Part One: Cleave
DECEMBER 1979
Spokes
Rumors were very rare occurrences at the Western Commonage Police Station, or, rather, credible rumors were. The station prided itself on being a place where reason and logic reigned, but it was really a place like any other and conjecture had long traveled its halls with ease. The latest rumor had been started by someone who had received the news (from an excellent source) that on the very next day, at Lancaster House in London, the peace agreement would finally be signed and the ceasefire would be announced.
Since then the station had not known a moment’s peace, especially after the crates of Castle and Lion lagers had been smuggled in by a group of extremely enthusiastic young constables. By the time the rumor had reached every ear in the station, Lovemore Majaivana and the Jobs Combination’s Istimela album was playing on a loop in the canteen, the tantalising smell of braaing meat was filling the air, and the sound of dancing and stomping feet had mingled with voices, not altogether sober, to create a mixture of cacophony and commotion. The enthusiasm had proved irresistible for most officers, even the more senior ones, in the station. Amidst all this un-customary chaos sat Chief Inspector Spokes Moloi in the Sergeants’ Office which until too recently had been called the Native Senior Officers’ Station. Although no longer a sergeant himself, Spokes shared the office with two senior sergeants and one sergeant major, and was extremely glad that they were all otherwise engaged because his aloneness allowed him to do what he needed to do without prying eyes looking on.
Even though he did not partake in it, Spokes understood his fellow officers’ need for celebration. A ceasefire meant that there would no longer be any stints with the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit, and that, therefore, the chances of having the letters KIA attached to their names for an eternity had diminished greatly. With the future potentially this discernible and more certain thing, the station had decided that 20 December was as good a time as any for the holiday season to begin.
For his part, however, Spokes chose to remain cautious. They had been here quite a few times in the past three years: talks that took place in other parts of the world, talks meant to broker peace, talks that had given much-needed hope — talks that had only amounted to continued disappointment and protracted war.
Spokes shrugged off his chariness as best he could, reached for two A4, station-issued, manila envelopes and placed them neatly in front of him, parallel to each other, on top of his desk. He was buying time, he knew, and found that he could not, as yet, bring himself to confront what lay within the envelopes. Instead, he turned his attention to his in tray. There it was, where it always was at the end of every working day — the thin, light-blue manila folder, faded with age and dog-eared from too much handling. Spokes no longer had to open it to see the bulging burlap sack, the dead eyes, the severed limbs, the Y-dissection running down the torso, the brand-new dress. Yet he did open the folder, he did look at the dismembered body, he did feel the guilt of not having solved the case after so many years, he did deeply regret not being able to allow Daisy to rest in peace. He ran his hands over the contents of the folder in a gesture made more tender because his hands were trembling. Daisy: her unsolved murder made what he needed to do now very difficult — near impossible — but still he managed to close the folder carefully.
As Spokes looked at the two manila envelopes lying side by side on his desk, he reminded himself that he had successfully solved 113 cases in his twenty years at the Western Commonage, and 38 cases before the move to the City of Kings. Justice had prevailed 151 times. The good fight had been good to him, and he had no right to ask more than it was willing to give. It was time.
He deliberately opened the envelope on his left first, removed the single sheet of paper that it contained, and then placed it on top of the manila envelope before repeating the same actions with the other envelope. Two forms lay before him: the one on the left was an application to the 33rd Annual City of Kings’ Township Ballroom-Dancing Competition, and the one on the right was a BSAP Application for Retirement. Because he wanted his intentions to be clearly understood, Spokes took from his desk a new sheet of blue carbon paper and two pristine white sheets of bond paper. He placed the blue carbon paper under the ballroom-dancing competition’s application form first and then placed one sheet of white bond paper underneath it. In this way, he went about the business of filling in both forms.
Both documents required almost the same information:
Prefix—Mr.;
Surname—Moloi;
Christian Name—Spokes; Middle Initial—M.; Date of Birth—30 August 1923;
Current Date—20 December 1979; and Signature—his two initials and his surname written in a dignified and controlled cursive that was both decipherable and decorative, and which the missionaries who had educated him had taken great pains to inculcate, believing as they did that good penmanship was an outward sign of good character.
The difference between the two forms was that the one on the left wanted information pertaining to his ballroom dancing experience:
Number of Previous Competitions—10; Number of Placements—5;
Year of Competition and Position held: 1969—Honorable Mention; 1971—4th Place; 1973—3rd Place; 1977—2nd Place; 1978—2nd Place; Professional or Amateur Category—Amateur.
The form on the left wanted information pertaining to his
career as a police officer: Division—CID;
Current Rank—Chief Inspector; Years in Position—1;
Years in BSAP—32;
Other Ranks Previously Held—Constable, Sergeant, Senior Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Sub Inspector.
Now that both forms had been completed in duplicate, Spokes was rather amazed at the ease with which it had all been done. Even though he and his wife had promised each other that after their twenty-fifth anniversary they would retire to the ten acres in Krum’s Place that they had painstakingly saved for and only been allowed to purchase legally in 1976, Spokes had found it difficult to actually act on the promise and had procrastinated in applying for his retirement for the past year. His wife had been understanding while the prospect of his becoming the first black chief inspector loomed — so understanding that she had allowed them to forfeit the year’s Annual City of Kings’ Township Ballroom-Dancing Competition — even though it was strongly felt that 1979 was their year to win the title. But now that Spokes had achieved the particular distinction of his promotion, she felt that they should happily retire, as agreed, and had recently filed her application for retirement from the Midwifery Unit at Mpilo Hospital.
Spokes knew exactly what he needed to do in order to reciprocate in full. He needed to let go of Daisy. . . finally. ♦
The Quality of Mercy by Siphiwe Ndlovu is forthcoming in September 2023, from Catalyst Press.
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