The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu (28 page)

Mabaku nodded. His anger, frustrated by sympathy for Kubu’s
family worries, turned on Edison. “Edison, have you never run an
undercover operation before? How in God’s name did you let the
Zimbabweans get away? What tipped them off?”

Edison had slept badly knowing this was coming. “Director, we
don’t know what tipped them off, but there was some confusion. We
had a lot of men around Ganzi Street and the Gaborone Sun. But we
didn’t cover the roads in between. That’s where they disappeared.
We needed some extra police around the hotel. The dispatcher told
them it was urgent, but didn’t say it was undercover. So they
arrived at the Sun with their sirens going.”

“
Some
confusion?
Total
confusion is more like it.”
Mabaku pounded the table, rattling the cups on their saucers.

“We think they caught wind of us and decided to wait. Perhaps
also they tried to call the bearded character at the Ganzi Street
house and couldn’t get through. Then they came up with the plan
involving the pickpocket. And we fell for it.” Edison shrugged.
Early promotion looked out of the question.

“What’ve you done about catching them?”

Edison shrugged again. “The usual. We’ve distributed Identikit
drawings from Joy and Pleasant throughout the southern African
countries. All the border posts are alerted, but the men may be in
South Africa already; one of the Tlokweng immigration officials
thinks he recognizes them from the Identikit pictures. But we’ve
got prints, we’ve got Beardy, we can follow up with the car and the
pickpockets. We’ll get them.” Edison wished he felt half as
confident as he tried to sound.

Joshua came to life. “Of course, you can count on the full
cooperation of the South African Police.”

Mabaku gave him a dirty look, muttered that more cooperation
earlier would have been helpful, and changed the subject.

“What have we learned from the bearded character?”

“We think he’s a hired thug. He hasn’t said much yet. But he
will.”

Mabaku snorted. “Okay, I want to review the whole case. Set a
few parameters. We’ve got lots of pieces, let’s fit some of them
together.” He paused. “First, I want to make something clear. This
is Kubu’s case, but now he’s too close to it personally. We don’t
want some sleazy lawyer going after him later. So formally I’m
running the show, but it’s Kubu’s case. That clear?”

Everyone nodded. Kubu thought gratefully how well Mabaku had
handled a sticky situation. The day before the director had said he
would take charge. Now he had passed the baton back, albeit under a
watchful eye.

“Okay. Let’s see what we have. Kubu, lead the way.”

Kubu straightened in his chair, tea and fatcake finished. It was
time to get to work.

“Let’s start in Zeerust. Joshua, why don’t you fill us in?”

Joshua looked bashful. “Yes, of course. Thank you, Assistant
Superintendent. Good morning, everyone. One of our undercover guys
– Sergeant Sipho Langa – was following a person with a number of
aliases. We believe his real name is Sithole. But it doesn’t
matter. He’s a middle man, launders money, drugs, precious metals,
diamonds, you name it. But he’s careful, and his principals are
always well hidden. It’s the principals we want. Sergeant Langa was
tailing him. He followed Sithole to Zeerust and observed a meeting
with a man completely new to us. Sithole gave the man a briefcase,
which we suspect contained a lot of money. We now know that man was
Goodluck Tinubu. Langa decided to follow Tinubu and asked for
someone else to tail Sithole. Regrettably Langa followed Tinubu
into the Republic of Botswana without authorization.”

He faced the director. “We greatly regret this. And then we lost
Sithole, who’s now dropped out of sight. Not our best day.”

Kubu thought this an understatement. As Joshua seemed to be
finished, he took up the story.

“We know Langa followed Tinubu through the border to his house.
We decoded his cryptic notes giving directions. He watched him
overnight, and then followed him toward Kasane. Tinubu’s car broke
down, and Langa gave him a lift to Kasane and then on to
Jackalberry Camp. He reported in once, saying he thought Tinubu was
involved in something big. The breakdown seems to have been
fortuitous, and Langa was a resourceful chap and took the
opportunity offered. Then they met the mysterious Zondo at
Jackalberry.”

Much of this was new to Zanele, and she was trying to keep up.
“He was the criminal from Zimbabwe? A hired assassin?”

