They arrived at MmaGosego’s compound and found it deserted. Constable Lecheng told Kate that the family had quickly finished the funerals after the bodies were released following the post mortem. Tumisang and Dineo had returned to Lobatse as they both had jobs there. With all of her children and her mother gone, MmaGosego was the only one left living at the family compound.

“Koko!” Constable Lecheng shouted at the gate. After some moments they saw MmaGosego get up from inside the lolwapa where she’d been lying. Her clothes were unwashed and her face had a smudge of ash along the side.

“Yes?” she said squinting into the bright sunlight of the late morning. “Oh it’s you two again. Have you found the killers of my children yet?”

Kate went forward, her hand outstretched toward MmaGosego, “Dumela Mma.”

MmaGosego ignored it and sat back down on her reed mat, her back against the lolwapa wall staring at the mud hut. “Do you know that my daughter was the first position in her class since standard one? Every year. Did you know that?”

Kate could see that she was unwell. She shouldn’t have been left here alone. She needed help. “No, I didn’t know that. MmaGosego, do you think that we could take you to stay with someone? Why don’t you let us take you to Lobatse, to your brother?”

“Oh no. Dineo and Tumisang are busy, they don’t need me there. Anyway, who will watch my mother’s compound? Who will make sure that they do no more harm?”

Kate wondered what more harm they could do to this broken woman.

Constable Lecheng sat down next to her on the lolwapa. “MmaGosego, where’s Ronny? Maybe I could go and find Ronny for you, to help you out here?”

“Ronny? Ronny? Why would I want him here? I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who did this! Always crying about money! That’s what this is about don’t you know? It’s all about money- my mother, my daughter, my boys, even little Kedibone- all for money!”

She let her head fall into her hands and she cried while Kate and Lecheng looked on knowing nothing that they could do would help her. Kate felt terrible but knew there was nothing that she could do for this woman except find the killers. She decided it was probably better to just leave her alone.

As they drove away Kate asked Lecheng about this man, Ronny, that he had mentioned. “Ronny’s those kids’ father.”

“So where is he?” Kate asked, amazed that up to this point no one had mentioned any father. She assumed he wasn’t part of their lives.

“Ah, he’s around. A bit of a drunk, a troublemaker. He moves around here, Lobatse, sometimes Gaborone. Steals from time to time, gets caught once in a while. He’s even been to prison a few times, short stays.”

“Sounds lovely. Why wasn’t he around through all of this?” Kate asked finding it hard to believe that a father would be absent from his own children’s funeral.

“They’d been fighting about maintenance, I understand. He wasn’t paying anything anymore, ever since he got a new girlfriend the other side of the village.”

“He sounds like a suspect to me. Let’s find him.”

“If you think so,” Lecheng said shrugging his shoulders. He drove Kate to Ronny’s regular drinking spot, Beirut Chibuku Depot. Although it was not yet noon, Beirut was hopping. The gumba gumbas were pumping and chibuku cartons were scattered liberally around the yard. Constable Lecheng spotted Ronny sitting on a wooden bench leaning on his girlfriend, Lillian.

“Hey, Bobby!” Ronny said when Constable Lecheng approached. Kate wasn’t surprised that Constable Lecheng and this man were on a first name basis. The girlfriend looked up at Kate and gave her a big smile, minus a few front teeth. From the looks of things they’d both been there since at least the day before maybe longer. Ronny managed to get to his feet. He flopped an arm around the shoulder of Constable Lecheng. “I’s horrible what they done ta’ my kids, Bobby. Jus’ horrible.” Tears started filling his eyes. Lecheng led him to a bench away from the others and sat him down.

“Yeah, just calm down a bit, Ronny. Where you been through all this? Mmagosego is in pretty bad shape. You should go around there and keep an eye on her. Help her out,” Lecheng said to the blubbering face of the drunken man.

“I know I should, but I can’t. Lillian would kill her straight. She’s terrible jealous, nothing I can do about it. We only came back yesterday. I didn’t know nothing. We was in Gaborone, Lillian and me. Looking for work, gotta few piece jobs and stuff. I came back and they told me. They was buried by then. Who coulda done this?” He buried his face in his dirty hands and cried.

Lecheng looked up at Kate for a clue about what to do, but she was looking away. Kate realised that this man was not able to commit such a crime and that they were wasting their time here.

“Listen, Ronny. You don’t know anyone who’d want to do something like this? To kill your kids?”

Ronny looked up from his hands, his face a slobbering mess but his eyes clear and mean. “Everyone knows who done this. Don’t you listen to people? They know it’s Monnonyana. Everybody knows that.”

Back in the car, Kate turned to Constable Lecheng. “What are you actually doing here? You know these people, you know this village but you’re just keeping quiet. You knew that this Ronny couldn’t organise a crime like this. Why didn’t you say something? And now what’s with this Monnayana?” Kate was getting just about fed up with this man. It was as if he purposely wanted them not to find the murderers, but why?

