He strode into the courtroom and into the dock and down the staircase to the cells below. Mahoney walked back into Court and sat down at the bar. Suddenly the chanting stopped. A minute later the inspector climbed back up into the dock and came to Mahoney. He was smiling.
‘How d’you do it – promise them ice-cream?’
‘Dogs,’ the inspector beamed, ‘I put a police Alsatian in each cell and told them it would bite if anybody speaks above a whisper.’
The prisoner’s dock was behind the bar and Mahoney had his back to it. Mahoney seldom looked round at the faces of the men he was prosecuting to jails and the gallows. And today he was too tired to turn his neck unnecessarily.
It was mid-afternoon. The pomp of the opening of the Criminal Session was over. The police brass and the counsel and the attorneys and the magistrates who packed the Court at the opening ceremony to show their respect had gone back to their jobs and now Mahoney and his Lordship and the Assessors were getting on with theirs. It was hot and sweat trickled down from under Mahoney’s wig and his gown stifled his suit and his suit smothered his shirt and his shirt stuck to his wet skin. His head was thumping and he had a fluttering sensation from time to time in his chest. But the case was going smoothly enough, thank God. He was glad he had chosen this one to start the session, for he felt in no shape for a scrap today. He had more than twenty witnesses to lead, but Edward Moyo and Paradise Mpofu were letting them go through the witness box unchallenged. Edward Moyo and Paradise Mpofu were indeed being perfect sports about the whole business. Edward Moyo was reading a Superman comic with a puckered frown, his thick lips mouthing each word slowly, and Paradise Mpofu was fast asleep. If their disinterest in their own trials included a measure of contempt of Court, the Court did not mind and Mahoney was very relieved. He could not understand why they had pleaded Not Guilty, but he wasn’t bothering his sore head about it.
It was not until three-thirty when Mahoney said to the Court: ‘I close the case for the Crown, Milord,’ and sat down gratefully, thankful for a lucky day and the fact that within one hour he would have a tall frosted glass of beer in his hand, that he turned around in his chair and looked back at the two prisoners. His chest fluttered again.
‘Samson,’ he breathed, but nobody heard him but Paradise Mpofu alias Samson Ndhlovu.
Samson was fatter. He got more food and did less work in prison than he did at large, which wasn’t very often these days. His big head had the shaven baldness of the hard labour prisoner and he wore a moustache and a little beard that encircled his mouth. He had just been woken up by the interpreter and he was standing up and blinking a little owlishly at his Lordship. He heard his name whispered and he glanced at Mahoney and frowned. Mahoney stared at him. Then he lifted up his wig and smoothed his matted hair with his hand and Samson’s eyes widened and his mouth opened and then he beamed at Mahoney.
‘Mambo’ – he said out loud.
Mahoney grinned at him and then he turned his back. He rifled through the police docket until he came to the list of criminal convictions in the name of Paradise Mpofu. It read:
Contravening Section 10(1) Wildlife Conservation Act, Elephant
Hunting: 3 months i.h.l.
Contravening Section 10(1) Wildlife Conservation Act, Elephant
Hunting: 6 months i.h.l.
Contravening Section 24(1) Firearms Act, unlicensed possession
.303: 2 months i.h.l.
Contravening Section 10(1) Wildlife Conservation Act, Elephant
Hunting: 12 months i.h.l.
Contravening Section 3(1) Gold Trade Act: 3 months i.h.l.
Contravening Section 3(1) Gold Trade Act: 6 months i.h.l.
Contravening Section 3(1) Gold Trade Act: 2 years i.h.l.
‘And now you’re pinching cars, you stupid bastard,’ Mahoney whispered. His lordship was speaking: ‘Mister Interpreter, ask Edward if he has any witnesses to call in his defence.’
The interpreter spoke to Edward.
‘I have no witnesses to call,’ Edward said tiredly.
‘Do you wish to give evidence yourself or do you wish to make an unsworn statement, or do you wish to say nothing? If you take the oath and give evidence you will be cross-examined by Counsel for Crown. If you make an unsworn statement you cannot be cross-examined. Evidence on oath carries more weight than an unsworn statement.’
