sucked up everything from the body—even the color of the skin. It’s very bad to free one of those spirits by force. It’s very powerful muti for a witch doctor, but extremely dangerous.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I had nothing to do with this Owido man. I want to leave now.” Demene looked to where his mates had been at the bar, but their seats were empty. They’d finished their beers and gone. He got to his feet.
Kubu stood up, too, and blocked his way. “I need you to come with me for questioning.”
“Questioning? What about? I’ve done nothing. I’ve told you all I know.”
Kubu shrugged. “I need to get an official statement from you. I can only do that at my office.”
“I’m busy. I can’t come now.”
“You have a choice. You can come with me now with no fuss—we just walk out of here like old friends and go to my office—or I can arrest you for obstructing a police investigation, handcuff you, and drag you out like a dog.”
For a few moments, Demene didn’t say anything, his mouth opening and shutting. He looks like a guppy, Kubu thought.
“All right,” Demene said eventually, but his eyes flicked from side to side looking for an escape route. Kubu took his arm firmly and led him to the door.
KUBU DROVE TO MILLENIUM Park and left Demene in an interrogation room alone for more than half an hour. Eventually he returned and pretended to turn on a tape recorder.
“This is Assistant Superintendent David Bengu. It is two-thirty on May the fifteenth, 2012. I’m with Wilson Demene, who has volunteered to come in to provide information about the disappearance of Mabulo Owido, an albino.” He turned to Demene. “Please could you state your full name.”
“You said this would be quick. Where’s the statement I have to sign?”
“Please state your full name.”
“You know my name! I’m Wilson Demene.”
“Some new information has just come to light. I need to ask you some more questions.”
Kubu made a show of pulling out his notebook and flipping through the pages.
“Ah, here it is,” he said, nodding. “Someone at BIG MAMA KNOWS ALL says you were sitting at the next table to the albino. Is that right?”
Demene nodded. “I suppose so.”
“So you did see the albino?”
Demene hesitated. “Yes. I saw one sitting at a table outside.”
“Why did you lie about it before?”
“I forgot about it! I have nothing to do with those people. I suppose there was nowhere else to sit.”
“And when did the albino leave?”
“I don’t know! I told you I wasn’t taking any notice.”
“So the fact that you left at the same time was just coincidence?”
“Yes. I mean I don’t know. I mean we went to the Gaborone Sun. I don’t know where the albino went.” Demene was completely flustered.
“You told me that you didn’t like albinos. Why is that?”
“They look disgusting.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t think so. I think you know they have powerful spirits, and witch doctors use them for their most powerful muti. You know that.”
Kubu noticed that Demene couldn’t keep his hands still.
“Come on, Rra Demene. You knew albinos make strong muti, didn’t you?”
Demene swallowed.
“Yes, I’ve heard that.”
“Rra Demene. Do you know why witch doctors never catch albinos themselves? Why they always ask someone else to do it?”
“No!” The word sounded strangled as it came out.
“The witch doctor protects himself very carefully. Hides himself from the albino’s spirit. So the albino’s spirit comes back and haunts the men who caught him. He blames them. And eventually he drags them off. No one knows where, but no one sees them ever again.” Kubu waited for about thirty seconds, but Demene said nothing. He just sat staring.
Kubu stood up. “I’ll be back in a while. I have things to do. Just remember that there’s nowhere to hide from such a powerful, angry, spirit. Nowhere at all.”
He turned and walked out.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, KUBU received a phone call. “The man in the interrogation room wants to see you.”
Kubu smiled. He picked up the phone again and called Samantha. “Meet me at the interrogation room in five minutes,” he said.
Before they entered the room, Kubu told Samantha to watch and listen, but not to interrupt.
“Okay,” she said, puzzled.
Kubu brought a third chair into the room, and he and Samantha sat down opposite Demene, who now looked terrified.
“Now, Rra Demene, are you ready to tell us what happened?”
Demene looked at Samantha but didn’t recognize her. “I didn’t do it. It was Molefe. I just helped him.