The Death of the Mantis (14 page)

When he stopped, he lowered his hands and waited. He did not
know what to expect. Would the ancestors cast judgement now?

Would he learn now what they thought of his life, where he was
headed? Or would his future remain hidden until he left this earth
and started his journey?

He stood and waited.

And the sun was cruel, even on his leathery skin.

He felt drained.

I must soon go to the cave, he thought. I cannot stand here much
longer. I will have to trust.

He stood and waited some more. Weaker. Having difficulty
standing.

“It is time!” he croaked. “I must leave.”

He walked slowly to the far end of the hill, where his journey
would begin. He turned to the east and raised his hand, a final
farewell to his family, to his people. He climbed carefully up to
the cave, resting twice on the way. He pushed the bush aside, let
his eyes adjust and sat on the blanket, facing the entrance. A
glimmer of light fell on his head. My ancestors must be able to see
my face, he thought.

He took the top off the second horn and dipped his finger into
the paste it contained. Thanking the plant from which the poison
had come, he sucked the paste off his finger and repeated the
process. Then he placed the horn back in the circle of his
possessions.

He closed his eyes. The journey had started.

He smiled, lay back, crossed his hands on his chest and waited
to join his ancestors.

∨
The Death of the Mantis
∧

It will strike us without our knowing it

∨
The Death of the Mantis
∧

W
olfgang Haake pulled
his Toyota Land Cruiser into the Tshane police station, leaving the
engine on to run the air-conditioner, and sat for a few moments
composing himself. He yanked off his floppy hat and used a
handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his face, neck and shaved head.
He ran his tongue around his dry lips, feeling the prickle of his
moustache and tasting the sweat salt. Glancing into the rear of the
vehicle, he saw shards of glass from the shattered back window all
over the seat. He shrugged. He needed to clean it up and replace
the window, but that would have to wait until he was back in
Windhoek. He wanted to get out of Botswana as soon as he could.

At last he turned off the engine, climbed out of the vehicle and
made his way into the police station. “I’m Haake,” he told the duty
officer. “I’m the one who called in about being shot at. And about
finding the murdered man.”

♦

Detective Tau kept his vehicle on the two wheel-ruts through the
thick sand. Scorching air blew through the open windows. As he
drove, he glanced at his passenger. The man wasn’t big, but he was
wiry, strong and darkly tanned. What had he been doing alone in the
Kalahari? He said he liked to explore, to find places no one knew
about except the Bushmen, and to follow the trails of the German
explorers through the area using old maps.

It sounded suspicious, but Tau expected foreigners to do strange
things.

A Namibian of German descent, from Luderitz according to his
statement, Haake had entered Botswana four days ago at Mamuno to
the north-west on the main Windhoek road. His passport confirmed
that.

“What did you want to find out there?” Tau asked, nodding his
head towards the driver’s window and the Kalahari beyond.

“Solitude.”

Tau glanced at Haake with a puzzled look. He didn’t recognise
the English word.

“I wasn’t looking for anything. I wanted to be alone in the
bush. By myself.”

Tau thought about it. He had grown up in the village of
Hukuntsi, about fifteen kilometres from Tshane. There was plenty of
bush there. He wanted promotion to somewhere like Gaborone or
Lobatse so he could get away from it. It seemed that only people
from cities were attracted to it.

“Alone in the bush? That can be dangerous.”

“Only if someone is shooting at you.”

They were heading into the remotest part of the whole area. Yet
it seemed there had been three people out there. Haake himself; a
white man who was now dead with his head bashed in; and a murderer.
Not exactly the sort of solitude Haake had in mind, Tau
thought.

Tau wasn’t taking any chances. Haake’s vehicle had been hit by
two bullets – one through the back mudguard and one through the
back window – so he’d brought along two armed constables. They were
now speculating about Haake’s single gold earring, assuming that
because he was white and foreign he wouldn’t understand Setswana.
Tau, not so sure, told them to shut up.

“If you were off the road, how did you find the dead man? Was it
just luck?”

