The Top Prisoner of C-Max by Wessel Ebersohn

rehabilitation, your programme in this prison.’
    No, Yudel thought, that’s not what you want. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not that. For the first time, he believed that Beloved was not telling him the whole truth. The realisation was a shock. He had not expected anything but simplicity from her.
    Again she used her smile on Yudel. ‘The important thing is that I want to learn everything I can in the little time that I have.’
    ‘Little time?’
    ‘Very little,’ she said. ‘What is the first thing I should know about rehabilitation?’
    ‘You already know that it has to come from within the prisoner.’
    ‘You taught me that, through your papers.’
    ‘Then you should also know that prison is just about the least suitable place for effecting a behaviour change in any human being.’
    ‘And yet that is what you do.’
    ‘Because there is no alternative.’
    ‘The relationships in prison and the effect they have fascinate me. I can see so little difference between warder and prisoner.’
    And now he knew that she was just talking for effect. ‘Explain that to me.’
    ‘Is there really a difference between the road and the traveller, the singer and the song, the desire and the deed or the warder and the prisoner? I’m not sure there is a difference. They are all one.’
    Beloved’s hands were on the table in front of her. Yudel found that he had leaned forward and taken one of them in his. She made no effort to withdraw it. ‘Listen, kid,’ he said. ‘That kind of philosophy-babble doesn’t work with me. The difference between warder and prisoner is that one is part of society and the other is in rebellion against it. One serves the greater good and the other seeks to destroy it. One goes home at night to his spouse and the other stays here, suffering the agony of freedom denied. They are not the same in any way.’ He released her hand and slowly sat back in his chair.
    Beloved was smiling. The longer his little speech had continued, the broader, yet shyer, the smile had become. ‘I love it when a man is passionate about the things he believes in.’
    She’s doing it to me again, he thought. Perhaps he could find relief in a change of subject. ‘You also expressed interest in a prisoner by the name of Oliver Hall.’
    ‘Riveting case, I thought, when I read about it, a freedom fighter who went bad.’
    ‘He never was a freedom fighter,’ Yudel said. ‘As far as I can see, he was expelled within a few months of joining the liberation movement.’
    ‘But the authorities are paroling him on political grounds.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Some view him as a serial killer, but most serial killers murder women, to exercise power over the victim. There’s usually a strong sex element.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But Hall’s not like that.’
    ‘There may be a sex element, but his victims seem to have been both men and women.’
    ‘Seem to have been?’
    Yudel was aware that Beloved was looking searchingly at him. This time there was no coquetry, no artificial shyness. ‘He hasn’t been found guilty of them all. In fact, the police do not have enough information to investigate everything he’s suspected of.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘You know?’
    It took Beloved a moment to recover. When she did, it was with one of her usual devices. She allowed a lock of hair to tumble over her eyes, then she tossed her head to remove it and smiled at Yudel. By the time the exercise was complete, he hardly remembered his question. ‘He really is a fascinating case,’ Beloved said. ‘After today, I may never get the chance to interview him. Please let me.’
    Beloved was not accustomed to having her wishes refused by men and Yudel was no more resistant to her than other men had ever been. By the time Oliver Hall was brought in, Yudel had moved his chair to Beloved’s side of the table, ready to be her protector, should that be necessary. He was aware that the role of protector was not one that suited him well.
    Yudel had