To Become an Outlaw E-Book

Peter Murphy

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: A Ben Schroeder legal thriller
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 515

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

'When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw' - Nelson Mandela 1964, Apartheid South Africa. Danie du Plessis, the son of a conservative Afrikaner family, is poised to start a glittering legal academic career at one of South Africa's leading universities, when he falls in love with a student, Amy Coetzee. But there's a problem: he's white, she's not. Facing arrest, imprisonment and ruin, the couple flee South Africa, and settle in Cambridge, where friends find them positions at the University. They marry and have two children, and have seemingly put the past, and South Africa, behind them. But in 1968 Art Pienaar enters their lives, and, insisting that they have a duty to fight back, enlists their help in increasingly dangerous schemes to undermine the South African regime. When Pienaar and a notorious drug dealer, Vince Cummings, are found murdered together, Danie's activities come to light, and he and his family find themselves in mortal danger. Danie is also threatened with criminal prosecution on behalf of a government desperate to maintain good relations with the apartheid regime. Danie knows he's sailed close to the wind. But has he become an outlaw? Can Ben Schroeder persuade a jury that the answer is no?

Leseprobe

Critical Acclaim for Peter Murphy

‘Racy legal thrillers lift the lid on sex and racial prejudice at the bar’ – Guardian

‘Murphy paints a trenchant picture of establishment cover-up, and cannily subverts the clichés of the legal genre in his all-too-topical narrative’ – Financial Times

‘Peter Murphy’s novel is an excellent read from start to finish and highly recommended’ – Historical Novel Review

‘An intelligent amalgam of spy story and legal drama’–Times

‘A gripping, enjoyable and informative read’ – Promoting Crime Fiction

‘The ability of an author to create living characters is always dependent on his knowledge of what they would do and say in any given circumstances – a talent that Peter Murphy possesses in abundance’ – Crime Review UK

‘Murphy’s clever legal thriller revels in the chicanery of the English law courts of the period’ – Independent

‘The forensic process is examined in a light touch, good-humoured style, which will evoke a constant stream of smiles, and chuckles from nonlawyers and lawyers alike’ – Lord Judge, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

‘A gripping page-turner. A compelling and disturbing tale of English law courts, lawyers, and their clients, told with the authenticity that only an insider like Murphy can deliver. The best read I’ve come across in a long time’ – David Ambrose

‘If anyone’s looking for the next big courtroom drama… look no further. Murphy is your man’ – ICLR

When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.

Nelson Mandela

PART ONE

1

Danie du Plessis

I knew instantly that Nick Erasmus – or whatever his name may have been – was dead. I knew the moment his head hit the fender in front of the fireplace.

I knew because I’d heard that sound before – only once before, thank God, but that was enough. When I heard the sound before, I was on the East Campus at Witwatersrand, watching a student demonstration in progress right in front of the Great Hall, one of many such demonstrations that took place at the University in 1964. The students, several hundred of them, were confronting a phalanx of police officers wearing riot gear, carrying shields, and armed to the teeth, with everything from tear gas to live rounds. I saw a young white officer club a black student over the head, just the once – not because of any immediate threat to himself that I could see, but arbitrarily, almost casually, as if acting out of some sense of entitlement. I saw the student fall to the ground and lie perfectly still, while other students demonstrated, and the police postured threateningly, all around him.

I heard the sound of the clubbing, and I knew then that the student was dead, just as I knew today that Nick Erasmus was dead.

The student’s death was widely reported in the press, but no action was taken against the officer. He was on duty, protecting the public against rioters, the authorities said. That seemed to conclude the matter. That was how things were then.

2

I was born in Bloemfontein, in the Free State, in 1942. My father was a lawyer, who would later become a judge. My mother was a schoolteacher, which I always thought was a strange profession for her, because it always seemed to me that she didn’t like children very much. Neither did my father, come to that. I am an only child, and I have often wondered whether my arrival in this world was planned, or even desired. My parents delegated most of my upbringing to Hilda, our black house servant. I can’t remember a time when Hilda wasn’t in charge of my daily routine. It was Hilda who taught me how to get dressed, how to tie my shoelaces, and all the other essential practical lessons of early childhood. Hilda was a warm and wise woman. She could be strict when necessary, but never once was I in doubt of her love and care. Our relationship was always very close. As a child I thought of her as my real mother. She was certainly more of a mother to me than the formal, reserved woman I was taken to meet, dressed up in my best clothes, for dinner in the evenings – when I was finally deemed old enough for the privilege of eating politely in silence, and listening to two adults talking to each other intermittently over my head, as if I wasn’t there.

I thought of Hilda as my real mother long before my parents, and the Dutch Reformed Church they attended assiduously every week, did their best to explain to me why a black woman could never be a mother to a white child. My parents believed implicitly in racial segregation on every level, and looked to their church for confirmation that God took the same view. Once, when I was fifteen or thereabouts, I pointed out to my parents that, if Jesus were to appear in Bloemfontein on the following Sunday, he wouldn’t be allowed in our church because of the colour of his skin. It was not well received. I have only my closeness to Hilda to thank for my choice to reject the idea that people should be forced to live separate and apart from each other because of their colour. Without her influence in my life, who knows what I might have become? Inertia being the potent force it is, I might have drifted ever closer to the establishment into which I had been born, and become a part of it by default, without ever questioning what it stood for. But she was there in my life. In church and at school, I had little choice but to pay lip service to the relentless Afrikaner orthodoxy that was rammed down my throat day after day. But because of Hilda, it never took root.

