Murderous David Hickson (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

means that the promise to remember our God on that day has not been broken after all. We might give it a new name, but in our hearts we are still honouring the promise.”

“And hoping,” I suggested, “that remembering that vow means that He will protect you again if the time has come for another round.”

“Exactly.” Piet smiled.

Twelve

“Sawubona,” said Khanyi.

“Sawubona,” I replied dutifully.

“Unjani?” she said.

“Ngikhona, ngiyabonga. Wena unjani?”

“I’m impressed,” said Khanyi, without looking it. “We’ll make an honorary Zulu out of you yet.”

“Just so long as that doesn’t involve slaughtering any animals or undergoing circumcision rituals.”

“Those are the fun bits,” said Khanyi. “You wouldn’t want to skip those.” She smiled. Her hair was newly braided, and she was wearing a simple black two-piece that looked like it had been made to measure, although the tailor had skimped just a little on the material for the skirt so there was a substantial length of leg that emerged in sheer stockings with coy butterflies fluttering around them.

She looked incongruous on the steps of Pollsmoor maximum security prison. It is not a prison that Hollywood would employ as a location for the next prison-break blockbuster. It is a downright ugly complex of squat face-brick buildings strung on a spider’s web of pathways flanked by fine mesh steel fencing, topped with coiled razor-wire, and endless steel gates.

“What happened to you?” asked Khanyi as she took in my bedraggled appearance. She was oblivious to the fact that her beauty earned her a parking spot close to the roofed walkways, whereas lesser, non-female mortals like me were directed to leave our rusty Fiats in the overflow parking. “I suppose it suits the conversational role,” said Khanyi before I had a chance to reply.

“You arranged everything?” I asked.

“They were very reluctant,” she said, “but the captain pulled some strings.”

“He’s a good man,” I said.

Khanyi’s eyes regarded me coolly as she analysed those words for sarcasm, but they passed muster, so she gave a small nod and said, “Let’s do this then.” She turned abruptly and led the way into one of the world’s most notorious prisons.

“Unprecedented,” said Warden Noxolo, whose name required the speaker to use their tongue as a percussive instrument in the middle section. “Absolutely unprecedented.”

Warden Noxolo was a short man, built like a snowman, a spherical ball balanced upon twig legs, and a smaller ball for a head. Even though we had entered his prison voluntarily through the visitors’ door, his eyes glinted with suspicion; he had the air of a man who compensated for his lack of height by occasionally doing rash and unexpected things which could include losing us on the wrong side of all that barbed wire.

I smiled. Warden Noxolo did not smile back.

“We’re very grateful,” I said.

“It’s unprecedented,” said Warden Noxolo again. “I said no to it.” A brief glance at Khanyi, but then back to me. He preferred to direct his anger at me.

“You don’t take the shackles off a man like that,” he said. “He’s dangerous. You people have no idea. We had that lawyer killed in the interview room, you know that?”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Few years ago,” said Warden Noxolo, and he squeezed his lips together and looked as if he was trying to perform a difficult bowel movement. Perhaps he had realised how ambiguous the comment about the lawyer sounded and wanted to stop any further incriminating comments from slipping out.

“And you’ll be in a low-security rec-room,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, because that was an important element of our approach, but Warden Noxolo was not mollified.

“There will be guards in the corridor,” said Khanyi with a contrite flutter of the eyelashes.

“No good,” said Warden Noxolo. “These people can kill in seconds.”

I did not point out that the person in question was supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Warden Noxolo didn’t look as if he was in the right mood to discuss ethics.

“And hot chocolate?” he spluttered. “Hot chocolate?” His lips squeezed together again, and he made another effort at the bowel movement. I said nothing because, although that had sounded like a question, I wasn’t sure what the correct answer would be.

“Well?” asked Warden Noxolo, whose anger must have blinded him to the inadequacy of his sentence structure.

“It’s unprecedented,” I said.

Khanyi put her hand on my arm as if to hold me back as Warden Noxolo’s face darkened. She fluttered her eyelashes a little and gave him a smile. We were standing in the reception area where it seemed he had allowed his resentment to build as he waited to greet us, and the sounds of a large institutional building rushed in to fill the awkward silence. Distant clanking of steel against steel, feet squeaking on linoleum, voices hushed by distance, although the pain in those voices was undiminished.

“Shall we go to the room?” suggested Khanyi.

Warden Noxolo nodded. We all knew everything had been prearranged, but he probably felt better about it after expressing his dissatisfaction. He pressed a button on a radio he was holding and spoke into it while keeping his eyes on me. Then he turned about sharply and led us down one of the corridors that radiated out from the reception area. The corridor was probably not the usual one that guests who arrived here of their own volition used, so it was not as carefully maintained. Some bulbs were missing, and patches of plaster had crumbled and been swept into dusty piles. A framed photograph of Nelson Mandela hung on the wall near a bulb that dripped yellow light over him. Warden Noxolo stopped abruptly before it.

“Had some famous people here,” he said and pointed at the photograph as if he was taking us on a guided tour. Khanyi and I admired the photograph. It was one of the official portraits taken of Mandela after he became State President. The glass was cracked but the corner of the photograph was signed.

“Wonderful,” said Khanyi.

“Madiba was here for six years,” said Warden Noxolo proudly, using Nelson Mandela’s