Riotous Assembly

by Tom Sharpe

  For one thing he couldn’t afford to allow her to run about the country telling all and sundry that she had had him trussed to a bed in a rubber nightdress and that he hadn’t been man enough to take an injection. He was just consoling himself with the thought that Miss Hazelstone’s circle of friends was pretty exclusive, when he remembered that among other assets like gold mines, the Hazelstone family owned the local newspaper, whose editor had never shown any great regard for the police. Kommandant van Heerden had no desire whatsoever to provide copy for the Natal Chronicle and the thought of headlines like: ‘The Tiny Prick. Kommandant in Rubber Nightie says No to Needle’, made his blood run cold.

  He gave orders that road blocks be set up on all roads leading out of Piemburg and that the homes of all Miss Hazelstone’s friends were to be raided. Every hotel and guesthouse in the town was to be checked and plain-clothes men were to mingle with the crowds in the shops. Finally, the Kommandant ordered that notices be put up announcing a large reward for information leading to the capture of Miss Hazelstone, but just to make sure that Miss Hazelstone’s confessions did not reach the public, he plucked up courage and left the safety of the prison to pay a personal call on the editor of the Natal Chronicle.

  ‘I’m acting under Emergency Powers,’ he told the man, ‘and I am ordering you to publish nothing Miss Hazelstone may submit. In fact, if anything is submitted by her you’re to forward it to me unread,’ and the editor had gone off to cancel Miss Hazelstone’s current contribution to the women’s page which was called ‘How to Convert a Zulu Kraal into a Country Cottage’. He read it through to see if there was anything subversive in it, but apart from the recommendation to use latex for loose covers, he couldn’t find anything unusual. In any case he had his hands full trying to find out how many victims there were in the bubonic plague and rabies epidemics that had apparently hit the community. As far as he had been able to ascertain, the only people exhibiting symptoms of rabies were the Piemburg police.

  Throughout the night and the following day the search for Miss Hazelstone continued. Hundreds of plain-clothes men scoured the town or hung about indecisively in shops making life difficult for store detectives on the lookout for shoplifters. A number of elderly ladies suddenly found themselves in handcuffs and being driven at high speed in police cars to Fort Rapier Mental Hospital, where several had to be admitted with nervous breakdowns as a result of the experience.

  On the roads out of Piemburg queues of cars and lorries waited for hours while policemen ransacked each vehicle. There were particularly tiresome delays on the Durban road where trucks carrying offal from the abattoir to the Jojo Dog and Servant Meat Cannery had to be searched. Since Kommandant van Heerden had impressed upon his men the need to search every square inch of every vehicle no matter how unlikely a hiding-place it seemed to be and since the Jojo trucks contained twenty-five tons of pig brains, ox guts and the inedible and doubtless nutritious entrails of every conceivable diseased animal that contributed its share to the liver and love Jojo promised the dogs and servants, the men at the Durban road search-point had to go to considerable trouble to make absolutely sure that Miss Hazelstone was not hiding in the disgusting mess that greeted them every time they stopped one of the lorries. The occupants of the cars piling up behind were astonished to see policemen clad only in bathing-trunks and with facemasks and schnorkels clambering aboard the Jojo lorries and diving into piles of semi-liquid meat so enormous that even the late and unlamented vulture would have been put off its feed. The policemen who finally emerged from their prolonged and fruitless search were hardly a sight to reassure the citizens of Piemburg that the police were looking after their interests, and faced with the prospect of so thorough a search a good many motorists decided to cancel the trips they were making and go quietly home. Those that stayed had the upholstery of their cars irremediably stained by the half-naked and bloodsoaked cops who climbed in and poked under seats and inside glove compartments for the elusive Miss Hazelstone.

  In the meantime the homes of Miss Hazelstone’s friends were being searched with equal thoroughness, and a good many people, who had boasted of an acquaintanceship with her which they had never enjoyed, found that Miss Hazelstone’s friendship carried with it some awesome consequences, not the least of which was the knowledge that they were suspected of harbouring a wanted criminal.

  In spite of all these drastic measures, Miss Hazelstone remained at large and cheerfully unaware that she was the object of such a meticulous manhunt.

