The Fortune Men

by Nadifa Mohamed

  Wilkinson whistles. He is a beautiful whistler, trilling through his shift like a caged bird.

  ‘Do “Mack the Knife”,’ Mahmood calls.

  With a deep inhale, Wilkinson teases out the first notes, and clicks his fingers as if in a jazz band.

  ‘That’s it, you got it,’ Mahmood says from his perch on the bed, tapping his foot to the beat.

  Perkins is moving around the cell, straightening and tidying up as is his habit, but he hums as he does it now, enjoying the moment. He opens the wardrobe against the opposite wall and peers in, finding it empty apart from a wire hanger and a spare blanket. ‘They’ll give back your suit soon, you can put it in here.’

  ‘Sure,’ Mahmood says, swinging his head. ‘There is something I keep thinking about.’

  ‘What is that?’ Perkins turns around to face him, and Wilkinson stops whistling.

  ‘If I want to, can I call the police here? To take a statement from me?’

  ‘Yes, that is well within your rights.’

  ‘Too bloody right, Phineas,’ Wilkinson agrees.

  ‘I want to do that. Call him, that lying Detective Powell, and let him take my statement, so the police are not the only ones to write my story. I will have the final say.’

  ‘I will send a message to the police station but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up about it changing anything.’

  Mahmood flings away the suggestion. ‘I know that. It’s too late for whatever lies or truth gonna come out from Cardiff Police to help or hurt me. Bring him here and I will tell him what I want him to hear.’

  Detective Powell arrives later the same week, at ten thirty in the morning. His lumbering frame almost too large for the cell, his red-cheeked face damp beneath a felt hat, his black mackintosh dripping rain on to the floor. He greets the warders as if they are old friends, keeping Wilkinson talking about the summer rain before acknowledging Mahmood at all. With narrowed eyes and his arms stiff by his side, he begins, ‘Mattan, you sent for me?’

  Mahmood is sitting down, looking up at him with steady, uninhibited contempt. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Let me get that coat off you before we need to bring a mop in here,’ Perkins says, reaching for the detective’s shoulders.

  ‘Who said prison warders are the waitresses of the Home Office? Not me,’ laughs Powell, shrugging his arms out and letting Perkins hang up the coat in the wardrobe.

  He dare laugh in my cell, thinks Mahmood, as he watches Powell fold himself down on to the chair opposite him, his knees cracking as he slides his rear slowly into place.

  ‘Is there a sport more vengeful to an old man than rugby?’ he asks Wilkinson, who just smiles in return.

  ‘Powell,’ Mahmood says, reclaiming his attention, ‘you put me here but it too late for you to get me out, understand? Now, with these two men as my witnesses,’ he points to Perkins and Wilkinson, ‘you will hear my word and write it down. You don’t write my history for my sons or nobody else, you see?’

  ‘I am just a humble servant of the law, I can’t put anyone where they’re not meant to be, Mr Mattan.’

  Mahmood stares with almost microscopic vision, trying to decipher whether Powell is a real human being with blood flowing through his veins. The fine red lines atop his nostrils and cheeks seem to suggest it, but what fella can sit there with such coolness knowing the lies he has told to put an innocent man to death?

  ‘OK, let’s get started, then. Thursday, 26th August 1952,’ Powell says, pulling out a lined notebook from his suit jacket.

  ‘I’m ready,’ Mahmood says, placing his hands on the table and taking a deep breath. ‘If it is good for the government that the killer is walking around and that I am going to get hanged for nothing – good luck to the government, and I am very glad to be hanged for nothing.’

  Powell pulls a face but continues to write until Mahmood recognizes a shape that he believes says ‘nothing’.

  ‘I don’t want to wait any longer, I want to get hanged as soon as possible.’

  Powell raises his head from the page and smirks.

