Текст книги "Kruger's Alp"

Автор книги: Christopher Hope

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Kipsel licked his lips weakly. ‘Good. Only hurry, Blanchie.’

Sometime later Mevrou Fritz arrived with a pile of ironing. She grimaced at the sight of the urine and wrinkled her nose.

‘Mevrou Fritz,’ said Blanchille, ‘do you get well paid?’

‘Are you joking?’ the concierge demanded. ‘I work for the Department of Works, that’s who this house comes under, through the Embassy in Berne, that’s who I work for. I thought I told you. Do I get well paid? Bus drivers get better paid! Then there’s my accommodation here, for free, so they dock the salary accordingly. Why?’

‘What would you say if we disappeared?’

Her grey eyes stared into his unblinkingly. ‘Hooray. That’s two less to worry about, I’d say. This house isn’t meant for people, you see. Not living people. At the moment I’ve got the attic full of guests, and you men in my cellar.’

‘I think we can help you on both counts,’ said Blanchaille.

A few minutes later they were on their feet and Mevrou Fritz was stroking the necklace threaded with Krugerrands with which Blanchaille had been presented in the Airport Palace Hotel by the beautiful Babybel – a key she had said which he would know how to use when the time came.

Mevrou Fritz took them to the front door but to the old woman’s horror they would not go until they signed the visitors’ book. Trembling she took them to the book and begged them to hurry before the big boss upstairs, as she called him, woke up and shot them all.

Very carefully, Kipsel wrote this message in the book: TO THOSE WHO COME AFTER US – BEWARE! THIS IS NOT THE HOLY PLACE YOU THINK. THIS IS THE HIDE-OUT OF ESCAPED MINISTER GUS KUIKER AND TRUDY YSSEL. THEY ARE LIVING RIGHT ABOVE YOUR HEADS. TELL OUR EMBASSY IN BERNE. YOU WILL BE REWARDED.

Blanchaille wrote simply: WHERE ARE THE KRUGER MILLIONS?

And then to Mevrou Fritz’s intense relief the two fugitives slipped into the night.

CHAPTER 20

Now I saw in my dream how the travellers wandered the lakeside in the manner of those wild tribes who are said once to have populated the shores of Lake Geneva in Neolithic times. They looked, it must be said, no less savage being red-eyed from lack of sleep, tousled, dirty and smelling to high heaven.

It was fine weather all that day with the sky high and blue, full of rapidly scudding thick woollen clouds, and the shining freshness of the prospect increased the feelings of relief and freedom which Blanchaille and Kipsel enjoyed as they made their way along the lakeside towards the town of Montreux. Kipsel wanted to stop at an hotel to wash and eat a meal but Blanchaille allowed only a brief pause by the water’s edge where they splashed themselves, dunked their faces, ran their fingers through their hair and Kipsel at last got rid of the strong ammoniac smell of the dried urine that clung to him. Blanchaille removed his underpants and threw them into the rubbish bin. This was after all Switzerland and the trim sparkle of the countryside insisted on respect. Nothing could persuade Kipsel to do likewise. ‘I simply cannot walk about without underpants, it gives me the oddest, most uncomfortable sensation. Sorry, Blanchie, I know I pong a bit. Where to now?’

‘Up into the mountains, above the town. Remember the readings from Kruger’s book old Lynch gave us so often? Remember the story?’

And Blanchaille quoted exactly as he could remember, the passage from Further Memoirs of a Boer President:

‘Travellers approaching their journey’s end will find themselves as it were between heaven and heaven, one as deep as the other is high. They will think themselves close to Paradise, and they will be as close to it as faithful servants are permitted on this earth, for the country answers to the heavenly ideal in these several instances; to wit, it possesses elevation; it is a republic; it respects and honours the memory of John Calvin; and, not least, honesty prevailing over modesty requires the recognition that it has taken to its bosom this servant of his broken, scattered people, Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger. That it is not the divine country itself but its reflection will be apparent to those who walk in its mountains and still lose their way. But help is at hand for those who seek their true homeland. Scouts will be posted by the camp kommandant as I did always when establishing a concealed laager, or Boer strong-point…’

‘Between heaven and heaven, the book said,’ Blanchaille pointed to the deep blue lake on their right and the bright sky above. ‘I’m sure that’s what he meant.’

‘Scouts will be posted, I remember that.’

‘Well, then, shall we start climbing? They’ll be expecting us.’

‘Bloody well hope so. You could wander in these mountains forever without a guide.’

