Which told you all everything needed to know about the fellow. Loyal, affable, and decent, but not particularly driven or bright. Exactly the way I like my subordinates, in fact. It makes me feel less guilty, assigning them the dull jobs and the donkeywork.
Massive, gleaming skyscrapers whizzed by us. And then the lower buildings of the light industry zones. Then finally, an uninspiring mosaic of fast-food joints and mini-malls, car showrooms and discount superstores, and geometrically laid out rows of houses.
It was four-thirty in the afternoon by the time that we reached Binaville. Something might have happened here, the captain had informed me. But it looked to me like, if anything ever did, half the inhabitants would die from the surprise of it.
We were on the very edge of New Harare. Less than two klicks in the distance was a thinly forested section of the Mvurwi Range. Most of the houses around us looked the same, single-story affairs with verandas and flower gardens and low wire fences. But there were a few small, semi-urban farms here too.
It was as quiet as a church, and the sun-baked earth clunked under our footsteps. We made our way over to the house, where a few local cops and some civilians were waiting.
Nowhereville, I thought. Except that just before we opened the gate Petrie looked around sharply, seeming to remember something.
He piped up. “Isn’t this where those two girls disappeared, about a year ago?”
And yes, I realized, he was absolutely right. My respect for him went up a notch. Yes, Bridget and Marie Makabe, eight and ten years old. They’d been out playing in the fields one evening, and had never come back home. It had been headline news for almost four months, and the search for them had been a massive one. How had I forgotten that?
No trace of them had ever been found. Well, maybe Binaville was not quite such a dull place after all.
A uniformed sergeant came over to greet me as I walked towards the porch. “Lieutenant...?”
“Abel Enetame. Could you show me where the blood was found?”
He led me up to the doorway. I could see dark stains immediately on the porch and the soil beyond it. Then I looked inside and cursed silently. There was plenty of blood spattering both walls. And loads more, still partially viscid, on the tiled floor. Except several people had walked right through it. The neighbors, I supposed, going in to try and find the occupant. So the whole scene had been compromised.
Still clearly visible, however, was a large drag mark leading out through the door. And so... a body had been moved. Alive or dead, though?
“Who was it who lived here?”
“Simon Nkomo, 54, a bachelor. Pretty much a loner. Kept himself to himself, so far as we can tell. Just unassuming, quiet.”
“Can I talk to the person who first found this?”
I spent the next half hour talking to bystanders. Did they hear anything? Or see anyone suspicious? All of their answers were in the negative, as they usually are. By then, a forensics team had arrived and was getting busy.
“You reckon we’ve got a homicide here?” Petrie asked me.
“There’s about a quart of blood in there,” I told him. “If Mr. Nkomo’s still alive, I’d say he’s starting to feel pretty lightheaded right about now.”
My eyes followed the drag marks as they went across the porch’s splintered edge. There was more dried-in blood beyond that, and much thinner scuffmarks on the hard earth for about twenty meters, till they reached an area of grassland and low brush and disappeared.
“You’d better start rounding up a search team,” I told Petrie glumly. “This is looking to be a long afternoon.”
And a pretty dull one. Somewhere around forty uniformed men turned up in the next hour. I stood by the gate, watching, as they formed a line, and started picking across the fields and wasteland. The descending sun beat down on me, and flies buzzed in the heat. Every so often, my attention wandered off in the direction of the mountains.
This section of range is one of the few truly wild places left in Highveldt Province. Acid rain has taken its toll on the trees. But people used to spot small antelope around its edges. And I’ve even heard there are a few baboons living up there. You’d think that rich people would clear the area and build some mansions there. But, fifty years ago, a seam of uranium was found in that part of the Mvurwis. It’s been mined out long ago. But no one who has a choice in the matter lives where there’s been radiation.
I took in the fact I’d be late home. So I called my housekeeper, Mathilda, on my cell phone. Yes, Josh was already back from school. She’d be happy to stay till I returned, and did I want her to cook supper? I thanked her, but told her that there was no need.
There was a shout from the fields. My head came up. A circle of blue uniforms had gathered by the time I’d run across. Faces were screwed up. There were disgusted hisses.
I pushed my way through, then came to a frozen stop.
A lieutenant of homicide — in circumstances such as these — expects a body for his efforts. But whatever this shrunken and shapeless thing was, it had been left on top of an anthill. Was entirely carpeted with moving, shiny, red-brown dots. I gawped at it for a little while, then regathered my wits. Pulled a clump of twigs from a nearby bush and, using them as a brush, flicked away as many of the insects as I could.
There was no full-sized cadaver here. Just bare ribs, a few ragged strips of skin. Part of the head was either caved in or gone. It could have been roadkill, except roadkill doesn’t wear shoes.
I turned again to the sergeant. “Is there a medical examiner for this district?”
“No. The nearest one’s in Morning Ridge — Dr. Alice Sususa.”
I knew her. “Get her out here, then. Tell her that she needs to bring dry ice.”
I stared back at Mr. Nkomo, if this was him, registering that whoever had killed him had been very smart. His body hadn’t been dumped here accidentally. Most forensic evidence had been chewed away.
The sun was already setting by the time Alice arrived. We greeted each other, then I left her and the local boys to the unenviable task of picking up the pieces. They were setting up floodlights as I left.
I dropped a weary-looking Petrie off at a midtown subway station, then headed home, stopping at my local Rockin’ Rooster on the way. Picked up a jumbo bucket of fried drumsticks, potato chips, and spicy coleslaw, Josh’s favorite meal.
And opened my front door to... wailing police sirens, squealing tires, and gunshots. Josh was with Mathilda in the den, watching his favorite web-vee show, Nairobi P.D. I paid Mathilda, giving her an extra five. And then I settled down next to my son, and we ate fried chicken with our fingers and watched Sergeant Zak Ngengi hunting down yet another vicious drug baron.
During the final, stunt-filled shoot-out, Josh asked me, “Do you ever do that?”
“Oh, yes,” I smiled. “Almost every day.”
But he knew that I was lying, and he punched me on the thigh.
A news update followed. Mr. Nkomo got a brief mention, and then Summer: Cape Town High. A bevy of cute starlets gossiped in their locker-room, then went to party on the beach.
“Which one do you like?” I asked Josh.
“That one!”
He pointed to a very dark-skinned Venus with an hourglass figure. He already had good taste, for one so young. But I still asked him, “Why?”
“She’s got a nice smile,” he said, very seriously.
At which I burst out laughing, and then hugged him till he got embarrassed, squirmed out of my grip.
“Bedtime now,” I told him.
And he didn’t argue with me. Never has, ever since those terrible first six months after Kissi died.