Mabaku shook his head. “That idea came from Du Pisanie – the
camp manager. The Zimbabwe police said they’d never heard of him.
Then they discovered his real name was Peter Jabulani and said he
was a dissident. Recently they told us that he’s a desperate
criminal and murderer. They’ve started extradition proceedings – as
if we had the man in custody! Either they want him very badly, or
they have him and want to misdirect us. They’ve even made a fuss
about their president’s upcoming visit to the African Union
meeting! Saying Botswana’s not safe if we harbor criminals and
assassins. Rich, coming from them!”

Ian piped up, “Are they being straight with us now?”

“They’d better be!” said Mabaku. “How can he disappear with half
of southern Africa looking for him? And we’ve got nothing. Not a
hint of a trail. We can’t even trace the pilot who fetched him from
Jackalberry.”

Ian sat back and filled his pipe. He would suck contentedly on
the unlit pipe for the rest of the meeting. “Tinubu was originally
from Zimbabwe. Was there anything in his background connecting him
with Zondo?”

It was Edison who replied. “Not as far as we know. In fact he
seemed to have had very little contact with Zimbabwe since he came
to Botswana years ago. We found out that he volunteered some of his
time at a Zimbabwe support group. Kubu found some of its literature
in his house.” Edison pouted. He had seen the pamphlets but ignored
them. Kubu hadn’t been complimentary about that either. “He usually
helped illegal immigrants deal with the system here. I also traced
a regular payment from his bank to an individual who lives near
Bulawayo. That was all. No letters at his home, no phone calls,
nothing.”

“Regular payments? Could it be blackmail? Have we followed up on
this guy?” Mabaku asked.

Edison shook his head. “It was one hundred pula each month. Far
too little for blackmail. I’ve got the man’s name – Paulus Mbedi –
and address through the bank, but we haven’t followed it up. I’m
not sure we want to get the Zimbabwe police on this person’s case.
He’s probably just a friend or relative. Completely unrelated to
the case or to Zondo.”

“Let’s get to the night of the murders,” Kubu said. “Over to
you, Tatwa.”

Tatwa was nervous in this gathering and felt he should stand.
Everyone near him was forced to lean back to look up at his
face.

“On the Sunday night everyone at the camp had dinner together.
It was pleasant, everyone was relaxed, but no one was particularly
friendly. They all went to bed early. Tinubu was murdered in the
early hours of the morning. The most obvious suspect is Zondo. That
night he changed his plans and arranged to leave at dawn. We think
he cleaned out whatever was in Tinubu’s briefcase, because it was
empty when we found it. Then he disappeared.”

Zanele chipped in. “We found nothing of interest in the
briefcase. You asked us to check for drugs, but we found no traces
at all. Even sealed bags leave a detectable residue.”

“The clues are confusing,” Tatwa continued. “We think something
like a wrench was used to knock Tinubu out and kill Langa, but it
hasn’t been found. All the ones we took from the camp tested clean.
Also, there were two water glasses in Tinubu’s tent, one with his
fingerprints and one with Zondo’s. So it seems they had a drink
together, presumably after dinner. That’s interesting because they
apparently didn’t know each other.” He sat down abruptly.

Zanele interjected. “Were there any other Zondo prints in
Tinubu’s tent? Anything else that linked them?” Tatwa shook his
head, and Zanele continued, “Well, it could be a setup. Maybe
someone planted the glass there, taking it from Zondo’s tent.”

Kubu digested that. “That’s an interesting idea. Let’s keep it
in mind.” He paused. “Another strange feature was the position of
the body. Ian, over to you.”

Ian took his pipe out of his mouth, holding it by the bowl.
“Tinubu was obviously in bed asleep at that time of the night. He
was hit on the side of the head, probably hard enough to knock him
unconscious. There was blood on his pillow, and he had a head
wound. Then he was dragged off the bed, stabbed through the heart
with a spike of some sort, and his throat was cut. Overkill you
might say.”

Zanele was frowning. “Why pull him off the bed? Surely the
murderer could stab him there?”

Ian pointed the pipe stem at her. “Good point. I also wondered
about that. And cutting the throat? It must have been obvious that
Tinubu was dead. Then the murderer mutilated the body. A message? A
warning? Or more misdirection?”

“What about Langa?” asked Mabaku.

Ian replied. “Sergeant Langa had his head smashed in, probably
by the same blunt instrument used to knock out Tinubu. Then he was
tossed down a slope into a small gully. No fancy killing methods or
mutilations there.”