The interpreter relayed it to Edward. Edward looked bored. He knew Court procedure, his face said.
‘I wish to say nothing,’ Edward said.
‘Very well,’ said his Lordship. He turned to Samson.
‘Ask Paradise if he has any witnesses to call.’
Samson straightened a little. He did not look at Mahoney.
‘Yes, I have a witness to call,’ he said through the interpreter.
‘Very well,’ his Lordship said. ‘Call him.’
‘His name is Mr. Green,’ Samson said.
‘Yes,’ said the judge. ‘And where is he?’
‘He is at the prison,’ Samson said apologetically.
The judge grunted. ‘Court will adjourn for five to ten minutes to enable Mr. Green to be fetched from the prison. Mr. Mahoney, will you instruct the police to fetch him.’
‘Certainly, milord,’ Mahoney said.
Court adjourned and Mahoney hurried to his office. He lit a cigarette and he waited for the knock on his door. It came.
‘Come in.’
A black constable came in.
‘Scuse me, sah, but the accused Paradise wish to see you sah.’
Mahoney smiled. He took four cigarettes from his packet and handed them to the constable.
‘Give these to Paradise and let him smoke them now if he wants to. Tell him I cannot see him until after the case is finished because I am the prosecutor.’
‘Yassah.’
Mahoney smiled sadly to himself as he finished his cigarette. He was thinking of a dark river at night and the sweep of the hunting lamps and the yellow cat’s eyes gleaming in the black water and the panting wait, the rifles trained in the blackness. The big black frame of the man kneeling beside him in the boat, then the explosion, the jolt, the stars, the deafness, the falling, the cold terrifying bite of the water, the panic, the thrashing, and then the sudden plucking out of the water, the wet crumpled heap of himself in the boat again.
‘I’m sorry, old boy,’ Mahoney said to himself, ‘but there’s nothing I can do to keep you out of prison and it’s going to be a long long time—’
The inspector put his head in the door.
‘Mr. Green’s arrived.’
‘Right,’ Mahoney said. He flicked his stub into the corner and put his wig back on.
Mr. Green stood in the witness box and took the oath looking bewildered.
‘Mr. Green,’ his Lordship said, ‘who are you?’
Mr. Green looked nervous. ‘I’m the assistant superintendent of the Prison, my Lord.’
‘I see,’ the judge said. ‘And do you know the second accused?’
Mr. Green peered across the courtroom at Samson. Samson was beaming at him hopefully.
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Mr. Green said. ‘He is a prisoner at my jail. I think his name is Paradise Something.’
‘Yes,’ the judge said. He turned to Samson.
‘Well, Paradise, what questions do you wish to ask Mr. Green?’
Samson cleared his throat and smiled cheerfully. He spoke to the interpreter and the interpreter said: ‘Mr. Green, do you know me well?’
Mr. Green nodded bewilderedly. He turned to the judge. ‘Quite well, my Lord. I see him almost every day at the prison.’ He turned to look back at Samson.
‘For how long have I been in your prison, Mr. Green?’
Mr. Green shook his head. ‘Oh, I can’t say, my Lord, without looking at the records. But quite a long time.’
Samson nodded.
‘Have I been in prison for the last twenty months?’
The judge and Mahoney both sat up.
‘Y
es, about that I’d say,’ Mr. Green agreed.
‘What? As a hard labour prisoner?’ the judge said.
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Mr. Green said.
The judge looked at Mahoney and Mahoney looked at the judge. Then they both looked at Samson.
‘And have I ever escaped from prison?’ Samson said.
‘No, he hasn’t, my Lord,’ Mr. Green said.
‘I am being prosecuted,’ Samson said stiffly, ‘for the crime of stealing some cars four months ago. Is it possible that I’m guilty?’
Mr. Green looked very bewildered.
‘No, it isn’t,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Samson said. He sat down with dignity.
The judge looked at Mahoney and Mahoney was staring at the ceiling and a smile was spreading across his face.
‘You old bastard,’ he whispered.
‘Well Mr. Mahoney,’ his Lordship snapped, ‘it would appear that the accused has made a fool of the Crown.’