Blanchaille surveyed the great blue lake, smooth as a dance floor. He saw the flat brown pebbles neatly packed beneath the clear surface, the brown ducks daintily dunking their heads, the roving sea-gulls, the sailing swans. At his feet miniature waves slapped tidily against the rocks. A few palms stood by the lake. Palms in this place! It cheered him faintly. Some sleek crows scavenged an old sweet packet and a sparrow carefully shadowed a gull and ate what it dropped. A duck dived and showed its purplish under-feathers, two swans pecked at each other viciously. The water of the lake began with pebbles and clarity at his feet and turned grey-blue under a gentle rippling surface and then still further out showed itself in pure grey slicks bounded by great shadows, flat and full it stretched into the mist of the further shore line where blue mountains reared; if he half closed his eyes they reminded him eerily of Africa. But this wasn’t Africa: Africa was dead and gone for him. He was here now, and here he must keep his feet firmly planted. At his feet there floated a split cork from a wine bottle, several shredded tissues, a fragment of the Herald Tribune, a Pepsi-Cola can, several orange peels swimming in a bright school, wisps of swansdown, an old pencil, the filters of many cigarettes, and all the few small signs of life washed in by the tiny waves which arrived with gentle decorum. The lakeside was broken up by stone jetties and small coves and he noticed how cunningly the trees and shrubs had been introduced among the rocks: saw the ivy which crawled down to the waterside, the huge willow flanked by palms, those shrubs planted in pots and cunningly blended among the rocks, saw everything was arranged, everything cemented into place. The apparently haphazard grouping of rocks into natural stone piers and causeways was an illusion, he saw that they were actually propped with wooden stakes and iron bars beneath the surface. He could see the steel cables that held these structures in place. Everything was at once so natural and so skilfully arranged. Here was a country which lent itself to such paradoxes. Here, you felt, everything was allowed providing it could be properly arranged. A family, mother, father and two sons in a red paddle boat, with knees going like pistons, floated by. They waved. It was time to be getting on.

In Montreux they paused at a camping shop to buy two knapsacks which they filled with chocolate, bread and milk and a couple of bottles of cherry brandy – they also bought two stout walking-sticks, walking-boots and then struck into the mountains.

Here in this corner of French Switzerland they admired the clipped serenity of the countryside, its villages, vineyards, hotels and castles. They noted how well all things were accommodated, the way in which the country entered towns and villages in the form of carefully mown lawns and artful gardens, while the towns tiptoed into the countryside never disturbing the settled neatness. Here everything was made to fit but given the semblance of casualness. They passed orchards of heavily laden apple trees and burgeoning vineyards and had no qualms about raiding the fields of fruit, snatching apples and bunches of grapes as they went.

The road above the town of Montreux climbs steeply and soon leaves vineyards and orchards behind. The day was hot. They were soon pouring with sweat. The lake was now a long way below.

It was here, in the late afternoon, that they were met by four men wearing walking-boots, short leather trousers, thick red woollen socks and walking-sticks decorated with brightly coloured tin badges showing the coats of arms of all the cantons thereabouts.

The men said they were shepherds.

Kipsel rejected this and in fierce whispers told Blanchaille why: ‘One, they don’t have any sheep; two, they’re carrying sticks and not crooks; three, this is cow country, you don’t get sheep here; and four, they’re countrymen of ours, right? Well, you don’t get South African shepherds. I vote we be careful.’

Blanchaille secretly agreed. Something in the manner of these men reminded him of the policemen in their shiny orange mackintoshes who had stopped him on the road to the Airport Palace Hotel. Yes, he was fairly sure of it, their heavy and rather aggressive manner suggested representatives of the Force. Or at least ex-policemen, who were now going straight. But he confided none of this to Kipsel.

‘Scouts have been posted,’ he reminded his friend of the clues in the Kruger book. ‘We can but hope.’

By way of breaking ice Blanchaille told the shepherds that they had helped themselves freely to grapes and apples and water from the streams along the route and he hoped that there was no objection. The shepherds replied that walkers had been coming this way for so many years and that some of them wandered for so long among the mountains that the owner of the big house to which they were bound, this was delicately put, had an understanding with the neighbouring farmers under which any of his people who came that way were free to help themselves from orchards and vineyards, in moderation of course, and providing no damage was done or camp fires lit, since the Swiss were a particular race and, like farmers everywhere, took a dim view of strangers tramping on their land. However, the procedure had worked well enough for many years and just as well for there were travellers who had come from great distances and who were tired and hungry and parched, not to say absolutely bushed and clapped out, by the time they got this far. And besides, the altitude got to one, if one was not used to it.

