EIGHTEEN
IT WAS MID-MORNING BY the time Kubu returned to Marumo’s house in Pela Crescent. With Mabaku’s suggestion in mind, he’d asked Samantha to join him. She’d been pleased, even though it meant putting off her visit to the Malengs. But the morning had not added much to what they already knew. Marumo had political enemies—plenty of them—but they were more likely to stab him in the back than in front, as Kubu wryly told Samantha. Of course, they would follow up on those, but Kubu was not optimistic. He feared they were looking for a madman, and if he had no obvious connection to Marumo, he’d be hard to find.
They found Jubjub calm with her mother and brother in attendance. Kubu greeted them, introduced Samantha, and then explained that they wanted to look through the house. Jubjub had no problem with that and showed them around.
Kubu decided to start searching in the study, where he’d interviewed the doctor. Jubjub left them there and returned to the consolation of her family.
“What are we looking for?” Samantha asked.
Kubu rubbed his chin. “Something like a threat note, maybe bank records, large amounts of cash, anything unexpected. I don’t know yet. But we’ll know when we find it.”
He sat at the desk and thought about Bill and about the house. The house was in a good area, and although not new, it had been extensively renovated. The furnishings were good quality. Not ostentatious, but certainly not cheap. And Bill’s car was a relatively new Toyota Fortuner. Plenty of money had gone there. There was no doubt that Bill was wealthy. Where had all the money come from? Not from a member of parliament’s salary. Perhaps he’d inherited it.
Samantha was looking through the bookcase. She pulled out a book by Karl Marx.
“The Communist Manifesto! Do you think Marumo was a communist?” She sounded shocked.
Kubu shook his head. “Certainly not a Marxist. He was far too fond of the finer things of life. It’s probably from when he studied political science at university.”
Relieved, she returned the book.
Kubu pulled on latex gloves and turned his attention back to the desk. There was no diary, but there was a laptop computer. He’d leave that to the experts. There were three drawers. The top one contained pens and stationery, the second old checkbooks, correspondence, and what looked like a draft speech. He skimmed it but found nothing of interest. He flipped through the check books, too. There were some large payments but nothing that caught his attention.
The third drawer was locked.
Kubu dug in his pocket for the bunch of keys that Zanele had found on Bill’s body. He chose one that looked right, but it was hard to fit. Looking closer, he saw that the casing around the lock had been scratched and bent. That was interesting. He fiddled until the key slipped into the lock and turned.
At first he thought the drawer was empty, but when he reached to the back he felt a smooth, roundish object. He pulled it out and placed it on the desk. It was a yellow-brown gourd, the top of which was sealed with what looked to be an ordinary wine cork.
“Take a look at this, Samantha. I’m not sure what to make of it.”
Samantha was searching under the cushions of the couch where Dr. Pilane had been sitting the night before. She dumped the cushions in a pile and walked over to the desk.
“Don’t!” she said sharply as Kubu reached to uncork the gourd. “It’s muti.”
Kubu pulled his hand back. She could well be right. Muti would be in a natural container, something the ancestors would recognize and appreciate. Hide, wood, gourd. Not metal or plastic. His hand tingled. He wished he hadn’t touched the object at all. God only knew what it contained. Suddenly he recalled Marumo’s lack of concern for his safety. Perhaps he believed himself protected by magic. Then Kubu recalled Marumo’s unshakable confidence in his political future. And the recent shocking election upset. The skin crawled on the back of his neck.
“What’re you going to do?” Samantha asked.
“Get me an evidence bag. We’ll see what Zanele’s people can make of it.”
Dog’s heads, gourds of muti. Marumo was certainly mixed up with something unpleasant. But could it be connected to the murder? Had he raised some demon, either real or imaginary? Kubu shook his head to clear the fantasy. A real man with a real knife had killed Marumo for a reason that was real, at least to him. Find the reason, find the clues, find the man. It was very unlikely to have anything to do with black magic and a gourd containing an unpleasant but probably harmless mixture.
Yet he felt a chill, and was glad when the gourd was safely stowed in an evidence bag, out of sight.
NINETEEN
WITNESS DIDN’T SLEEP WELL on Sunday night. The enormity of what he’d done had started to seep into his consciousness, and he wondered how he’d turned from a God-fearing man into a murderer. But murderer was too strong a word, he thought. Yes, he had killed the smiling Marumo, but he hadn’t really intended to. If Marumo hadn’t shouted for help, he wouldn’t have tried to keep him quiet.