  After driving the police Land-Rover through the gates of Jacaranda Park she had followed the main road to town, had parked the car in the main street, and had walked into the Police Station to give herself up.

  ‘I’m Miss Hazelstone of Jacaranda Park. and I’ve come here to be arrested,’ she said to the elderly Konstabel on duty at the desk, who was in fact one of the post-operative cases Kommandant van Heerden had insisted return to duty. Missing his gall bladder and the lower portion of his intestines, he had not lost his wits as well, and he had been in the police long enough to have got used to the queer customers who came in regularly to make false confessions. He looked the old gentleman in the salmon-pink suit up and down for a minute before replying.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said sympathetically. ‘So you’re Miss Hazelstone are you, sir? And what do you want to be arrested for?’

  ‘I’ve murdered my cook.’

  ‘Lucky to have one to murder,’ said the old Konstabel. ‘My old woman cooks for me and if the state of my insides or what remains of them is anything to go by, she’s been trying to murder me for years, and it’s only thanks to the miracles of modern surgery that she hasn’t bloody well succeeded. Do you know,’ he went on confidentially, ‘it took the surgeons four hours to cut away all the rotten stuff there was in me. They took my gall bladder and then my …’

  ‘I have not come here to discuss the state of your health,’ Miss Hazelstone snapped. ‘It’s not of the slightest interest to me.’

  Konstabel Oosthuizen wasn’t amused. ‘If that’s the way you want it,’ he said, ‘that’s the way it’s going to be. Now hop it.’

  Miss Hazelstone wasn’t going to be brushed off so easily. ‘I have come here to be arrested for murder,’ she insisted.

  Konstabel Oosthuizen looked up from the medical dictionary he had been reading. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’ve just told me you’re not interested in my physical condition. Well, I’m bloody well not interested in your mental state either. So shove off.’

  ‘Are you telling me you refuse to arrest me?’

  Konstabel Oosthuizen sighed. ‘I’ll arrest you for loitering if you don’t get out of here double quick,’ he said.

  ‘Good, that’s what I’ve come for,’ Miss Hazelstone sat down on a bench against the wall.

  ‘You’re making a bloody nuisance of yourself, that’s what you’re doing. All right come on down to the cells,’ and leading the way down to the basement he locked her in. ‘Give me a shout when you want to come out,’ he said, and went back to read about diseases of the intestinal tract. He was still so engrossed in his own pathology when he went off duty that he forgot to mention her presence in the cells to the konstabel who relieved him, and she was still sitting quietly in her rubber suit next morning when he came on duty once more.

  It wasn’t until mid-morning that he remembered that the old gent was still down in the cells, and he went down to let him out.

  ‘Had enough?’ he asked, unlocking the door.

  ‘Have you come to question me?’ Miss Hazelstone asked hopefully. She had been looking forward to the third degree.

  ‘I haven’t come to bring you breakfast if that’s what you think.’

  ‘Good,’ said Miss Hazelstone. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  Konstabel Oosthuizen looked bewildered. ‘You’re a weird old buzzard,’ he said. ‘Senile if you ask me.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Kick you out,’ said the Konstabel. ‘I can’t hav
e you cluttering up the station.’

  ‘I’m Miss Hazelstone of Jacaranda Park, and I’m wanted for murder. It’s your duty to arrest me.’

  ‘And I’m the Queen of England,’ said Konstabel Oosthuizen. ‘Go on, clear out of here before you get me into trouble.’

  ‘I tell you I’m wanted for murder,’ Miss Hazelstone insisted.

  ‘You’re certainly not wanted for anything else,’ and the Konstabel picked up his medical dictionary and began to read about gynecomastia.

  Miss Hazelstone tried to make him see reason. ‘What do I have to do to get myself arrested if you won’t arrest me for murder?’ she asked.

  ‘Try fucking a Kaffir for a start,’ suggested the Konstabel. ‘That usually works wonders.’

  ‘But that’s what I’ve been doing for the last eight years,’ Miss Hazelstone told him.

  ‘Get along with you. I doubt if you’ve got the wherewithal,’ was all the answer she got, and with the final comment that she looked as though she might have gynecomastia, which Konstabel Oosthuizen had just learnt was unusual development of the breasts of a male, the Konstabel went back to his book.

