Tom Sharpe - Riotous Assembly

'Oh yes,' he said sympathetically. 'So you're Miss Hazelstone are you, sir? And what do you want to be arrested for?'

'I've murdered my cook.'

'Lucky to have one to murder,' said the old Konstabel. 'My old woman cooks for me and if the state of my insides or what remains of them is anything to go by, she's been trying to murder me for years, and it's only thanks to the miracles of modern surgery that she hasn't bloody well succeeded. Do you know,' he went on confidentially, 'it took the surgeons four hours to cut away all the rotten stuff there was in me. They took my gall bladder and then my…'

'I have not come here to discuss the state of your health,' Miss Hazelstone snapped. 'It's not of the slightest interest to me.'

Konstabel Oosthuizen wasn't amused. 'If that's the way you want it,' he said, 'that's the way it's going to be. Now hop it.'

Miss Hazelstone wasn't going to be brushed off so easily. 'I have come here to be arrested for murder,' she insisted.

Konstabel Oosthuizen looked up from the medical dictionary he had been reading. 'Look,' he said, 'you've just told me you're not interested in my physical condition. Well, I'm bloody well not interested in your mental state either. So shove off.'

'Are you telling me you refuse to arrest me?'

Konstabel Oosthuizen sighed. 'I'll arrest you for loitering if you don't get out of here double quick,' he said.

'Good, that's what I've come for,' Miss Hazelstone sat down on a bench against the wall.

'You're making a bloody nuisance of yourself, that's what you're doing. All right come on down to the cells,' and leading the way down to the basement he locked her in. 'Give me a shout when you want to come out,' he said, and went back to read about diseases of the intestinal tract. He was still so engrossed in his own pathology when he went off duty that he forgot to mention her presence in the cells to the konstabel who relieved him, and she was still sitting quietly in her rubber suit next morning when he came on duty once more.

It wasn't until mid-morning that he remembered that the old gent was still down in the cells, and he went down to let him out.

'Had enough?' he asked, unlocking the door.

'Have you come to question me?' Miss Hazelstone asked hopefully. She had been looking forward to third degree.

'I haven't come to bring you breakfast if that's what you think.'

'Good,' said Miss Hazelstone. 'Let's get on with it.'

Konstabel Oosthuizen looked bewildered. 'You're a weird old buzzard,' he said. 'Senile if you ask me.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Kick you out,' said the Konstabel. 'I can't have you cluttering up the station.'

'I'm Miss Hazelstone of Jacaranda Park, and I'm wanted for murder. It's your duty to arrest me.'

'And I'm the Queen of England,' said Konstabel Oosthuizen. 'Go on, clear out of here before you get me into trouble.'

'I tell you I'm wanted for murder,' Miss Hazelstone insisted.

'You're certainly not wanted for anything else,' and the Konstabel picked up his medical dictionary and began to read about gynecomastia.

Miss Hazelstone tried to make him see reason. 'What do I have to do to get myself arrested if you won't arrest me for murder?' she asked.

'Try fucking a kaffir for a start,' suggested the Konstabel. 'That usually works wonders.'

'But that's what I've been doing for the last eight years,' Miss Hazelstone told him.

'Get along with you. I doubt if you've got the wherewithal,' was all the answer she got, and with the final comment that she looked as though she might have gynecomastia, which Konstabel Oosthuizen had just learnt was unusual development of the breasts of a male, the Konstabel went back to his book.

'If you won't arrest me, I demand to be taken home,' Miss Hazelstone said.

Konstabel Oosthuizen knew when to compromise. 'Where do you live?' he asked.

'Jacaranda Park of course,' said Miss Hazelstone.

'I might have known it,' said the Konstabel, and glad to be rid of her took her out into the station yard. 'Take the old gent up to Jacaranda Park,' he said to the driver of a police car that was just leaving, and with all the speed and social deference to which she was accustomed. Miss Hazelstone was driven to the gates of Jacaranda Park and deposited there. The car hadn't been stopped at the police checkpoints for obvious reasons.

When Luitenant Verkramp arrived from hospital to begin his interrogation of the prisoner, he found the Kommandant waiting for him. He hobbled into the Governor's office to report for duty.

'I'm a sick man,' he said grumpily. 'The doctors didn't want me to leave the hospital.'

'Quite so, Luitenant,' said the Kommandant cheerfully. 'Quite so, but now that you're here, let's not waste time. I need your help.'

'What is it this time?' Verkramp asked. Kommandant van Heerden was always needing his help, but this was the first time he had known him acknowledge the fact.

'I have here the Hazelstone family file,' the Kommandant said. 'It includes the security report you submitted to the Bureau of State Security. I've read it through, and I must say, Luitenant, you showed more perspicacity than I gave you credit for.'

Luitenant Verkramp smiled. The Kommandant had never been so complimentary before.

'You say here,' continued the Kommandant, tapping the report, 'that the Hazelstones are noted for their left-wing and Communistic leanings. I would like to know what made you say that.'

'Everybody knows they are Marxists,' said Verkramp.

'I don't,' said the Kommandant, 'and I would like to hear why you do.'

'Well, for one thing Miss Hazelstone's nephew is at the university.'

'Doesn't make him a Commie.'

'He believes in evolution.'

'Hm,' said the Kommandant doubtfully. He knew it was a subversive doctrine, but with Els around it seemed irrefutable to him.

'What else?' he asked.

'I checked the library. It's full of Communist literature. They've got _The Red Badge of Courage, Black Beauty,_ the collected works of Dostoyevsky, even Bertrand Russell's banned book, _Why I am not a Christian._ I tell you, they are all dangerous books.'

Kommandant van Heerden was impressed. Evidently Verkramp had gone more thoroughly into the matter than he had imagined. 'That seems conclusive enough,' he said. 'What about the brother, Jonathan Hazelstone. You say here he's got a criminal record.'

'That's right. He lives in Rhodesia and he's done time.'

'He says he's a bishop.'

'He can say what he bloody well pleases,' said Verkramp. 'It doesn't alter the facts. I checked them with the Rhodesian Police. You'll find the telegram they sent back in the file.'

Kommandant van Heerden pulled out the telegram. 'I can't make head or tail of it,' he said. 'It's in code or something. You read it,' and he handed the telegram to Verkramp.

The Luitenant peered at the hieroglyphs. 'It's pretty obvious,' he said at last. ''Jonathan Hazelstone 2 yrs parson Bulawayo 3 yrs Barotse incumbent at present convocation 3 wks Umtali.' Any fool can understand that,' he said.

'Well, this one can't,' snapped the Kommandant. 'You tell me what it means.'

Verkramp sighed. This was what came from having an illiterate Kommandant.

'It's quite simple. He's done two years in Bulawayo Prison for burning a building down. Three years for murdering a Barotse native who was having a nap and three weeks in Umtali for convoking.'

Kommandant van Heerden thought for a moment. 'What's convoking?' he asked.

'You've heard of con men, haven't you? It's fraud and swindling. It's convoking people into buying phoney shares and things.'

'Oh, is that what it is? You would think they'd have given him more than three weeks for a thing like that. After all he got three years for killing the coon boy which was a bit steep,' the Kommandant said, relieved to know that he had got the right man. There was no doubt now in his mind that he could make the case stick. A man who had killed a Barotse while the poor bastard was asleep was hardly likely to hesitate when it came to killing a Zulu cook.