middle of the night in a badly lit container port.
Blue eyes, I think, medium height . . . mm.’
‘What did you talk about? Quick!’
‘This and that. We spoke English at first, but
changed when he realised that I could speak
German. I told him that my parents came from
Elsass. He said he’d been there, somewhere called
Sennheim.’
‘What’s his game?’
‘Don’t know, but he’s an amateur. He talked a lot,
and when he got the gun, he said it was the first
time he’d held a weapon for more than fifty years.
He said he hates —’
The door to the room was torn open. ‘Hates
what?’ Harry shouted.
At that moment he felt a hand tighten around his
collar-bone. A hoarse voice close to his ear.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Harry held Hochner’s gaze as they dragged him
backwards towards the door. Hochner’s eyes had
glazed over and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and
down. Harry could see his lips move, but didn’t
hear what he said.
Then the door slammed in front of him.
Harry rubbed his neck as Isaiah drove him to the
airport. They had been driving for twenty minutes
before Isaiah spoke.
‘We’ve been working on this case for six years.
The list of arms deliveries covers twenty
countries. We’ve been worried about precisely
what happened today; that someone would dangle
diplomatic help in front of him in order to get
information.’
Harry shrugged his shoulders. ‘So what? You’ve
caught him and you’ve done your job, Isaiah. All
that’s left is to pick up the medals. Whatever deals
anyone makes between Hochner and the
government has nothing to do with you.’
‘You’re a policeman, Harry. You know what it’s
like to see criminals go free, people who don’t
blink an eyelid about killing, who you know will
continue where they left off as soon as they’re out
on the street again.’
Harry didn’t answer.
‘You do know, don’t you? Good, because this is
the deal. It sounded like you got your end of the
bargain with Hochner. That means it’s up to you
whether you want to keep your part. Or let it go. Is
that right?’
‘I’m just doing my job, Isaiah, and I could use
Hochner at some point as a witness. Sorry.’
Isaiah banged the steering wheel so hard it made
Harry jump.
‘Let me tell you something, Harry. Before the
elections in 1994,when we still had white minority
rule, Hochner shot two black girls, both eleven
years old, from a water tower outside the school
grounds in a black township called Alexandra. We
think someone in Afrikaner Volkswag, the
apartheid party, was behind it. There was some
controversy surrounding the school because it had
three white pupils. He used Singapore bullets, the
same type they use in Bosnia. They open after a
hundred metres and bore their way through
everything in their way, like a drill. Both girls
were hit in the neck and for once it didn’t matter
that the ambulances, as usual, took over an hour to
turn up in a black township.’
Harry didn’t answer.
‘But you’re wrong if you think it’s revenge we’re
after, Harry. We’ve understood that you can’t build
a new society on revenge. That’s why the first
black majority government set up a commission to
uncover assaults and harassment during apartheid
times. It wasn’t about revenge; it was about
owning up and forgiving. It has healed a lot of
wounds and done the whole society some good. At
the same time, though, we’re losing the fight
against criminality, and particularly here in
Jo’burg where everything is completely out of
control. We’re a young, vulnerable nation, Harry,
and if we want to make any progress we have to
show that law and order means something, that
chaos can be used as a pretext for crime. Everyone
remembers the killings in 1994. Everyone is
following the case in the papers now. That’s why it
is more important than your personal agenda or
mine, Harry.’
He clenched his fist and hit the steering wheel
again.
‘It’s not about being judges of life and death, but
about giving a belief in justice back to ordinary
people. Sometimes it takes the death penalty to
give them that belief.’
Harry tapped a cigarette out of the packet, opened
the window a little and stared at the yellow
slagheaps that broke the monotony of the arid
landscape.
‘So what do you say, Harry?’
‘You’ll have to put your foot down if I’m going to
make that flight, Isaiah.’
Isaiah punched the steering column so hard Harry