However, the realization that he had killed frightened him. What would happen if the police tracked him down? He couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life in jail—with real killers, and drug pushers and addicts. What would his friends think?
He tossed and turned and began to wonder whether his simple plan of cleaning all his clothes and the car was enough. What if someone had seen him, seen his car near Falcon Crest Suites at the time of the murder? There were cameras everywhere these days. What if one of them had recorded his comings and goings from Pela Crescent? Or maybe there was a security guard at one of the fancy houses near Marumo’s. That big house with metal gates with diamond-shaped centerpieces surely would have a night watchman. What if he had seen Witness running by?
Sleep continued to elude him as these thoughts swirled through his head with increasing frequency and greater ferocity.
Maybe he should get out of town for a while. Get work at one of the diamond mines. Get a long way from Gaborone until he could be sure the police had nothing on him.
What had he to lose? He probably couldn’t get his job back, because he hadn’t told them about taking time off. He had hoped they’d understand and be supportive of his mission to get Tombi back. But after two weeks? They’d probably hired someone to replace him by now.
And what had he left in Gaborone? A few friends, certainly.
And bad memories.
AFTER A FITFUL NIGHT, Witness eventually dragged himself from bed around 7:30 a.m. During the night he had decided to pack his belongings and head off for either Orapa or Jwaneng. He’d call both mines to inquire whether there were any jobs available.
Once there, he’d ask someone to find a tenant to rent his home—probably Big Mama would be best. She knew everyone in the area. He needed to get some money quickly—the witch doctor had depleted his savings.
He made himself a cup of strong tea and cut a thick slice of bread, which he covered with jam. He sat down at the table and started to think through what he would have to do before he left. After a few minutes, he realized there was little to do—pack his clothes in the tattered suitcase on top of his cupboard, fold his only sheets and two blankets and put them in plastic bags, put his plates and cups, knives and forks, and pots and pans in a box, take whatever was in the fridge, and leave. He’d then stop on the way out of town and draw the final pula from his bank account.
Witness drained his second cup of tea and walked out to his car to fetch some plastic bags. He’d just opened the hatchback when a Toyota Corolla stopped outside his house. It was about ten years old, but clean. The owner looks after it, he thought. A short, thin woman in her late twenties, maybe early thirties, walked over and asked, “Rra Maleng?”
Witness nodded, puzzled as to who the woman could be. She extended her hand, which he shook, surprised by its firmness.
“Rra Maleng. My name is Samantha Khama. I’m with the Botswana Police, Criminal Investigation Department.”
Witness didn’t respond. He was in shock. How had they found him so soon?
“Do you have a few minutes?” she asked, glancing at his car. “May I come in?”
Witness looked at her. She was alone. He wondered whether he could knock her out and get away before she regained consciousness. “Of course,” he stammered.
Once inside, he pointed to a chair. “Please,” he mumbled. He wondered if she had a gun in her purse. He’d have to be careful and try to get the purse out of her reach. He sat down, facing her.
“Rra Maleng. I live not far from here, on Dedia Street in Extension 33.”
Witness nodded, wondering why she was taking her time.
“It seems there are a lot of bad things happening in this area at the moment.” She glanced at Witness waiting for a response. He sat impassively, jaw clenched, and his foot tapping furiously.
“First your daughter—I’m so sorry that she’s missing. And now Bill Marumo.”
Witness had to clasp his hands together to stop them from shaking. When was she going to accuse him?
“I only heard about your daughter last Friday. The Broadhurst police let things slip. They should’ve reported that she was missing to me immediately. I really apologize for that.”
Now Witness was puzzled. Why didn’t the policewoman get to the point? He stared at her.
“Rra, are you all right?” she asked, frowning.
Witness nodded.
“Rra Maleng, please tell me about the Friday evening when Tombi went missing.” Samantha took out her notebook.
She’s not here about Marumo! he thought. She doesn’t know! He took a deep breath and started talking.
“It was a terrible day.” The words came out in a croak. He cleared his throat and continued. “I was at home cooking supper . . .”
“You were cooking supper?”
“Yes. My wife died last year . . .”
“I’m sorry. Please continue.”
“As I was saying, I was at home cooking supper. . . .”
For the next half hour Witness recounted the fateful weekend when Tombi disappeared—the community coming together to help search for her, the father of one of Tombi’s friends who saw a white car drive off in the distance just after he’d seen Tombi on her way home, the prayers at the church, the lack of interest by the police. But the worst was the waiting and waiting for her to come home.
