a lift. He took the stairs slowly, not only because of his bulk, but because each time he put his weight on a step, the staircase creaked ominously.

  He found Bakkies in a small office overlooking Main Street. The room was cluttered with filing cabinets, but it looked as though all the files were out on the desk. It hardly seemed possible the massive Bakkies could fit amidst all the chaos. However, he rose with surprising grace and greeted Kubu warmly.

  “You must be Kubu,” he said with his guttural accent. “Your nickname fits you well! I’m Bakkies, but I guess you already worked that out.” He laughed. “Let’s get some coffee. I’ve got a couple of doughnuts.” He indicated a white cardboard cakebox almost hidden by the mess on his desk. “Then we can chat.” Kubu thought this a most attractive proposition.

  They got to know each other while they drank their mugs of instant coffee and demolished the jam doughnuts. Kubu was pleased that there were two each. And, after all, breakfast was already two hours behind him.

  It seemed unfair that Bakkies converted the food to muscle while he turned it to fat. But that’s life, he thought philosophically. At last there was silence while they examined the empty cakebox.

  “So, Kubu, what’s the story with your case?”

  Kubu wasn’t sure where to begin, so he started with their first contact. “You remember our telephone conversation? You said: “Suppose the body is Angus Hofmeyr? Murdered in Botswana, and now they are trying to cover up the crime by planting evidence of a shark attack here?” I think you hit the nail on the head. I just wasn’t ready to see it. I’m sure now that the body found near the Kamissa waterhole was that of Angus Hofmeyr.”

  “But you said that was impossible!”

  “Yes, because we were supposed to think it was impossible. If the arm belonged to Angus, so did the Kamissa body. I’m certain the DNA samples will match.”

  Bakkies frowned. “I don’t remember that you asked for a DNA sample.”

  “Oh, I think our pathology people dealt directly with yours,” Kubu said quickly. “The point is, I’m sure that the arm you found was the missing arm of our body.”

  Bakkies was trying to take it all in. “If that’s the case, then Hofmeyr was murdered. There was always something funny about the so-called shark attack. But the murder didn’t happen here.” He shook his head. “But what about Dianna Hofmeyr? She was with Angus the day before he disappeared.”

  Kubu looked grim. “There are only two possibilities. Either the body is not Angus, and he was kidnapped, or she is in it up to her neck. I think we’ll find out when we talk to her. I’m looking forward to interviewing the new chairperson of BCMC.”

  Bakkies hesitated. “Yirrrr,” he said finally, rolling the R s of a traditional Afrikaans response to something awkward. “Yirrrr. There’s bad news, Kubu. Ms Hofmeyr has just left. She flew out of Plettenberg Bay this morning. There was no reason for me to stop her.”

  Kubu grimaced. “Did she say where she was going?”

  “I didn’t speak to her, but one of my men reported that she and her mother left in their private Learjet. We can find out from air traffic control.” He busied himself on the phone for a few minutes. “The flight plan is to Johannesburg,” he told Kubu. “Lanseria airport. But the pilot mentioned they are going through to Gaborone after a couple of days.”

  “Perfect. I can be back to meet them.”

  “Should I alert the police in Johannesburg?”

  Kubu thought for a minute. “Don’t do anything that might scare them off. Just ask traffic control to watch that plane and alert us as soon as it’s off somewhere.” He changed tack. “Where exactly did you find the arm? Did you take pictures?”

  “We did, but I can do better than that. I’ll show you. Good to get out of the office for a bit. You can explain all this as we drive. Then we can go up to the house. They have a maid there. If there’s time, we can have some lunch in Plettenberg Bay.” Kubu thought that a fine suggestion.

  Knysna was a village that had outgrown its quaintness, Kubu decided. It seemed to be buzzing with people, most of them white, which Kubu found quite different from Botswana. Main Street had only one through-lane and one turn-only lane at each major intersection, and the traffic lights caught one every time. Bakkies was stopped at one of these behind a huge South African Breweries truck that took up the entire road when Kubu noticed two beggars working the traffic. A shabbily dressed young black woman—really only a child herself – guided a blind boy from car to car. She held out a scruffy red plastic bowl. He stumbled along with a rough-cut stick and vacant eyes. You don’t see this often in Gaborone, Kubu thought. It would be too shameful to have a relative—no matter how distant—begging in the public road. They would get some sort of support from their extended family.

  Bakkies noticed Kubu’s attention on the couple. “Most of them are just faking,” he said. He sounded irritated. Despite his stick, the boy missed the edge of the road divider and stumbled. To Kubu, he didn’t seem to be faking. Bakkies cursed. He dug in the change pocket of his pants and found a one-rand coin. He held it at arm’s length out of the car window until the two beggars shambled over and he could drop it into the plastic bowl, where it joined a few other small coins. The beggars accepted it with the same stoic indifference they had shown to the tight-shut windows of other drivers. The lights
changed to green, and Bakkies drove on.

