The Death of the Mantis (34 page)

The half-moon provided only a little light and no comfort. Their
eyes kept playing tricks in the dim light as they thought they saw
things lurking nearby.

As the sky lightened, both men stood up, thankful the night was
over, slapping themselves and stamping their feet to increase
circulation. God, Kubu thought, I’ve got at least two more nights
of this torture. Maybe three. But if it’s four, I won’t have to
worry any more.

“How are you doing, Tau?” he asked.

“Terrible. I was scared all night. I didn’t sleep at all.”

“I didn’t either. Well, let’s get to work. First thing we have
to do is make something that can be seen from the air.” Kubu
hesitated as he thought what their physical state might be by
Tuesday or Wednesday. “And from the ground. In a few days we may
not be able to signal for help ourselves.”

He started to unbutton his shirt. “Take off your underwear, Tau.
We can make a white cross on the ground. A signal that’ll be easy
to see from the air. We can put them back on at night for
warmth.”

“Assistant Superintendent, your plan is crap. We can’t just stay
here and wait. What if they don’t come? We’ll die. I’m going for
help.”

“Tau! Listen to me. Leaving is the wrong decision. If we’re to
survive, we have to conserve energy and, more important, water. If
you walk, you’ll sweat ten times as much as if you lie here in the
shade. You can’t survive without water. You’ll die before you get
back.”

“Bullshit! If I leave now, it’ll be cool for another couple of
hours. Then I’ll only be a few hours away. We drove two sides of a
triangle. If I cut the corner, it’ll be much shorter. Maybe only
thirty kilometres. I can walk that in six or seven hours, even in
sand.”

Kubu grabbed Tau’s arm. “Don’t be stupid! If you don’t keep to
the tracks, you’ll get lost. There is nothing to navigate by. No
hills. Nothing. It’s impossible to walk in a straight line even on
good ground. In the desert you’ll end up going in circles.”

“I don’t have to walk exactly in a straight line. I’ll intersect
the vehicle tracks somewhere before we turned off. I’m going, no
matter what you say. I know you can’t walk far, but that doesn’t
mean you have to force me to stay.”

“Staying has nothing to do with my size, Tau. It’s basic
survival. I know you want to do something. But believe me, staying
is the right decision. You’ll never make it if you try to walk
back.”

“You’ll thank me when I arrive with help. You got me into this,
Assistant Superintendent. I’m going to get myself out of it. Why
would I trust your judgement now?”

“Tau, as your superior, I order you to stay!”

Tau laughed at him. “You’re ordering me to stay? Ha! I’m going.
Hope to see you soon!” With that, he stripped off his shirt and put
it over his head. Then he turned and, ignoring the vehicle tracks,
walked resolutely into the desert.

“Tau! Tau!” Kubu shouted. “Don’t take off your shirt! You’ll
sweat more. Lose more water. Put it back on!”

Tau walked on without looking back.

Kubu shook his head. Tau was making every mistake. He shouldn’t
have left, and he shouldn’t have taken off his shirt. And he should
have followed the tracks. He’ll get lost, Kubu thought with
anguish. His chances of getting through are close to zero.

Kubu spent the next fifteen minutes dragging dead branches into
the centre of the tracks. If I’m unconscious, they’ll know I’m
near, he thought. Then he put his white undershirt and underpants
on top of the pile, spread out as much as possible. Not very big,
he mused, but at least it’s a different colour from the
surroundings.

He looked up into the sky. “Please, God, let them find me! And
help Tau. He needs it.”

♦

Mabaku was at the office at six a.m. Edison was there to meet
him. He was looking tense and hadn’t slept much.

“There’s been no word from Kubu,” he said.

“What’s the status of the back-up Land Rovers?”

“They’ll be ready to leave just after lunch.”

“Get them to leave as soon as they can. Make sure they both have
satellite phones with them. If they haven’t got everything they
need, get the police at Tshane or Kang to take care of it and have
it waiting when they arrive. I want them to push on tonight and get
as close to the others as possible.”

“Can we get a helicopter to search?”

