Game of Stones

by David Maughan Brown

  Cameron woke, his face wet with tears, on his bunk. He hadn’t been able to see her face, but he knew the woman had been Lynn. They had hacked her breasts off, and it had been his fault. How could Harriet possibly expect Lynn to want to have anything to do with him after they had done that to her? What could he ever do or say that could make up for that?

  The wait was longer even than 86,400 seconds. It was well past mid-morning by the time Cameron heard the familiar clicking of Harriet’s heels coming along the corridor, accompanied this time by what sounded like a small army. For a fleeting moment he wondered whether they had arrested Harriet for defending him. When the cell door opened it was Sinclair who came in first, followed by Hudson and the Custody Officer, with Harriet bringing up the rear and leaving the cell door open behind her. Sinclair looked as if he had just been forced to eat something particularly unpleasant.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Beaumont,’ Sinclair said. ‘I have come to inform you that you are to be released on police bail pending further investigation into the murder of Mrs Sehene. The Custody Officer will see to the formalities. You are to report to this police station once a week until further notice. Your solicitor has offered to transport you back to your house. You can go.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ Cameron said. ‘On my way out I would like, if I may, to remind you that my solicitor has a name. It would be polite when referring to Ms Johnson to acknowledge that. I have also informed you several times before that I would regard it as a courtesy in a public servant to recognize my doctoral title.’

  ‘Spending a few weeks in here would not appear to have helped you much where your priorities are concerned,’ Sinclair responded. ‘I said we are releasing you on police bail – you can go.’

  ‘I’m not moving from here until you do me the courtesy of acknowledging my title,’ Cameron said. ‘Every second I have been in here has been a waste of public money. They aren’t expecting me back at work today, or this week or month for that matter, so there’s nothing to stop me going on wasting public money by staying here.’

  The effort it took for Sinclair to restrain himself was visible in the twitching of his jaw-muscles and the balling of his hands into fists.

  ‘I said you can go … Dr Beaumont,’ Sinclair said after a long pause. ‘I suggest you go right now. If you don’t go I will arrest you for obstructing the police.’

  ‘Thank you, Detective Inspector,’ Cameron said, ‘I will be only too happy to go.’

  The summer day Cameron stepped out into as he left the police station was hot and still. There was no wind to feel on his face, but the warm sun was an acceptable substitute. There had been no fond farewells from his hosts, but the formalities had been painless and Hudson had winked at him and smiled as he left the cell.

  Harriet didn’t look pleased as she started her car to take Cameron back home.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cameron said. ‘But you don’t look very pleased to have got me out of there.’

  ‘Brian told me you were a stubborn man,’ Harriet said, ‘and I’ve known you for a while now myself, but I would never have believed how stubborn. Actually, on second thoughts, “stubborn” is too bland – bloody pig-headed would cover it better.’

  ‘Brian would never have called me a stubborn man,’ Cameron said, ‘at the very least he would have called me a stubborn bastard.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Harriet acknowledged, ‘he did. But if my lot is going to be to have to translate his discourse for the benefit of polite society I may as well start now.’

  ‘Censor his discourse would be an alternative way of putting it,’ Cameron said.

  ‘Alright, censor it then,’ Harriet said. ‘But how come we are talking about Brian? It was you and your pig-headedness I wanted to talk about. I can’t even begin to describe how irritated I would have been, after all the trouble I have been to in trying to get you out of that cell, if you had staged a sit-in and refused to leave, just because a policeman wouldn’t address you by your academic title. Does it matter that much?’

  ‘It depends,’ Cameron said, pausing to think how best to explain.

  ‘It depends on what?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Most of the time it doesn’t matter at all,’ Cameron said. ‘It only really matters when getting a name or title wrong is deliberate. Calling me “Mister” was a calculatedly aggressive move on Sinclair’s part. We’ve been over that ground before and he was deliberately baiting me. He was game-playing where the game had to do with power relations. Do you remember what I referred to as sente when we were talking about the cameraman and the chocolate buttons?’

  ‘More or less,’ Harriet answered.

