A Carrion Death & The 2nd Death of Goodluck Tinubu

by Michael Stanley

  “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 of tea.

  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 neighbors 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 often 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 headed 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.

  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 registration 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 pom-poms, 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-colored 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 center. 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. “We were lucky to get it because it’s usually too expensive for us, but they gave us a special price to help conservation in Botswana. The resolution of this image is about eight feet. That means that each image point the satellite records is eight by eight feet on the ground, which is about sixty-four square feet.

  “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 sawtoothed. 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 toward 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 color. “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 neighbors. “Those two blocks, representing about sixteen by eight feet 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 minimized the color 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 color 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 two feet—so one of the color 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 recognize it. Then Bongani tracked from the riverbed through the dunes, stopped, and zoomed in. At this resolution, what had been merely two lighter blocks in the color 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 color 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 sixty square feet, or roughly half of those two color blocks. Let’s suppose that the rest of the area covered by those blocks is the same color as the surrounding dunes. Then I can find exactly what color we need to mix fifty-fifty with the dune color to get the color actually recorded by the satellite.”

  It was Kubu’s turn to surprise Bongani again. “Let me guess,” he said. “BCMC yellow?”

  Bongani looked startled. He had already selected a color on the screen. It was bright yellow. Neither man said anything for a few minutes. Everyone in Botswana knew vehicles of that color. Every vehicle of the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company was painted that yellow color. In case of breakdown it stood out well from the air in the arid country. Apparently it stood out well from space also.

  It was Kubu who broke the silence.

  “I think we need a drink, and then I’ll tell you how I knew what you were going to say,” he said. “Let’s go to the bar at the Gaborone Sun.”

  Chapter 26

  First thing the next morning, Kubu plucked up his courage and went to see Mabaku. Miriam waved him in, and Mabaku favored him with a grunt by way of greeting. Kubu took an unoffered chair.

  “Director,” he said humbly, “I need your advice.”

  “I am delighted you think I have something to contribute to an investigation, Bengu!” Mabaku said sourly. “I hope you haven’t got yourself into some sort of trouble.”

  “No, Director,” Kubu said. “It’s to do with the body that was found near Dale’s Camp.” Briefly he told the director about the fight between the students. Then he got to the real point of the meeting.

  “Remember that young academic from the university, Bongani Sibisi, who was one of the people who discovered the corpse? Well, he phoned me yesterday afternoon and said he believed he had found the vehicle that was used to drop off the body. And he had.” Kubu hesitated. “Well, he has a sort of picture.”

  Mabaku interrupted. “My advice, Bengu, if you are asking for it, is to find the owner of the vehicle and bring him in for questioning! Surely you can work that out for yourself?”

  “It is not quite as simple as that,” Kubu said. “If we could identify the vehicle, we would certainly find the owner and bring him—or her—in.” Kubu added a little emphasis to the “her,” remembering his last visit to this office. Mabaku glowered but said nothing.

  “However, the picture is not a normal photograph,” Kubu continued. “Sibisi has a computer-enhanced image of satellite data of the area coincidently taken a few days before the body was found. Bongani is able to identify objects on the ground in quite an amazing way. The satellite, he thinks, shows that the vehicle that dumped the corpse is owned by BCMC. And there is corroboration of that.” Kubu told the director about the Number One Petrol Station.

  “Shit!” Mabaku spat out.

  “I need your advice on how I should go about trying to find out about the BCMC vehicle, if it is indeed a BCMC vehicle. Where should I start? Who should I speak to? I don’t want to stir up any unnecessary trouble at this stage.”

  Ten minutes later, Kubu left the director’s office with a plan of attack. Kubu was reluctantly impressed with Mabaku’s insistence on pursuing any leads to their conclusion. He can be a bit of an ogre, he thought, but he is thorough and clear-thinking.

  A junior detective would monitor whether Staal confirmed or changed his flight. If nothing had happened by Thursday morning, Edison Banda would interview Tannenbaum at the Gaborone airport before he left for Germany. He would then return to the airport to check whether Staal took his Saturday flight. If he did, the lead closed. If not, Kubu would contact the Dutch police for help in determining whether Staal was alive.

  In the meantime, Kubu would take Mabaku to meet Bongani. If Mabaku was satisfied, they would set up an appointment with Cecil Hofmeyr. Mabaku did not want to cause problems with BCMC and thought it prudent first to visit his golfing friend, the chairman of BCMC, both to alert him to the investigation and to seek guidance on how to proceed.