One of Hilda’s delegated tasks was to teach me to speak English. My parents, like most Afrikaners, claimed direct descent from the Voortrekkers. I was never shown any specific evidence of our ancestry, but then, none was expected. It was considered impolite in Afrikaner society to question a claim to Voortrekker ancestry. Just as all Welshmen are presumed to descend from Owain Glyndŵr, and all Scotsmen from Robert the Bruce, all Afrikaners are presumed to descend from the Voortrekkers – and in fairness, in the Free State or the Transvaal, the presumption wasn’t totally unreasonable. In any case, whether we were, or were not the progeny of Voortrekkers, my parents were Afrikaners to the core. The only language permitted at meals and social gatherings was Afrikaans. When I was about twelve, a great-aunt, whose word I am inclined to credit, confided in me that as a younger woman, my mother could carry on a pretty decent conversation in isiXhosa. How my mother had acquired that facility, my great aunt either didn’t know, or chose not to reveal to me. When I questioned her about it some years later, my mother, in the tone of voice she might have used to deny an allegation of shoplifting, indignantly denied knowing so much as a single word of isiXhosa.

My parents were, of course, perfectly aware that, to build any kind of life for oneself, to participate in any kind of professional or commercial activity in the modern South Africa, it was necessary to speak English to the same standard as Afrikaans. It became Hilda’s responsibility to teach me this necessary foreign language. Fortunately, she started without delay, so I spoke English from an early age and grew up bilingual, as is the rule in South Africa generally. But Hilda also had something of a subversive streak in her, and when I reached the age of nine or ten, and she felt she could trust me not to talk about it to anyone else, she covertly taught me the basics of isiZulu. Hilda hailed from Pietermaritzburg. I never heard the full story of how and why she left Natal to be with us in the Free State. My parents whispered that she had been taken from home to a charity run by the Dutch Reformed Church to take her out of the range of some nameless abuse, and that they had agreed to provide her with a home at the request of the charity. Hilda never spoke of her history to me, and I never asked her. But isiZulu was her language, and she was proud of it. She taught me enough to share some basic conversation, all of it under the strict condition that my parents should never know about it. They never did. I could probably manage a few sentences in isiZulu even today, though it’s been a long time since I tried; and sadly, my short, secretive talks with Hilda never brought me close to my proficiency in English or Afrikaans.

I knew by the time I was twelve that I could not continue to live in the sinister, claustrophobic atmosphere of my parents’ circle. I worked hard at school, but it’s probably true to say that I had no real say in the matter. My father took charge of that area of my life, and as the son of a workaholic lawyer, there would be no truancy, or lack of attention to teachers, or slacking off, for me. Homework would be done immediately on arriving home, and would be done well, however long it took. Criticism was the rule, and praise rare. Marks in exams were usually discussed, not in terms of the marks obtained, but of those inexplicably lost. Many children, I suspect, would not have coped well with the regime to which I was subjected. But it’s surprising what you can adapt to when you have no choice; and besides, I had come to realise that high achievement in school, leading to a place at university, was my only route out. For good measure, I also risked life and limb playing rugby and cricket, and was good enough to represent my school at both.

On leaving school, I was offered a place to read law at WITS, the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. The decision to read law pleased my father, needless to say, but it wasn’t made for the reasons he probably assumed.

It had nothing to do with following in his footsteps. By then, in 1961, it was already becoming clear that the apartheid regime of Hendrik Verwoerd was determined to destroy anyone and anything that stood in its path, and that only recourse to the rule of law could provide any hope of survival, if indeed there were any such hope left at all.

3

As a student at WITS, I followed much the same routine as I had at school. I was determined that, when I graduated and was ready to look for work as a lawyer, I would have a clear alternative to returning to Bloemfontein. My father could have found me a job as an attorney or an advocate in any of the city’s leading firms or chambers, just by picking up the phone. He was a man of considerable influence, even before he was appointed to the bench. He was also a man unlikely to take kindly to any suggestion that I would prefer him not to use that influence, that I had something else of my own in mind – especially if that something else were to involve my living somewhere other than Bloemfontein. To have any chance of a smooth break with home, I would have to land a position so impressive that even my father would be hard pressed to argue against it. That meant hard work and discipline throughout the three years it would take me to earn my law degree.

The only real regret I had about leaving Bloemfontein was the inevitable separation from Hilda. It was a wrench for both of us when I first left home to go to Johannesburg. For some weeks I was genuinely homesick, but it had nothing to do with our house or my parents. I simply couldn’t get used to being away from the woman who had been such an integral part of my life for as long as I had memory. Leaving Hilda behind caused me pain that has never really gone away, and I know it caused her pain too. Towards the end of my third year at WITS, she left her position with my parents, returned to Pietermaritzburg, and found a job as a live-in cook and companion to a rich, elderly white lady, from which she eventually retired in reasonable circumstances. We kept in touch by means of letters, Christmas cards, photographs, and the like, until she died. She gave every impression of being content with her life, but I know the pain of our inevitable separation, now that I had left behind the childhood that had bound us together, lingered, as it did with me. I think she understood that there was no way back home for me. I hope so. But that thought has never made it any easier.

I did venture out of the library for the odd game of rugby or cricket, and I’m glad I did, because it was through cricket that I met Pieter, who became, and remains to this day my closest friend. Pieter is not his real name. I’m not going to disclose his name, because of the extraordinary act of kindness he performed for me late in 1964, when I had allowed myself to drift into a very dangerous situation. Had that act of kindness become known to the authorities then, there would have been serious consequences for Pieter as well as for me; and although that danger has passed now, and although, I daresay, many people will have no difficulty in guessing his identity, I’m going to do what I can to preserve his anonymity in my story.