  “So, what do you think happened?” Bakkies had his mind back on the case.

  “I believe Angus was murdered, and his body was dumped in a game reserve area. The killers went to a lot of trouble to hide the identity of the body in case it was found. And finding it was just chance. If the game ranger hadn’t been out that way helping a scientist from the university, there would have been nothing left to find.” Kubu paused, remembering that the mess of bone, sinew and dried blood had been his friend. “Then they staged the shark attack here to make it look like an accident.”

  Bakkies shook his head. “Why not just stage an accident immediately in Botswana? Why go to the trouble of disposing of most of the body and taking the rest halfway across Africa?”

  This had worried Kubu too. “I think that they needed Angus alive for the board meeting of the big company I was telling you about—the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company. I’m not sure why, but I think we’ll find the answer in the will of Angus’s father or in the deed of the Hofmeyr Trust. The accident had to happen after that meeting.”

  “Then why not just kill him after the board meeting? Couldn’t they have arranged a car accident? Surely those happen in Botswana?”

  “They certainly do!” Kubu recalled his close encounter with the mother pig. “I think that was probably their plan. But something went wrong, and Angus was killed too soon. That’s when they had to come up with this other idea.”

  “But you said that you spoke to Angus yourself, and he spoke at the board meeting. How could he have done that if he was already dead?”

  “That part I wasn’t sure of until yesterday. You see, Angus was supposed to be at a rehab clinic north of George. I popped in there yesterday on the way here.” He took a sideways glance at Bakkies. The clinic certainly wasn’t on the way between George and Knysna, and he knew he should have reported to the South African police first. But Bakkies only nodded, waiting for him to continue. “I showed the manager a picture of Angus, and she didn’t recognise it at all. Then I showed her one of Jason Ferraz, and she identified it at once as Angus Hofmeyr. He had a lot of electronic equipment with him too. Tape recorders and such like.”

  “So someone impersonated Angus? Was that to provide Angus with an alibi?”

  “What for? Angus didn’t need money or power. He could have had as much as he liked. And the alibi would collapse as soon as it was checked. Just as it did yesterday. No, I think Jason Ferraz was being Angus. For the board meeting, and for talking to people like me. He was damn good too. I was almost fooled.”

  In fact, he’d been completely fooled, apart from the tiny Lesley Davis mistake. “He knew Angus, so he could practise his voice and intonation. But he needed to have lots of help with background. That’s where Dianna Hofmeyr came in. Jason’s lover, by the way.” Kubu smashed his right fist into his left palm. “It’s all falling apart for them, Bakkies! Once Interpol tracks down Ferraz—we think he’s hiding out somewhere in Portugal—and I get my hands on our Ms Hofmeyr, we’ll get the answers to all this.”

  They drove in silence while Bakkies negotiated the winding road down to the coast at Plettenberg Bay. Kubu admired the lush vegetation. This country is so rich, he thought. Bakkies turned into the town, drove through the small commercial centre, past the famous dolphin statue, down the hill, and pulled into the public parking at the Beacon Island Hotel. The sun was high now, glittering off the water. Kubu watched the waves with the near disbelief of a man who has grown up in a dry and landlocked country. He had seen the sea before: once in Cape Town, where he had taken Joy on their honeymoon, and once in Namibia on a fishing holiday. But it wasn’t natural to him. The humidity was higher here too, and the air smelled of salt. Bakkies looked at his face and smiled. “Take off your shoes and socks,” he said, starting to do so himself. “We can walk a bit on the beach. I’ll show you the spot where we found the arm and point out the Hofmeyr house.” He carefully locked his vehicle, and they set off down the beach towards a long peninsula, part of which seemed to have collapsed. “That’s Robberg,” Bakkies said. “It’s a nature reserve with hundreds of seals and birds. Great place to watch for whales.”

  They walked for a few hundred yards. “Who are the they who planned all this and committed the murder?” Bakkies asked. Kubu had difficulty taking his mind off the endless breaking sea.

  “I’m not sure of all of them. But here’s the key question: Who benefits? Cecil Hofmeyr stood to lose BCMC to Angus. Now he’s still the CEO. Dianna is ambitious and ends up chairman of the company, ostensibly through Angus’s support. Jason Ferraz was in danger of being caught smuggling blood diamonds through the mine that belonged to him and—guess who?—Cecil Hofmeyr. Jason had a red-bearded Angolan partner. Then there was a bruiser who was even bigger than you. I had a meeting with him,” he added euphemistically. “But I think he was just part of the hired help. He ended up dead in a not very savory part of Gaborone.”