The director pressed the button on his intercom: “Miriam, where
are the helicopters? I need to know now!”

Only a few minutes passed before Miriam stuck her head in. “One
is having its annual service, and the other two are in Kasane
working with immigration on the illegal alien stuff.”

“Damn! Call the Molepolole Air Base and see if any of their
choppers are available. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

Miriam’s head disappeared. Mabaku waited impatiently until she
returned. “You can have a Defence Force helicopter when it returns
tomorrow night. But you’ll have to find a pilot, if you want to use
it before Monday morning.”

“See if one of the police pilots can get to Molepolole tomorrow.
Let me know as soon as possible.”

Mabaku turned again to Edison. “You’ll report to me every hour
on the hour as to what is going on. I don’t want any surprises. If
something important happens between the hours, I want to know about
it. Immediately! Understand?”

“Yes, Director. Every hour, on the hour.”

♦

Mabaku stood up and walked to the window. He gazed out at Kgale
Hill. He had a dilemma. Should he phone Kubu’s wife and tell her
that they’d lost contact with him, or should he wait until the
following day? Phoning her would send her into a fit of anxiety,
perhaps greater than usual because of the baby. But not phoning her
was unfair. She deserved to be in the loop.

He paced up and down, unsure of what to do. Eventually he
decided to phone. He knew he couldn’t face her if something
happened to Kubu and he’d kept quiet.

♦

The phone rang just as Joy was giving Tumi her bath. She put her
down on a folded towel and answered. A chill ran through her as she
recognised Mabaku’s voice.

“Is there anything wrong? Has something happened to Kubu?”

“Joy, relax. I am just calling to say we’ve lost radio contact
with Kubu. We don’t expect anything to be wrong. His satellite
phone is probably not working. But I thought you should know. We’ve
dispatched two additional vehicles, because one of Kubu’s broke
down, and I’ve a helicopter standing by at Molepolole Air Base just
in case. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure he’s okay?”

“He was fine when we spoke to him yesterday morning. It’s
probably nothing, but I’m not going to take any chances. Why don’t
you have your sister spend the day with you? I’ll phone you this
evening and let you know what’s happening.”

Joy put down the phone with tears in her eyes. What if Kubu was
dead? What would she do?

♦

As the relief Land Rovers were moving along the Trans-Kalahari
Highway to Kang, Kubu was lying on his back in the little shade
afforded by the rough canopy he’d built. He’d hollowed out a
depression in the sand in which he could lie. His arms were folded
across his chest, and a handkerchief covered his face. He tried not
to move at all, but that was difficult, especially when little
insects started to explore his body.

Not only was he very hot, but he was ravenous. He hadn’t eaten a
thing since lunch time the previous day. He’d poked around in the
sand, hoping to find a tuber the way Khumanego had shown him so
many years earlier. A couple of times he saw the telltale vines
that led to the edible roots, but even after digging down a metre
with his bare hands, he’d found nothing. And he was parched. He
could almost feel the heat sucking the water from his body.

Part of the time he tried to blank out his mind, to meditate, to
detach his physical discomfort from his consciousness. The rest of
the time he thought about the murders, and in particular about
Khumanego. And when he thought about Khumanego, his emotions swung
rapidly between anger, disappointment and self-recrimination. How
could his old friend have become so greedy that he would leave Kubu
in the desert to die? And for what? Some gemstones? After all they
had gone through together? How could Khumanego have used him the
way he had – on the flimsy pretext of looking after Bushman
interests? And how could Kubu have been so gullible as to believe
him?

Kubu tried to build a murder case against Khumanego in his mind.
But he found it hard to pull all the pieces together. Was that
because the evidence just wasn’t there? Or was it because it was
becoming harder to focus his attention?

It was all so confusing that he closed his eyes and tried to
empty his mind.

♦

The relief Land Rovers reached Tshane by mid afternoon. The
Saturday roads had been relatively quiet, and they’d made good
time. The four policemen were drenched in sweat by the time they
arrived and were pleased to have a break to stretch and pour cold
water over their heads, while the vehicles were refuelled and
provisioned. The next part of the trip would be far less
comfortable, and, most probably, dangerous.