Pieter was the son of a very wealthy, socially liberal industrialist. The family was made of money, and because the source of that money was the manufacture of specialised items essential to the country’s defence industry, even Verwoerd and Vorster turned a deaf ear on the not infrequent occasions when Pieter’s father was uncomfortably outspoken about his contempt for apartheid. The old man practised what he preached. The firm’s workforce included staff from each of the racial categories then recognised in South Africa – White, Cape Coloured, Asian, and Black – but no one in the firm talked about racial categories. They were colleagues who worked together harmoniously, and nothing else mattered. Pieter took the company over after his father’s death and ran it with great success, but when I knew him, his only passion in life was cricket. He was an astonishing cricketer, a brilliant opening batsman who made centuries effortlessly, and an acrobatic fielder who never put down a catch in the slips. If it had not been for the embargo on South African cricket in the wake of the D’Oliveira affair, he would undoubtedly have played for South Africa, and would probably have been a leading light in the world of test cricket. Pieter knew that, and he felt his loss acutely. But he supported the sporting embargos as a matter of principle, and led the move towards racially integrated cricket in South Africa.

The other diversion from work I permitted myself was the occasional girlfriend, four in all, before Amy. All four were fellow law students. I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t afford the time, or the energy, to develop a wider social life outside the University, or even, it seemed, outside the Law Faculty. All four, needless to say, were white. Sexual relations across racial lines had been illegal in South Africa since 1950, as was marriage between people with differently coloured skin. Not only that, but I suppose I unconsciously gravitated to girls who turned out to have a similar family background to my own. When my first partner, Anna, talked to me about her home life in Cape Town over coffee one afternoon, after we had sat together through an interminable lecture on liability for misconduct by slaves in Roman law, it sounded depressingly familiar.

But we were attracted to each other, and as she was just as inexperienced in sexual matters as I was, it was inevitable that we would learn together. We would get together, in my room or hers, and learn from each other the basic skills of undressing, kissing, and satisfying each other, which would never have been the subject of discussion in my family, or hers. Sex in any guise was taboo as far as my parents were concerned, and not even Hilda would have talked to me about the kind of details I needed to know when I was with Anna, although she had explained to me in outline how babies were made. No, I learned the practical side of things from Anna, as she did from me. I learned other things, too.

During our pillow talk, I came to know things about her that I probably wouldn’t have learned over a hundred cups of post-lecture coffee. The most startling of these was that she approved wholeheartedly of apartheid, and was a huge admirer of Verwoerd, which she made clear when, in all innocence, I asked her whether she had ever fancied a man who wasn’t white. The question genuinely shocked her. Alone in my room after she had left, I asked myself how I could have missed it. Somehow, I had convinced myself that, despite her conservative upbringing, she must have found a path similar to mine, and emerged with at least some liberal instincts intact. But she hadn’t had a Hilda in her life. I suddenly had a terrible notion that she might one day start screaming ‘Hendrik’ over and over again when she came. I find that image rather funny now, but at the time it really spooked me. In fairness to her, the only name Anna ever spoke when she came was mine, and she whispered it rather than screaming it. But somehow, things were never the same for me again, and we broke up soon afterwards. Anna married a fellow student, a man we both knew quite well, just after she graduated. After a couple of years of legal practice, her husband got himself elected to Parliament, and rose to a position of some importance in the National Party.

None of my other three girlfriends had any sympathy for apartheid. Indeed two of them joined in the protests, when they became more and more frequent during our third year. So, from that point of view, I suppose, we were more compatible. We were still very discreet about sex, but far more relaxed once we were alone behind closed doors. We had mastered the basics of contraception, and had no inhibitions about ‘going all the way’; and with salacious fragments of news becoming available about the sexual revolution going on in America, we had as much inspiration as we needed to experiment with new and daring ways to satisfy each other. But much as I look back on those days with great affection, none of my girlfriends made me want to spend the rest of my life with her, and I’m quite sure they felt the same way about me.

Then, just before my graduation in July 1964, I met Amy Coetzee. Amy had just finished her first year of law study, and we met at a reception for a judge of the Supreme Court, who had presided over a seminar on the future of international law. After my experiences with my girlfriends, I flattered myself that I understood about attraction, and indeed, about lust. But I wasn’t prepared for the effect Amy had on me, which was of a different order from that of any other woman I have ever met, before or since. As we shook hands and introduced ourselves, I went hot and cold, and I am not embarrassed to confess that I wanted to take her, there and then, on the floor, allowing the reception to continue around us.

A few days later, we took each other in my room, by common consent, violently, tearing off clothes, gasping for breath, and finally collapsing side by side. She was slim, very pretty, with jet-black hair and the most seductive dark eyes I’ve ever seen; and I had no sooner come than I was feeling the desire rising again. I set out to kiss her all over, starting with her beautiful feet. When I finished by kissing her on the lips, she took my hand.

‘Danie,’ she said, ‘can I ask you something?’

‘Of course: anything.’

‘You have noticed that I’m Coloured, haven’t you?’

4

My reward for all the hard work I had put into my studies was an offer to join the Law Faculty at WITS as a junior lecturer. The offer came out of the blue. I was amazed, and only too delighted to accept. For one thing, a lectureship at a prestigious university immediately after graduation was not an offer made to everyone; it was actually very unusual, and quite a compliment. My father could hardly criticise me for accepting an offer like that, one that was certainly not within his gift; and in fairness to him, when I told him about it in a letter, he replied immediately with warm words of congratulation. I was also very happy about the prospect of a career in academia. Legal scholarship came naturally to me, and I found it very satisfying. I also felt that there was much I could contribute as a teacher, not only in preparing students for the practice of law, but also in supporting the values for which WITS stood, which corresponded closely to my own.

When WITS was established in 1922, its principal and Vice-Chancellor, Jan Hofmeyr, ensured that its founding documents committed the University to equal treatment for all students, without regard to class, wealth, race, or creed. This made it inevitable that, as Verwoerd’s hard-line, ideological approach to apartheid reached its zenith during the early 1960s, the University would come into direct conflict with the government. By 1964, that conflict had escalated to frequent large-scale and often violent student protests, policed by enthusiastic white officers spoiling to inflict some damage on anyone posing what they considered to be a threat to public order.

