The Death of the Mantis (27 page)

He was in luck. When he stuck his head around the door, the
doctor waved him in.

“He’s feeling a little better. The rest did him good. Probably
didn’t sleep at all last night, what with that siren going all the
time. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

Kubu sat down and pulled out his notebook.

“Mr Haake, I’m pleased you’re feeling a little better. That’s a
good sign, I’m sure.”

Haake hauled himself to a sitting position and adjusted his
pillows for more comfort. “What do you want to know?”

“I’ve been asking around about you, and it seems you’ve been
looking for the source of the Namibian diamonds. Is that what
you’ve been doing?”

Haake shook his head weakly. “No. I was just looking around. No
diamonds.”

“And what
did
you find?”

Haake didn’t respond for a few moments. He breathed heavily.

“Found some
koppies
. Not marked on my maps. Found some
amethysts there. But…” Haake stopped talking and shut his eyes.

“But what?”

There was no response, and Kubu could see Haake was struggling
to breathe.

“But what, Mr Haake?”

Haake opened his eyes. “Nothing. There is nothing worthwhile
there.”

“Where are your maps?” Kubu asked. “We’d like to see them.”

“No maps. Had them on previous trips.”

“Come on, Mr Haake. I don’t believe you. Where are your
maps?”

Haake should his head. “No maps.”

Kubu was becoming exasperated. “Mr Haake, I’d like to look
through your belongings here at the hospital. Do I have your
permission to do that?”

Haake shook his head.

“Dammit, Mr Haake. You’ve got to help me! A few minutes ago you
mentioned some
koppies
. Was that where you were going when
Krige was following you? Is that why you killed him? Because you
didn’t want him to report back to Muller where you’d been? Didn’t
want him to know where the diamonds were?”

“Ihere are no diamonds at the
koppies
! I only found them
on this last trip anyway. And I wasn’t near there when I found
Krige.”

“But if Krige was still alive, he would have followed you there
too. You didn’t want that, did you? It was easier to murder him and
make it look like someone else did it.”

Haake shook his head. “You’ve got it wrong. I didn’t kill him.”
He took several deep breaths. “Why do you think it was me? What
evidence have you got?”

“Mr Haake. You stole information from the place you last worked.
When they sent someone to follow you, you had an obvious motive to
kill him. And you had the opportunity. There isn’t a scrap of
evidence that anyone else was in the vicinity. You’ll have a
difficult time convincing anyone of your innocence.”

Haake shook his head again. “Why don’t you fuck off, Detective.
I’m tired. I don’t need this shit.”

As if on cue, the doctor walked in. “Time to leave, Assistant
Superintendent.” He held the door open for Kubu.

“I’ve got lots more to ask him. When can I come back?”

The doctor followed Kubu into the corridor. “Come back at five.
I’ll see how he’s doing. Maybe you can speak to him again.”

“Have you heard anything about the poison?”

“Not yet. We gave him some blood plasma, and he seems to have
stabilised a little. At least he hasn’t deteriorated much since he
got here. I’m hoping that’s a good sign.”

“When will you know what his prognosis is?”

The doctor shrugged. “We’ll have to watch him carefully and see
how it goes.”

Kubu shook his head in frustration and stalked out.

♦

Just before five, Kubu walked back into the hospital, only to be
stopped by the receptionist.

“Superintendent Bengu?”

Kubu nodded.

“The doctor says you must wait here for him, please.”

“Has Haake deteriorated? Will I be able to speak to him?”

“You’ll have to speak to the doctor. Please sit down over
there.”

It was nearly half an hour before the doctor appeared. Kubu
stood up as he approached.

“Can I see him now?”

“Yes, but only for a few minutes. He’s getting weaker. I think
there’s some internal bleeding – his urine has more blood in it.”
The doctor shook his head unhappily as he walked with Kubu to
Haake’s room.

Kubu opened the door and nodded to the policeman sitting inside.
He was shocked by what he saw. Haake was now attached to what
appeared to be a heart monitor and several drips, and had an oxygen
mask over his mouth and nose. How am I going to hear what he says?
Kubu wondered. I could hardly hear him before. He sat down next to
the bed.

“Mr Haake?”

No reply, but the monitor showed life, and Haake’s chest rose
and fell ever so slightly.

“Mr Haake?”

