A Carrion Death & The 2nd Death of Goodluck Tinubu

by Michael Stanley

  “Drive out gate, wave to guard like usual, turn left like heading home,” said Red Beard. He’d done his homework. Cecil didn’t argue and followed the instructions.

  “Now just drive straight out of town, nice and slow. We talk.”

  “What do you want? Money?”

  “Oh, I want money all right, Friend! Or should I call you Mr. Daniel? I want the money you owe me. Job’s done, some problems, yes, but all sorted now, not so, as you say?” Red Beard smiled. He was enjoying outsmarting Cecil Hofmeyr—chairman of Botswana’s largest company—who had thought he could hide behind an anonymous phone and a silly false name. “But let’s talk, Mr. Daniel. Good friends should get to know each other.”

  Cecil’s heart raced. Whoever this man was, he obviously had the wrong victim. Cecil didn’t give himself a high probability of survival when this thug realized his mistake. He wondered if he could throw himself out of the vehicle.

  Red Beard read his thoughts and shook his head. “Not good idea,” he said, prodding Cecil in the ribs with his gun. “And anyway, what for? I know who you are and where I find you. You not going anywhere.”

  “Look, I don’t know who you think I am, but you’re wrong. My name is Cecil Hofmeyr, and I work for BCMC. I don’t know a Daniel. I don’t know you. I have some money I can give you. Cash.”

  Red Beard laughed. “Oh, Cecil Hofmeyr all right. And you the boss at BCMC! I take the money, but I want two hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars. Do you have that with you? Cash?”

  Cecil almost drove into the gutter. “Of course not.” His voice was a whisper. “Why would I have that sort of money with me?”

  “Then we better talk about when you have that money and when I get it. Otherwise we not friends after all.” All the ironic pleasantness left Red Beard’s voice. He had won the cat-and-mouse game and wanted Cecil to acknowledge that.

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about! Who the hell are you, anyway? I have friends very high up in the police, you’d better—” Red Beard hit him hard across the face. Cecil swung the car, which hit the curb and stalled.

  “Look, no games!” Red Beard shouted at him. “You’re Daniel. You the one with the plan. You think I’m stupid? I know you get BCMC! Get the company away from Angus Hofmeyr. You got Ferraz to set that up for you, not so? But then you had better idea, didn’t you, Mr. Big Knob? You wanted him out the way permanent. Well, you got what you want. Now pay me the rest of my money!”

  Blood dripped from Cecil’s upper lip. He started to reach for a handkerchief, but Red Beard stopped him with a look, so he wiped his mouth on his hand.

  “Angus was murdered? He didn’t just drown in the Cape?”

  Red Beard experienced a moment of doubt. Was Hofmeyr such a good actor? But he had been a good actor all along, hadn’t he? And the aristocratic English voice was right.

  “Shall I tell you whole story, Mr. Daniel? Waste time. You know it already. And if you don’t, I have to kill you afterward.” He didn’t recognize this as the punch line of a stale joke.

  Cecil’s voice quivered. “You killed him, didn’t you? You killed him, and you think I hired you to do that? But it’s crazy. I had nothing to gain from Angus’s death. I had already lost everything. His sister took over the company at the board meeting while Angus was in hospital. She kicked me out. I’m just her manager now.”

  Red Beard ground his teeth. “Drive,” he said. Several people walking on the pavement near them were noticing the odd couple.

  Cecil pulled into the traffic. A loud hoot from a passing minibus taxi emphasized that his mind was not on the driving. “Look, Dianna Hofmeyr became the boss of BCMC! Somehow she persuaded her brother to let her have a go at running the company. Perhaps he was still on drugs? I don’t know. But that’s not like him. He would’ve wanted it back. Perhaps they had a fight about it at the beach house? How the hell should I know? That’s probably when she got this Daniel to hire you.”

  “Just drive! Shut up!” A note of doubt had crept into Red Beard’s voice; also a hint of panic, which Cecil found more frightening. His only chance of surviving was to persuade his captor that he wasn’t the mystery Daniel. But what would happen after that?

  “How do you know it wasn’t Dianna all along? Did you ever meet this Daniel?”