It was during one such protest that I saw the white officer send the black student to his death, with a single blow from the heavy metal baton he was carrying, the sound of which I have never since been able to put out of my mind. When it happened, right outside the Great Hall, I was standing a short distance away with Pieter. As a faculty member I was perfectly free to be present at demonstrations, though it was expected that I would stop short of any act the police might consider to be a threat to public order. That suited me very well. I am not a natural protester, and I had taken the same approach as a student, though I always wore an anti-apartheid badge depicting three people, white, black, and brown, holding hands. I still have that badge today. I remember being amazed that, after the student fell to the ground and lay there motionless, the protest, and the police response, seemed to continue around his lifeless body, as if nothing had happened. With that dreadful sound still ringing in my ears, I was rooted to the spot on which I stood. It was Pieter who had the presence of mind to react to the situation, and to call for an ambulance. When it arrived, he led me away from the scene.

Later in the day, I was with Amy in my rooms – as I had no home off-campus, the University had provided me with a pleasant suite overlooking the greenery of several rugby pitches. We had not yet undressed to make love. She was still shaken by her own experience of the protest, which had turned particularly violent all around her. I was holding her and stroking her hair as we lay together on the bed. Then, there was a knock on the door. Instantly alarmed, we both sat up, and she rolled off the bed on to her feet. The knock on the door represented danger. I had, of course, noticed that Amy was in the Cape Coloured category, and that our relationship was against the law in South Africa. But until she voiced it, I had allowed my passion for her to suppress my sense of danger. Since then, we had taken infinite pains not to be seen together in public, and to avoid any show of recognition. As far as I knew, we had succeeded. The only person I knew of who was aware of our relationship was Pieter. He had been with me when I first met Amy at the reception, and he knew me too well to miss the signs: there was no point in trying to deny it to him. I wasn’t anxious about Pieter: I trusted him implicitly. But I could only hope that my feelings for Amy had not been equally obvious to others, and as day succeeded day, she and I were becoming increasingly aware of the dangers all around us in this hostile environment. The only course we had not discussed was giving the relationship up: danger or no danger, it was already too strong for that.

I gestured to her to hide in the bathroom while I went to see who was knocking. I walked through my living room and study to the door, and opened it a fraction, very tentatively. To my immense relief, it was Pieter. But the relief was short lived. He was clearly troubled. I had never seen Pieter without at least the suggestion of a smile on his face. But now he looked tense and fearful. As I opened the door, he almost pushed me aside, and strode agitatedly into the living room.

‘Is Amy here?’ he asked.

‘It’s OK, Amy. You can come out,’ I shouted in the direction of the bathroom. ‘It’s Pieter.’

Amy made her way into the living room and sat quietly on the sofa, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

‘You two need to leave,’ Pieter said. ‘Now. As soon as you can.’

We looked at him blankly, and were silent for some time.

‘What do you mean, leave?’ I asked eventually.

‘I mean, leave.’

Amy and I looked at each other.

‘I’m not following. You mean, leave my rooms, leave WITS, leave Johannesburg, what?’

He shook his head. ‘Leave South Africa.’

I laughed aloud.

‘You’re joking.’

‘Do I look like I’m joking?’

I collapsed on to the sofa next to Amy. Pieter seated himself in an armchair next to us.

‘For God’s sake, Pieter,’ I said, ‘what are you talking about?’

He sat up and leaned forward towards us.

‘I had to give a statement to the police,’ he replied, ‘because that student we saw being attacked died, and I was the one who called the ambulance. These officers weren’t the riot police; they were detectives investigating the death. After I’d given them my statement, they started getting friendly – one of them is a cricket fanatic, he’d seen me play, and he wanted to chat about it. After we’d talked about cricket for a while, and they were about to leave, they said this was the second time they’d been called to WITS in a week. The first time, they said, was because of a complaint about a member of the faculty getting too close to a coloured student. They didn’t mention any names, Danie, but who else could it be?’

I held my head in my hands. ‘Oh, God.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Amy said quietly. ‘We’ve been so careful.’

‘You’re here in Danie’s rooms,’ Pieter pointed out. ‘Are you sure nobody saw you arrive? Look, you know what this place is like. You don’t even need to be seen. The whole place is a hotbed of gossip. It doesn’t take much to start a rumour, and a rumour of illegal sex is all it takes to get the police’s attention – especially if it involves a member of the faculty.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know how long you have before this gets really serious, but it may only be a matter of days. You know what’s going to happen to both of you if you’re arrested for this. You know what they’re like. Rape, torture, they’re capable of anything. You can’t take that risk. You need to leave now.’

Again, we were silent for some time.

‘And go where?’ I asked.

‘Wherever you can.’

‘I have family in Salisbury,’ Amy suggested tentatively. ‘If there’s a way to get across the border… separately, perhaps?’

Pieter shook his head. ‘Rhodesia’s no safer than here. South African police operate just as freely in Salisbury as they do in Jo’burg. And you could get your family in a lot of trouble if the police thought they were harbouring you.’

‘My father has a friend in England,’ I said, ‘Sir John Fisk. He’s the master of a Cambridge college. They met at some conference or other, years ago, and I guess they must have hit it off, because they’ve kept in touch ever since: correspondence mainly, though he and his wife came to Bloemfontein to visit us once, when I was fifteen or sixteen. He’s a classicist or a philosopher, I think, but they have a daughter about my age called Harriet, who’s reading for the Bar. They might be worth a try.’

‘England would work,’ Pieter replied. ‘But there’s no time for correspondence. Do you have a phone number?’