  ‘By calling me “Mister”, Sinclair was trying to gain an advantage, making a move that he thought was giving him sente – a move I would have to respond reactively to, either by pretending not to notice or by parroting “Doctor” back at him every time. The only way I could wrest the advantage from him was by doing something unexpected. So I threatened to stay. I knew he would have to back down.’

  ‘But this wasn’t a game of Go, Cameron,’ Harriet said. ‘Do you see the whole of life as just a series of moves around a Go board? What about me?’

  ‘What do you mean “what about me”?’ Cameron asked. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I wasn’t part of any power struggle,’ Harriet said. ‘I wasn’t a player in your game, and nor was Hudson, who has gone out on a limb to help you. Hudson may be involved in his own power struggle in that police station, but that is a different game entirely. If we were involved in any contest today its object was to get you out of that cell. And there you were threatening to stay in that cell in spite of all our efforts. Did it even cross your mind to wonder how Hudson and I might have felt if Sinclair had called your bluff and we had had to troop back along that corridor, and out through that bloody gate, leaving you in that cell?’

  Hearing Harriet use the ‘bloody’ word was still a bit startling – her language was so seldom anything other than painstakingly proper. It wasn’t true that she wasn’t part of any power struggle, as a lawyer she was inextricably involved in the struggle against injustice – but now was obviously not the time to contest the point.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cameron said. ‘No, I didn’t think about that.’

  ‘Brian told me that you had quoted Conrad at him when you were talking about what you did in South Africa, and how it had affected your family,’ Harriet said. ‘Something about a “fixed idea”.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cameron said. ‘I quoted a bit from Nostromo: ”A man haunted by a fixed idea is insane. He is dangerous even if that idea is an idea of justice; for may he not bring the heaven down piteously upon a loved head?” Why is that relevant?’

  ‘I was wondering whether the fixed idea might have had nothing specifically to do with apartheid,’ Harriet said. ‘I sometimes get the impression that you have a fixed idea that life is like a game of Go, that you are always the player with a handicap, always playing against a stronger player who has an inclination towards injustice, always having to play moves that attempt to seize some kind of advantage. Because Go isn’t a team game you think it is OK not to consider anyone else – you have to decide on your moves all on your own, and then make them all on your own. The stark opposition between the black stones and the white stones made absolute sense in the context of apartheid South Africa, but here everything is a lot more grey than either black or white.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Cameron said, expecting Harriet to go on. But she didn’t say anything else, concentrating instead on negotiating the early afternoon traffic.

  ‘So, to interpret the Go analogy, what you are essentially suggesting,’ Cameron said, ‘is that my life is obsessive – a kind of delayed teenage rebellion against authority. That may well be true – perhaps it is one of the less obvious symptoms of PTSD. But if authority in the case of the police is corrupt, mendacious and brut
al, and authority in the case of the politicians is self-interested, shortsighted, and often plain stupid – whether in South Africa under apartheid or in post-9/11 Britain – shouldn’t people rebel against it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet said, ‘but perhaps not obsessively or compulsively.’

  ‘So your considered diagnosis is that I am OCD where authority is concerned?’ Cameron asked. ‘You are going to be doing my psychotherapist, Neil, out of a job – he hasn’t arrived at that diagnosis yet. I’d rather like you to take over, come to think of it. He’s probably struck me off his list after my spell in the police station anyway.’

  ‘”OCD where authority is concerned”, I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Harriet said, smiling. ‘There’s not necessarily too much harm in that, provided you remember that they aren’t all the same – as Brian needed to remind you yesterday in respect of Hudson – and provided you remember that there are “loved heads” the heavens can be brought down on if you aren’t careful.’

  ‘There aren’t too many of those around,’ Cameron said.

  ‘There may be more than you think,’ Harriet said. ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘What I feel like doing is going to bed and sleeping for several months,’ Cameron said. ‘What I will do depends very much on where we are with Poggenpoel and Jacques and what the plan is for van Zyl.’