  Red Beard shook his head. “Spoke on phone. Several times. Man with a fancy accent, just like yours, Mr. Big Shot.” He tried to sound confident, but he was no longer sure. Perhaps Cecil Hofmeyr really didn’t know what had happened. Was it possible that Daniel was working for the Hofmeyr woman? Now he had a problem with Cecil. Shit! He didn’t need more police activity at the moment. And Cecil was very high-profile, and probably did have senior friends in the police.

  It was Cecil’s turn to surmise what Red Beard was thinking. He knew he was fighting now for his life. “It must have been Dianna who was behind it. She was the only one who benefited. She and that Jason Ferraz character she liked. She got control of the whole company. Angus would never have given it to her. Never! Probably Ferraz was your Daniel.” But without explaining why not, Red Beard shook his head firmly.

  Then a brilliant idea struck Cecil. Suddenly he saw things clearly. Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging, he thought wryly. He drove for a few minutes in silence, almost ignoring Red Beard while he thought it through. The outskirts of Gaborone slid past as they drove down the busy road to Molepolole. Cecil felt relatively safe in the traffic. At last he spoke. “I know how it was done. All of it. I could never understand why Angus would hand over the company to her. It was the last thing I expected. It threw me completely. Now it finally makes sense. I can tell you who Daniel is, too.” Quickly and confidently he explained to Red Beard what he thought had actually happened.

  Red Beard listened and then turned it all over in his mind. Without enthusiasm he decided that Cecil was probably right. So he had been wrong all along. He had been cheated and played for a fool! “Drive!” was all he said. He smashed his fist onto the dashboard.

  Cecil jumped. But his fear was now mixed with anger. He, too, had been cheated. And been robbed of his company. Now he was going to be killed by the monster hired to achieve that. He wanted to live. And he wanted revenge. He had to get Red Beard onto his side.

  “Turn into that dirt track to the left up ahead,” Red Beard said, gesturing with the gun.

  Cecil knew he was going to die unless he could offer Red Beard two critical things—money and safety.

  “I think we can help each other,” he said urgently. “BCMC is my company. I earned it, and I killed for it. It used to belong to my brother, but he cared more for his own pleasures than the company. I had him killed. Blew up his plane.” God forgive me, he thought. “Now we’ve both been double-crossed, haven’t we? I lose the company I’ve worked years to build, and you don’t even get the money you’ve earned for all the risks you’ve taken. We get nothing. But it doesn’t have to be like that.” He glanced at Red Beard as he drove. He said nothing, and the gun still pointed at Cecil’s chest. But Red Beard looked thoughtful. He ignored the fact that Cecil had kept on driving past the turnoff. He was listening.

  When Cecil got home, he was shaking so badly that he could hardly open the door. The reaction had set in as soon as he dropped Red Beard at a minibus taxi rank. He told the staff he had had a nasty fall at work and had come straight home. They were alarmed by the blood on his face and shirt. He’d started bleeding again in the car, he explained. No, he wasn’t hungry. He would have a couple of drinks and go to bed. No, he would fix the drinks himself.

  At last they left him alone. He poured a double Lagavulin (more like a triple) and settled into an armchair. I’ll drink this to steady myself, he thought. Then I’ll phone Mabaku. He’ll believe me. He’ll go after this red-bearded devil. They’ll catch him. I’ll be safe. I’ll tell him the rest of it too. He’ll believe me. Or will he? Now he regretted all the lies about Aron’s stupid letter. My God, how the stakes have changed, he thought. He refilled th
e empty whisky glass and went through all the possibilities in his head. Would there be enough evidence? Or would he be left high and dry with no money and this bloodthirsty maniac after him?

  At last he stood up and walked to his desk. He knew what he had to do; he had to stop Red Beard before he carried out his side of their deal—the deal with the devil that he’d made to save his life. He looked up Mabaku’s home number in his address book. Mabaku had given it to him when their relationship was that of friends. He dialed the number. It rang three times, and then Mabaku answered. “Hello, Mabaku speaking. Who’s there?”

  Cecil cleared his throat. He thought about how he had been cheated. How they had made a fool of him.

  “Who’s there?” Mabaku repeated, sounding irritated now.