  It was close to 4:00 p.m. that day when Mabaku and Kubu arrived at Bongani’s office. This was the earliest the three could meet, and Kubu had spent much of the day nervously waiting for the appointed time to arrive. Kubu introduced Bongani and Mabaku, the latter showing surprising civility initially.

  “I have to say I’m very skeptical about what Assistant Superintendent Bengu has told me,” Mabaku said. “Please take me through what you showed him. And keep the jargon to a minimum. I am interested in facts, not a smoke-and-mirrors routine designed to impress me.” Kubu relaxed. That was more like the Mabaku he knew.

  For the next fifteen minutes Bongani made a careful and thorough presentation of what he had found. He was careful to explain terms when he thought it would help Mabaku understand what he was presenting, but otherwise kept to the point. He answered Mabaku’s questions directly and clearly. Kubu was impressed by Bongani’s organization of his material, as well as the way he handled the senior police officer. When he had finished, Bongani pushed his chair back and turned toward the director.

  “So! What do you think?”

  Mabaku did not respond at first, keeping his eyes on the computer screen with its profusion of small colored blocks. He shuffled a little in his chair and stood up, still silent. After a few seconds of looking out of the window, he turned toward Bongani and said quietly, “That is quite a show you have there—turning bits of desert into yellow vehicles. I hope your conclusions can stand up to close scrutiny, Dr. Sibisi, because they may have to.”

  Mabaku paused for what seemed a long time. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Sibisi. Let’s go, Bengu.” He walked to the door.

  Kubu stood up, glanced at Bongani, rolled his eyes, and thanked him again. “I’ll phone you later,” he whispered, hoping that Mabaku didn’t hear. He turned and followed Mabaku back to the car.

  As they drove back to police headquarters, Mabaku was unusually quiet. But as they turned into the parking lot, he said, “I’ll set up a meeting with Cecil Hofmeyr tomorrow, if I can. There is no proof that was a BCMC vehicle, but we need to check it out. I hope BCMC personnel are not involved in any way. That won’t be good for anybody.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Kubu received a call from Miriam telling him that they were to leave for Cecil Hofmeyr’s office just before eight thirty the next morning. Kubu was surprised and impressed that Mabaku had been able to arrange things so quickly. He wondered about the connection between the two men.

  Chapter 27

  Kubu wasn’t looking forward to the meeting with Cecil Hofmeyr. He had no concern about bearding the lion of BCMC in his den, but he didn’t much like going with Mabak
u, who would probably run the interview, cramping Kubu’s style. It was clear that Mabaku had no intention of letting Kubu play this one on his own.

  Actually, Mabaku was in good humor and seemed to be looking forward to seeing Cecil. He was pleased that Cecil had told him to come whenever he liked—he would make time for them. He told Kubu this at least twice. Kubu tried to look properly impressed. They left punctually at 8:30 a.m. Mabaku had opted to go first thing in the morning so as not to break up Cecil’s day.

  BCMC headquarters was a fifteen-minute drive away on Khama Crescent opposite the Orapa building, where diamonds were sorted for the huge Debswana joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government. The BCMC building skillfully blended glass and brick, with ponds and fountains outside. Nevertheless, it seemed out of place in the sprawling village that was Gaborone.

  Entering the building, both men stopped for a moment to savor the cool air. Gaborone was over 3,000 feet above sea level, but it could still be very hot in March. The lobby was large, occupying almost half the ground floor. The understated colors suggested the heat and dryness of Botswana. Pedestals scattered throughout the lobby displayed beautiful masks and sculptures. They were not from Botswana, but rather the products of the great sculpting tribes to the north, in Zimbabwe, Angola, and the Congos. On the walls, faded black-and-white photographs showed large herds of cattle, and bright color photographs depicted mines and happy workers. Behind the reception desk hung a large portrait of a suntanned man in an open-necked shirt with eyes a startling shade of blue and a determined jawline. This was the late Roland Hofmeyr, founder of the company, and brother to Cecil.

  They checked in at the elegant reception area and were directed to Cecil’s office on the fifth floor. The waiting area offered a beautiful panorama of the northern parts of town, with floor-to-ceiling windows of tinted glass. The seats and sofas boasted upholstery in a colorful fabric with a strong African motif. More historical photographs hung on the walls. The secretary was polite but seemed agitated and surprised, and at once telephoned through to his boss announcing, “The police have arrived.” He then waved them through the impressive double doors of Rhodesian mahogany.