‘No. My father has it, but obviously, I’d prefer not to have to explain why I need it.’

‘International directory inquiries are bound to have his number at his College,’ Amy pointed out.

‘Yes,’ Pieter agreed, ‘but you shouldn’t use the phone here. You don’t know who may be listening in.’

‘Oh, come on, Pieter…’ I protested.

‘What, you think I’m being paranoid? Danie, listen to me: at my dad’s firm we’ve had employees arrested under the racial laws: men just like you and me, women just like Amy. They just disappeared into thin air one day, and we never saw them again. These people don’t fool around, Danie. You think they wouldn’t tap your phone if they thought they might overhear you and Amy whispering sweet nothings to one another? Trust me, if they have any suspicion at all, that’s the first thing they’ll do; and you know as well as I do, there’s no law to stop them.’

I let out a long, slow breath. ‘This can’t be happening.’

‘It is happening,’ Pieter replied, ‘trust me. Come to my place. You can call directory inquiries from there. Just you, Danie. Amy, I’m sorry, my love, I really am, but you will need to make your own way home for now.’

‘I understand,’ she replied. She hesitated. ‘Pieter, how would we ever get to England? If they’re already keeping watch on us, we can’t just book ourselves a passage with Cunard or BOAC. It looks like we’re trapped.’

Pieter smiled. ‘There are some advantages in having a rich father,’ he said. ‘I called my dad as soon as the police let me go. You can use our private jet. It will make it to England, with one stop for refuelling, somewhere friendly. We avoid the major airports. We use a small field, where they know us. The runway is only just long enough for the aircraft, but it has the advantage of being quiet. There’s some customs and police presence there, but nothing like Jo’burg. They all know my dad’s plane, and they don’t give us a hard time.’

‘That may change if they see an interracial couple boarding,’ Amy suggested.

Pieter smiled again. ‘We thought of that too,’ he replied. ‘You look like you’re about the same size as Jenna, one of our regular stewardesses. You can borrow one of her uniforms. No one’s going to give a second thought to a Cape Coloured stewardess. We’re ready to go, as soon as we have a destination.’

Amy and I looked at each other, and reached a silent agreement, in the time it might have taken us to agree what we would have for dinner. We agreed to commit our lives to each other in a foreign country, or be destroyed in the attempt, knowing that there was no way back.

She stood, walked over to Pieter, and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘We won’t ever forget.’

‘You and your father are taking one hell of a risk for us, Pieter,’ I added.

‘You’re my friends,’ Pieter replied. ‘What else are we going to do in this godforsaken place until sanity prevails?’

5

The next three days were frenetic. Three days wasn’t enough time, but both Pieter and his father were adamant that any longer delay would be too risky. When I finally reached Sir John Fisk by phone from Pieter’s house, he didn’t hesitate for a moment. We should come as soon as we could. We should stay with them for as long as we had need; and they would do everything they could to help us build a new life in England. The die was cast.

We packed as much as we could take with us, which was whatever we could squeeze into two medium-size suitcases each. Everything else, however familiar and treasured, we abandoned: the books, records, pictures, photographs, mementos, clothes, the very fabric of our lives; all those personal accoutrements we take for granted, never knowing how much they mean to us until we are about to lose them. The loss included family and friends: there could be no question of saying goodbye until we had left South Africa. Apologies and explanations would have to wait. We were walking away in the dead of night, knowing that our lives, as we had known them, were lost to us; and that we might never again be free to celebrate them in the country of our birth. On the desk in my study I left my letter of resignation from the WITS Law Faculty, citing ‘personal circumstances’. Only the joy of having each other made it bearable.

As Pieter had promised, the small airport from which we flew was quiet, and we aroused no real interest. I was impersonating a production manager in his father’s company, en route to London for urgent talks with our British suppliers, while Amy gave an Oscar-class performance as an efficient and charming stewardess. The immigration officer who checked our details was well known to our pilots, who exchanged pleasantries with him and solicitously inquired after his family, while he signed off on us after a perfunctory glance at our passports and paperwork. With one stop to refuel, somewhere in Portugal, we had an uneventful flight into a quiet corner of Heathrow airport.

We were in England: where no one showed the slightest interest in the colour of our skin; or paid any attention as we walked together, hand in hand, to recover our suitcases. John and Annabel Fisk had driven to Heathrow to pick us up, and take us back with them to Cambridge.

These were acts of extraordinary generosity and kindness towards us, on the part of Pieter and his father, and on the part of John and Annabel, and even today I can’t think of those days without tears in my eyes. Amy still has her stewardess uniform.

We lived with John and Annabel for about a month before we found a house to rent in Tenison Road, about half way between Mill Road and the railway station. It didn’t take me long to marvel at how far John was willing to go to help a friend, and at how much benign influence he wielded, both within the University and elsewhere. Before becoming Master of his College, he had enjoyed a successful career in the diplomatic service, culminating in two ambassadorships in very tricky corners of the world; so the irritations of academic wrangling, the downfall of so many in his position, barely registered on his radar. John dealt with such matters with ease.

He allowed me only a couple of days to settle in, before taking me on a guided tour of the menswear shops of Cambridge to make sure, he explained in his best diplomat’s manner, that I was not entirely dependent on the limited wardrobe I’d been able to bring with me. When I self-consciously broached the subject of money, he waved it away, assuring me that I could pay him back once I started work, which in due course, I did; though at the time, I was painfully aware that the pound sterling equivalent of the rand we had drained from our bank accounts in Johannesburg was not going to last long in Cambridge. But, as I was to discover, John’s purpose was not so much to supplement my wardrobe as to shape it to ensure that I could look the part on every occasion: because he lost no time in taking me into College, introducing me to everyone he could find – Fellows, porters, the Bursar’s staff, everyone – and taking me to dine as his guest at High Table. For all of this, I needed to look the part, and items such as the evening dress, suits and ties I had been obliged to leave hanging in the wardrobe in my bedroom at WITS, had to be replaced.

