don’t know. I only ever bumped into him alone.’
‘So who told you he’d left the country?’
‘He told me he was thinking of leaving last time I saw him.’
‘An’ what arrangements did you make about the cottage?’
‘None. He’d only said he was thinking of leaving soon. No job. I presumed he would tell me about that when he left.’
‘And Miss Gandhi? She never went to the cottage?’
Oh Jesus, had they found any of her fingerprints? ‘Only once.’
‘Once? And why?’
He waved a shaky hand. ‘Just to … show it to her. We’re friends. We went for a picnic there one Sunday.’
‘A picnic? Agh, how nice.’ Colonel Krornbrink shook his head. ‘Not for the purposes of sexual intercourse, of course.’
Oh God, why not admit it for the sake of credibility, the Immorality Act was peanuts compared to treason. He heard himself say: ‘Perhaps that was my purpose. Even you will admit that Miss Gandhi is extremely attractive. But unfortunately it never happened.’
Colonel Krornbrink burst into a wide grin. ‘Mr Mahoney, I like your cheek, hey. You expect us to believe that?’
And suddenly Mahoney had had enough of terror. He crashed his hand on the desk. ‘I don’t give a shit if you don’t believe me – it’s the truth! Now, are you charging me under the Immorality Act or not? If not, I’m going home!’
The colonel grinned. ‘Mr Mahoney, we’ve got a very nice cell for you, provisionally booked for ninety days. In fact, we took the precaution of putting your name down for the following ninety days too, so don’t worry about accommodation, hey.’
Mahoney stared at him, unnerved. ‘Provisionally’? And, oh God, he wanted to say something, to do something to ingratiate himself.
Colonel Krornbrink said: ‘An’ tell me, Mr Mahoney, as neither you nor Miss Gandhi knew anything about the farm, how come we found your story – her story – buried on the farm?’
Oh Jesus, Jesus … Then he heard himself say: ‘It was stolen.’
‘Stolen?’ Colonel Krombrink looked taken aback for a moment.
Why hadn’t he thought of it before? ‘Yes. When I finally finished the job I put the story in my briefcase. I drove back to town. I stopped to buy milk. I thought I’d locked all the car doors. But when I came out – the briefcase was gone!’
Colonel Krombrink made big eyes. ‘Got, man, you must have been horrified, hey!’
‘Yes. And so was Miss Gandhi. Imagine – the whole story and those pictures of her falling into … wrong hands.’
‘Got, yes, man. How embarrassing! An’ you rewrote the story?’
Mahoney had stumbled ahead to this one. ‘No. Miss Gandhi was so horrified she just wanted to forget the whole thing. And the story was no good without the photographs to prove it was true.’
Colonel Krombrink nodded deeply. ‘And, of course, she had destroyed all the negatives?’ The detective snickered. Colonel Krombrink sat back. ‘Mr Mahoney, you expect us to believe all this crap?’ He shook his head, then looked at his watch. ‘Well, I must go, but we’ve got plenty of time to get to the truth in the next ninety days. Mr Mahoney, we hoped this wouldn’t be necessary.’ He turned to the detective. ‘Put him in the cells.’
Mahoney was aghast. The colonel stood up and straightened his jacket. He put his pen in his pocket, then paused, as if remembering something.
‘Mr Mahoney, do you know who that Indian girl is sleeping with on the nights you don’t visit her for the purposes of contravening the Immorality Act?’
Mahoney stared, his mind stuttering. Colonel Krombrink looked at him over the top of his spectacles, then opened the file again and ran his finger down a page. He shook his head. ‘Got …’ He took off his spectacles. He said sadly: ‘Amazing – that you’re prepared to go to the gallows for a coolie woman like that …’
Mahoney’s mind reeled. He bellowed: ‘Lies!’ The detective grabbed him by the wrist and the colonel walked out of the door.
The worst thing was the not knowing.
Not knowing what’s going on out there, what they’re doing, what they’re thinking, what evidence they’re fabricating, what they’re doing with her. Oh god, what are they doing to her? What is she going to say? Is she going to hang herself with her answers – and you with her? The helplessness, being unable to warn her, to tell her what to say, to tell her to run for her life … And, oh God, the not knowing how long. How long are they going to keep me in this cell? Days? Weeks? Months? When they lock you up you are panic-stricken by the not knowing, frantic, you want to bellow and shake the bars and pound the walls, roar to the sky that they can’t do this to you.
He did not bellow and shake the bars, though he wanted to: he sat on the bunk and clutched his face, desperately fighting panic, taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself. It took a long time for the screaming despair to subside; and then the cold, solid fear set in. The fear of that courtroom, that judge, those gallows. It took a long time for the dread to subside sufficiently to be able to think. He began to pace up and down.
Think … They hadn’t charged him with anything, not even under the Immorality Act – they’d only detained him. Surely to God, if they thought they could hang him they would gleefully add him to their bag of traitors. ‘We hoped this wouldn’t be necessary,’ Krombrink had said. So they were only trying to squeeze more information out of him with talk of ninety days and the gallows. Bullying him for information about Patti – they’d tried to poison his mind against her. So the way out was to play the bastards at their own bloody game, and agree to become an informer – like Patti had said. Agree to any fucking thing, then get the hell out of South Africa. Grab Patti and run like hell, run right off this continent.
In an hour or so they would come for him. Play it cool. Play them at their own bloody game … and say what?
How much are you going to admit?
But they did not come for him in an hour or so.
The sun went down, gleaming on the bars of the small high window, and the panic began to rise up, and he had to fight fiercely to keep it at bay. Think... Think about anything except this cell; Think about what you’re going to say to Krombrink. Think about how you’re going to get the hell out of this country.
Without a passport? Surely they would give him back his passport if he said he was going to be an informer?
And if they didn’t?
Now think calmly. Be calm. They’ll come for you tonight and you’ve got to have
