Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

But enough of me wittering on about my holiday. I must be boring you stiff with it by now!

[ You don’t say!]

Something that might actually pique your interest, however…

[I wouldn’t bet on it!]

… is that I have started carving again. I say ‘again’, although you were always the better carver, eh?

[The texture of the language here precludes me from telling whether he actually means ‘carving’ as in ‘woodwork’ or ‘carving’ as in ‘mercilessly butchering an unfortunate adversary — or any other innocent individual he might randomly happen across — with a lethally sharp weapon’. A switchblade instantly springs to mind, or one of those large, African knives sometimes referred to as a ‘panga’ .

‘Lokele’ the brutal assassin, eh? This is certainly a most disturbing thought.]

I have been greatly influenced in this ‘life change’ by a new friend, Tilly, an English doctor. She’s very wild, very tough, with skin like bark…

[I think the simile he’s really grasping for here — bless him — is ‘skin as thick as a rhino’s hide’, i.e. she’s highly insensitive, in other words.]

… She’s certainly ‘one of the boys’. We have a great rapport between us. She’s very discreet, and can definitely be trusted…

[Narcotics! Bingo! The penny finally drops! So this woman doctor is his new accomplice — they’re dealing counterfeit drugs together — and ‘Lokele’ is obviously very keen for his degenerate brother to make her acquaintance. This ‘Tilly’ is part of a criminal gang which includes a woman who is known only as her ‘sister’; in African parlance this isn’t necessarily a blood relation, ‘sister’ is generally a colloquial phrase for ‘pal’ or ‘mucker’. The sister happens to be friends with an old gang warlord called ‘The Reverend’, who ‘Lokele’ doesn’t entirely trust… Possibly he’s had problems with The Reverend before… But I’m getting ahead of myself, here…]

Tilly has a ‘sister’, a bodyguard of sorts, who is powerful as an ox. She’s the ‘moll’ of a man they like to call ‘The Reverend’. This man is a brute, very violent. He puts me in mind of Francis, that thug we knew when we were young upstarts in Kinshasa who used to beat us, mercilessly, at the drop of a hat.

After you did a runner and I joined the Congolese Police Force…

[ A corrupt insider! It gets worse!]

… I helped to bring about his undoing…

[I say ‘undoing’ but the word he uses is ‘dispatch’ — as in ‘I dispatched him’. The language is very ‘sticky’ though, very ‘opaque’, and — in all good conscience — I don’t feel entirely comfortable in pushing the point any further than I already have.]

A few weeks ago, while I was carving in the kitchen…

[Terrifying thought! Such macabre images spring to mind! Although I think he is actually just doing some woodwork on this occasion, Detective.]

… ‘Reverend’ Horwood paid me a visit…

[ You’ll already be very familiar with this notorious individual I should imagine.]

…and expressed a great interest in my work…

[ Turf war! Not a shadow of a doubt. Horwood plainly already has a counterfeit narcotics ring operating in the area …

I do think it only fair to warn you that from this point onwards the narrative becomes very ‘psychedelic’. The language is far more esoteric and abstruse, with a slight whiff of ‘the occult’ about it. I don’t think this is just an accident, either. It’s ‘Lokele’ truly ‘coming into himself’. All marks of civilization gradually drop away as he begins ‘talking jive’ or ‘the language of the “hood”’.]

I happened to be putting the finishing touches to a figure on a cross, a ‘nkondi’ …

[I have left the word ‘nkondi’ untranslated because there is no real English equivalent for it. A ‘nkondi’ is a kind of traditional Congolese wooden sculpture which is held to have magical and spiritual powers. They are usually about three feet high and can be found planted in clearings in the Congolese jungle, usually clustered into small groups .

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind at this point that ‘Lokele’ is carving these objects, hollowing them out, and then filling the insides with illegal, narcotic substances — fashioning a kind of African ‘Trojan Drug Horse’, in other words.]

… Horwood was very impressed by the standard of my work. He had a good look at it, smiled at me, somewhat intimidatingly, then gestured towards it and asked if he could take it away with him…

[A line delivered at gunpoint, I’ll be bound — although this fact isn’t made explicit.]

There was little I could really do but oblige him. I warned him that the sculpture wasn’t finished yet. I even went so far as to suggest that it had latent, supernatural powers. Horwood wasn’t buying any of it, though…

[‘Lokele’ says some stuff about banging nails into the chest of the figure he’s carved. In this manner the ‘nkondi’ traditionally becomes a kind of ‘fetish’ or voodoo doll. Try not to be too alarmed by this idea, Detective. There’s nothing remotely controversial about it. Most Congolese sculpture is held to have such properties.]

… he just grabbed the sculpture and carried it off to his ‘church’ where he displayed it in full public view.

[‘Church’ or ‘gang hideout’, i.e. the natural extension of the ‘Reverend’ metaphor.]

I can’t pretend I wasn’t fairly ticked-off by this development…

[ Horwood made ‘Lokele’ look ‘a pussy’, in other words — out on the streets, where these things really count. ‘Lokele’ is now in danger of losing the respect of the wider criminal fraternity. Respect — as you will know — is everything to people of this ilk.]

Luckily, a short while after, I was visited at home by a man called ‘Paul’…

[An Englishman, whose name — strangely enough — also has the ‘Reverend’ precursor. I’m presuming he’s a member of Horwood’s gang, but has recently usurped him as leader.]

The meeting was rather tense. Paul said that Horwood had taken the ‘nkondi’ independently, without his permission (or that of his ‘congregation’). It seems they were all highly irritated by his actions. He asked if I would mind if he dealt with Horwood accordingly…

[The exact phrase this ‘Paul’ uses — I hate to nit-pick, but it’s important — was more along the lines of ‘he asked if I would mind if he took Horwood down’. ‘Lokele’s very careful not to give too much away, here, though. This whole segment is drenched with distracting religious imagery and other types of hocus-pocus.]

I just laughed him off and confessed that I didn’t really care…

[ ‘Attaboy! Always be sure to cover your back, eh?!]

Paul became very jumpy at this point. He broke out into a sweat. I offered him a drink and he accepted a whisky…

[A grave error. Alcohol will only dehydrate him still further.]

We chatted away aimlessly for a while about nothing in particular — ‘religion’ and the nature of mortal sin etc…

[This Paul is obviously having something of a crisis of confidence — i.e. talks the talk but can he walk the walk? In my honest opinion, I don’t think he’s man enough to take the old Warhorse, Horwood, down. ‘Lokele’ is right to hedge his bets on this issue.]

… then Paul made his excuses and left.

Anyway, Brother, I do hope you have a Happy Christmas this year, and that it brings you everything you could possibly wish for — and more.