The Dawn Catch

Nkhata Bay, Lake Malawi · dawn · the owner of three boats · Difficulty: Officer 3 · 7×7

Dawn at Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi. The night boats are in: the chambo and the tiny silver usipa are sorted on the shore, smoked over slow fires and spread on the racks to dry, while buyers who drove up from the cities in the dark bargain for the best of the catch. Vitumbiko, who owns three of the boats, was found dead before the sun was up.

Rules

1. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
2. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the anchor, the net racks, the coil of rope, the campfire, the market stalls, the charcoal grill and the drying racks) cannot be occupied; the boats, the stool and the bench can.
3. Directions refer to rows, not to the same column: “exactly one row north of her was a man” = in the row directly above hers, in any column, there was a man.
4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Alinafe (fish trader): She was beside a market stall.
• Bongani (boat builder): He was beside the anchor. There was no other man in his area.
• Chisomo (net mender): She was not beside the bench.
• Dalitso (fish buyer from Mzuzu): He was the westernmost person in his area. The bench was not in his area.
• Esnart (fish buyer from Lilongwe): A market stall was somewhere in her column. There were exactly two other people in her area.
• Fatsani (lorry driver who hauls dried usipa to Blantyre): Exactly one row north of him was a buyer.
• Vitumbiko (owner of three fishing boats): The victim. He was found in the Boat Shed, beside a net rack – alone with the murderer.

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