Kate felt that she had only just laid her head on the pillow when the phone rang. “Err, what time is it?” She looked at the alarm clock: 5:30 am. She picked up the phone. “Hello?” she growled into the phone.

“Kate, I think you need to get down here.”

“Vivian…. is that you? What is it?” Suddenly Kate was wide awake. Vivian would only be calling her at this that hour for one reason. “Vivian,what happened?”

“I think we’ve got victim number three.”

Kate found Ntoko already at the morgue. “How can this be? Isn’t Ontiretse still in lock up?” Kate asked.

“He’s there. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a copy cat,” Ntoko said. “Or Ontiretse is not our murderer.”

They walked down the white painted brick hall to Dr. Moeng’s office. “Vivian, we thought we had him. Are you sure it’s the same guy?”

“Almost positive. Exact same MO, girl was killed in an open area with tall grass, in the middle of the night. She was raped and then, of course, the claw marks down the front. They’re pretty distinctive. No, I don’t think it’s a copy-cat. I think it’s our guy.”

Kate slumped into the chair. She felt exhausted. She wasn’t sure she could go in to see the body. They’d been wrong, deadly wrong. They wasted time and effort following the wrong man, locking up the wrong man. Now this girl was dead and, to make matters worse, they had no other suspect. The murderer could be anyone and they were back to the 14 day deadline to find him. As she sat there she could just nearly hear the clock ticking again.

“You ready to go in?” Vivian asked in a kind voice.

“God Viv, honestly, I thought it was over and now it’s like we’re back to zero.”

Ntoko cleared his voice. “Not necessarily. We know who is not the killer. That’s important evidence too. We’ll find him. I know we will.”

“Yeah…maybe… but when? How many women will die before we get him? How many?”

Kate wished she could be as positive as her partner, they might never get him. That was also the alternative. He left no other evidence. No semen. No fingerprints. They were just guessing in the dark, at least it felt that way.

But she knew she couldn’t hide away from it. This was her job. This is what she signed up to do. Enforce the law, protect the public. She needed to find this monster.

She got up reluctantly and followed them. Vivian pulled the sheet off the body on the stainless steel table in the middle of the room. “Oh know. Vivian, I know her,” Kate said.

“You know this girl, Detective Gomolemo?” Ntoko asked.

Kate looked over her short, stout body. It was the girl from Margaret’s office, the one who promised to stay in at night. She hadn’t kept her promise. “She’s one of Margaret Basupi’s clients at the Counselling Centre. Her name was Sarah.”

“That’s strange. It looks like all three of our victims were clients of Margaret Basupi,” Ntoko said.

He was right. How had Kate missed that? But did it matter? Of course it mattered. Kate knew it mattered. Everything mattered at this stage. How were they linked, how were they not? Every little detail had to matter. Those details were going to lead them to the killer. Was Margaret somehow involved? And had Kate let their personal relationship blind her to the fact?

Kate looked closer at the body. She’d been so young. The three gashes down her chest were deep though not life threatening. She’d been strangled like the others. Raped, strangled, and clawed.

“Ntoko, we need to get to Margaret. I need to let her know before she finds out somewhere else. She seemed quite close to the girl. And we need to find out why all of the victims are connected to her office.”

Though it was still early, when they arrived, Margaret was with a client so they waited in her colourful reception area. Ntoko picked up a magazine and paged through it. Kate let her mind wander over the details of the case. She wondered if someone was not watching Margaret’s office. Monitoring who went in and out and then he chose his victims from those women. Was he watching them now? A cold shiver went down her back. Her mind drifted back to Kadambo. He liked to spy on people. Was he the murderer? Had they jumped to Ontiretse so quickly because both she and Ntoko disliked him so much? Had they let their personal feelings get in the way of finding the murderer?

Margaret came out of the office with a tall, thin boy. She said her goodbyes and then noticed Kate and Ntoko on the sofa. “Kate, you look like hell. What’s wrong?”

“Can we go inside the office, Margaret?”

Margaret was confused and frightened, but quickly got them inside and closed the door behind them. “Kate, just tell me. I can see something terrible has happened, Is it Goitsemang? Did Goitsemang do something? Is he okay?”

“No, Margaret. It’s not Goitsemang. It’s one of your clients. There’s been another murder. The victim is the young woman that was here the other day, Sarah,” Kate said hoping that somehow quick would be less painful though she knew it would not.

“Sarah? Dead?” Margaret turned toward the big window behind her desk. When she turned back to them her face was pale and drawn. “You know, Kate, I thought you were going to say it was Goitsemang. He never came home last night from the poetry meeting so I thought, you were going to say Goitsemang.” She slumped into her desk chair, a glazed look in her eyes.

“Sarah. Sarah is dead.” Her face said that she didn’t quite believe it.

