The Death of the Mantis (18 page)

“When did you see Haake?” Tau was excited.

Willie hesitated. “Maybe a week ago? He comes through here
sometimes. That’s why I know him. I don’t know the other man.” He
shook his head firmly.

Tau thanked him, and then asked each of the other attendants the
same question. No one else recognised either Haake or Krige.
Finally Tau went to the cashier inside. “Have you seen either of
these men, Mma?” he asked. Again he drew a blank.

Tau felt deflated. After his success at the guest house, he’d
been optimistic that his job would be over quickly. But then he had
another thought.

“Mma,” he asked, “how many cashiers are there?”

“Four or five,” she answered. “We are open every day for sixteen
hours.”

“Do you have a list of when they will be here?”

She handed him a roster from behind the counter. “Do you have a
copier?” he asked. She shook her head, so Tau copied the list into
his notebook, then thanked her and left. He was going to have to
come back several times over the next few days.

He drove back to the police station to phone Lerako, who was on
his way back to Tsabong. He knew he’d have to wait several hours
until he got there, but wait he would. He wanted Lerako to notice
how well he was doing.

∨
The Death of the Mantis
∧

K
ubu decided to split
the trip to Windhoek over two days. He only received his passport
at midday on Saturday, and he wasn’t keen to drive at night. Cattle
and game often wandered on to the road and became transfixed by
oncoming headlights, resulting in serious accidents and even deaths
– of drivers as well as animals. So he would spend the night in
Ghanzi and drive to Windhoek the next day.

The sun was dropping through a purple haze as he pulled into the
Kalahari Arms Hotel in Ghanzi. He quickly checked in, asking for a
chalet as far from the raucous swimming pool as possible. He
dropped his luggage off in the room and returned for food and
drink. He settled himself on the terrace under the cloudless sky
and ordered a beer, instead of his normal chilled white wine. A
beer seemed the remedy to wash the dust from his mouth; the wine
would come afterwards.

An hour and a half later, Kubu felt better. The steak had been
very tasty and done as he’d requested – rare, of course. The
vegetables were not overcooked, and he was delighted to find that
the Merlot he’d ordered had been slightly chilled to ward off the
desert heat. He was impressed.

After ten minutes in a cool shower, Kubu went to bed and didn’t
wake until sunlight pushed its way through the thin curtains.

♦

It was mid afternoon by the time Kubu reached the Namibian
police headquarters in Windhoek. When he arrived at the building,
he was escorted to the office of Detective Sergeant Helu, one of
the detectives in the Namibian Crime Investigation Department. Helu
shook Kubu’s hand and welcomed him to Namibia.

“Coffee, Assistant Superintendent?”

“Please. Thank you for meeting me on a Sunday, when you should
be with your family.”

For several minutes Kubu described in detail all he knew about
the deaths of Monzo and Krige. Helu listened carefully, taking
detailed notes, and let Kubu finish before asking questions.

“Now, the man who found Krige’s body – Haake – is also from
Namibia?”

Kubu nodded.

“And you don’t suspect him?”

“Well, there’s nothing else linking the two of them at the
moment. The only thing that worries me is the coincidence of one
Namibian finding another Namibian dead in the middle of the
Kalahari desert. Coincidences always worry me.” Now it was Helu’s
turn to nod. “Anyway, I want to talk to him while I’m in Namibia if
I can.”

“I’ve already set it up. Your man Tau gave me his mobile phone
number. He’s coming in tomorrow morning at nine.”

“I thought he lived in Luderitz?”

“I asked him about that – he owns a house there and has rented
part of it out ever since he moved to Windhoek three years ago.
Never bothered to change his address.”

“Thanks for arranging that. I don’t expect to learn much, but
you can never tell.”

“No problem.” Helu shrugged. “Your detective sergeant in, uh –
what is the name of the town?”

“Tsabong.”

“So, it looks as though he may be right about the Bushmen?”

Kubu shook his head. “My intuition tells me they aren’t
involved. There’s almost no evidence they did it. But I have to
admit, there is no evidence at all that there was anyone else at
the scene of Monzo’s murder. It’s a real puzzle.”