Samantha didn’t interrupt his story but sat quietly taking notes. When he stopped talking, she asked for clarification on a number of points, including the name of the man who had seen the car, something that hadn’t appeared in the police reports. Eventually she closed her notebook.
“Rra Maleng, have you heard of Lesego Betse?”
Witness shook his head. What was this about? he wondered.
“She was a young girl who we think was killed for muti . . .”
Witness gasped at the mention of muti.
Samantha leaned forward and touched his knee. “I don’t know whether that was what happened to Tombi, but it’s a possibility. My job at the CID is to investigate missing children, so I want you to think whether any men were paying attention to her. Did she ever mention anything to you?”
Witness relaxed again. “I never saw anything like that, and she never mentioned anything to me. Maybe you should speak to her school friends.”
Samantha opened her notebook again and took down the details.
“Rra Maleng, please let me know if you think of anything or hear anything. Anything at all. Anything you haven’t told me. It could be important.” She gave him her card.
She stood up and extended her hand. “Thank you for your time. My sympathies again.”
Witness was so weak from stress that he was barely able to stand to walk her to her car. As the Toyota disappeared, leaving a trail of brown dust swirling above the sandy street, Witness stared after it. “Thank you, Lord,” he said out loud. “You know what I did was just.”
He turned and walked back into his small house to resume packing.
Fifteen minutes later, he carried his suitcase, the plastic bags, and boxes to his car. He returned to the house, closed all the windows, drew the curtains, and gave one last sad look around the house where he’d lived for the past seven years. He wondered whether he would ever see it again.
Witness locked the door and drove away. He’d call the mines when he was far from Gaborone.
TWENTY
KUBU LOOKED AROUND THE table at the assembled CID staff. Mabaku looked worried. Not much had changed in the last thirty-six hours to give him comfort. If anything, the issue of the gourd that Kubu had discovered made things worse. It seemed likely that Marumo had been involved in something very unpleasant. That would open a gamut of new potential motives and possibilities.
Samantha looked disturbed and unhappy. Her hopes of Marumo as a hero had been dashed by his murder. And by his use of muti.
Mabaku turned to Zanele first. “What have you got, Zanele?”
She shrugged. “Not much more, Director. But we have two pieces of hair that don’t come from Marumo or Jubjub. Black African, I’d say.”
Mabaku perked up. “That’s good. If we catch a suspect and can DNA-match the hair, we’re home.”
Zanele nodded. “Doesn’t help us find the murderer, though.”
Mabaku already knew that. “What about Kubu’s gourd?”
For a moment Zanele said nothing. “It’s not good. It’s a mixture of all sorts of stuff. Some common herbs and so on. But we’ve looked at it under a microscope, and I’m sure that it contains animal remains. There’s a reasonable chance they’re human.”
Kubu looked around the table again, assessing how the team was taking this news. Samantha clasped her hands tightly in front of her and avoided his glance. Ian MacGregor looked as relaxed as usual. Mabaku frowned, obviously concerned about the new complications. The others looked uncomfortable or plainly scared.
“We have to find out what it is and where it came from,” Kubu said. “We already have the dog’s head issue. Now we’re talking muti. There was always something about Marumo—I admit I didn’t like him—but there was a confidence that was unnatural. Definitely unnatural.”
“You think it could link to motive?” Mabaku growled.
Kubu shook his head. “Once you’re mixed up in this sort of stuff, it could be anything.”
“You’re not suggesting a demon or a tokoloshe?” It was the beefy Detective Thibelo who asked this in a tentative voice.
Kubu looked at him sharply. “No, of course not, we all know that’s nonsense.” He stopped and glanced at each of the other CID detectives in turn. He got several nods in response, but they didn’t meet his eyes. “But there could be witch doctors who need to be paid, maybe relatives seeking revenge, perhaps someone wanted to steal the so-called magic. I don’t know. There are lots of possibilities now.”
Mabaku looked unhappy. “We keep this quiet. You all understand? We don’t want to alert the culprit if there is a connection, and we certainly don’t want a media field day. Marumo supporters will say it’s a smear and link us to the government. This doesn’t go outside this room.”
Kubu nodded firmly, but he wondered about it. People had seen him bring in the gourd; people had seen Zanele working with it. He was pretty sure it was already an open secret.
“It may be the best lead we’ve got. Ian, can you get your friends in South Africa to help us get the DNA information quickly?”
