The Death of the Mantis (29 page)

As she refilled her cup, her mobile phone rang in the bedroom.
She had to rush to reach it, but grabbed it just in time.

“Yes, hello?”

“Cindy? It’s Khumanego.”

“Khumanego! How are you?” She hadn’t spoken to him since their
surprise meeting in Tsabong.

“I’m okay. Look, have you seen what the newspapers are doing?
They’re whipping up public opinion against the Bushmen again!
Something really nasty could happen. It’s outrageous!”

Cindy was caught off guard. Khumanego always saw things so
starkly, no shades of grey. “They’re just excited about this latest
murder. Don’t worry, it’ll all die down after a while.”

“After a while? Can you imagine what might happen in the
meantime? Do you know what this could do to relations between the
Bushmen and the other population groups? It could take years to
fix.”

“I think you may be overreacting, Khumanego.”

“That nasty piece of work Lerako is behind this. I’m sure of it.
They don’t even know it
was
a Bushman!”

“But Haake was shot with a poisoned arrow,” Cindy said
mildly.

“But was it a Bushman arrow? There are lots of different types
of arrows. And do they know what sort of poison it was?” Khumanego
paused, and when he went on, he sounded calmer. “It would be so
easy to frame a Bushman for the murder. Get hold of some black
mamba venom, or something like that, take a bow and arrow and shoot
this Haake. And the police might well fall for it! Especially
because that bastard Lerako can’t be bothered to look beyond the
obvious. Perhaps he doesn’t even want to look beyond the
obvious.”

Cindy hadn’t thought of this possibility, and she recalled
Kubu’s hesitation, suggesting he wasn’t entirely sure about the
murderer being a Bushman either. On the other hand, how would one
lay one’s hands on mamba venom? She shuddered.

“Why don’t you tell Kubu all this?”

There was silence from Khumanego. “Maybe I am overreacting,” he
said at last. “David’s been fair to me. But I don’t trust the
police.”

“What do you want me to do?” Cindy asked.

“Write a story. Point out that the Bushmen are being framed
again. Just like before. Force the police to look below the
surface.”

“I’ll think about it, Khumanego. Maybe I’ll interview Kubu. See
if the police are covering all the angles.” She hesitated. “I think
Kubu is doing his best,” she finished weakly.

“Sorry, Cindy. I shouldn’t keep coming to you. I’m just very
upset and angry. I’m expecting something bad to happen. Really bad.
Anyway, think about what you can do.”

Cindy promised she would, and said goodbye with relief. She
finished her coffee and returned to the veranda. She felt
disturbed. Khumanego had been so intense, so angry. She rummaged in
her handbag until she found the card that Kubu had given her in
Tsabong.

♦

Joy answered the phone and passed it to Kubu. He wasn’t pleased
to hear from Cindy on a Sunday; he’d had enough questions at the
Friday press conference. Initially he was quite short with her, but
as she described the call from Khumanego, he became intrigued. He
hadn’t considered the possibility of a backlash against the Bushmen
when he’d agreed to Mabaku’s ruse of keeping their suspicions about
Haake’s murderer to themselves. Now Khumanego was getting worked up
because he thought that the police were again taking the easy
option rather than looking for other possibilities. At the end of
the call he thanked her and promised to look into the issue.

“Who was that?” Joy asked, rocking the baby.

“Just a reporter after a scoop,” he said. Somehow his dismissive
description rang oddly false.

Joy gave him a strange look. “Do you know her?”

“Yes, she was at Tsabong after a story when I was there with
Khumanego.”

“Oh,” said Joy. “You never told me about her.”

“Didn’t I?”

Joy shook her head. “Tumi’s asleep. I’ll put her in her cot.”
She walked through to their tiny second bedroom, now proudly
referred to as the nursery.

Cindy
is
just after a story, Kubu thought. Why do I feel
guilty that there’s a tiny part of me that’s sorry about that?

“Would you like some coffee, my darling?” he called out. After
all, it was too early for wine.