Haake’s head nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Mr Haake. I need to ask you some more questions.” Again a
slight nod. Haake struggled to sit up a little, and removed his
mask.

“I’m dying, aren’t I?”

Kubu wasn’t sure how to respond. “You’ll have to speak to the
doctor. I haven’t heard anything. I want to find who tried to kill
you. Do you understand?”

A slight nod.

“It would help me if I knew where you went. We searched your car
and couldn’t find your GPS. Where is it?”

“Gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Kubu’s voice was beginning to rise
in frustration.

“Gone.” Haake paused. “Stolen in Hukuntsi. Someone broke into my
four-by-four. Must be the people from the
koppies
.”

“People from the
koppies
? Who are they?”

Haake shook his head. “Never saw them. But they got there before
me.”

“Why would they want to attack you?”

“Don’t know. Maybe they thought I would steal whatever’s
there.”

“What do you think that could be?” Kubu was getting
confused.

“Don’t know.”

“How did you know someone got there before you?”

Haake shook his head. “Didn’t see anyone.”

“What did you see?”

“Very strange. Motorbike tracks in the desert. Around the
koppies
.” He took a deep breath. “But nobody there.”

At that moment the doctor interrupted. “Detective, you must
leave. You’re exhausting my patient. He needs to rest. And I need
to get him back on oxygen. As you can see, he’s struggling to
breathe.”

“Just one more thing! Mr Haake, this is very important. Give me
the map. If we know where the
koppies
are, we can see who’s
there. It’s possible someone saw you and didn’t want you coming
back.”

“Don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know!” Kubu’s voice rose in
exasperation. “Where are the
koppies
, Mr Haake?”

“It was on my GPS.” He gasped, struggling for air. The doctor
put his hand on Kubu’s arm. “Come along, Assistant Superintendent.
He needs to rest.”

Kubu brushed the hand aside. This was a crucial moment. “Can’t
you remember the co-ordinates? Or how to get there? Please give me
something I can work with.” He thought he saw a glimmer of a smile
flitter over Haake’s face.

“You’ve got to leave now.” The doctor grabbed Kubu’s arm and
pulled him towards the door. “If you don’t let him rest, you’ll
never get anything more out of him.”

∨
The Death of the Mantis
∧

K
ubu came into the
CID later than usual on Friday morning, having spent much of the
previous night waiting fruitlessly at the hospital. He went
straight to the director’s office, gave the door a perfunctory
knock and walked in. Miriam glanced at him with surprise and gave a
small shake of her head, but Kubu ignored her. He had news Mabaku
would want to hear.

He found the director at his desk looking through a collection
of newspapers. He was reading the
Daily News
.

“They’ve gone mad!” Mabaku exclaimed. “This one is talking about
tourists being in danger in the Kalahari! Look at the other
headlines.” He held up the front pages so that Kubu could read
them: ‘TOURIST NEAR DEATH’; ‘BUSHMAN KILLER STILL FREE – POLICE
HELPLESS’; ‘POISON ARROW ATTACK’.

Kubu nodded. The Botswana press tended to be calm and measured.
Minor events made the headlines, and political speeches were
covered respectfully. Even Krige’s murder, which had been reported
with gusto, was presented calmly. But the attack on Haake had
turned that upside down. A poisoned arrow striking from the dark.
People are scared, Kubu thought. They think of Bushmen as small and
harmless, if they think of them at all. Suddenly they seem
dangerous. He sighed.

“Haake’s dead,” he said. “He died early this morning.”

Mabaku dumped the newspapers and leant back. “Well, it’s murder
now. But they’d already decided that.” He nodded at the spread of
paper on his desk. “I’ve called a press conference to nip this
thing in the bud. Tell them it’s all under control. An arrest is
imminent and so on. I’m going to get our three helicopters out to
Hukuntsi. We’ll find those Bushmen if it means looking under every
grain of sand. That should get the press on our side and calm them
down. You’d better come. It’s at two.”

“I’ll come, but there’s quite a bit I need to tell you, and it
may change how we handle the search and the reporters too. This
isn’t as straightforward as it seems.”

Mabaku glared at him. “Only Lerako thought it was
straightforward. And it seems he was right.”