  ‘Too many people know about my case in Cardiff, that I am going to get hanged for nothing, and I believe something is going to turn up before long but I want if you find the killer after I get hanged, I don’t want him to get hanged at all. Good luck to him, whoever he are, black or white.’ Damn English, Mahmood thinks, struggling with his words. ‘Only one thing, I am glad if I get hanged for nothing under the British flag. Good luck to him, because I used to hear that the British Government is a fair dealer but I never see no fair dealing in my case, because I never see anybody in Swansea Court or the Appeal Court interfere in my favour. Only one thing, so far as I am concerned, I am black man and nobody like my favour because my life is buy cheap. I am the first man to get hanged for nothing in this country, and I don’t think that anyone believe what I say right now, but before long, one time, you do believe it, because too many people know something about this case and maybe somebody talk later on. Suppose I got a whiter skin, I don’t be hanged today for this case, because nobody been hanged for the word “if” before. I doesn’t interfere with anybody else and I don’t tell one word lie in my case. I was true all the way.’

  Mahmood takes a long draught of water from his enamel cup. ‘The pair of shoes was second-hand when I bought them. I am not going to swear it whether there was blood on them or not but what I do swear is that I got nothing to do with the murder.’

  Powell writes slowly, his meaty fingers white at the tips from clenching the pen tight as it jerks around in his grip.

  ‘I hope from God if I got anything to do with that murder I never be safe and if I am true I hope my God to save me. That’s all.’

  Powell sighs, mutters something sour, it sounds like ‘pidgin English’. Eventually he finishes writing the statement. ‘Is that everything?’ he asks, scanning what he has written.

  Mahmood’s mind is whirring. Is it God or Powell who has put him here? Allah or man? He hadn’t been planning to say so much, or that he wanted them to hurry up the hanging. What if that might happen now?

  ‘Yeah, that’s all.’

  ‘Put your signature there, then.’ He turns the notebook and pen over to Mahmood.

  ‘The last time I write my name.’ Mahmood states quietly, as the letters form, with a fluidity and elegance that belies his tattered nerves. ‘You go now,’ he declares, not looking at Powell as he closes the notebook around the pen and slides it across the table.

  Powell stands, casting a shadow over Mahmood before reclaiming his raincoat and silently leaving the cell.

  Perkins and Wilkinson look at each other and exhale forcefully.

  Moments after Powell’s departure, Mahmood realizes with a panic that he has more to add to his last statement. ‘Mr Perkins, I got more to say, will you write for me?’

  ‘Of course.’ There is already a notebook and pencil in his uniform pocket.

  ‘You ready prepared?’

  ‘We have to be, in case we need to record anything important you say or do.’

  ‘In case I confess last minute or something?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘It will never happen. I go die telling the truth, like I told that policeman.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘You’re the first man I’ve seen who has been unwavering in maintaining his innocence,’ Wilkinson says, taking the spare chair around the table. ‘Most want to get it off their chest by the end.’

  ‘I don’t know how long it will take but, one day, they will know they hang the wrong man. You will see. OK, Mr Perkins, write this …’

  ‘One second. Let me sharpen this pencil.’ He turns the pencil until the graphite has a spear point. ‘Ready.’

  Mahmood clears his throat. ‘Only one thing I lose in my case. My defending solicitors and counsel been told that I got nothing to say to the Court, but if I put my evidence in front of the jury I would not be
here today. But it is no good for me to tell you what my evidence is that I did not put before the Court, because it is too late.’

  Perkins looks up, waiting for Mahmood to change his mind and say what his undeclared evidence is, but Mahmood jumps to another subject.

  ‘But the evidence you accept of the man Harold Cover, I can tell you something from his evidence, because he was told from the Court he saw me that night by the shop of the murdered woman and also he say there were many people standing in the street, but you can ask anyone from Cardiff what the weather was like that night and nobody would be standing in the street. If there were many people standing in the street, do you believe that anyone would attack that woman? This was not my own evidence but what I heard Cover say in the Swansea Court, and it is up to you, accept it or not. That’s all.’ Mahmood lights a cigarette from a box on the table. ‘My English gone bad.’ He smiles, his hand trembling a little as he scratches a dry patch on his neck.

  Perkins reads the statement back to him. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell this evidence you didn’t share before?’