The two men sat in silence for a few moments.

“Thank you for your quick response to our query about Krige,”
Kubu continued. “What else have you found out? I really need your
help to dig into his affairs. Maybe something will pop out that
will help us.”

“We traced his mother. His father is dead, apparently. Anyway,
we phoned her and gave her the bad news. She was very upset, of
course. I said we’d call her back after we got more information.
She wants to know what’s happened to her son’s body. She wants to
bury him here in Windhoek.”

“I’ll contact the pathologist,” Kubu responded. “I’ll let you
know when he’s likely to be finished with the body.”

“We asked her about her son. All she said was that he had his
own business. Wasn’t sure what it was. Anyway, his apartment isn’t
far. Why don’t I drive you over there and we can take a look?”

♦

After picking up the keys from the caretaker, Helu opened the
security gate and then the door to Krige’s apartment. “We have some
petty crime in this area,” he commented.

The apartment had two small bedrooms, one of which was used as
an office. The dining room and lounge were in a single area,
bounded on one side by a tiny kitchen and on the other by sliding
glass doors opening on to a small balcony. Kubu looked at the
contents of a glass-fronted cabinet – family photographs, pewter
tankards, decorative saucers, a large tankard with the letters HB
in blue, and some medals with ribbons. On one wall hung a faded
print of a castle in a forest and two tatty photographs of gemsbok
in the desert. Not an art lover, thought Kubu. And not married,
given the very masculine flavour of the living area.

“You go through his desk, and I’ll take a look at his filing
cabinet.” Kubu pulled a chair in front of a green four-drawer
cabinet. Although it had a lock, the drawers slid open easily; none
of them was labelled, even though they had label holders. Helu
rifled through the drawers of the large wooden desk.

Kubu started at the top and began flipping through the files.
After a few minutes, he turned to Helu and said, “Krige was a
private investigator. Look here.”

He passed over a sheet of paper from the first file. “See, he
had to locate this person. This is the letter telling the client
where to find him. The second file is the same thing. The third is
different. Take a look at these!”

He handed Helu a sheaf of photos of a balding man with a young
blonde girl. The Namibian detective flipped through them and
whistled.

“I’d say he’s screwing around behind his wife’s back,” he said,
handing the photos back.

“You’re right,” Kubu said, reading a letter from the file. “Mrs
Vorback wants all the din, and quickly. She wants to take him to
the cleaners, it looks like.” He extracted another letter. “And
here’s Krige’s report.” He paused as he scanned the letter.
“Vorback’s been very naughty. There wasn’t only one, it seems. I’m
sure this divorce got very messy.”

“So how can we find who Krige was working for in Botswana? If he
was working for someone.”

Kubu sighed. “We may have to go through all of these files one
by one. And then we still may not know any more. What have you
found?”

“Nothing much in the drawers. The usual: pens and pencils and
stuff. He has a desk diary on top, though – almost like a blotter –
with names and times on it.”

“What’s there for last week?”

“A line starting on the twenty-sixth of February for a week with
the name Muller.”

Kubu flipped through the files. “Nothing under that name. Give
me a couple of other names from the diary.”

“Okay. On the seventh, there’s the entry: Dorfmann.”

Kubu found the Dorfmann file and opened it. “Looks like a bad
loan. Trying to find the guy who owes Dorfmann twenty-five thousand
Namibian dollars. Here’s the final letter, dated the seventh, and
there’s an invoice attached for a thousand dollars. He found the
guy.”

Together Helu and Kubu went through several of the names in the
diary. In all cases, there was a folder with a final letter and an
invoice.

“I’ve got an idea,” Kubu said. “A trip to Botswana is a big job.
If I were Krige, I’d ask for an advance. Can you get his bank
records?”

“That should be no problem. Should I get his phone records
too?”

“Good idea. Then we can fit a few of these pieces together. Can
you have one of your guys come in here and make a list of all the
names on the files and the date the final letter was sent, as well
as the invoice amount? Shouldn’t take too long. You can ignore ones
that are over a year old. It looks as though there are only about
sixty or seventy files total.”