Kubu wondered where to start. “I spoke to Ian MacGregor last
night. You know that he’s a big lover of the Kalahari – he paints
it and enjoys the area a lot.” Mabaku gave a grunt that seemed to
say there was no accounting for taste. “He knows quite a bit about
Bushmen and their culture too.” Kubu didn’t add that he did also,
because of Khumanego. He doubted that Mabaku would want to be
reminded of where the case had started. “Anyway, he’s consulting a
toxicologist at the university, who examined the gummy material on
the arrow that shot Haake. He’s pretty sure it’s one of the Bushman
poisons. It’s going to take a while to be certain, though – most of
these poisons aren’t recorded.”

“We already guessed it was a poison.”

“Yes, but Ian’s comment on the arrow was interesting. And I’d
noticed it too. It’s not a real Bushman arrow. He mentioned it at
once.”

“Not a real arrow?”

“The arrow’s real enough, but it isn’t the way the Bushmen
normally make them. They attach the head to the shaft with a short
connecting piece so that the shaft falls off almost at once. That
way the arrowhead and the poison stay in the animal. Otherwise the
shaft might catch on something as the animal runs, and the arrow
might be pulled out before the poison gets into the bloodstream.
This arrow isn’t like that. The head is solidly attached to the
shaft. In fact Haake tried to pull it out by the shaft. A real
Bushman arrow would have come apart at once.”

Mabaku thought that over. “So what? They don’t hunt like that
any more anyway. Probably whoever set out to murder Haake decided
to make a simpler arrow. He wasn’t going to get it back
anyway.”

“Yes, but why make a special arrow? Why not just use one he had?
If he was a Bushman.”

“
IJ?
Is this another one of your wild theories, like
Haake killing Monzo?”

Kubu ignored that and continued. “I got a report from Detective
Tau. Yesterday they went out to the spot where Haake was shot with
the arrow. It wasn’t hard to find. He’d left some camping stuff
there, and they could see where he pulled off the road. They
searched carefully for footprints, and they found something.”

“And they weren’t Bushman footprints,” Mabaku guessed.

Kubu shook his head. “No. An ordinary boot print. Something like
size ten, much too large for a Bushman. The same size as the prints
we found at the Krige murder scene and the supposed fakes near
where Monzo was killed. And something else. They found what looked
like the tracks of a motorbike that had pulled off the road.
Whoever it was tried to scuff out the marks, but it was pretty dark
by then – new moon – and he didn’t do a complete job.”

“So Haake could’ve been followed from Hukuntsi by someone on the
bike. Wouldn’t he hear it?”

“Only if it was close and he turned off his engine. But as soon
as he stopped, the murderer would have cut his engine too.”

“Was there a bike track on the road?”

“No, but if he drove in one of the ruts made by car wheels, it
would be wiped out by the next vehicle. Haake driving to the
hospital, for example. Or Tau driving out to the spot to
investigate.”

“You think it’s a set-up? Made to look like a Bushman? Riding on
the Monzo and Krige business?”

Kubu nodded. “It’s quite possible.”

“What does Lerako think?”

“He’s not committing himself. The bike could’ve been there at a
different time. He’s convinced all the boot prints are fakes.”

“But if that’s the case, where are the Bushman footprints? This
whole thing’s giving me a headache!”

“There’s something else. Haake told me that when he found the
koppies
where he took the rock samples, there were off-road
motorbike tracks there too. It would have been easy to follow
Haake’s tracks through the desert. Maybe he was hunted all the way
from the
koppies
until he was caught outside Hukuntsi.”

“Can we find this place? Send a helicopter to take a look?”

Kubu shook his head. “I’m sure Haake knew where it was, but he
wouldn’t tell me. And he claimed his GPS was stolen from his
vehicle, so we can’t use that. We did find Haake’s map after he
died. It was in his wallet in a side compartment. Not really
hidden. It doesn’t seem to help much, though.”

He carefully unfolded a sheet of paper, and spread it on
Mabaku’s desk. At first sight it wasn’t impressive. The folds had
worn and started to tear, and a stain disfigured one edge. On one
side there was a hand-drawn sketch of three
koppies
, with
two arrows pointing to them, labelled ‘W and ‘E’. The other side
had a patchwork of areas with different styles of shadings. But
there were no co-ordinates or any other markings that could help
determine the location, just a single inscription, annotated with
the initials HS.