Gerald Seymour - A song in the morning

Detective Inspector Cooper thought the sullen silence of the South African amply repaid the hassle of being called out from home, of having to drive from north London into Surrey.

"There's ways for foreigners to behave in our country, Major Swart, and there are ways that are outside the tram-lines. Sitting in the getaway while your muckers are managing a spot of larceny is right outside the lines."

Three South Africans held while in pursuance of a crime was sufficient reason for a call to be made from Surrey Constabulary H.Q. to the Scotland Yard duty desk. The detective inspector was a member of Special Branch.

"I'm here, Major Swart, because when we searched your two muckers we found their embassy ID cards. Now, Major Swart, I'm sure you'll agree with me that the Libyans wouldn't stop short of a spot of larceny, or the Nigerians, perhaps, or the Eastern bloc chappies, but the representatives of the South African government, that's going to raise an eyebrow or two. Is it because they don't pay you much, Major Swart? Is it a bit of burglary to supplement the overseas allowance?"

He sat on the plastic-topped table in the interview room, swinging his feet casually. Swart was on a chair, rigidly straight-backed, as though he was at attention. It amused the detective inspector to think of the turmoil in the mind of the South African. Exposure. Disgrace. Expulsion.

"I have to wonder why half the diplomatic mission from Pretoria should have travelled out of London to burgle a home in this nothing town. Very puzzling, Major Swart, because next door I have laid out on a table the items that your muckers were intending to take away with them. All pretty peculiar, but not so peculiar that I can't hold you and charge you… "

He saw the South African stiffen.

"Oh yes, there'll be charges. Conspiracy to rob, in your case. Your friends are in deeper trouble, of course. Theft, assaulting police officers in the execution of their duty. You might get away with eighteen months, three or four years they'll get. You'd thought of that, I expect. You knew you'd be gaoled if you were caught, surely you did? Not nice gaols like yours. You'll probably all get Pentonville, that's where they send the short termers. Pentonville isn't segregated like those nice gaols of yours, Major Swart. You'll have a bunch of kaffirs on your landing for company."

He thought the young constable by the door would be having a field day listening to this heap of crap. He would tell the constable that if a word of this interview got out then the boy could kiss his promotion up his arse.

"I claim diplomatic immunity."

"Bollocks."

"I am Major Hannes Swart. I am an accredited diplomat."

"You're a burglar, and what's more you dress up in funny clothes and make a spectacle of yourself at funerals."

"I am Second Secretary in the Consular Section of the Embassy of the Republic of South Africa."

"You are a security police agent who has engaged in criminal activities."

"I demand the right to telephone my embassy… "

"Refused." The chief inspector grinned.

"… in order that my embassy can verify my creden-tials."

"No chance."

He turned, and he walked out. He left the constable with Major Swart. He went into the adjoining interview room and collected off the table the plastic bags inside which were the items collected by the men arrested in Churchill Close.

He carried them back for the Major to see. He laid them on the table in front of him. There was a letter in an opened envelope. There was a booklet offering South African holidays. There was a pamphlet entitled Blasting Practice -

Nobel's Explosive Co. Ltd, and another Blasting Explosives and Accessories – Nobel's Explosive Co. Ltd. There was a sales brochure issued by Explosives and Chemical Products Ltd of Alfreton in Derbyshire.

He saw the South African's eyes hovering over the display.

He played a hunch. He thought he had kept the best until the last. From behind his back he produced a see-through plastic bag in which was a framed photograph. It was the photograph of a young man. He held it under the South African's nose.

"Shit…"

Major Hannes Swart made the two links. He linked the photograph with the photo-fit picture sent from Johannesburg. He linked the photograph with the young man who had met Jacob Thiroko.

"Shit…"

Jack Curwen was the bomber in Johannesburg, and Jack Curwen was the one whom he'd seen talking to Jacob Thiroko. Explanations hammering into place.

The detective inspector watched him keenly.

"I demand the right to contact my embassy."

"Crash job, is it, time of the essence?"

"I have the right to telephone my embassy."

"To tell them what your muckers found?"

"It is my right to make a telephone call."

"So it can all go on the encoder and hum back home?"

"I can establish my identity. You have no right to hold me.

"Major Swart, this isn't parking a C.D. car on a double yellow outside Harrods."

Major Swart stared at the photograph of Jack Curwen.

He no longer listened to the detective inspector. His eyes flickered on, up to the table, up to the opened envelope and the spider writing that addressed the envelope to Mrs Hilda Perry. He was a trained policeman, excellent on faces. He remembered the photograph of James Carew. He looked at the face of Jack Curwen, the son.

"Shit… "

"I demand the right to make a telephone call."

"They all say that, every piss-arsed, common thief, they all want to telephone their embassies… "

"I claim diplomatic immunity."

"I must be getting hard of hearing in my old age."

Major Swart smiled. He thought it was his winning smile.

He chuckled. He beamed up at Detective Inspector Cooper.

There was a fractional wink.

"Heh, man, we're all policemen together. I'm security police, you're Special Branch. Same job, same problems.

Both fighting the same enemy. We're on the same side, man.

We have to help each other. If you had a problem in the North of Ireland and we could help, of course we'd help.

Just a telephone call, man. What do you say?"

"I'd say you are a common burglar, and I'd say you are pissing in the wind, Major Swart."

The detective inspector told the constable to take Major Swart to the cells.

Down a white tiled corridor. A locked door ahead. The echo of the feet and the clanging of the keys.

As if a calmness had come to the major now that he was freed from the sarcasm and goading of his interrogator.

The door ahead was unlocked. They went through. The door was locked behind him.

Closed in by the walls to the corridor, and by the bright ceiling lights, Major Swart understood.

The cell door was open, waiting for him. Folded blankets on the bed, and a bucket and a roll of lavatory paper on the floor beside it.

The door slammed behind him. He sagged onto the bed.

He understood.

He understood why he was refused normal diplomatic facilities, why immunity was denied him, why a telephone was kept from him, why a senior Special Branch officer had been brought late at night from London to this shit pit town. He had grasped the importance of James Carew. He understood that James Carew was their man…

He ran the three steps to the door. He was beating with his fists at the steel facing, bruising his hands, bellowing his anger.

"I know who your bloody Carew is. Heh, got it, I know.

He's your bloody undercover man. I know he is. I demand a telephone. I demand access to my embassy…"

His words rang around his head, beat at his ears.

He knew that no bastard heard him.

It was a bleak little room. There were posters of the smiling leader on the walls and boxes of pamphlets piled on the bare floorboards.