Mahoney got to his feet and bowed: ‘So, my Lord, it would indeed appear. What is called the cast-iron alibi.’
Later, the policemen standing in the corridor grinned at each other as they heard the belly-shaking laughter of Samson Ndhlovu and Joseph Mahoney coming from behind Crown Counsel’s closed office door.
Chapter Forty-Three
Just two beers. Just to unwind me. Just two beers so that I can bear to sit down at that bloody table afterwards and read tomorrow’s briefs.
Mahoney walked into his hotel, smiling tiredly to himself. He was very white and his hair was still flattened and matted from his wig. Selbome Avenue was hot and flat and wide and dry, his suit was dank, and his lips were salty and the sky was pitilessly blue and the palms of his hands itched like they did in the old days but he was smiling to himself because Samson Ndhlovu alias Paradise Mpofu had made fools of them all.
He went straight from the street into the hotel cocktail bar.
He liked this bar. He used to take Suzie here often. He shut his mind from her. The bar was empty and the barmaid smiled at him very prettily as she gave him the cold Lion.
‘This is new,’ he said, ‘having a barmaid in here.’
‘The boss started it about a year ago. Business was so bad, it helps business. A man prefers to have a woman serve him, than a munt. Most of the cocktail bars have barmaids now.’
‘White girls?’
‘Oh yes. Men wouldn’t want to look at black girls’
Mahoney nodded. ‘The Battle of the Barmaids.’
‘Oh well – cheers,’ she said.
‘Cheers.’ He smiled at her into her eyes and pulled out of his beerglass. It was like food. ‘To Paradise,’ he said.
She thought he was toasting her eyes, she lowered her eyelids coyly.
‘Paradise Mpofu,’ Mahoney said, ‘an old black friend of mine.’
‘Oh.’
‘It was very funny,’ Mahoney said. ‘You see, this chap Paradise – his real name is Samson, Paradise is his underworld name – he used to work for me.’
He told her the story.
‘But why did he do it?’
‘To get a holiday from jail, he told me. He knew he would have a few days off hard labour while the trial was going on, and he’d see something of the outside and he’d see some girls, maybe, and so on. So when he saw his old buddie Edward in jail he just said to him: If you’re going to confess, just implicate me and then I’ll confess and we’ll get some cigarettes out of the swines and I’ll get a few days off hard labour.
‘The cops are busy people these days. The jails are so full. It quite often happens that a cop catches up with a chap when some other cop arrests him at the other end of the country for some other crime. The cop was just too delighted.’
The barmaid laughed.
‘That’s quite a good story.’
The beer was making him feel good. It was taking the tight tiredness out of his chest and shoulders and head.
She gave him another beer. Two men came in and sat down at the bar. Mahoney took a long pull out of his glass. Nectar. Balm for his ragged nerves. This was the stage he liked best – the second beer alone. He liked it alone. When you get on to your seventh, that’s the time to start talking the usual crap to the bloke next to you, not before. On his second beer he could begin to think clearly. It was too valuable to waste in bar talk. He liked to be alone in a crowd. The bar was filling up. Men in office suits, women in office dresses, coming from the sweat of the office into the cool ether of the cool green cocktail bar for the time-honoured custom of the sundowner. Mahoney ignored them. He recognised a few of the faces, a few years older, but he did not want to break his solitude with smiles and handshakes and ransacking his memory for names and talking about the bloody Situation. The bloody Situation, he was sick of talking about it. Independence, Independence – he was sick of hearing the same old cliches trotted out with the conviction of fact. ‘We can’t drift on like this—’ Like how? ‘Like we are now.’ But we’re running the country ourselves now. ‘Yes, but Britain’ll hand us over to the blacks like she did in Kenya and Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia.’ No she can’t – our constitution is different to Kenya. ‘She’ll do it all the same.’ But don’t you see that Britain can’t do that without breaking the Law, for Chrissake, if we break the Law by declaring independence we’ll be outlaws and then she will be entitled to step in and hand us over like Kenya, but if we stay as we are Britain can’t do a bloody thing to us. ‘What are you, a kaffir lover or something? You want to see the country handed over to the blacks?’ Oh for Chrissake—
A hand fell hard on his shoulder.