  ‘Sinclair is intending to arrest Poggenpoel and Jacques this evening,’ Harriet said. ‘As far as I know there is no plan to arrest van Zyl. That would depend on what Sinclair and company can extract from the other two.’

  ‘Can we assume that Sinclair and his troops will perform the arrests in a way that won’t give Poggenpoel the opportunity to phone van Zyl to alert him to what is happening?’ Cameron asked.

  ‘I guess so,’ Harriet said. ‘Hudson and I both stressed that it is very important that van Zyl shouldn’t be alerted if there is to be any chance of arresting him. Ideally he should only begin to wonder what has happened when neither Poggenpoel nor Jacques turns up at his hotel tomorrow.’

  ‘How did Sinclair react to Hudson’s involvement?’ Cameron asked as Harriet pulled up outside his house. ‘I don’t imagine he was at all pleased.’

  ‘Too right he wasn’t pleased,’ Harriet said. ‘Have you noticed how that domed forehead of his colours up when he is angry? If you had a customized colour-chart you could read his mood off his forehead – it reached a rich plum colour as Hudson told him what we knew. But Sinclair couldn’t do anything about it because he knew Hudson had him over a barrel.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Sinclair knew that Hudson could report him up the line for withholding the unused evidence and for refusing to investigate Mutoni’s murder properly,’ Harriet said. ‘After so many years as an outcast, our friend Hudson knows his way around – you don’t need to worry about him. To change the subject entirely – are you too tired to come out for a celebratory drink and a bite to eat this evening? I know Brian would be up for it. It would be a good opportunity to bring the 21st Century version of Lynn along and introduce her to you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she need to stay and look after the twins if you and Brian are both planning to go out for drink?’ Cameron asked. ‘She wouldn’t want to see me anyway, I know she wouldn’t.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ Harriet asked.

  Cameron sat silently for a few seconds before deciding that there was nothing to lose by telling Harriet about his dream.

  ‘God, how awful!’ Harriet said, when he had finished doing so. ‘But I’m sure that hasn’t happened – she would have told me if they had done anything like that to her.’

  ‘Not literally, Harriet,’ Cameron said. ‘I didn’t ever imagine that the dream was literally true. It was obviously symbolic – symbolic of what I have done to her as a woman, as a person.’

  ‘That was a man’s dream, Cameron,’ Harriet said. ‘The essence of Lynn’s being as a woman isn’t to be found in her breasts. In any case, as I’ve said before, anything that has been done to Lynn physically wasn’t done by you.’

  ‘Maybe not, at least, again, not literally,’ Cameron said. ‘But even if I wasn’t the agent, I was certainly the occasion. And I know that she won’t want to see me.’

  ‘Relax, Cameron,’ Harriet said. ‘She’s not going to eat you. In answer to your child-minding question, my mother has come to stay for a couple of weeks to help with the twins. So there would be no practical reason for Lynn not to join us. Whether she would want to join us is another question entirely, but it can’t do any harm to ask.’

  ‘OK, ask her then,’ Cameron said. ‘Thanks very much for the lift – and thanks again for all your help and support. I think, quite seriously, that I would have gone mad if I had had to stay in that cell much longer.’

  ‘When you thanked me once before, I said I was just doing my job,’ Harriet replied. ‘I haven’t just been doing my job – there’s more to it than that.’

  ‘Well – thanks very much, anyway,’ Cameron said, leaning over to give her a quick peck on the cheek, making sure not to disturb the immaculate set of her hair, before getting out of the car and retrieving his bag from the back seat. He felt another fleeting pang of regret as he turned away and headed for his brand-new front door.

  ‘Hold on Cameron – wait a second.’

  Cameron heard Harriet’s call just before he reached the door. He turned round to see Harriet standing on the pavement beside the car, fishing around in her handbag. She found whatever she was looking for and walked towards him.

  ‘I’ve got the key to your front door,’ Harriet said. ‘The builder gave it to Brian, and Brian gave it to me to give to you.’

  Now there’s an irony, Cameron thought as he took the key, kissed Harriet chastely on the cheek again by way of a thank you, and watched her as she walked back to her car and drove off.