Kubu took over. “We think it was the briefcase that linked the
two murders. Certainly Sergeant Langa was focused on the briefcase.
First, the handover in Zeerust and then a possible exchange at
Jackalberry. And when he was killed, he was prepared for a night of
watching – jacket, binoculars, and so on.”

“Let’s suppose Zondo was the murderer. He kills Tinubu, takes
the contents of the briefcase, and goes back to his tent. He
doesn’t realize that he’s being followed by Langa.”

“Surely the sergeant would’ve raised the alarm when Tinubu was
murdered?” Joshua interjected.

“But he probably wouldn’t have known,” Kubu replied. “He
couldn’t get close enough to see into the tent. And the goings on
there would’ve been quiet. No shots or screams.” Joshua nodded
doubtfully.

“Now suppose that near Zondo’s tent, Langa made a mistake,” Kubu
continued, “and somehow gave himself away. Zondo kills Langa and
gets out at first light the next morning as planned.” Kubu rubbed
his jowls with both hands, wishing he’d had a longer night’s sleep.
He clearly had more to say, so the others waited.

“There’s another possibility I’ve thought about. The thread
Tatwa and I found up at the lookout niggled at me. It came from
Tinubu’s jacket and was in thicker bush – as though he’d suddenly
needed to hide from a watcher. Who would that have been? Not Zondo,
his supposed compatriot. And why hide from anyone else at the camp?
He had every right to be there. It could only have been Sipho
Langa. Goodluck must’ve been suspicious. Suppose he went to Zondo’s
tent – probably to exchange money for drugs or whatever – and
realized Langa was onto them. Perhaps Langa even confronted them?
They would’ve had to get rid of him. Exit Sergeant Langa.

“But now Zondo is one step ahead of Tinubu. He realizes that
once Langa is found, the game will be up. So he decides to make
this last trade the most profitable ever. Later that night he kills
Tinubu and takes the contents of the briefcase.” Kubu rubbed his
jowls again and shook his head slightly.

“You don’t buy it?” asked Mabaku.

“Well, if they used a wrench, where did it come from? No one at
the camp reported one missing. And the ones we tested were all
clean. Whichever way I look at it, it seems premeditated. More
important, the whole thing doesn’t ring true with Tinubu’s
character. I can’t reconcile his work at the school in Mochudi over
all those years with what happened. Tinubu, a murderer? Drug
smuggler?”

Kubu shook his head. “It was something else. I think Goodluck
was a victim.”

Mabaku looked grim. “Well, I have some information to
contribute. The Munro sisters actually came out to Botswana to
follow the lives of some people involved in the Rhodesian war. One
of those people was Salome McGlashan and another was a George
Tinubu – the name Goodluck used when he lived in Rhodesia.” He
filled the group in on his meeting with the Munro sisters. “Kubu
needs to follow up with them. We haven’t had the opportunity with
all this other business. The point is that there’s now a real
chance that Tinubu and Salome knew each other. Maybe they didn’t
recognize each other and maybe they did. But it’s a connection;
before we had strangers. It raises the possibility of other
motives.”

“Revenge is a powerful motivation,” said Ian. “Could Salome have
been the murderer?”

Kubu shook his head. “Based on my assessment of her, I doubt it.
And what about Langa?”

“Maybe he caught her in the act while keeping an eye on Tinubu
as you suggested,” Ian responded.

“Why kill him at the other end of the camp? Hardly likely she’d
be able to do that if she’d lost the element of surprise anyway.
And how was she going to explain the bodies in the morning?”

“She could blame the murders on Zondo!” said Zanele excitedly.
“Exactly what happened!”

“According to Dupie and Enoch, she didn’t know Zondo was leaving
early. And how would she know he was going to disappear?”

Zanele was unconvinced. She seemed to like Salome in the role of
vengeful fury. “What if she had help from Du Pisanie? Or one of the
other camp staff?”

“Well, Dupie certainly had no love to waste on black Zimbabweans
– especially the ones running the country there now. He still
refers to them all as terrorists. But to commit murder on the spur
of the moment in front of a camp full of people for revenge when
the truth was sure to come out? He knew where Tinubu lived and
could have chosen his moment.” Kubu shook his head again. “It
doesn’t add up. But we do need to dig deeper into this issue with
the Munros.”