‘Is this the road then to the big house?’ Kipsel asked.

‘Keep straight on,’ came the answer. ‘You can’t miss it, set high on a hill in the last fold of this range of mountains, you’ll know it when you see it.’

‘How much further?’ Blanchaille asked.

Here the shepherds were less forthcoming. ‘Too far for some,’ they said. ‘Not everyone makes it. There are accidents.’

‘What sort of accidents?’

‘Climbing accidents. Heat-exhaustion in the summer. Cases of exposure in the winter,’ said the shepherds. ‘People arriving from Africa often underestimate the ferocity of the winter.’

Now I saw in my dream that the shepherds questioned them closely, asking exactly how they found this route, and how they’d come so far without maps, directions or luggage. But when they heard of Father Lynch, of the death of Ferreira, of the betrayal of Magdalena, they smiled and said, ‘Welcome to Switzerland.’

The shepherds had fierce, flushed jaws, hard, cold eyes like washed river stones, hair blond and thick, necks thick too, and muscles everywhere. Their names were Arlow, Hattingh, Swanepoel and Dekker and they took the travellers to one of the travellers’ huts which the thoughtful Swiss provide in the high mountains for those who need them. This they found well stocked with tinned food, a paraffin stove, blankets, bunks and all necessities, and here after a meal the travellers went to bed because it was very late.

In the morning they rose and breakfasted on beans and bacon and although they had no razors and could not shave, there was running water so they enjoyed the wonderful luxury of a good wash. They breathed the clear mountain air and wondered at the fierce gleam of the rising sun on the snowy peaks of the distant Alps.

A little later the shepherds arrived and, taking Blanchaille and Kipsel back inside the hut, they drew the curtain and showed them slides on a small portable projector. ‘We would just like to clear up a few points which may have been puzzling you boys,’ they said. The first slide showed battle casualties fallen on some African battleground. The troops appeared to have been caught in some terrible bombardment, artillery perhaps or an air strike because they were hideously wounded, limbs had been torn away and there were many soldiers without heads. The soldiers, they noticed, were young, no more than boys.

Then Blanchaille said: ‘What does this mean?’

And the so-called shepherds, who by this time had produced flasks of coffee and kirsch and were drinking heavily, replied: ‘These are innocent boys who were called up to fight for their country and for Christian National civilisation and for the Regime and for God and for the right of all people of different races to be entitled to separate toilet facilities, which is the custom of that country, as well as for every family’s rights to a second garden boy and for the freedom to swim from segregated beaches, and who now lie where they have fallen in the veld because on the day on which these pictures were taken the troops suffered a reverse and were forced to retire owing to the perfidy of the Americans who having persuaded the Regime to launch an invasion of an adjacent country then left them in the lurch and so these children lie here in the sun. What you see here is the death of a nation. Civilisations have died of old age, of decadence, of boredom, of neglect, but what you are seeing, for the first time, is a nation going to the wall for its belief in the sanctity of separate lavatories.’

‘It is a tragedy,’ Blanchaille said.

The shepherds nodded. ‘And a farce,’ they said.

Further slides showed the Kruger lakeside villa at Clarens they had so recently vacated. And the shepherds said, ‘We wanted you to see crowds of deluded pilgrims visiting what they’re told is Uncle Paul’s last refuge abroad, though it was nothing more really than a stage prop. At the heart of their delusion is the belief that the Regime is the true heir of Uncle Paul and will preserve the white man’s place in Southern Africa forever. Whereas the poor sods are no more than tourists and the site they visit may be compared to an abandoned stage, or the deserted set of some old movie and the Regime of course is busy selling out everything and everyone in the service of the only reality it recognises, survival.’

In the pictures parties of the faithful arrived in coaches, flocking into the house with looks of awe and reverence. They wept when they saw the ugly bust of old Uncle Paul, they wept when they saw the death bed, they wept at the President’s last message to his people, set in stained glass, encouraging them to look to the past, they admired the view from the balcony where the old man had sat, and they wrote of their feelings in the visitors’ book. Examples of their messages were also shown in a variety of different colours of inks and hands: Uncle Paul your dream is alive and well in South Africa; We will never surrender!; The Boer War goes on! There were angry threats: Kill the Rooineks and God Give Us More Machine Guns and We Will Die on the Beaches; as well as more frivolous slogans such as Vrystaat! and Koos Loves Sannie…

At this point in the proceedings the shepherds, having become rather drunk on the large quantities of kirsch consumed during the slide show, withdrew to relieve themselves at a discreet distance from the hut and Blanchaille and Kipsel met each other’s eyes and blushed to think that even they, who should have known better, had been unable to resist a visit to this empty shell of a house and had paid dearly for their foolishness by spending days under the whip of Gus Kuiker and his paramour.