  ‘If you won’t arrest me, I demand to be taken home,’ Miss Hazelstone said.

  Konstabel Oosthuizen knew when to compromise. ‘Where do you live?’ he asked.

  ‘Jacaranda Park of course,’ said Miss Hazelstone.

  ‘I might have known it,’ said the Konstabel, and glad to be rid of her took her out into the station yard. ‘Take the old gent up to Jacaranda Park,’ he said to the driver of a police car that was just leaving, and with all the speed and social deference to which she was accustomed, Miss Hazelstone was driven to the gates of Jacaranda Park and deposited there. The car hadn’t been stopped at the police checkpoints for obvious reasons.

  14

  When Luitenant Verkramp arrived from hospital to begin his interrogation of the prisoner, he found the Kommandant waiting for him. He hobbled into the Governor’s office to report for duty.

  ‘I’m a sick man,’ he said grumpily. ‘The doctors didn’t want me to leave the hospital.’

  ‘Quite so, Luitenant,’ said the Kommandant cheerfully. ‘Quite so, but now that you’re here, let’s not waste time. I need your help.’

  ‘What is it this time?’ Verkramp asked. Kommandant van Heerden was always needing his help, but this was the first time he had known him acknowledge the fact.

  ‘I have here the Hazelstone family file,’ the Kommandant said. ‘It includes the security report you submitted to the Bureau of State Security. I’ve read it through, and I must say, Luitenant, you showed more perspicacity than I gave you credit for.’

  Luitenant Verkramp smiled. The Kommandant had never been so complimentary before.

  ‘You say here,’ continued the Kommandant, tapping the report, ‘that the Hazelstones are noted for their left-wing and Communistic leanings. I would like to know what made you say that.’

  ‘Everybody knows they are Marxists,’ said Verkramp.

  ‘I don’t,’ said the Kommandant, ‘and I would like to hear why you do.’

  ‘Well, for one thing Miss Hazelstone’s nephew is at the university.’

  ‘Doesn’t make him a Commie.’

  ‘He believes in evolution.’

  ‘Hm,’ said the Kommandant doubtfully. He knew it was a subversive doctrine, but with Els around it seemed irrefutable to him.

  ‘What else?’ he asked.

  ‘I checked the library. It’s full of Communist literature. They’ve got The Red Badge of Courage, Black Beauty, the collected works of Dostoyevsky, even Bertrand Russell’s banned book, Why I am not a Christian. I tell you, they are all dangerous books.’

  Kommandant van Heerden was impressed. Evidently Verkramp had gone more thoroughly into the matter than he had imagined. ‘That seems conclusive enough,’ he said. ‘What about the brother, Jonathan Hazelstone? You say here he’s got a criminal record.’

  ‘That’s right. He lives in Rhodesia and he’s done time.’

  ‘He says he’s a bishop.’

  ‘He can say what he bloody well pleases,’ said Verkramp. ‘It doesn’t alter the facts. I checked them with the Rhodesian Police. You’ll find the telegram they sent back in the file.’

  Kommandant van Heerden pulled out the telegram. ‘I can’t make head or tail of it,’ he said. ‘It’s in code or something. You read it,’ and he handed the telegram to Verkramp.

  The Luitenant peered at the hieroglyphs. ‘It’s pretty obvious,’ he said at last. ‘“Jonathan Hazelstone 2 yrs parson Bulawayo 3 yrs Barotse incumbent at present convocation 3 wks Umtali.” Any fool can understand that,’ he said.

  ‘Well, this one can’t,’ snapped the Kommandant. ‘You tell me what it means.’

  Verkramp sighed. This was what came from having an illiterate Kommandant.

  ‘It’s quite simple. He’s done two years in Bulawayo Prison for burning a building down. Three years for murdering a Barotse native who was having a nap and three weeks in Umtali for convoking.’

  Kommandant van Heerden thought for a moment. ‘What’s convoking?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ve heard of con men, haven’t you? It’s fraud and swindling. It’s convoking people into buying phoney shares and things.’

  ‘Oh, is that what it is? You would think they’d have given him more than three weeks for a thing like that. After all he got three years for killing the coon boy which was a bit steep,’ the Kommandant said, relieved to know that he had got the right man. There was no doubt now in his mind that he could make the case stick. A man who had killed a Barotse while the poor bastard was asleep was hardly likely to hesitate when it came to killing a Zulu cook.