  “This is it,” Bakkies interrupted. “That dune is where Pat Marks waited for us. Her dog found the arm. It was just about there.” He pointed to a spot on the beach near a dried kelp frond, half buried in the sand. Kubu looked out to sea again. The damp sand started about one metre from where they were standing, and the sea was fingering an area about four metres farther out.

  Bakkies smiled his boyish smile again. “I know what you are thinking. Where was the tide? I checked after we spoke on the phone. It was high tide about one a.m. that night. If you placed the arm out at—say—four a.m., before dawn, the tide would be going out and the arm would be found well before the tide was high again and threatening to take it away. This is a busy beach, even early in the morning.”

  Indeed, even at lunchtime on a weekday, joggers, sun-worshippers and swimmers were plentiful. Some of the younger girls wore swimsuits that left nothing to the imagination, and would not have been acceptable in public in Botswana. Bakkies offered them appreciative glances. For their part, the girls found the two fully clothed men carrying their shoes and socks an odd couple.

  “If someone was going to plant the arm here, where would he have come from? Were there any tracks?” Kubu naturally thought of sand as a source of tracks.

  Bakkies indicated the way they had come. “If someone walked along the beach barefoot, there would be no way to identify the tracks. Hundreds of people walk along here. There’s a gate into the Hofmeyr property farther along. It wouldn’t have been a problem to come down from the house and plant the arm.” He indicated the beachgoers. “All this lot would have been in bed at four in the morning. Probably not alone.”

  They walked on. Bakkies still found it hard to see Dianna as a murderess. “Dianna Hofmeyr had to know, though, didn’t she? She had to lie to us about Angus being here. Do you have enough to arrest her and grill her?”

  “I will as soon as we get the DNA match.”

  Bakkies said nothing. Five minutes later, he pointed to an ostentatious mansion grasping the top of the dune. “That’s their beach place. Money certainly wasn’t a motive, was it?” Kubu looked up at this manifestation of another world.

  “Let’s take a look,” he said.

  Zelda watched the two men lumber up the path from the beach. Both looked hot after the climb. They stopped to put on their shoes, and then made their way to the bottom-level sliding door. She recognised Swanepoel, but the large black man with him was new. One of his colleagues, she decided. She opened the doors.

  “Madam Pamela and Dianna aren’t here,” she said. “They’ve gone back to Botswana.”

  “Hello, Zelda,” said Bakkies. “This is my friend Assistant Superintendent Bengu from Gaborone.” He hesitated, then improvised. “We know that the Hofmeyrs aren’t here. We wanted a word with you.”

  Zelda looked suspicious, but let them in. They took their time looking around on their way up to the kitchen. There Zelda gave them cold drinks, and looked expectant. Bakkies was at a loss, but Kubu had a question. “Zelda, did you ever see Mr Angus
Hofmeyr while he was here?”

  Zelda shook her head. “No, I already told Inspector Swanepoel that, so you could have saved yourselves the walk. I heard them arguing the day before Mr Angus was”—she bit her lip—“attacked.”

  “Did you hear what they were arguing about?”

  “I don’t eavesdrop on people.”

  “But any idea?”

  Zelda shrugged. “They always fought. Ever since they were kids. Why change now?”

  “Did they bring a freezer with them when they came? A small camping one?”

  Zelda shook her head. It was clear that these men were wasting their time and hers. “I have work to do,” she said. “I have to close up the house.”

  Kubu and Bakkies sat outside at the Lookout Restaurant overlooking the sweeping beach with mountains in the background. Each enjoyed a plateful of calamari and a glass of white wine. Pale visitors from Europe sunned themselves to painful red, while tanned surfers challenged the waves. It’s as though I’m on holiday, Kubu thought with a touch of guilt, rather than closing in on a gang of vicious murderers.

  “I must get the first plane back to Gaborone tomorrow,” he said to Bakkies. “I want to welcome Dianna Hofmeyr home when she lands.”

  Bakkies nodded. “What do you want me to do?”

  “A number of things. See if anyone recognised either Angus or Jason at the beach estate. I’ll leave you the photos. Get a warrant and search the house. Dianna came down here with a camping freezer. They may have got rid of it, but if it’s there, check it for traces of seawater and blood. I’ll bet the DNA will match the arm. Look for Angus’s passport too. They’d be crazy not to have destroyed that, but if you find it, it’ll show Jason’s picture. Finally, would you ask your pathology people to do a histolysis test on the tissue? See if they can determine if it was frozen before it was soaked in seawater.”

  Bakkies was impressed. “You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you, Kubu? I wish you could help me with some of my cases.”