“I was following my own tracks back to the road. It’s easier and
stops you getting to a dead end – bush too thick to push through,
or a
donga
. So I was surprised to see another
bakkie
there, pretty much on the route I’d taken. And a tent. Of course I
stopped to check who it was.”

“And you found the body. Did you recognise him?”

Haake shook his head. “He was lying face down, and I didn’t
touch him. He was obviously dead. Back of his head smashed in.
Blood all over the place. I didn’t recognise his
bakkie
either.” He gave Tau a grim look. “I started fiddling with my
satellite phone. I was going to call you people from there. That’s
when I heard the first shot.”

“You didn’t see the shooter?”

“No! I got out of there as fast as I could. I’m not armed! I’m
damn lucky. I could’ve been killed. Or the tyres could’ve been hit.
I didn’t stop until I was back on the main road and made fucking
sure no one was following me. That’s when I called you.”

Tau nodded. He’d asked Haake to wait on the main road, but the
Namibian had insisted on driving to the safety of the police
station. Still, he looked calm enough now. The two young constables
in the back were giggling and chatting again – this time about
their girls. Tau sighed, hoping it didn’t come to a shoot-out.

“Slow down. I turned left off the road up ahead where that dry
river bed comes across the road.”

Sure enough, when they got there they could see Haake’s tracks
turning off the dirt road into the sand river. A good way to travel
if you knew what you were doing. Haake apparently did, Tau thought
with grudging respect. He stopped the vehicle and looked at the
tracks in the sand. The easiest way to follow them was to drive
with his wheels in them. He guessed that was what Haake had done on
the way back also.

He shouted to the constables to get out, walk on either side and
be on their guard. The two young men shut up immediately and did as
they were told without enthusiasm, their rifles cradled. It had
dawned on them that they did not have the safest of assignments.
Tau put the Land Rover into low range and slowly started following
the tracks.

After half an hour the tracks turned right off the river bed
into the bush.

“Where were you going? You must’ve been heading somewhere.”

Haake hesitated. “There’s a hill about ten kilometres away. You
can’t see it from here, but I thought it would have a good view of
the surrounding area. Maybe interesting historical stuff. I was
heading for that using my GPS.”

“Did you find anything there?”

“No. The going was too hard. It was further than I thought. So I
found a nice ridge above the river bed and explored there instead.
I camped there for two nights and headed back to the road this
morning.”

Now they had to follow the tracks through the bush. It required
care but wasn’t difficult. Eventually they climbed a ridge and
paused for a moment on the hard calcrete cap. From here they could
see the group of hills that had interested Haake still some way off
in the distance. On the far side of the ridge was a lake of fine
Kalahari sand; Tau stayed in the grooves from Haake’s vehicle to
avoid getting stuck.

Ten minutes later, Haake turned to the detective. “His camp is
just ahead. Maybe you should warn the constables.”

Suddenly Tau stopped. A new set of tyre tracks came in from the
right and converged with Haake’s. Did they have something to do
with the murder? he wondered. Ahead, through the trees, he spotted
a parked truck. He edged towards it, stopped fifty metres away and
looked around.

“Okay. You stay here, Rra Haake. Therapo will stay with you.
Lato, you and I will take a look around.”

Tau got out into the sweltering sun, pulled his gun from its
holster and told Lato to keep his eyes open for an ambush. Gingerly
they walked towards the one-man tent. Lying on the sand in front of
it was the body of a man, bloated after the hours in the sun and
crawling with flies and other insects. They gave it a disgusting
illusion of movement. There were marks of sharp teeth and tears at
one of the arms. The scavengers had begun their work.

Suddenly there was a movement in the bush, and Lato jerked his
gun up, hands unsteady. But it was only a jackal scurrying away
into the bush.

Tau turned back to the body, trying not to gag at the awful
stench. The back of the man’s head was a mass of congealed blood.
From the dent in the cranium, it looked as though he had been hit
from behind and fallen face down into the sand.