Fortunately, the Fellows took to me almost instantly. The College has always enjoyed a reputation as a haven for dissent. During the four hundred odd years of its existence, there have been many times when those in peril, during periods of political or religious turmoil, had found refuge within its walls, often at considerable risk to the College. There is a pervasive air of openness and tolerance about the place, which, after the genuine but constrained liberalism of WITS, came as a breath of fresh air. Within two weeks of my arrival, John had gained the unanimous agreement of his colleagues to award me a research scholarship, which in addition to the opportunities for writing and publishing, would bring in some welcome money from teaching at the undergraduate level within the College. When I asked John what subject I should choose for my research, he immediately insisted that it should be Roman law. I was genuinely surprised. I knew, of course, that at Cambridge, every law student was made to study Roman law for two of their three years. Still, I had been expecting John to suggest something different – commercial law, or international law, perhaps, something more in tune with contemporary England, so that I could show off my versatility and willingness to adapt. But John had, as he so often had, a deeper insight into the circumstances. He knew, as I came to discover, that Roman law was essentially the domain of a solitary aging don, Professor Jenkins, who was contemplating retirement. The Roman law team was in need of reinforcement. By 1967, I had been appointed a full Fellow of the College, and University lecturer in Law; in 1973 I would succeed Professor Jenkins as Buckland Professor of Roman Law in the University of Cambridge.

‘It’s a natural fit, dear boy,’ John explained when we first discussed it. ‘Quite apart from the pressing need for someone to teach Roman law, I’m told that the Law Faculty always has a number of South African students in residence, and apparently, someone has to teach them a bit of Roman-Dutch law. Who else is going to do it? The trick is to make yourself indispensable.’

John is the only man I’ve ever known who could call someone ‘dear boy’ without sounding patronising.

John also saw to it that Amy was enrolled as an undergraduate at Girton to complete her law degree, and given a part-time administrative job in his own college’s bursary office, which brought in a little more money. Harriet befriended her in another way. She was only a year into her practice as a barrister in London, and very busy, but she made time to show Amy round London, introducing her to Covent Garden and Oxford Street, and taking her to dinner in Gray’s Inn, which persuaded Amy to read for the Bar herself after completing her degree. Amy, by then, was more inclined towards teaching than practice, but qualification as a barrister was more than useful to her when, in due course, she applied for her own fellowship.

The only efforts John made on my behalf that proved to be beyond even his diplomatic skills were his attempts to reconcile me with my parents. They could never accept my leaving South Africa, especially in the circumstances in which I did. John wrote to them several times over the years, but never received more than a formal acknowledgement of his letters. I wish I could truthfully say that I am devastated by their rejection of me, or indifference to me; but the truth is that, while I find it sad, it has had little impact on my life. Amy and I have become successful, and are very happy in our house in Tenison Road. We were married as soon as it could be arranged, a quiet register office affair, with John and Annabel as our witnesses, followed by a lovely dinner with the two of them, and Harriet, at the University Arms. We have two children: Sally, born in 1969; and Douglas, born in 1972. It would have been open to my parents to get themselves on a plane and come to England to see their grandchildren, as Amy’s parents did. They could have demanded regular photographs, as Hilda and Pieter did. But they never approached us at all, and now they are dead, and there is nothing that John, or I, or anyone else, can do about it.

By October 1968, at the beginning of the academic year, Amy and I felt settled in our new lives. The memory of the abrupt ending of our old lives was beginning to recede.

That was before Art Pienaar appeared in my life.

6

Monday 7 October 1968

Sidney, the College’s venerable Head Porter, put a friendly arm around the visitor’s shoulder as he ushered him through the door of the porters’ lodge and out into the main quadrangle. After the subdued lighting of the lodge, and the shadow of the covered passageway running between the quadrangle and the College’s massive wooden gates, the sharp autumnal sunlight came as a shock. It made them both squint, and quickly raise a hand to shield their eyes.

‘Straight across the quad, sir,’ Sidney said, pointing, ‘turn left, and when you pass the entrance to the chapel, N is the next staircase but one. You can’t miss it. Mr du Plessis’ rooms are on the first floor.’

‘Thank you,’ the visitor replied, smiling.

‘You’re very welcome, sir.’

Sidney did not return to the porters’ lodge immediately. Instead, he leaned back against the wall, pulled the rim of his bowler hat down ever so slightly, folded his arms, and watched the visitor until he disappeared from view into N staircase. Why, he couldn’t have said precisely. Perhaps it was the lack of hesitation with which the man followed the directions he had been given, almost as if he’d known the way all along, without Sidney’s telling him. In fairness, as Sidney had said himself, you couldn’t miss it – the visitor was in no danger of getting lost between the porters’ lodge and N staircase. All the same, there was something… it was just a bit too quick, a bit too assured for a first time, there was a hint of familiarity from some previous occasion. Or perhaps it was just the dark blue three-piece suit the man was wearing on such a warm afternoon.

After more than thirty years in the job, Sidney had developed a good porter’s instinct for something not being quite right. Almost always, nothing of real concern came of it. Once in a while, he would become aware of an undergraduate drinking too much – drinking too much by undergraduate standards, that is – or experimenting with more exotic substances, or smuggling women into his room. Sidney dealt with such cases in accordance with the College’s low-key tradition, with a quiet word in the ear. Only if there was a risk of things getting out of hand, despite the warning, would he report the matter to the student’s tutor. Every now and then, too, his instinct had prevented some harm to the College, or to one of the Fellows, by enabling him to head off a theft of property, an act of vandalism, or even, once or twice, a potentially violent reaction to something said in a lecture or a debate, or written in a journal. In the visitor’s case, there was probably nothing to it, but he would keep an eye on N staircase, and on Mr du Plessis, his newest Fellow, for a day or two, just in case.