Kate went to the other side of the desk and put her arm around Margaret’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Kate! This is all so terrible. What is happening at the University? You know I knew all of these girls. But Sarah and I were close. Her father died a few months ago and she came in every few days to chat. She was here yesterday. She left about 4:00, but I saw her in that group last night. She was with a few of her friends. I thought Ontiretse was the murderer, did you let him out of jail?”

“No, he’s still there now. That’s just it. He’s obviously not the murderer. We have no one now. The only link between the girls is you,” Ntoko said what Kate knew she could not.

Margaret looked at Ntoko. “Are you saying I’m a suspect?”

Ntoko said, “I can’t really say. I’m just stating a fact. The link is the University and your office. That’s all we have. All three girls had connections to this office.”

“It could be somebody associated with this office or somebody who’s watching it,” Kate tried. She didn’t believe Margaret could be involved. Besides there was the issue of the rape. The murderer had to be a man. “Tell us more about this girl.”

Margaret went to the file cabinet. “Take a seat you two. You’re making me nervous standing there. Make me think I’ll soon be carted away in handcuffs. I want to find her file.”

Kate and Ntoko sat down and Margaret retrieved the file and went to her desk. “She was a third year science, BSc, student,” Margaret said while reading through the file at her desk. “Last I heard she wanted to specialise in pharmacy, but I don’t know how far things had gone since her father died. I know that she is the oldest in her family and felt quite a burden about getting out and finding a job to help her mother and small brothers and sister. She’d actually been seeing me for some time, even before her father died. She has a boyfriend; he’s much older than her. It says here he’s 34. They’ve been dating since her first year here at the University. He’s a teacher at Maruapula, I think they live together.”

“That would explain why her body was found near the golf course behind the stadium. Maybe she was taking a short cut home,” Ntoko said.

“Maybe,” Margaret added. “Anyway, they were having some problems because he wanted to marry her, but Sarah’s father was completely against it. The boyfriend, besides being much older, is a Zambian national. Sarah went against her father’s wishes and moved in with the man. She had a lot of guilt about not making peace with her father before he died.”

“Any problems with the boyfriend that might make him a suspect, Margaret?” Kate asked.

“I don’t know. Who really knows a person? She never discussed anything with me. I met them once together and he seemed to be a nice man.”

“Mrs. Basupi, can you think of anyone associated with this office that you think is capable of these murders?” Ntoko asked.

Margaret sat quietly. “You know, Detective Ntoko, to be very honest, I could think of quite a few. I get some disturbed people here. Some have had rough upbringings, lots of abuse and poverty. Others are just angry. I have a couple of young men who have contracted HIV who have decided that they want to punish as many women as they can before they die. These are angry people and, quite frankly, I suppose any of them could be capable of this type of behaviour. It is another thing all together if I thought that they would actually do it.”

“So, could you give us their names?” Ntoko asked.

“I’m sure that you know that I am bound by patient-therapist confidentiality. It’s different if the patient is dead and to help find their murderer I need to give you some pertinent details, but another thing altogether if you expect me to compile a suspect list for you from my patients’ files. No, I can’t do that.”

Kate couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Three young women, Margaret’s patients, were dead and she wants to start citing laws about confidentiality.

“But Margaret, more young women could die, doesn’t that matter to you?” Kate had trouble hiding her anger. Margaret had been so helpful up until then.

“Of course it does, Kate. I knew these young women. Of course it matters, it matters greatly to me. I can’t believe you’d say that to me. But you don’t even know that the murderer is one of my patients. It could be anyone on campus, even anyone in Gaborone. It actually could be anyone. Anyone at all. You’re fishing and I can’t help you. I can give you Sarah’s boyfriend’s name, maybe he knows something.” She handed Kate a piece of paper with the name written on it. “He’ll likely be at school now if you want to catch him.”

Kate snatched the paper from Margaret’s hand, not even attempting to hide her anger. How could Margaret hamper such an important investigation? “Thanks. In the meantime, since you are withholding information from us, I suggest you warn your female patients that they should be ready, on the look out for the monster because it looks like he has them in his sights.”

“Kate… you know I have no choice here. You’re being very unfair.”

“Margaret, you have a choice and we’ve heard it. Come on Ntoko, we need to see the boyfriend.” Kate walked out the door without another word to Margaret. She was having trouble understanding Margaret’s behaviour.

“Thanks for your help, mma,” Ntoko said as he quickly followed his partner out the door.

Outside Ntoko found Kate at the car still angry. “I get a funny feeling from her,” he said.

“Funny like what?”

“She’s covering for someone,” Ntoko said. “I’m good with these kinds of feelings. I’m usually right.”

Kate looked at her partner. She didn’t doubt him, he had a lot of skills she was beginning to uncover. But was he right about Margaret? Was she covering for someone? But who?