  ‘Well, all we need now is a nice tidy confession,’ he said. ‘I’ll expect you to have it on my desk in the morning.’

  Luitenant Verkramp shrugged. ‘If you require it so quick you had better ask Els. My methods require that the prisoner be kept awake for at least three days and with a hardened professional like this fellow it will probably take more.’

  ‘I can’t ask Els. We can’t have a Hazelstone hobbling into court with no toenails and his balls the size of pumpkins. Think what the defence attorney would make of that one. Use your head. No, the interrogation has got to be handled discreetly and I’m putting you in charge of it,’ the Kommandant said, resorting to flattery. ‘Do what you like with him, but see he’s all in one piece when you’ve finished.’

  With this carte blanche, the Kommandant ended the interview and ordered his supper.

  In the Maximum Security Block, there was no supper for Jonathan Hazelstone, and if there had been it is doubtful if he would have had much appetite for it. He had just learnt from the old warder how it was he enjoyed the unusual privilege of being able to be hanged in Top.

  ‘It’s to do with something your grandfather said in his speech when he opened the prison,’ the warder told him. ‘He said he wanted the gallows to be kept in working order in case his family wanted to use them.’

  ‘I’m sure he meant well,’ the Bishop said sadly, wondering at the appalling legacy his grandfather had bequeathed the family.

  ‘Your father, the late Judge, he was a great one for the gallows. Why, some of the men who’ve had their last meal in that cell, where you’re standing now, have told me that they were certain they were going to get off free as the air, and damn me if your old dad didn’t go and put the black cap on and condemn them.’

  ‘I have always regretted my father’s reputation,’ said the Bishop.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it now,’ said the warder. ‘It’s the gallows would put me in a sweat if I were in your shoes.’

  ‘I have every faith in the fairness of the court,’ said the Bishop.

  ‘They haven’t been used for twenty years,’ continued the warder. ‘They’re not safe.’

  ‘No?’ queried the Bishop. ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘They’ve got the death watch beetle. You’d be lucky to get up the s
teps alive, if you ask me,’ said the warder and shuffled off down the passage to let Luitenant Verkramp and Konstabel Els into Bottom. The interrogation was about to begin.

  *

  In spite of the fact that he was still feeling the effects of his injuries, Luitenant Verkramp was determined to apply the standard South African technique to the prisoner.

  ‘I’ll butter him up,’ he told Konstabel Els, ‘and make him feel I’m sympathetic and you can be the hard man and threaten him.’

  ‘Can I use the electric-shock machine?’ Els asked eagerly.

  ‘He’s too important,’ said Verkramp, ‘and you’re not to beat him up too much either.’

  ‘What are we going to do then?’ said Els, who couldn’t imagine getting a confession out of an innocent man without some violence.

  ‘Keep him awake until he’s ready to drop. I’ve never known it to fail.’

  Luitenant Verkramp seated himself behind the desk and ordering the prisoner to be brought in, assumed what he supposed to be an air of sympathetic understanding. To the Bishop, when he entered the room, the expression on the Luitenant’s face suggested only a pained and vicious hostility. In the hours that followed, this first impression proved if anything to have been over-optimistic. Luitenant Verkramp’s attempts at sympathetic understanding inspired in the Bishop the conviction that he was locked alone in a room with a sadistic homosexual suffering from an overdose of several powerful hallucinatory drugs. Certainly nothing else could explain the overtures the Luitenant was making nor the distorted version of his own life which Verkramp insisted he corroborate. Everything the Bishop imagined he had done took on an entirely contrary character as seen through the eyes of Verkramp.

  He had not for instance been an undergraduate in Cambridge studying theology. He had, he learnt, been indoctrinated in Marxist–Leninist theory by a man whom he had previously imagined to be a leading Anglo-Catholic professor, but who had apparently been a Moscow-trained theoretician. As the hours dragged by the Bishop’s faint hold on reality grew fainter. The illusions he had nourished for a lifetime slipped away and were replaced by the new certitudes his deranged interrogator insisted he subscribe to.