Kipsel, perhaps to deflect attention from that humiliating episode, again expressed his suspicion of the so-called shepherds. And despite Blanchaille’s attempts to dissuade him he met the four men on their return with these words:

‘I don’t believe you’re shepherds at all. I’ve got a feeling for these things and I think you’re policemen.’

And Swanepoel replied: ‘If you’re talking about what we were, you may have a point. But if we were all judged by what used to be then who would not be damned? Weren’t you Kipsel the Traitor, once? The only thing that matters is what we are now.’

‘And we’re shepherds now,’ said Dekker.

‘Oh yes?’ exlaimed Kipsel. ‘In that case where are your sheep?’

‘You are our sheep,’ came the reply.

Blanchaille stepped in to prevent further embarrassment and told the shepherds that they were eager to continue their journey. Then the shepherd Arlow said to the shepherd Hattingh, ‘Look, since these guys are on the right road wouldn’t it be an idea to give them an indication of their destination?’ And Hattingh agreed, so they stopped at a typical mountain hostelry, perched on a promontory and called the Berghaus Grappe d’Or with a wonderful view of the mountains, where there was a telescope, as is the custom in such places. And here, after the insertion of one franc, they were invited to ‘lay an eye against the glass’.

What they saw differed considerably. Blanchaille said he could see what he thought was a big house surrounded by a wall and it reminded him of a hospital, or perhaps a school. Kipsel said he could see no wall at all, but he made out a gate, a garden and many tall trees and a tall building ‘like a skinny palace’. Then their time ran out.

Would the shepherds give them more precise directions?

‘Keep on the way you’re going and you can’t miss it,’ said Arlow.

‘Look out for Gabriel,’ Swanepoel advised.

‘Our Gabriel?’ Blanchaille was astonished.

‘Ain’t no bloody angel, that’s for sure,’ said Hattingh.

And the shepherd Dekker said nothing at all, just laid a finger alongside his nose, and winked.

CHAPTER 21

On that hot, never-ending Sunday beneath the Tree of Heaven, among the wreckage of Father Lynch’s church, while the baleful yellow earth-moving machines baked in the heat, I slept again and dreamed of the two travellers, gipsy spirits one would have liked to have said, carefree, happy voyagers – except that they looked in fact like two increasingly tired, dirty, bearded and hungry men (a two-legged pear and his lightly furred friend), trudging through the Swiss mountains towards they knew not what – some great house or palace, or castle, château, hotel, hospital which they had glimpsed, or thought they had glimpsed through the telescope of Berghaus Grappe d’Or; some retirement home, or refuge, or whatever it is where white South Africans must one day fetch up, if they are to fetch up anywhere. What is the old joke? When good South Africans die they go to the big location in the sky. When bad South Africans die they go into government.

I saw how, as the climb grew steeper, the road winds back on itself to lessen the upward slog and gives a clear view behind and below. It was then that they saw another traveller straggling behind them in a queer sideways crab-like shuffle. Imagine their astonishment as he drew closer and they recognised Looksmart Dladla, last heard of in exile in Philadelphia.

Their old friend was smartly turned out in a dark blue suit and shining black shoes, quite unsuitable for the rough road he followed and he stopped every so often and knocked his forehead with his fist as if it were a door and he wished to be let in, or at least attract the attention of whoever was inside. He gave no sign of surprise, or of recognition, but Kipsel, all his old fears and guilt returning, had become terrified and had quite unashamedly hidden behind Blanchaille.

‘Looksmart! What, you here? Hello, it’s me, Blanchie!’

The black man peered. There was no surprise, no anger, not even a quickening of interest, merely a blank cursory inspection. ‘I do not remember.’

‘You must remember the old days.’

‘Why?’ Looksmart asked.

Kipsel, now bolder, stepped forward: ‘Well, you remember me.’

Looksmart stared at him. Perhaps his eyes narrowed fractionally. But then his head was continually cocked to one side and he appeared to suffer from a facial tic.