∨
The Death of the Mantis
∧

A
pensive Kubu
arrived at the CID on Monday morning. He was still digesting the
conversation with Cindy. And now he was faced with how to find
Haake’s mysterious
koppies
. Bongani had offered to help, but
the best he could do quickly was print out a satellite image of the
area from Google Earth. But nothing stood out clearly. Much of the
area was semi-desert, but some parts were covered by scrubby trees
that might disguise the topography. Bongani suggested that there
might be small hills there, camouflaged from the satellite by the
vegetation. Without more information, they’d be forced to fly over
the area or explore it on the ground and compare any
koppies
they found with the drawing on Haake’s map. Kubu wasn’t sure he
could get Mabaku’s support for either option at the moment.

“You’ve got a visitor,” the officer at reception told Kubu in
reply to his greeting. “A Bushman. I put him in the waiting room
upstairs.”

Kubu climbed the stairs to his office and then looked into the
waiting room. Khumanego was sitting stiffly, an untouched
polystyrene cup of tea next to him.

“Khumanego! Let me grab a cup of tea. Bring yours into my
office.” The Bushman nodded without smiling and picked up his cup.
Kubu helped himself from the urn, and they went to his office
together. Khumanego closed the door.

“Have you seen the newspapers, David? They’re building up a
frenzy against the Bushmen. There’s going to be trouble. Some
people are just looking for an excuse to get nasty. This could be
it. Why are you doing this to us?”

Kubu nodded and sipped his tea. “Cindy told me you were
upset.”

“She phoned you?”

“Yes. She was also concerned by the newspaper reaction. What do
you mean by ‘doing this’?”

“The police! You’re deliberately letting the blame fall on the
Bushmen again. Even encouraging it!”

“That’s not true.”

“Have you investigated the crime scene? Looked into matters?
Yourself, not that Lerako.”

Kubu opened a file and extracted three glossy prints of the
pictures he’d taken of the arrow at Princess Marina. He tossed them
across the desk to Khumanego, who picked them up and looked at each
one in turn. Kubu watched his reaction.

“Is this the arrow that shot Haake?”

Kubu nodded.

“It’s ridiculous! No Bushman would’ve made a thing like this.
It’s clumsy. And the head should detach. You know what a Bushman
arrow is like!”

Kubu decided to play devil’s advocate. “Yes, we noticed that
too. But maybe the Bushman didn’t have the time or the patience to
make the arrow properly. He knew it would be easy to get close. Why
bother with the niceties?”

“Why bother? It would be a matter of pride!”

“There’s not much pride in preying on lone visitors.”

Khumanego started to retort, but Kubu cut him off. “We’re
looking at all possibilities, Khumanego. All possibilities.”

Khumanego’s expression changed. “What other possibilities?”

“Well, it’s tentative at the moment. Let me show you some prints
that Pleasant’s fiancé made for me over the weekend – he works with
this son of thing at the university.” He dug out the Google Earth
images from his briefcase. “We think there’s a group of
koppies
in here somewhere that someone wants kept secret
badly enough to kill for it.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Haake told me about it before he died. He saw some strange
things there.”

“Did he tell you where they were?”

“No. I think he knew, but he wouldn’t say. Now it’s too late.
And we can’t follow his GPS because it’s gone. He said it was
stolen.”

Khumanego shrugged. “It’s almost impossible to find a small hill
in the middle of the Kalahari unless you know where to start
looking. You’ll have to wait for something else to happen.”

“I want to try. I think there are other ways we might find it.
After all, the Kalahari doesn’t have too many hills. I think we
could find it using this information” – he tapped the images on his
desk – “and Haake’s map. Haake said there were other tracks
there too. Maybe we’ll come across them. Someone is out there and
up to no good, and I’m going to stop it.”

Khumanego thought about it for several seconds, then reverted to
his concern about the press. “You should tell the newspapers about
the arrow. Otherwise something really bad could happen.”

Kubu ignored that. “I need a guide. Someone who knows that area
of the desert. Who could help follow tracks and so on. Do you know
any Bushmen who would help?”

Khumanego shook his head. “No one will head out there. It’s an
area with a bad reputation. A place of spirits. Unlucky. It’s
avoided.”

That, thought Kubu, might explain why whoever was there was able
to come and go unnoticed. “The only other option will be low-level
flights over the area looking for the tracks. Bike tracks
apparently. Might spot them from the air. But I don’t think my boss
will go for that in a hurry.”

