Book: ASK TEBOGO
Written by
Omoseye Bolaji
Published
by: The Eclectic Writer’s Club
Review
by Ishmael Mzwandile Soqaga
In the
first Chapter of the book ‘Ask Tebogo”, Tebogo Mokoena the renowned Free State
private detective is shown with Khanyi, affectionately enjoying their
burgeoning love together. Patently, a good time for the two lovers and
inevitably they smooch each other until late in the night. Eventually,
after Tebogo left Khanyi he suddenly received a call and it was strange for
someone to call Tebogo at about 10:00 O’clock in the night. Usually
Tebogo received night calls at around 08:00 latest. Nevertheless, it was
an urgent and important call from Reg of Lengau Associates. Tebogo without
any delay met with Reg and Thabiso. The duo told him that their worker
and colleague, DAVE, was murdered in his shack which he rented and he was set
on fire in the process! Dave, the one stabbed and murdered brutally was
superficially known to Tebogo.
The first
important thing Tebogo did to get a clue about Dave in order to commence
investigation was to ask about Dave's personal life. Reg and Thabiso were
however unable to provide Tebogo with any tangible information about Dave’s
personal life. It was actually surprising to Tebogo when he noticed that
Reg and Thabiso had nothing to offer so that the investigation could be a
success. Fortunately, they remembered a book which Dave kept in his
office. It was a big exercise book; in fact it was a manuscript which
Dave wished to publish in the future. The pertinent manuscript contained
marvellous writings which Dave called “Essays”. Essentially, Reg and
Thabiso told Tebogo about Tumelo who was the "landlord" where Dave
rented the shack.
The true
adventure for Tebogo's investigation into the murder of Dave commences in
Chapter Three where Tumelo is conspicuously glowing as a handy person to
Tebogo. After all pertinent questions and honest answers from Tumelo,
Tebogo was astonished to hear that Dave used to go to “Janet’s Place”. I
think Tebogo was certain that Dave could not be stabbed and set on fire without
any precipitate reasons. Like his presupposition in the beginning when he
was talking with Reg and Thabiso that “Surely he must have friends, and a girl
friend, if not a wife,”- was actually logical.
Janet's Bar... “Or
Janet’s Bar”, as many people call the place. “It’s run by a certain woman,
Janet. She sells beer, home made liquor, food and stew and the
like. She works herself to the bone but seems to enjoy it. And the
money she makes! Dave used to go there every evening to relax, he would
take a beer; and on the weekends maybe two. He never got drunk. He
never got excited. He was still always quiet.”
In the
following chapters, before the culprit was eventually arrested, certain
characters are featured in the book. Eventually after Tumelo finished
talking with Tebogo the courageous private sleuth, he was introduced to Mary,
Tumelo's sister, to gather more fact’s about Dave's personal life. Habitually,
as he is known Tebogo the sleuth could masquerade and conceal his true identity
and to Mary and to others around he became known as the friend of Dave.
In addition, Tebogo's meeting with Janet the owner of the Janet Bar assisted
him to meet with different people. Karabo, another sister of Tumelo whom
we heard being mentioned in Chapter Five is completely vivid in Chapter
Six. Karabo, would suggest - "whisper" - as to who killed Dave,
pointing out that Dave could have been possibly killed by her sister's (Mary)
boyfriend, Khaya. According to Karabo, on one night – a few weeks before
Dave’s death, that current boyfriend of Mary came to the house late in the
night, drunk shouting: “Dave must die! I’ll kill him! I don’t give a damn
about him! He must die!"
Like I
said beforehand, Janet became very convenient to Tebogo as she introduced him
to many people, mainly women whom others claimed to be in love with Dave or
were somewhat "seduced" by him or vice versa! Refilwe in
Chapter Eight is one of the women claimed to be in love with Dave and she
actually admitted that she enjoyed having sex with Dave! Aida too is
another woman who used to spend time with Dave but because of her smoking, Dave
was uneasy and could not carry on with her. At her house, Aida is having
an alluring library which obviously mesmerised Dave. Aida claimed to be
kissed by Dave.
At
Tumelo's house, Tebogo managed to meet with Khaya; and Tebogo, when he was
alone with Khaya tried cunningly to exaggerate that people are stating that
Khaya threatened to kill Dave. Khaya did not deny that he spoke such
thing against Dave; however his excuse for saying that was the influence of
alcohol. He did not mean it in a real sense. Imperatively, from
Khaya, the famous Free State sleuth Tebogo Mokoena learned about another person
whom Janet did not tell him about. William “The man, lover of one
drunkard of a washerwoman called Desire. " Khaya frowned. “Certainly, I
was not around that very early morning when the shack was ablaze... the day
before, however I was around the front of this house around 5:00 in the morning
and saw William skulking around this house from the outside.”