“I’ll get someone in here early tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we
could have all that information by lunchtime tomorrow.”

Kubu looked at his watch. It was already nearly six p.m.

“Well, if there’s nothing else we can do now, we may as well go
and have a drink. Care to join me?”

Helu nodded. “Let’s go and have a beer, and I can tell you what
the best eating places are.”

The two drove in Helu’s car to Joe’s Beerhouse – a Windhoek
fixture, according to Helu. “Even locals come here,” he said. Kubu
smiled, looking forward to the evening.

♦

Kubu didn’t sleep well. He kept waking up thinking of Joy or
Krige or Haake. At about seven a.m. he decided to take a walk
around the city centre to find an appropriate place to eat.

At half past eight, after a decent breakfast of steak, tomato,
fried potato and eggs, not to mention toast and jam, he walked over
to the police station. He was looking forward to meeting Wolfgang
Haake.

When he arrived at the police station, Helu met him and handed
him a piece of paper.

“Here’s the list from the files. And I’m getting the necessary
authority to get the phone and bank records. One of my guys is
working on that right now. Anyway, come along. Haake’s waiting for
you in one of the conference rooms.”

“Will you join us?”

“No thanks.” Helu shook his head. “It’s your case, and I’ve a
lot to do.”

Kubu walked into the room, introduced himself and shook hands
with Haake. There was a tea tray on the table, and Haake had
already helped himself. Kubu poured himself a cup and sat down,
indicating to Haake to do the same.

“It must have been a shock to find a body in the desert, Mr
Haake,” Kubu began.

“It certainly was. And more of a shock when I was shot at. I was
really scared.”

“I believe that. I read your statement, but please go through
exactly what happened once again.”

For the next few minutes Haake recounted what had happened in
the desert, and Kubu noted that it matched the statement closely.
There was a pause after Haake finished.

“I find it an amazing coincidence that you stumbled across the
body in the middle of nowhere. How could that happen?”

“I’ve no idea. I went as far as I could, then turned round and
followed my tracks back to the road. And when I came over that
small rise, there he was.”

“And you’d never seen him before?”

Haake shook his head. “I couldn’t tell at the time. Krige was
lying face down in the sand. I didn’t recognise his vehicle.”

Kubu caught his breath. How did Haake know the dead man’s name?
He stood up and poured himself another cup of tea. He needed to
proceed carefully.

He sat down again and passed Haake a copy of Krige’s passport
photo, watching Haake’s face. “That’s a photo of Krige. He’s also
from Windhoek. It’s not such a big city, Mr Haake. Are you sure you
didn’t know him?”

“I’m sure! Never seen him in my life.”

Kubu took the photo back. “How did you know his name was Krige?
I didn’t mention it.”

Haake frowned. “I suppose I read it in the newspaper. Or maybe
heard it on the radio. A Namibian getting murdered in Botswana is
big news.”

“Think carefully. Can you remember exactly how you learnt his
name?”

“No. I don’t remember things like that.” Haake hesitated. “I
think it was on the radio.” He shrugged. “Do you know why he was in
Botswana?”

Kubu had to decide whether to keep pushing on the name issue or
to check it later. He chose the latter route. He knows something
that he’s not telling me, he thought.

He shook his head. “We are still checking him out. We expect to
have more details in the near future.” He turned the page of his
notebook.

“When you saw the dead man, did you go up to the body?”

“I took a look and then went straight back to my vehicle. To
phone your people.”

“Were you ever behind Krige’s tent?”

“No, I walked towards the body and then ran back.”

“In that case, how do you explain the fact that we found
footprints that matched yours on the far side of the body?”

For a moment, Haake looked nonplussed. Then he burst out, “Well
that was probably the man who shot at me! Lots of boot prints would
look the same. It’s obvious!”

Kubu nodded, and said nothing for a few moments. Then he changed
tack.

“What do you do for a living, Mr Haake?”

“I’m a geologist and have worked for a number of companies in
Namibia. At the moment I’m between jobs. Enjoying my freedom.”

“What were you doing in Botswana?”