‘Well if it ain’t old Honeytalk Mahoney—’
‘Good God – Max—’
And there was Max, a bit fatter and grinning all over his handsome face.
‘I recognised the suit,’ Max grinned pumping hands.
‘It happens to be a very good suit—’
‘It must be to last all this time—’ He caught Mahoney’s wrist and inspected the cuffs. ‘Yes, and still using paperclips for cuff-links, the haberdashers don’t make much out of you, do they, Honeytalk? Christ, what are you doing back in town, boy? Last I heard of you you were canoeing down the Amazon. Where’re you living?’
‘In Salisbury. What’ll you have, mate?’
‘Scotch, since you’re so pressing. What you doing back in town, boy—’
‘I’m prosecuting the Criminal Session here.’
‘Still a prosecutor, hey? Jesus,’ Max shook his head, ‘that always amused me. Old Joe, the hardest case of them all and he’s a custodian of the public conscience! I’ll never forget the time you kidnapped the snake-charmer from the circus for Ian’s bachelor party—’ Max was shaking.
‘And I’ll never forget how you chucked the snake-charmer’s crocodile in the public swimming pool to the alarm and despondency of the Municipal authorities.’
Max laughed out loud. Mahoney turned to the bar. ‘Honey—’ he called to the barmaid, ‘give us a cold one and a Scotch.’
‘Honey,’ Max leaned forward to her. ‘Beware of this man, always keep the bar between him and your belly-button.’
The barmaid giggled. Mahoney grinned at her hopefully.
Max took a big sip of his whisky.
‘Now tell me about it,’ Mahoney said quickly. He did not want to talk about himself, ‘I take it you’re not married.’
‘Certainly I’m married.’ Max patted his stomach. ‘Pillar of Society, me—’
‘Married!’
Max looked a little lame. ‘Two kids,’ he said brightening. He brought a Kodak envelope from his pocket and pulled out two colour photographs.
A woman crouching on a lawn. She was holding a small baby and she had her free arm around a toddler. Their faces were puckered up against the sun and the baby’s face was screwed up in a bawl. There was a corner of a white house with a splitpole fence behind it and a wheelbarrow and one end of a washing line. The girl was a little plump and her hair lo
oked as if she meant to wash it today. A Sunday morning shot.
‘Pretty girl,’ Mahoney said politely.
‘She was better before the kids were bom. The rest are of the house.’
It was one of those new three-bedroomed jobs in the newer suburbs on a third of an acre with every window in the expected place and a red tiled roof and the neighbour’s washing line and servant’s kia over the splitpole fence.
‘Do you rent it?’
‘Bought it. Property’s cheap these days.’
Mahoney nodded. ‘Well, fancy Max a heavily committed suburbanite.’ But he felt envious all the same.
Max put the photographs away. ‘And what about you, what happened to the luscious Suzie?’
‘Suzie.’ Mahoney took a drag on his cigarette. ‘Old Suzie, you know – she’s gone overseas again.’
‘Where overseas?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is it all off between you then?’
‘I don’t know, Max.’
‘Okay, we’ll change the subject. Honey—’ he called the barmaid, ‘give us the same again here.’ He turned to Mahoney and grinned and punched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Hell it’s good to see you again Joe-baby, we must have a party one night. I can jack us up with a couple of jumpers.’
‘What about your wife?’
‘I couldn’t take my wife on that kind of party, could I?’ Max grinned.
‘Fix me up, Max. But I want a push-over. I’m getting too old for the high-powered wining and dining warm-up.’
‘I’ve got just the doll for you. Big and strong, could kick-start the VC.10.’
‘That’s the doll. You fix it up.’
‘Leave it to me,’ Max said.
Mahoney took a sip of beer.
‘And what you been up to these five years, Max?’
‘Well, had a trip to England a few years ago. What a ball—’
‘Belong to the Overseas Visitors Club?’
‘Too true – and do those girls give of the freedom of their loins.’
Mahoney nodded.
‘And on the ship going over! I swear, that’s why the ship rolled so much, too many people poking at once. The parties and shackingup! Midnight nude swimming parties, the works. Women go mad at sea.’
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