Tom Cain - Dictator

The moments of silence and contemplation enabled him to think about what he was planning to do. Was he committing a murder, he wondered, or casting out a devil? As always, however, Carver did not waste too much energy on metaphysical speculation. His focus had to remain on the here and now, and that meant concentrating on the words printed in the Order of Service he was holding in his hand: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.

Amen.

When the prayer was over and the vicar’s preparations complete, Carver left his pew and joined the line of worshippers waiting for communion. Finally, he approached the altar and knelt to receive the bread and wine. He watched every movement the vicar made, noted the precise sequence of events and the words that accompanied each of them. And when the service was over, just to make sure he’d got it right, he drove straight back to Geneva, went out to evensong at Holy Trinity Church, which the locals called l’eglise anglaise, and took communion all over again.

For the rest of the day after Justus Iluko had been taken away, his house remained undisturbed. It was as if the violence and suffering that had occurred in its vicinity had created some kind of force field that held the mass of dispossessed who clustered around it at bay. It was not until the final light of the dying sun had been extinguished and the purple-black African night, heavy with the spicy scent of warm earth, had descended that the first scavengers started edging towards the walls of whitewashed concrete blocks.

This was no more than the law of nature in action. When an animal died in the bush, its carcass provided carrion for hyenas, vultures and all manner of insects until nothing remained but its bare bones. Even they provided marrow for truly enterprising scavengers. And so it was with the house. It too was a corpse from which the spirit of life had been extinguished. Its inhabitants had no more use for the beds on which they had slept, the tables at which they had worked and eaten, or the countless little possessions that spoke of a man and woman working together to raise the children they loved. This was neither a moral issue nor a sentimental one. Better that these belongings should be recycled for the benefit of those still alive and present than rot away to no purpose.

The larder was emptied of all its contents. The floorboards, joists, doors, window frames and shutters were taken for firewood and building materials. The corrugated iron panels were stripped from the roof. By dawn, only the walls remained. And with the rising sun came men with hammers, chisels and pickaxes to hack and chip away at the blocks themselves.

By noon, the house that Justus Iluko had built with such sweat and devotion, and occupied with such pride, had vanished as if it had never been. The land on which it stood was covered with brand-new huts and improvised tents, filled with the never-ending stream of people being transported to this once bountiful farm, now a dusty, barren hell.

As a religious man, Justus would not have described his new conditions in Buweku jail as hellish. They were more like a form of purgatory, a waiting room filled with other lost souls awaiting their day of judgement.

The cell to which he’d been taken was intended for all the remand prisoners who were awaiting trial. One of its sides faced a corridor and consisted of iron bars and crosspieces, so that the inmates were at all times visible to any passing guard. The other three sides comprised concrete walls into which concrete bunks had been fitted in three rows, rising several feet towards the roof. Justus had to reach up to grab the top bunk: it must have been seven feet off the ground. The only sanitation was a hole in the floor, ringed with cracked tiles, stained with the faeces of inmates from years and generations gone by. There was a solitary standpipe from which an intermittent dribble of water flowed, regardless of whether the tap was turned on or off. A single bare bulb, hanging from the ceiling in a wire-mesh cage, provided light to the cell, in theory at least. But it, too, worked only sporadically, and at times over which the men beneath it had no control whatsoever.

There were thirty-four men crammed into this hot, airless, fetid space. One of them was Justus’s son Canaan. They hugged each other with a mixture of relief at being reunited, profound sorrow at the loss of Nyasha and the fierce desperation of men who know their days are numbered.

‘Are you all right?’ Justus asked, stepping back to look his boy in the eyes.

Canaan nodded. ‘Yes, Father.’

Justus looked around at the eyes watching them, scanning them for signs of threat.

‘Have you been treated well?’ he asked.

Again his son nodded. This time he said nothing, just gave a nervous lick of his top lip. The boy’s former princely demeanour had entirely disappeared and Justus felt certain he was hiding something, but knew that there was no point in pursuing the matter. If someone had attacked or abused him, it would only invite further trouble to mention it.

‘Do you know what they have done with Farayi?’ Justus asked. ‘Is she all right? Have you seen her, or spoken to her?’

Canaan shook his head slowly. ‘She is here somewhere, in a women’s cell. But that is all I know.’

Justus nodded, trying to remain calm. He was Farayi’s father. He should be protecting her, keeping her safe. Instead he was locked behind bars, unable to do anything to help his little girl. He sighed, then did his best to smile and put a cheerful tone in his voice as he asked, ‘So, what have they been feeding you? Is the menu good at this establishment?’

Canaan shrugged, again saying nothing.

‘The jailers,’ Justus persisted, ‘they must give you meals of some kind. I am sure the food is terrible, but-’

‘There is no food, father.’

‘No food? Don’t be ridiculous! They must give you something.’

‘The boy is right. There is no food.’

A man moved out of the shadows beneath one of the concrete bunks, wincing as he got to his feet. His body was emaciated, his hair matted and grey.

‘I see you are not familiar with the ways of our prison system,’ he said. Not waiting for Justus to respond, he continued, ‘The rules are very simple. All food must be brought to the jail by the friends or families of the men inside. In order to get it from the front door of the prison to these cells, a bribe must be paid to the guards. Sometimes this is money, sometimes it is food. They need to eat too, after all.’

‘But we have no family,’ said Justus. ‘There is no one left to bring us food.’

‘In that case,’ said the man, ‘prepare to starve.’

Early on the Monday morning, Carver flew back to England. Before he left Geneva, he stood by his kitchen island and reached into the wine rack that had been installed along one side. In the second row from the top, three spaces along, there was a hidden switch. He pressed it, then waited while the centre of the island’s granite worksurface rose, revealing a metal frame containing a large plastic toolbox divided into six trays of varying depths.

Carver ignored the bottom tray, which contained his personal firearms: with a number of flights between now and the Gushungo job there was simply no point in bringing them along. In any event, he did not plan to do any shooting. Instead, he opened one of the shallower trays and removed an apparently random selection of items: a piece of wood, about six inches square, with a number of holes drilled through it; a set of AA batteries; and an assortment of nuts, bolts, washers and wires attached to crocodile clips.