Blanchaille seized his hand. ‘For God’s sake, Looksmart – it’s Blanchie. How are you? I thought you were in Philadelphia.’

There was a slow nod of the head. ‘Yes. I was in Philadelphia.’ He spoke very slowly, as if searching for the words, rounding them up like wild ponies from the canyons inside his head. He spoke thickly, clumsily, with little whistles and splutters. It seemed there was something vaguely familiar about the two men who had stopped him, especially the one with the fish face, the thick lips and the agitated manner. He hadn’t time now. He took a red handkerchief from his breast pocket, bent and polished his black shoes. Then he straightened. ‘Goodbye,’ he said. ‘People are waiting for my news.’

What happened to Looksmart before and after his flight to America has been the stuff of wild rumour, legend and conflicting stories. But it was given to me in my dream to see the truth.

Looksmart escaped to New York on a ticket acquired by his brother Gabriel (as was his passport, US visa, and a pocket full of money), a step ahead of the police and unbeknown to himself, in the company of the famous Piatikus Lenski, the defence lawyer. This flight was ever afterwards regarded as having been planned. People marvelled at its audacity and gave credit for its brilliant execution to Gabriel Dladla. Gabriel Dladla, everyone agreed, was an absolute marvel. On the one hand he was a priest and so forbidden to take part in politics. On the other hand he was known to be openly sympathetic to the Azanian Liberation Front. Yet he continued a free man. In fact his political sympathies and connections, far from endangering Gabriel, increasingly won him admiration and respect. It was whispered in some quarters that if ever, and it was a big if, the Government were to attempt some form of dialogue with its sworn enemies in the Azanian Liberation Front, then Dladla might be the man to talk to, and through; there was widespread agreement that Dladla was the sort of man with whom one could ‘deal’. Of course the official view was that there was absolutely no question of dialogue, or of dealing with the ALF and its murderous terrorist wing, the Azanian Strike Kommando No. 3. Even so, people felt obscurely comforted by the knowledge that if, and it was an enormous if (everybody always stressed this), the need should ever arise and the Regime should wish to talk to the Front, Gabriel was the man. The Regime were careful to discourage any such speculation. Bubé himself had given the official response, when, in the course of a particularly strident political meeting, he had responded to the repeated jibe of ‘Yes – but what if?’, with the remark that people could believe what they liked and the Regime could not stop people believing in fairy stories – but, speaking for himself, IF was a dangerous country which he did not visit. Everyone knew what he meant.

The famous defence lawyer, Piatikus Lenski, was equally unaware of Looksmart’s presence – but the two were forever afterwards associated in the public mind. Thus do haphazard conjunctions become established as historical facts in the story of our country. Lenski had made his reputation in the trials of such notables as the saintly pacifist leader, Oscar Amandla and the martyr, Joyce Naidoo. Lenski’s reputation stretched from the great show trials of the anti-pass laws demonstrators of the early years to the increasingly frequent hanging trials of black guerrillas which more and more occupied the courts as time went on. Piatikus Lenski defended his clients with passion and brilliance. He invariably lost the case but this never affected his reputation as a formidable opponent of the Regime. He was, as he himself said, if one was to judge by results, a complete failure. He never accused the judiciary of any bias. The judges, Lenski had said, were quite objective in their interpretation of the law but since the Regime was thoroughly perverted, corrupt lawgivers and objective judges made an unbeatable combination. He was a short, curly haired, vain little man with dark eyes and a high querulous voice which drove court officials to distraction and struck fear into the witnesses for the State. Nothing scared Lenski. When the prosecution scored a point he would turn to his junior and in his high, carrying tones exclaim: ‘Now that was well done. But do we care?’ He’d been terrorised by the usual methods applied to public opponents of the Regime. His house had been shot at, his children threatened, his wife abused – and he had yielded to none of it. Instead he gave an interview to the papers explaining how these efforts ensured that he would never falter in his appreciation of the lengths the Regime was prepared to go in order to get its way. Finally, Piatikus was placed under house arrest for ‘associating with known terrorists and violent opponents of the State’. The Government thus found in his connection with his clients an unanswerable logical reason for banning him. And in so doing they had at last done really well, and even Lenski had to admit it, and did, by showing that yes, finally, they had made him care, for when the police arrived with the signed order of his banning at his gracious residence in the northern suburbs, Piatikus had fled.