  It would only embarrass him now, and achieve nothing to say that all of this had happened partly because he had gone to see that Russian woman and he didn’t want Laura to find out. He shakes his head, ‘Waste of time.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Perkins turns to Wilkinson. ‘Shall we show this to the governor before sending it to Detective Powell?’

  ‘I expect we should, yes.’

  The sweet numbness that Mahmood had enjoyed after the sheikh’s visit has worn away completely and he is in bed, under a white sheet, with a kind of seasickness, the walls and floor buckling around him. He clutches his pillow, ready to retch, closing his eyes to focus his mind on other thoughts. He dredges his memory for the names of his old ships and the ports he had boarded them from.

  Fort Something. Fort La Prairie. Now was that Cardiff, Newport or London? He remembers sitting, waiting to depart, in a pub full of Somalis with his blanket, bowl and duffel bag at his feet. It must have been the Club Rio where Somalis openly necked their whisky. London.

  Pencarron. Falmouth, Cornwall, England’s foot.

  Fort La Prairie again. London again. Club Rio again.

  Fort Laird. London. Stayed away from Club Rio.

  Fort Glenlyon. London. Eight months. Laura waiting with a swollen belly when he returned.

  Harmattan. London.

  Alhama. Glasgow. Only time in Scotland. Too damn cold and hostile.

  Fort Brunswick. London. Meryvn born.

  North Britain. Newcastle. Just two months. Homesick. Last ship.

  The sky is red and cracked open to reveal the dark throne of God; a sulphurous substance spreading low over the tarmac and causing Mahmood to hold his nose as he walks towards the Docks. The moon is broken into two jagged halves and is sinking, as are the stars as they plunge one after the other into the Irish Sea, steaming as they slam into the abyss. The factories and warehouses have crumbled into dust. Mahmood walks alone and terrified, weeping like a child. Down past the deserted shops and cafés of Bute Street, which stand intact, the way he left them, skeletons perched behind counters and at tables, Berlin’s place as full as a catacomb. There are solitary figures in the distance, walking ahead, but he knows that they can’t help him and he can’t help them. Qiyamah has arrived. Judgement Day. He feels deep in his gut that he is damned, that he will finally face the terrifying reality of God and be shamed and thrown down. He walks as if compelled by a force beyond his control. Flames spit from the roof of the Volacki’s shop and then catch on the clouds, drops of molten gold raining down and burning through his skin. ‘Illaahayow ii saamax, My Lord, forgive me. Illaahayow, ii saamax.’

  Too late. Too late. Too late.

  A hand slaps him on his shoulder. ‘Waa ku kan, aabbo, here you are, Father,’ says a light-skinned man, the lines of his face oddly familiar. Without speaking another word, he strides away, his figure stooped and defeated.

  ‘David?’ Mahmood cries, shrinking away from the fire, kneeling down on to the black tarmac as it roils and splits beneath him, ‘illaahayow ii saamax.’

  ‘Wake up, Mattan, wake up.’ Perkins shakes him awake.

  In the dim cell light, Perkins’ pale face hangs yellow and unfamiliar over him. Mahmood pushes the jinn away, still caught in the terror of qiyamah. He is topless but pouring with sweat.

  ‘You’re having a bad dream.’

  ‘The world is finished. I see it.’

  ‘Let me get you a drink of water.’

  ‘Tell him to sit up and shake it off,’ says Wilkinson.

  ‘I go to hell, I go to hell,’ Mahmood cries, unable to catch his breath.

  ‘Cool yourself down,’ Perkins says softly, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding out a cup. ‘It was just a nightmare.’

  Mahmood holds the cold enamel against his head before taking a long sip. ‘I live a bad life and now it over.’

  ‘We all make mistakes, Mattan, and we all do good. It’s the way it’s always been and God is there to forgive us for being weak, that don’t alter, whatever religion you believe in. Now, sit up like Wilkinson says.’

  Perkins helps Mahmood slide up into a sitting position.