For his part, the visitor was aware of being watched, but he had no intention of giving himself away by turning back to look. Instead, he briskly pulled the main doors of N staircase open and fairly bounded up the stairs to the first floor – as he had in fact done, as Sidney’s instinct suggested, on a previous occasion some ten days earlier, before the start of term, when the College was quiet. On that occasion, his incursion had been covert and brief, and had been made for reconnaissance purposes to assess an unknown quantity before meeting him – a tip he had picked up from one of his clients. The incursion was simple, and fairly safe as such things go – the ancient lock was ridiculously easy to pick, and he knew that Danie du Plessis would be out for at least an hour, delivering a lecture to a group of foreign students. The only objective was to ascertain whether there were any obvious red flags – or, for that matter, any obvious green flags. It had not taken long. These were the rooms of someone who hadn’t yet occupied them for long enough to leave his imprint on them. There were no pictures or posters on the walls. But the meagre handful of books were all legal, nothing political, the files, and notebooks likewise. The only item of any real interest – an anti-apartheid badge, depicting three people, white, black, and brown, holding hands – was lying on the desk for all the world to see, no attempt having been made to hide it. So far, so good, the visitor concluded.

Then, since he had time to spare, he had unscrewed the fittings of the telephone and lamp on the desk to check for listening devices – another tip from the same client. He found nothing. ‘He’s too new, I suppose; they haven’t had time,’ he concluded.

7

The visitor knocked, and opened the door just enough to poke his head inside the room. The man he had come to see was sitting at his desk, reading from a book open in front of him, and making notes. He was wearing a jacket, but the top button of his shirt was open, and his tie was lying, neatly folded, on the desk. His black academic gown was draped over the back of his chair.

‘Mr du Plessis?’

‘Yes.’

The visitor took this as an invitation to enter the room, and once inside, he took one or two tentative steps towards the desk.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, Mr du Plessis. I can see you’re busy, but I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself, if I may. Art Pienaar, a fellow exile from back home.’ He smiled. ‘Not that I need to tell you that, I’m sure – not with my accent. Fifteen years in England, and it’s as strong as the day I left Port Elizabeth.’

Danie returned the smile. ‘Not to mention your name. There aren’t too many places you can claim to be from with a name like Pienaar – or du Plessis, for that matter.’ He stood and offered his hand, which Pienaar took. ‘Have a seat. I don’t remember seeing you around before. Are you with the College?’

Pienaar pulled up a small chair for himself in front of Danie’s desk. He shook his head.

‘Oh, good God, no. I‘ve never been the academic type, I’m afraid. I scraped a degree, and just about passed my solicitor’s exams, and that’s about it for me on the academic front.’

He rummaged through the pockets of his suit jacket before producing two business cards to hand to Danie.

‘Barnard, Pienaar & McFall, St John’s Wood. We’re in what you might call general practice. I have a client in Cambridge I had to see this morning, so I thought this might be a good chance to drop by and see how you’re settling in – and, of course, to congratulate you on your fellowship: mustn’t forget that, must we?’

‘Thank you.’

‘I hear they’ve got you teaching Roman law,’ Pienaar continued. He laughed. ‘Well, they would, I suppose, wouldn’t they? Give Roman law to the South African. Nothing like being typecast, is there?’

Danie examined his visitor’s face, but the laughter had died away almost as soon as it had appeared, giving nothing away.

‘Mr Pienaar…’

‘Art, please.’

‘Art… I appreciate your interest; but it’s a rather busy day, so perhaps you could…’

‘Of course, Danie – I’ll call you Danie, if I may. I didn’t mean to intrude. It’s just that I feel… well, a sense of responsibility for new arrivals, so to speak. Presumptuous of me, I know, but I can’t help it. We exiles have to stick together, don’t we? If it helps, you can think of me as a community ambassador.’

‘A community ambassador?’

‘Yes. We may live in different parts of the country, but at the end of the day, we South Africans are a community, aren’t we? When one of us has a success – such as becoming a Fellow of one of Cambridge’s oldest colleges – we should all celebrate it. It reflects well on all of us, and you’ve done us proud – well, you’ve certainly traded up from WITS, haven’t you? It would be remiss of us not to congratulate you.’

‘You seem to know a lot about me,’ Danie observed.

Pienaar smiled. ‘Nothing I couldn’t find out in an hour at my local library. I keep my eyes and ears open, that’s all. It’s just a question of keeping up to date, getting to know who’s here with us.’

‘Really? So, what else do you know about me?’

‘I know this: if you’re a South African living in England and you’re not working for the government, you probably have a very good reason for being in England, and for not being in South Africa. You’re probably here because you have no choice, because you couldn’t go back to South Africa even if you wanted to – because you’ve done something to offend the powers that be, committed some crime in their eyes. My crime was getting too close to the ANC, the African National Congress, and helping them to perpetrate a bit of mischief here and there, some of which, admittedly, got a bit out of hand. What was yours?’

‘Falling in love with a Cape Coloured girl,’ Danie replied, after some time.

Pienaar nodded. ‘Now your wife, I understand; congratulations on that too, by the way. The only other thing I know about you is that you’re not on the Bureau’s radar yet – at least, I don’t think you are.’

‘What?’

‘If I may…?’ Pienaar reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a screwdriver. ‘I couldn’t find any evidence when I was last here, but there’s no harm in checking again, is there? They’re bound to catch on to you before too long. Don’t let it worry you. I can teach you how to do this for yourself. It’s not complicated: it’s just a matter of remembering to do it regularly.’

Danie pushed himself up, out of his chair.