On board the Pan Am flight to New York, Looksmart knew nothing of his illustrious travelling companion. He’d never flown before, he had got into conversation with the passengers, he was rather drunk, and the recent beating he had received had left him in a disturbed and agitated frame of mind. Besides, Lenski travelled first class, behind a beard and dark glasses, and his presence on the plane only came to light when they arrived at Kennedy Airport and the press thronged the concourse. Lenski left the airport immediately after the press conference for a secret destination in Colorado where he went to work on his memoir of the most celebrated of his deceased clients. Called The Last Days of Oscar Amandla, it was to become a minor classic. The American press, and through them the wider world, concluded that this eminent lawyer and the black activist must have escaped together. That was the impression Piatikus never chose to correct and Looksmart was never asked to do so. Not that it mattered for he was so incoherent with his rasping voice and the terrible roaring in his right ear since the cell beatings that he would have been unable to convince them otherwise.

Looksmart had left the country abruptly. His brother had collected him and taken him to the airport in a great big black Chrysler. Looksmart had tried to get some information: ‘How —’ he began.

‘How did I get you the passport? These things can be done, my dear Looksmart. Of course your visa only gives you three months. You’ll have to think of something else by then.’

‘Yes, but how —’ Looksmart tried again. His tongue sat wooden in his mouth, sluggish, thick and unable to respond to signals from his brain. ‘But… how?’ It wasn’t quite what he had wanted to say, but it would have to do.

Gabriel said, ‘How what? How did I do it? Please, give your brother some credit.’

‘How?’ asked Looksmart again.

‘Forget it,’ snapped Gabriel. ‘Better you don’t know.’

Here Looksmart wept. He didn’t mean to weep but it had become an uncontrollable response after weeks of interrogation. Anyone raising their voice to him got that response from the tear ducts. There was a furnace in his right ear and a subterranean rumble which reminded him of the rockfalls on the gold mines which from time to time shook the city and set the cups complaining on the shelves and windows shivering in their panes.

He paused at the barrier at the airport and waved. Gabriel raised an encouraging thumb. Looksmart squared his shoulders and shuffled through fully expecting to be stopped and turned back but feeling in the face of Gabriel’s efforts that he ought at least go through the motions, if only to please his brother.

Gabriel had this gift of making people want to please him. He had a honeyed charm, a lightness, a fleet delicate mind, he was little, gracious, winning, not at all dark but golden. There had always been this contrast with his brother ever since their days in Lynch’s garden when he called them his greyhounds, his porcelain slave boys, his unlikely pages. Gabriel was deft and surefooted, Looksmart was heavy, solid mahogany, his lips pink and full as inflatables, a lump beside Gabriel’s vaulting allure. Gabriel forged ahead effortlessly in the seminary towards ordination and a brilliant career while Looksmart stumbled and floundered in a bog of black theology, making passionate speeches about ‘The first Kaffir Christ’, and burning his Bible on the seminary steps as the white man’s bank book, and thereafter departing in a kind of glory.

‘My vocation,’ Gabriel sweetly told friends, ‘is the priesthood. Looksmart’s is prison.’

Indeed it was. Looksmart proceeded there by the usual route: demonstrations, marches, plots, arrests and bannings and all the blood-warming activities which opponents of the Regime practised in the hope that somehow, someday, they might have some effect. At last grey and despondent he went underground and dreamed of bombs.

When Kipsel’s bombs went off he would have been a prime suspect had he not had a cast-iron alibi. He was already in prison at the time, in the cells of the Central Police Station being beaten with a length of hosepipe by a blond young man called Captain Breek, that very same Arrie Breek who was later to become so close to wresting the world middleweight boxing crown from the American Ernie Smarf in their memorable encounter in the amazing amphitheatre hewn from solid rock in a newly independent black homeland cum casino, run by the Syrian entrepreneur Assad, before a ferocious crowd of 75,000. As Breek later told the papers, his heart had never been in his police work and this may explain why the young man with his great blond cows-lick and the open fresh looks of a serious young accountant should have so forgotten himself during the interrogation of Looksmart that he seized the prisoner’s head and banged it repeatedly against the wall, a method as clumsy as it was inadvisable, since it broke the cardinal rule of police interrogation which is never to leave discernible marks on a live victim and on a dead one only such marks, bruises, lesions, or breakages as would accord with the kinds of fatal injuries the coroner could reasonably expect to find on a dead prisoner who has fallen from a high window, or down a steep flight of stairs, or has hanged himself in his cell.