  Cecil saw the faces at the board meeting, watching him slink away defeated from the company he had built.

  “Hello. Who is this? What do you want?”

  Cecil thought of Angus being kidnapped and murdered in cold blood. And that made him think back to his conversation with Nama and Rabafana that morning. Was it possible that this was what they actually wanted?

  He knew he should stop Red Beard. But suddenly he knew he wasn’t going to. Very deliberately, he hung up.

  Chapter 60

  The next morning Kubu sat in his office, totally distracted. No Mozart passed his lips. When anyone spoke to him, it was obviously difficult for him to focus on what they were saying. His mind was on puzzles.

  He had loved jigsaw puzzles as a child. His father had bought him a used one from a street vendor, and they had solved it together. It had become almost a craving for them. Whenever he could afford a pula or two, Wilmon brought one home. They became experts, finishing the puzzles almost too quickly. But once the box had contained two puzzles with their pieces mixed up. One was the rightful inhabitant of the box, the other something quite different. It had been really hard to do either puzzle until they realized what had happened.

  “Of course,” he thought. “That’s why I can’t make the Kamissa body fit. Because it’s not part of the Frankental puzzle at all. It’s part of the other puzzle. The Hofmeyr puzzle.” Despite all the missing pieces, it suddenly started to make sense. The pieces are all on the table, he thought. I just have to match them to the right puzzle. To do that, I’m going to have to pay Bakkies a visit.

  After several minutes of reverie, Kubu shook his head, picked up the phone, and called Swanepoel.

  “Bakkies? This is Kubu. There’s been a turn in the case that we need to discuss face-to-face. We’re pretty certain that Angus Hofmeyr was murdered, and that the murder took place in Botswana.”

  “Jislike! How’s that, then?”

  “I can’t go into details now, but I’ll see you tomorrow, or Thursday at the latest, and explain everything. You’ll help me, won’t you? I’ll need to interview a few people, and pick your brains, and see what you’ve found out. I hope that’s okay?”

  “Ja, Kubu. Come on down. I’ll be pleased to hand the case over to you. We don’t really have anything to go on here.”

  “See you soon, then.”

  “Good,” Bakkies responded, making it sound like the Afrikaans “goed” with the G like a smoker clearing his throat. “Be careful, Kubu. See you soon.”

  Next he phoned Pleasant. “I have to go to a place called…” Kubu hesitated. “Not sure how to say it. It’s spelled KNYSNA. It’s in the Western Cape. I’d like to leave tomorrow, if possible.”

  “It is pronounced with no K, and the S sounds like a Z,” Pleasant said. “The flight actually goes to George, which is about thirty or forty miles away. Then you’ll have to rent a car and drive.”

  That suited Kubu admirably because he wanted to visit a certain private hospital nearby. He made the arrangements and asked Pleasant to have the tickets delivered to him. “I’ll bring them to the house this evening,” she said. “Joy and I have lots to catch up on.”

  There was still a big hurdle to cross. Somehow he had to convince Mabaku to let him play his hunch. And a costly one it would be. He headed for the director’s office. Mabaku seemed in a good mood, waved Kubu to a chair, and looked encouraging. “Well, Kubu, how’s the case progressing?”

  “You know, Director, I think there were two different cases all along. What confused us, and made us think it was one case, was that the same people were involved in both.”

  “I don’t understand. Doesn’t that make it one case?”

  Kubu shook his head. “Let’s take the mine. That was one case. Red Beard was using it as a laundry for blood diamonds. He was in it with Jason.” Kubu looked down at the floor. “I don’t know if Cecil Hofmeyr was involved or not.” He waited, but Mabaku didn’t comment, so he continued.

  “Aron caught on to what they were doing, and they had to shut him up. So they killed him. Somehow disposed of his body. Then Red Beard discovered that Aron had written that letter. Perhaps Aron tried to use it as a lever to talk them out of killing him. Anyway, Red Beard had to get it back. So he commissioned Kobedi to do so. But Cecil guessed what had happened. He didn’t want that letter floating around either. Kobedi thought he was smarter than everyone else, and he was greedy. So he double-crossed Red Beard and tried to fob him off with a color photocopy. Hell, it wasn’t a check, was it? I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then Red Beard tied off the loose ends and bumped off Sculo, whom I had seen. All neat and tidy.”