A camp stool lay on its side; perhaps the man was sitting on it
when he was attacked. A half-empty bottle of beer stood upright in
the soft sand, and a cooler box lay on its side with torn food
wrappers spread about. Some animal – probably the jackal, or
perhaps a baboon – had been investigating the provisions. The area
around the body had been scuffed, probably to hide any footprints.
Tau sighed. It was all pretty much as Haake had described it. They
would need a senior CID person from Tsabong, forensics people, and
maybe the pathologist from Gaborone. He would have to stay until
they arrived. Once he was sure no one was about, and they had
unpacked the gear from the Land Rover, Lato could drive Haake back
to Tshane. He couldn’t see any reason to keep the Namibian in the
middle of the scorching desert.

They spent an hour carefully searching the area, photographing
tyre tracks and footprints and looking for cartridge cases, which
they didn’t find. One of the constables stayed on guard all the
time, but the only activity was the arrival of two hooded vultures,
which took up hopeful residence in one of the nearby thorn
trees.

Tau was intrigued by the number plate of the dead man’s truck. A
Namibian registration. He made careful notes, intent on doing a
good job. This was a chance to be noticed, a chance to make a name
for himself as a detective, maybe a chance to move to the city.

∨
The Death of the Mantis
∧

L
ate that afternoon,
Kubu was preparing to leave his office. When he’d walked in the day
before, after a relaxed weekend, he’d found an oppressive amount of
work awaiting him. The week away in Tsabong, and the three days’
leave afterwards that he’d wrung out of Mabaku to be with Joy, had
taken their toll. Reports, emails, meetings. The work I really
enjoy, he thought sourly. It had taken him both days back in the
office to catch up.

He’d called Lerako on Monday, first thing. Monzo’s girlfriend in
Tshane had been traced with little trouble, but it was a dead end.
Her husband was a contract worker at the Orapa diamond mine, and a
call confirmed that he had been there when Monzo was killed. And
she was adamant that he didn’t know about her affair and begged
them to keep it that way lest they have another murder on their
hands.

As for the issue of Monzo’s bush trips, Kubu got the impression
that this was not high on Lerako’s agenda.

Kubu had decided not to phone Khumanego to tell him that the
footprints appeared to be fakes; he guessed that if he did so, his
next call would be from Cindy.

He checked his watch and started packing his briefcase. He’d
managed to put off – at least for the moment – the full meal he’d
promised to cook, and had weathered some acerbic comments from Joy.
As a compromise, rather than sitting on the veranda while Joy
cooked, he now joined her in the kitchen, helping with small jobs
and entertaining Tumi. Tonight she was doing a curry; he didn’t
want to be late.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door, followed
by the entry of the pathologist, Ian MacGregor. Ian was a Scotsman
with slender, sensitive hands that were equally at home painting
watercolours as they were exposing secrets at an autopsy. He and
Kubu had been friends for many years.

“Ian! What brings you to my side of town?”

“I had to brief Edison for the inquest hearing on those poisoned
students. Two young lives thrown away. Tragic. Anyway, I thought
I’d pop in and see how you were getting on.” Ian settled himself
into Kubu’s guest chair. “I’ve got the report on the Monzo business
for you too. There’s no doubt that the calcrete rock found in the
gully was the murder weapon. It had traces of hair and tissue that
matched those of the body, and so did the dried blood. And calcrete
particles were recovered from Monzo’s skull fracture.”

Kubu nodded; this was no surprise.

“There’s another issue I wanted to ask you about, Ian. Can you
say anything about the angle of the blow? I’m interested in the
physique of the murderer. Could it have been a Bushman?”

Ian took out his pipe, filled it with tobacco from a small
tartan pouch and carefully pushed it down in the bowl with his
thumb. Then he sucked on it contentedly while he thought. It was
many years since he’d actually lit the tobacco.

“The wound is on the back of the head on the right. That
indicates the assailant was probably right-handed. It’s likely the
blow came from behind, but not from a Bushman. Monzo was too tall.
But, of course, there’s another possibility. He could have been
knocked out first with something like a crowbar, or a tyre iron, or
a
knobkierie
, and then battered with the rock in the same
spot. That’s possible. Otherwise it would’ve had to be a very
powerful assailant.”