  ‘Take this gazette and fan yourself.’ Wilkinson drops a thin newspaper into Mahmood’s lap before placing the back of his hand against his damp forehead. ‘Your skin is hot to the touch, Mattan, it must have been an awful nightmare.’

  That was a vision not a nightmare, Mahmood says to himself.

  The weak pressure to the taps on this floor means that it takes a long time for the trickle of water to rinse away the thick smear of soap from Mahmood’s limbs. He sits in the small bath – his body white apart from some flashes of his real skin – and asks himself what life would have been like if he had been born with skin this white. He would have earned a quarter more as a sailor, for a start, and wouldn’t have been limited to finding work in the merchant navy either. He might have become an educated man, able to turn his skills to whatever job he desired, would have been able to buy a decent home for Laura and the children and have old white women commenting on what a lovely family they made. He would know justice too.

  The Scottish prison officer stands at the door, his eyes turned up to the ceiling to give Mahmood a little dignity.

  Mahmood runs a hand slowly down his arm. This slim, black, muscular body of his has served him well; it’s a wondrous machine more finely tuned than any straight-from-the-shipyard steamer. He has banged it about and imperilled it with little care for the generations of men and women who have brought it into being with their greed, lust, courage, restlessness and sacrifice. He has done his duty. There are three boys to carry his abtiris, his family line, forward – and may they make Mattan a famous name, a proud name, a name that makes those in power tremble.

  Feeling the wet curls on his head, the short flickering lashes of his eyes, the upturned nose and dark wide lips he has inherited from his mother, Mahmood is full of grief for this body that will soon cease to function and begin to rot. This body that has served him so well, that gifted him all five senses and a perfect bill of health. This body that has been weighed, measured, poked, beaten, despised and now is scheduled for destruction, like an old tramper tugged to the breaker’s yard.

  He moves his hand down his long, arched neck with its pronounced Adam’s apple, and traces the thick bones that roll down into his spine, the bones that they intend to snap.

  ‘My love, I don’t know what to say. I still haven’t heard yes or no.’

  Laura sits on the other side of the glass with Omar on her lap. She nods. ‘The date is just four days away. Can they really leave the decision so late?’

  ‘They can give it the night before if they want, and have me ready for eight a.m. in the morning.’

  ‘It’s torture.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wanted to bring you some home-cooked food but they wouldn’t let me. You don’t look well, my love.’
/>
  ‘Neither do you.’

  She rubs her nose on a hankie. ‘Oh, it’s nothing, I caught a cold from the boys, that’s why I didn’t bring the other two, they’re still sneezing.’

  ‘That makes me feel good.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it means you have hope, otherwise you would have brought them.’

  She shrugs her shoulders. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I still carry hope, Laura.’

  ‘You always did, Moody, you always used to say things will work out fine. Too much bloody hope.’

  ‘It just the way I’m made.’

  ‘I’ll try to think that way too. You have been the best thing to happen in my life, you know that?’

  Mahmood sinks his face into his open palms.

  ‘All that petty bickering, squabbles over money or your jealousy, it meant nothing. I don’t think I could love anyone the way you have loved me. You picked up this wet-behind-the-ears Valleys girl and made her feel like the Queen of England. I didn’t understand why anyone would love me so deeply so I ran away. I was stupid.’

  ‘Stop, Laura, the past finished, it don’t matter now.’

  ‘I want you to know that I LOVE YOU. You hear me? I love you.’ She almost shouts it. She whispers into Omar’s ear and with a smile he rests his palms against the glass and pushes his lips firmly against it. ‘I love you, Dada.’

  Mahmood kisses the small print Omar’s lips have made. He glances over his shoulder at the Scottish warder, who looks away. ‘Mummy, give me a kiss too.’

  Laura rises from the chair and their lips meet on either side of the thin pane, it’s the first real kiss since she abandoned him in Hull.

  ‘I always fall in love with you, Laura Williams.’

  ‘My name is Laura Mattan.’

  ‘Laura Mattan, qalbigeyga.’

  ‘What’s that word mean?’