  Mabaku nodded. It all made sense. “But that doesn’t explain the Kamissa murder.”

  Kubu nodded. “That’s the other case, you see.”

  Mabaku waited, but Kubu didn’t continue. At last Mabaku lost patience.

  “Yes? And that is?”

  “Well, I’ve got some ideas on that.” He crossed his fingers and pushed on. “Inspector Swanepoel thinks the Angus Hofmeyr death and the Kamissa body are connected, but I’m not really sure. I need to follow up some things. In South Africa.” He slid the travel requisition across the desk to his boss.

  “Why do you need to go to South Africa? What’s wrong with their police? We work together these days, you know.”

  Kubu had expected this. He tried to look put out. “Director, this is our case. Our reputation is at stake. We can’t let the South Africans come in and make fools of us. I suppose I have a personal stake in this too. After all, Angus Hofmeyr was my friend.”

  “But what do you hope to find out? You should be after this red-bearded maniac.”

  “Director, Angus Hofmeyr came here to inherit a massive company. He dies a matter of days after taking control of BCMC. Kobedi dies, leaving a treasure trove of blackmail tapes. Jason Ferraz disappears, although he doesn’t know we’re after him. Do you really think all this is coincidence?”

  “You think that something much bigger is going on? That someone much bigger is behind this so-called second case?”

  Kubu said nothing, but he met Mabaku’s eyes.

  “Shit!” Mabaku signed the travel requisition and shoved it back to Kubu. “You work strictly with the South Africans. We don’t want an international incident. And be careful. If you are wrong, you’ll have me to answer to. But if you are right…be careful.”

  Kubu thanked him and headed for the door.

  “Bengu!” the director called out as he got there. “See if you can find it in my secretary’s office.”

  “Find what, Director Mabaku?”

  “The printing press. The one that does the hundred-pula notes that you all seem to think I have an inexhaustible supply of.”

  Kubu grinned. “I’ll look,” he said.

  Chapter 61

  Jason’s body was aching with overexertion. It had been a long time since he’d spent countless hours surfing on the beaches of Mussulo Island off Luanda. Then he was fit and hard. Botswana had softened him.

  Nevertheless he’d thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon testing the waves of the Inferno, one of the Lisbon area’s famous beaches. He shouldered his board and walked up to the rental kiosk.
The attendant looked the board over and returned Jason’s deposit.

  “Will we see you tomorrow?” he asked in Portuguese.

  Jason smiled. “Yes, if I can get out of bed! It’s been a long time since I surfed like that.”

  “Take a hot shower this evening, then stretch until you hurt. Tomorrow you’ll be fine.”

  Jason waved and set off for his apartment in the center of Cascais, an upscale town just outside Lisbon. He walked down the Avenida Rei Humberto II de Italia toward the marina, enjoying the views of the Atlantic. Yachts were heading back for the night, their sails glowing in the sun. He was pleased that he had spent the money for the lovely twelfth-floor apartment overlooking the bay toward Estoril. The views were spectacular, and he looked forward to enjoying the sunset with a bottle of chilled Dão wine. Soon, he believed, he would be able to afford the best anywhere in the world.

  He walked down the Avenida Vasco da Gama, turned onto the Avenida Emidio Navarro, where his building was situated. He nodded to the receptionist and took the elevator to his apartment. He opened all the windows, took cheese out of the fridge to warm up, and headed for the shower.

  Twenty minutes later he settled on the balcony with his wine and sighed with content. This was the life. All that was missing was Dianna. As he thought of her, he felt a stirring in his loins. She was a different person when it came to sex. All the British reserve dissolved, and she turned into an uninhibited animal with a deft touch and an insatiable appetite. He smiled at the thought of a life with a woman like that. And if not her, he would settle for the money. He would find other women.

  Half an hour later, the bottle of wine empty and only a small portion of cheese left, the doorbell rang. Puzzled as to whom it could be, Jason went to the door and peered through the security peephole. An attractive young woman was making faces at the door. Wrong apartment, Jason thought. But maybe she would like a glass of wine. He would certainly enjoy some female company.