“Maybe Haake made the whole thing up. Maybe he was after
something else in a different part of the Kalahari, and just used
this
koppie
story to confuse you.”

Kubu shook his head. “It’s possible, of course. But he was dying
and knew it. I don’t think he would make it up. Why should he? He
had nothing to gain. I’m committed to this, Khumanego. Maybe
Lerako’s tracker can help me.”

“The one who thought the footprints near Monzo were faked? What
use is he? You’d trust your life to someone like that?”

“I’m still going to go.” Kubu held Khumanego’s gaze.

“Very well,” said Khumanego, not blinking. “I grew up in txiat
area, remember? I know it as well as anyone, and I’m not
superstitious. I’ll help you. The two of us can go. Not a police
invasion. That area is important to my people. It has religious
significance.”

“Why are you willing to do this? It could be dangerous.”

“You helped me before. It’s my turn now. I pay my debts.”

Kubu thought about it for a while, then he nodded. “All right.
We’ll leave the day after tomorrow. Can you do that?”

Khumanego nodded. “You’ll talk to the press?”

“I’ll discuss it with my boss. Maybe Cindy gets her scoop after
all.”

♦

Kubu was pensive after Khumanego left. He carefully returned the
arrow pictures to his file, then tidied his desk. He picked up the
forensic report on the bullet found in Haake’s vehicle. It seemed
likely that it came from Krige’s gun, but they couldn’t be sure.
Nothing surprising or helpful there. He tossed the report aside.
Ideas were floating in his head. Puzzle pieces turning around, but
still not fitting. Not in the right places anyway. Opportunity, he
thought. Suppose Haake was innocent. Then who’d had the opportunity
to commit all three murders? In each case there was no trace of the
murderer, so how had he reached the victims and then disappeared?
Suddenly the answer was obvious. They’d worked out how the murderer
had reached Haake without leaving any tracks; the same method could
be used for the murders of Krige and Monzo. Driving on a Kalahari
road, cars gouged paths for themselves in the soft sand. If a
skilled off-road motorbike rider stayed carefully in one of those
ruts, there would be no trace – certainly not after the next
vehicle went through.

But he wasn’t ready to take it to Mabaku. He needed something
more. He needed someone who could tell him about diamonds. He
picked up the phone and called Africa Ndlovu at the Diamond Branch
of the CID. He needed to speak to the Walrus.

The Walrus was Dr Waskowski, a senior scientist at De Beers, who
had helped Kubu before with another case. His bushy beard,
handlebar moustache and bouncing eyebrows made Kubu think of a
surprised walrus. So the Walrus he had become.

Africa listened to Kubu’s story. “Yes, call him,” he said
tersely. “He’ll help you if he can.” He gave Kubu the number.

Kubu was put through immediately when he said who he was. De
Beers liked to cultivate a very close relationship with the
Botswana police.

“Bengu? This is Waskowski. What can I do for you?”

“Dr Waskowski, thank you for your time. I have a very strange
case. A man – a prospector from Namibia – was killed in the
Kalahari recently. I’m trying to understand what he was doing
there.”

“That chap Haake? Who was shot with a Bushman arrow?” Apparently
Waskowski took an interest in the news.

“Exactly. Although he didn’t admit it, we think he was looking
for diamonds. Specifically, the source of the Namibian
diamonds.”

“The Namibian alluvials? The mother lode? That old story.”

“It’s not a new idea?”

“Hardly. Obviously it’s been a source of great interest in the
diamond community for many years. A flood of diamonds washed to the
coast millions of years ago. There were so many, you could pick
them off the beach at one stage, so the area had to be closed. It
was called the
Sperrgebiet
- the forbidden area.”

“Do scientists know the source?”

“No. There are lots of theories and speculation. Possibly some
huge field of kimberlite pipes – maybe in Botswana – eroded away
over millennia. Gone now. Or maybe they moved across the continent
from the Drakensberg mountains over an even longer time period.
Diamonds are very old, Assistant Superintendent. They have lots of
time to move once they are separated from their mother rock.”

“Is it possible that the mother rock
is
still out there?
Full of diamonds and hidden under the sand? That Haake knew what he
was doing?”