‘When you were last here? What do you mean, when you were last here? Why…? What the hell is going on?’

Pienaar shook his head, and placed his right forefinger over his closed lips. Reluctantly, Danie choked back a further protest and watched in silence as his visitor dismantled his phone and lamp in turn, finding nothing, and reassembled them.

‘Do you have a tall ladder?’ Pienaar asked.

‘A ladder? No, I don’t have a ladder. Why…?’

‘I’ve got my eye on the chandelier. The audio quality wouldn’t be as good from up there, but they might think it would be more secure. They might think no one’s going to want to climb up there every other day, are they? It might be a good idea to have a tall ladder within easy reach, just in case. I’m sure the porters could oblige. Don’t tell them why, obviously.’

Danie shook his head. ‘All right, Mr Art Pienaar, or whoever you are, that’s enough of your games,’ he said firmly. ‘Either tell me what you want, or get out of my room and let me get on with my work.’

Pienaar nodded. ‘I need your help, Danie,’ he replied. ‘That’s why I’m here: to ask for your help.’

Danie stared at him for some time. ‘Help with what, for God’s sake? How can I help you? You said it yourself: I’m a newcomer. You’re the community ambassador, whatever that may mean.’

‘There are some things only newcomers can do,’ Pienaar replied. ‘I’ll be totally honest with you, Danie. BOSS, the Bureau for State Security, takes an interest in any South African living outside South Africa – don’t be under any illusions about that – especially when you have a track record like yours, or mine. The only good news is that their resources aren’t infinite: so they can’t keep track of everybody; they have to pick and choose. As things stand now, they will check on you and your wife from time to time, as resources permit; but it will be very low-key – you probably won’t be of any real interest to them. On the other hand, if you agree to help me, and they get any wind of it at all, that will change, big time. If that happens, you’ll have to be careful – very careful. I can’t speak more plainly than that. You’re free to say no of course, for any reason, or for no reason. But I’d appreciate the chance to make my pitch.’

Danie thought for some time, then slowly resumed his seat.

‘I’m listening.’

‘Danie, you’re a White man, married to a Coloured woman. You share a bed with her; you make love to her; you walk around Cambridge with her, holding her hand. You take her into a restaurant or a pub, and no one says you can’t come in because it’s for Whites only. And there are no police officers breaking your door down in the dead of night to arrest you for being in bed with your wife, to cart you off to jail and beat you half to death, and take her away to God only knows what hell-hole, where it will be open season on her for any of those thugs who want her. Danie, answer me this: don’t you want there to be a South Africa, one day, in which everyone has the same freedoms you and I enjoy in England?’

‘Yes, of course I do,’ Danie replied, quietly.

‘In that case,’ Pienaar said, ‘I need your help. Believe me, I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t need you.’

‘What exactly do you want from me?’ Danie asked.

8

Pienaar glanced up at the chandelier.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said. ‘Show me around the College.’

They emerged into the remains of the beautiful autumnal day, cooler now, the sun beginning to set, casting long shadows across the lawns, a breeze whispering in the ancient trees surrounding the quadrangle. The College was quiet at this hour of the afternoon, with only a handful of students in evidence.

‘I assume you keep up with the news,’ Pienaar said, ‘in which case you will know that the ANC has been hit very hard.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s been outlawed; its demonstrations broken up using lethal force; its leaders dead; or forced into exile, like Tambo in Lusaka; or serving long prison terms, like Mandela and Sisulu on Robben Island. Morale is at rock bottom. The ANC is broken. No one believes any more. To all intents and purposes, the ANC is finished.’

They turned left from the main quadrangle into a narrow passage leading to a smaller quadrangle, this, too, surrounded by ancient trees, a reproduction of the main quadrangle with smaller proportions. There was a bench on the quadrangle’s central lawn. Danie gestured towards the bench, and they sat down.

‘Two clients of mine,’ Pienaar continued, ‘are convinced that they can make people believe again, and they have started a campaign designed to make it happen.’

‘What kind of campaign?’ Danie asked.

‘I’m not going to tell you anything about them, except that they are white South Africans, legally in this country as graduate students, at a college whose student body has something of a reputation for supporting radical causes.’

Danie laughed. ‘Answers on a postcard,’ he replied. ‘Don’t worry. I have no interest in knowing who they are.’

‘It will be the same with you.’ Pienaar replied. ‘They won’t know who you are, or what you’re doing.’

‘Assuming I agree to help you.’

‘Assuming you agree to help me. That’s how I work. It’s important for you to understand that. Now, to answer your question as to what they do: they recruit white students from the aforementioned radical student body – mainly men, but one or two women as well – who are prepared to travel to South Africa, using their own British passports, in the guise of tourists; and who are also prepared to carry with them certain materials.’

‘Such as…?’

‘Such as leaflets for mass distribution – propaganda basically – to show the apartheid regime that the ANC is still a potent force, capable of operating both inside and outside South Africa. It’s designed to offer the black population some hope, and to create an element of doubt in the minds of the Afrikaner community about how long they will be able to sleep peacefully in their beds at night. Some of these materials are sent on through the post, carrying a postmark from Jo’burg, or Durban, or wherever, to show them that the ANC still has the capacity to operate within South Africa. Others are released into the street using a clever device invented by one of my clients, which operates rather like a tiny bomb, with a miniscule amount of explosive – not enough to hurt anyone, but enough to make a bit of a bang and scatter the leaflets far and wide. There’s a timer attached, so that whoever plants the device can give themselves time to escape.’ He laughed. ‘Believe it or not, there’s even a plastic snake you can place on top of the device to deter anyone who finds it before it detonates. On one level, it all seems a bit childish, but it’s having an effect. Those little explosions have attracted some attention. They’ve been covered in the press and on TV news throughout South Africa.’