Ian nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.” He paused. “As for the autopsy, nothing unexpected there. One of the stab wounds went into the heart, as I thought. He would’ve died very soon after that.”
“What have the rest of you got for two days’ work?” Mabaku’s tone suggested that it had better be something.
Thibelo stuck up his hand. He’s regained some courage, Kubu thought.
“We’ve done door-to-door.” He looked at his notes. “Not much to report, but one man noticed a beaten-up blue Volkswagen parked outside the Falcon Crest Suites. There’s a place there where you can pull off the road. It’s a short walk from Marumo’s house. He noticed it because it looked out of place. He thought perhaps it had broken down. He’d taken his dog for a walk, and when they came back the car was still there.”
“What time was that?” Kubu asked.
“He thinks it was about seven when they came back.”
“Any chance he remembered all or part of the registration number?”
Thibelo shook his head. “He was sure it was a local number. But that’s all.”
Kubu sighed. An old blue Volkswagen that might possibly be involved didn’t offer much to go on. Mabaku started to say the same thing, but Samantha interrupted.
“I’m sorry, Director. It’s just . . . Well, it’s a really long shot, but . . .”
“What?” asked Mabaku, irritated.
Samantha hesitated. “I interviewed a man called Witness Maleng this morning. It was about the disappearance of his daughter. When I first arrived he seemed very nervous. I even had the feeling he might not talk to me. He calmed down a bit, but he was very bitter about his daughter. He felt the police hadn’t done enough soon enough to find her. I think he believes she’s been abducted for muti.”
She paused, and Mabaku interjected, “You think he could be connected to Marumo because of the gourd?”
Samantha nodded. “I was thinking about what Kubu said about relatives. And his car was a battered blue Volkswagen Golf.”
Suddenly there was complete silence around the table. All were focused on the first distant scent of prey.
Kubu shrugged. “Maybe he was nervous that you had bad news about his daughter. We don’t even know if the Volkswagen Golf was connected to the murder, and there must be dozens of them around.” Samantha started to protest, but Kubu held up his hand. “Having said that, it’s definitely worth following up. I’d like to do that right away.”
Mabaku nodded. “I agree. As soon as we’ve finished.” He recalled the Daily News report that had run in the morning and turned to the detective who had been manning the phones. “Anything from the public on the hotline?”
“Half the callers were sure the government was behind it,” the man replied. “Some just phoned to have their say. Then there were a few cranks. One confessed, but he didn’t even know where Marumo lived. We’ll follow up what we can.”
So this is what we have, Kubu thought, a gourd of muti, a blue Volkswagen Golf near the scene, and a bereaved man. It was tenuous, but he had a hunch there was a connection.
TWENTY-ONE
IT TOOK WITNESS LESS than two hours to drive to Jwaneng. He turned off the Trans-Kalahari Highway and followed a sign to the Circle Filling Station. He was pleased to see that it had a Chicken Licken fast-food restaurant next to it.
He put two hundred pula of gas into the car—leaving him with less than a thousand. He asked the cashier to let him look up the number of the Jwaneng Mine in their phone directory. Then he called the mine, and the switchboard put him through to Human Resources. They said there were vacancies, and he arranged an interview for that afternoon at four o’clock. He felt his luck was about to change.
It was not yet noon, so he decided to find a cool spot and try to sleep.
WITNESS DOZED ON AND off until about an hour before his appointment. He returned to the gas station and used its toilet facilities to wash and tidy up as much as possible.
Half an hour later he presented himself to the receptionist at Human Resources, filled out the usual paperwork, and waited for the interview. It was brief, and he was finished by 5 p.m. They would contact him in the next two days, he was told.
Witness was in a quandary about what to do. Should he wait in Jwaneng until he heard whether he had the job—working in the pit—or should he drive to Orapa and apply there? The problem was that Orapa was about an eight-hour drive, which would cost him a large portion of his remaining money.
He decided to wait in Jwaneng, particularly since the man who had interviewed him seemed positive. He found a liquor store and bought two cartons of Shake Shake beer. Then he went to the Chicken Licken and walked out with a large order of LekkerBig chips and a packet of Soul Fire sauce. He drove around until he found a place, a little out of the way, where he could park for the night and sleep in his car.
He hoped he would sleep better—another night of Marumo’s terrified face popping into his mind would not be good.
Still, he felt his luck had turned. He’d get the job at the mine and would disappear from sight.