“You’re the detective? I thought this is how you do things; it’s called being thorough. You wouldn’t want to be sloppy like us village okes. Besides would you have even listened to me if I had told you Ronny was not capable of such a crime?” Lecheng didn’t wait for the answer to his question. “No ways, the beautiful, competent Detective Gomolemo knows better than that, doesn’t she?” Lecheng turned and looked out the window disgusted. Kate at the back of Lecheng’s head she could see could see Ronny and Lillian dancing out the window, drunk as dogs and dancing, when his children lay stone cold dead under the ground. She was already fed up with this case, this poor excuse of a police officer and now a man that had no right to have been a father.

Kate turn to look forward out the windscreen, she couldn’t bear to look at the drunk Ronny anymore, or Lecheng either for that matter. “Okay, listen just drop me at my car. I want to go and have lunch. We’ll meet at two. Maybe you’ll be more cooperative on a full stomach.”

“Whatever you want, Boss. I’m at your service.” And he started the engine and sped off towards the village centre.

One thing Kate loved about being in the village was the food. You could be sure to find real traditional Setswana food in these small villages. She sat in her car, a plate of bogobe and seswaa in her hands watching the village at its business. Eating with her hands, in the traditional Setswana way, that for her made the food taste even better. As she ate, she thought she spotted a familiar woman walking in the distance. She couldn’t quite place her but as she came nearer she suddenly remembered that it was Mr. Matebele’s wife, Mary. At the same time, Mrs. Matebele saw Kate in the car and walked towards it.

“So Detective Gomolemo, having your lunch I can see?” Mary Matebele said with a smile, looking happier than she had earlier. “We’ve just returned from our trip to the cattle post with the orphans. That’s the orphanage over there.” She pointed to a compound across the road with large morula trees and three buildings inside. “Maybe I could give you a tour, if you’re interested.”

Kate put her almost empty plate on the passenger’s seat and wiped her hands on a piece of tissue from the car glove box and said, “Sure, that would be nice.”

Mary Matebele was a few years younger than Kate but any passer-by would be pressed to guess that successfully. She was slightly shorter but significantly fatter. She wore a scarf on her head and a plain traditional letese dress. But the thing that aged her the most was her face, lines of worry and stress had found permanent places there. Kate wondered what sadness had caused those lines.

“We started the orphanage three years ago,” she told Kate as they walked towards the gate. “The AIDS problem has made things so difficult for families, for the children especially. We have twenty children, who stay with us, well, actually twenty-one right now. We have a new baby, only three months old. He arrived last week. The mother left him at the hospital in Lobatse. They waited hoping she’d come back, but she never did so they had no choice but to give him to us. “ She smiled when she thought of the small boy, with his round nose and big wide eyes, already interested in everything around him.

Mary Matebele stopped and turned towards Kate, a serious look on her face. “I think you overheard the argument with my husband this morning, you were just polite enough to pretend that you hadn’t.” She held up her hand to Kate’s attempts at protest. Mary had known from her face in the morning that she’d been lying. “It was about him, about the baby. I want to adopt him. You see, I can’t have children, I never will, the doctor confirmed it last year. The problem is that my husband refuses to accept it. He wants his own children. I don’t know what I can do to make him understand that. To understand it is never going to happen.”

Kate knew the suffering a barren woman in Setswana culture had to bear. Neighbours, family members and even her husband had no use for a woman who could not give him children. She was not a real woman unless she did.

“I know you are new here and you don’t know Tobias well, but maybe you could say something. I can see that he respects you. He might listen to you.” She was desperate for help, so desperate she was asking help from a complete stranger. Embarrassed by the look of pity in Kate’s eyes that she was unable to hide. “No, sorry. I was wrong to say that. It’s none of your business.” Mary Matebele rearranged her doek and said with a smile, “Let me show you around.”

Mary showed Kate the grounds of the orphanage where they grew their own vegetables at the back in long tidy rows. A playground had been set up where a handful of children were playing happily. Kate toured the houses where the children slept in lines of bunk beds. It was clean and well maintained but still Kate felt sadness knowing that twenty odd children would grow up alone without a parent to rely on when times got tough. She hoped that Asst. Sup. Matebele would give in, not only for his wife’s sake, but also for the little boy who had been left at the hospital.

Mrs. Matebele walked Kate back to her car. Before she drove away Kate said, “Thanks so much for the tour, Mary. You’ve done a lovely job. If it comes up any time, the baby I mean, I’ll try to put in a good word for you.” Mary responded with a smile of thankfulness. Somehow she had faith in this Gaborone detective. She thought that this tall, dark, attractive woman might be the catalyst that brought her baby boy to her.