  As he opened his front door, Cameron was met by a strong smell of fresh paint. Either the house had been hermetically sealed through all the weeks he’d been locked away, or they had only finished restoring it relatively recently. Whatever the case, the chemical smell of paint was going to be a lot easier to live with than the smell of disinfectant. He put his bag down in the hall, went through to the lounge, and sank down on the sofa, overwhelmed by a mix of emotions: relief at being out of that bloody cell; renewed resentment at their invasion and violation of his home; sadness about Mutoni; a complicated regret at having to wave Harriet off on her way back to Brian – whose front door key she would keep; and, overriding all the other emotions, apprehension at the possibility of seeing Lynn again so soon.

  It took Cameron a while to register that the blue sofa he was sitting on was much less comfortably yielding than it should have been. It was a new and distinctly down-market one – they must have ripped the upholstery of his much older, lived-in one to shreds as they searched in vain for explosives they didn’t really expect to find. A tour of the house revealed that his two armchairs and his mattress had also been replaced. Purchasing new furniture must have cost a bit, but that would be nothing compared to the cost of replacing his floorboards and repairing the holes in his walls. His Go board was in its proper place, but it was emptily bereft of Go stones.

  It had occurred to Cameron as he sat in his cell that his sword-stick and his Kenyan dagger, sheathed in an ornately decorated East African variation on a swagger-stick, would probably also be classified as prohibited weapons – not that a year or two for possession of a couple of such weapons was going to make much difference on top of a life sentence. But it didn’t take long to establish that, for all their otherwise inexplicable extra weight, they were still where he had left them – in the umbrella stand and on the mantelpiece respectively. The South Yorkshire police still had a bit to learn about finding things – even if they were pretty good at destroying things.

  When Harriet phoned just after five to let Cameron kn
ow where she had booked for their celebratory dinner, mentioning in passing that Lynn had agreed to join them, he felt strongly inclined to tell her that he didn’t consider his release much cause for celebration when he should never have been incarcerated in the first place. But he didn’t want to pour cold water on Harriet’s and Brian’s satisfaction at the way their plan had come together, and he knew that Harriet would just interpret his reluctance as evidence of nervousness at the prospect of seeing Lynn again.

  Harriet would have been right, Cameron thought a few hours later as he sat by himself at a table for four with a sparkling array of glasses, plates and cutlery laid out expectantly in front of him. He had arrived early so that he could choose a table where he could sit with his back to the wall and watch Lynn as she came in. All these years later, and he still felt exposed and vulnerable if he didn’t have a wall immediately behind him when he sat down in a restaurant or pub.

  Apart from very nervous, Cameron didn’t know what he felt. How was he supposed to feel? He was about to meet a person he had once loved deeply, who had been severely tortured as a result of what he had done, and who had agreed under extreme duress to help the police capture him so that he could be hanged by the neck until he was dead. Encountering an ex-lover whom he had had no communication with for twenty-three years would have been awkward enough even without that history. It wasn’t going to be a run-of-the-mill encounter.

  Along with four sets of menus, their waiter for the evening had brought a jug of tap water topped with ice-cubes and generously laced with multiple slices of lemon. Cameron sipped the cold water to counter the dryness of his mouth as he watched Harriet leading Lynn and Brian through the tables towards him. The last fleeting glimpse he had caught of her, endlessly replayed in his mind for years afterwards, had been of van Zyl pulling Lynn out of the Special Branch car in the parking lot at the Rhodes Memorial and marching her off in the direction of the café.

  Even after reminding himself that more than twenty years had passed, Cameron was still surprised by how much older Lynn looked as she walked towards him, eyes cast down. Her hair was cut much shorter and was more grey than brown. It was nicely styled, but she wasn’t bothering to have it tinted. As she came closer, he could see lines at the corners of her eyes and what looked like a scar near the hairline on one side of her forehead. Cameron felt a surge of tenderness towards her and wondered how much older he looked than Lynn might have expected.