Radiantly,
Desire the "washerwoman" is seen in Chapter Seven and we begin to
learn how close she had been to Dave. Tebogo here when he was with Desire
made it plain that he was not really close to Dave - he avoids concealing his
true identity like he was normally doing especially when he was with Mary. In
Chapter Eleven when Tebogo was in Janet's Place without anything he could
certainly say it can be a conclusion of the investigation. He once again
approached Janet and asked her about Desire's "man" which Janet did
not mention before. Precisely, while Tebogo was seated at Janet's Place,
subsequently Desire herself appeared. Of course they enjoyed to be
together. We read, inter alia:
“Desire
came to my side and indicated that we move on. I followed her as she was
the “leader” now; and on we went in the night, past houses, past a laterite
road and into near darkness. What was going on? We seemed to be
heading towards a hilly area.”At the hilly area the two began to be
romantically intoxicated, but Tebogo was just on a mission to find out
about Dave’s life and liaisons.
... “So there
it was. How could we men resist women? But I had to do so now; I
ain’t that weak! I touched her gently and said into her ear: “Take it
easy fine, lady. Please confirm to me: is this the very spot where you
seduced Dave too, and he (Dave) succumbed.”
She
reacted almost violently. “So he told you!” she said. What an admission!
Tebogo's
investigation into the murder of Dave was leading to some rosy findings as
Desire confessed that she was at Dave's place around 12:00 in the night.
She would believe that none saw her when she went to Dave and when she left, or
so she thought. In Chapter Twelve it is clear that Tebogo as an
experienced and respected private detective knew in his mind who was probably
the perpetrator (killer). The glimpses he got from Khaya in Chapter Ten
and the secret "love" between Desire and Dave; and for Desire to go
stealthily to Dave’s place at around 12:00 was too convincing for Tebogo to
reach the conclusion of his investigation.
As
we recall in the beginning, when Tebogo received a call from Reg at unexpected
time which was 10:00 in the night, he swiftly responded. Dave was
brutally murdered and Reg through Thabiso his second in command advised that
they should consider Tebogo to be the one who must investigate the murder of
Dave. Dave's personality was rather strange, but at the very same
time he was an important man and valuable employee. Reg of Lengau
Associates and Thabiso would know him as a very private person, disciplined,
punctual at work and he did his job well, ate at 1:00 everytime if he was in
the office, never had close friends. He did not flirt with women.
Both Reg and Thabiso never visited Dave at his rented place because they felt
that they were not welcome in this wise .
Dave from
where he was staying at Tumelo's shack which he rented and at the place where
he used to enjoy drinking “Janet's Place” people would give a similar
description about his personality. From snippets here and there, Dave had
also been in exile, even in Europe. To Reg and Thabiso, Dave was from
Limpopo. To investigate the murder of Dave who was commonly known as a
private and introverted person, certainly it was not an easy task to
accomplish. People whom Tebogo interacted with during his investigation
about Dave's murder would describe Dave as:
Tumelo's testimony:
Dave was a
loner. "He had people he did talk to, but to call them friends? He
stayed in our compound but it was rare indeed to see any male visitor going to
his room; certainly he never received female visitors. Even I that I went
to his place maybe once a week he was a bit lukewarm to me. Yeah, we’ll
watch his TV, but he did not talk much. He was not one for gossips or for
commenting on any domestic problems one told him about."
Mary vouchsafes:
"We all thought he was quite strange in the beginning when Tumelo brought
him here; it even seemed he was downright unfriendly. Actually a woman
would soon see through him that he was just shy and unused to women. You
only saw him when he was coming back from work, mainly. He could be in
his room for hours-reading? Or watching TV. The children were
always a sort of nuisance to him, because he was always giving them small money
cakes and the like.
"Of
course we tried to stop the children from bothering him too much, but it was
not easy. He had his own quiet way of showing you when he was not happy
about something-you would just see it on his face; and it was painful ‘cos he
was so nice and quiet in his ways that no one wanted to hurt his
feelings. Many times-sometimes, he lent me money and I always repaid him
on time. Many other times he bought drinks for me, during weekends."
Karabo:
"It’s a great pity about abuti Dave. He was a good person as
everybody agreed. Not all that friendly, or so it appeared. He was
not comfortable mixing with women, or the neighbours in general, come to that.