♦

Kubu couldn’t bear it any more. He’d been lying on the sand for
nearly eight hours. He had to stand up and move about. Despite his
lack of activity, his shirt was wet through, and although his face
was covered, his brow was dripping wet. My God, he thought, if I’m
sweating like this, what about Tau? He was mad to leave. In this
heat he may only last two days. I hope he doesn’t get lost. But
maybe he can shoot something to eat. Perhaps there’s a chance he’ll
get through.

Kubu was getting desperate to urinate, but was trying not to in
the hope that that would slow dehydration. I’ve no idea whether it
helps, he thought. But why take the chance? Now if I had a couple
of big plastic bottles, I could use the sun to turn my pee into
water easily enough.

As that thought ran through his head, so did a childhood
rhyme:

♦

If ifs and ands were pots and pans, There’d be no need for
tinkers’ hands.

♦

He grinned. “I’m losing it,” he said out loud. He glanced at his
watch. “Four o’clock. The Land Rovers may not even have left Tshane
yet.”

That’s not the way to think, he admonished himself. Be
positive.

He thought about Joy and Tumi. They were reason enough to get
through this. He pictured Tumi’s little fingers curled around his
own. And Joy in bed with him, caressing him. Softly. Gently.

“The Land Rovers will drive through the night until they meet up
with Pikati and Moeng. And they’ll find me a few hours later. That
will be tomorrow morning.” He liked the sound of his own voice. He
felt he had company in this barren place.

♦

Mabaku phoned Joy at six p.m.

“They haven’t reached the place where the Land Rover broke down.
It may get too dark to drive off-road. They’ll be there early
tomorrow morning. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll
phone as soon as they get there.”

Joy poured herself a large glass of wine. Pleasant had gone home
at Joy’s insistence, because she had a date with Bongani.

“I’m sure Kubu’s fine,” Joy muttered to herself. “I’ll have an
early night, and Mabaku will call in the morning.”

In fact, she did not sleep well. A combination of a little too
much wine and her fear of losing Kubu kept her awake. She spent
most of the night admonishing herself for being so hard on Kubu for
not pulling his weight around the house. He works so hard, she told
herself. He needs a break when he gets home. I’ll try to be more
understanding in future. That decision made her feel slightly
better.

♦

The Land Rovers did indeed drive through the darkness, keeping a
close watch on their GPS. They found the tracks at the first
waypoint, where Kubu and his group had left the road, and set off
to follow them. But after an hour, they decided to stop for the
night – they’d been driving for over ten hours, the last part in
very difficult conditions, and they were afraid of losing the
tracks. In the morning, it wouldn’t take long to reach the disabled
Land Rover.

They reported to Edison, who was resigned to living at CID
headquarters for the weekend, and asked him to tell Pikati and
Moeng that they’d be there early in the morning.

♦

The second night was much worse than the first. Kubu had no
company, and a body that ached for food and water. His physical
discomfort made it much more difficult to lie still. He was too
cold to sleep, and he tossed and turned, uncomfortable in the
extreme. To make things worse, there were jackals close by. He
could hear them howling, as though inviting others to a banquet.
And he thought he heard the eerie call of a hyena in the distance.
That was the animal he was most afraid of. Fearless, a hunter as
well as a scavenger, with the strongest jaws of any animal, a hyena
ate everything, including the bones of their prey.

When he woke up, Kubu spent half an hour scouring the area for
melons and tubers, but found none. Despondent, he lay down in the
shallow depression – his nest in the desert. He tried not to move,
and lay there, eyes shut, willing his rescuers to find him.

∨
The Death of the Mantis
∧

T
he relief team set
off as the sun rose. Although they didn’t know any of the original
group personally, they had heard of the fat detective and his
ability to bring criminals to justice. Police always looked after
their own, so they were eager to find out what was happening.

They came upon the disabled Land Rover at about half past seven.
Pikati and Moeng had crawled from under the vehicle at the sound of
their approach and were delighted to see the newcomers.