"The
children liked him a lot because he was generous towards them. They even
used to bang on his door shouting for tjhelete (money) which I did everything
to stop. But Mary did not co-operate with me... she thought it was good
for the children to be a nuisance to abuti Dave. She did not realise that
although Dave was good to the children he did not really like them so
much. He was just a generous somebody."
Obviously,
Dave was having his own unique character both in the township where he stayed
and in the work. Primarily it can not be tumultuous as to why the author
could not reveal the precise reasons for why Dave detested to be visited in his
place by both male and female. We are in the dark as to why he did not like
people to visit him in his place, but all these elements add to the intrigue,
suspense, and bafflement.
However,
we understand from the book that when Tebogo was starting with the
investigation of Dave's brutal murder, a manuscript which contained riveting
essays by Dave was discovered at his office. The manuscript is indeed
splendid, and Tebogo during his investigation sporadically used to read from
it. Dave titled the manuscript “Essays by Dave Khumalo” which are 30 in
numbers. “The Gravy Train, AIDS, Hobbies/Relaxation, How Does My Domestic
Survive and many more constitute part of 30 essays by Dave Khumalo.
Tebogo in the conclusion of the book in the last page would ponder about the
manuscript: “I thought of the late Dave’s “Essays”. I had made my mind
up, one way or the other, to publish the manuscript for him..."
Notwithstanding,
from the description people gave about Dave it will always be questioned as to
whether Dave was a genuine "saint" in society. To recall,
Thabiso earlier on told about the guy who found him alone in the office and
claimed that he knew about Dave and the guy disclosed a bizarre injunction that
they should be careful in respect of Dave. Indeed Thabiso did ask the guy
who seriously warned them about Dave, but the guy said Dave had done something
embarrassing and terrible in another Province before coming here. The
Province is Western Cape. In fact, one can assume that Dave managed to
escape from the " embarrassing and terrible" thing he did in Western
Cape, but in the Free State he could not. Moreover, his character which
of course is very strange is actually questionable. Dave in the
book is always depicted as genial to women, he might secretly kiss and have sex
with them. However, as a talented person who has the ability to observe
the environment where he is living, and providing his persectives and
understanding through his writing, definitely he was supposed to know
better. As a reader, you may ponder and tentatively conclude that perhaps
Desire never disclosed to Dave that she has a man whom she stayed with? Again
it is significant to reckon as why Khaya reacted with such bitter swearing that
Dave must die. Khaya as a heavy drunker he would hate to be told to
follow the paragon example of Dave who drinks decently. Desire on the
other hand triggers the death of Dave as her man, William saw her by the time
she left Dave's place. She thought nobody saw her but William later
explained to Tebogo:
“I swear I’m telling the truth. I travel regularly;
or at least don’t sleep at home every night and one morning I was supposed to
come home anytime from 90.00, and told Desire that the night before. But
unexpectedly I arrived very early and while around our area here I saw Desire
coming from the shack of Dave. At around almost 5.00 early in the
morning. It was obvious she had slept there! I did not let her see
me; I hid, but was destroyed in my mind. Meanwhile Desire went back to my
place to sleep, and by the time I entered the house she was still
sleeping. I did not let her know I saw her coming from that shack. Maybe
I was misunderstanding things?..."
Then an
incandescent William decided to make Dave pay. As he confessed late on:
"I
tried to control myself but it was not easy. I managed to pretend I was
just feeling sick throughout that day, and as luck would have it Desire had to
go to one of her sick Aunts elsewhere in the township overnight. Around
12.00 that night I went to Dave’s shack. Everybody was asleep, but I
heard music in his room. Obviously he had dozed off temporarily but would
soon awaken to lock his door. Since the door was open, I entered, saw him
dozing on his bed and I stabbed him through his heart... " Then the fire.
A doleful story, yet with many enchanting, illuminating layers.
*ASK
TEBOGO, Number 4 in the Tebogo Mokoena Mystery series, created and written by
Chief O. Bolaji, was originally published in 2004. Bolaji has been conferred with the Chancellor's Medal by the University of the Free State (see pic above). Here is the complete Tebogo Mokoena Mystery series:
Tebogo
Investigates (2000)
Tebogo's
spot of bother (2001)
Tebogo
Fails (2003)
Ask
Tebogo (2004)
Tebogo and
the Haka (2008)
Tebogo and
the epithalamion (2009)
Tebogo and
the pantophagist (2010)
Tebogo and
the Bacchae (2012)
Tebogo and
Uriah Heep (2018)
