The Top Prisoner of C-Max by Wessel Ebersohn Page A

not heard about Dlomo’s assault on Hall earlier that morning. So when a warder brought him in and directed him to the waiting chair, Hall’s bandages and neck brace were a surprise. Yudel rose more quickly than he would have chosen. ‘What the hell have you been up to?’
    ‘Please don’t do that, Mr Gordon.’ Hall’s elegant voice was a painful croak now. ‘Don’t use this as a device against me. I was the victim of a brutal attack and I was saved by one of your excellent staff members. If he hadn’t come, I should certainly have been dead by now.’
    ‘Who did it?’
    ‘I made my statement and explained everything at that time.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Your friend, Mr Dlomo.’
    Yudel did not believe that Hall thought of Dlomo as his friend, but it gave him a weapon in his dealing with Yudel, if only a feeble one. Yudel had no doubt as to Dlomo’s capacity for violence, but he suspected there would be more to the incident than Hall’s version of it. He had seen too many such incidents to be disturbed by any of them. It was Beloved’s interest in this man he found disturbing. She had not explained her interest, at least not in a way that Yudel found believable.
    ‘I’ll look into the matter of your disagreement with Elia Dlomo,’ Yudel said. ‘In the meantime, my colleague, Miss Childe, would like to ask you a few questions. Of course, you don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to.’
    Hall smiled at Beloved. ‘I haven’t been introduced to Miss Childe,’ he croaked. The snorting sound rumbled gently as he spoke. ‘Please forgive my voice, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It’s my adenoids. I’ve had the condition since childhood.’
    ‘Beloved Childe,’ Beloved said, holding out a hand to Hall.
    Hall glanced at the warder who was just inside the door. ‘No physical contact with the inmate,’ the warder said. Beloved withdrew her hand.
    ‘After tomorrow we can shake hands,’ Hall said, glancing at Yudel as he spoke. The look said, Yes, Gordon, tomorrow I can touch her and do anything else I want with her and you will not be able to do anything about it. ‘Is it in order if I call you Beloved, miss?’ He was doing his best to be the gallant gentleman.
    ‘I don’t think—’ Yudel started.
    ‘Of course,’ Beloved said, ‘and may I call you Oliver?’
    ‘Yes, Beloved.’ Again, the triumphant glance was directed at Yudel. So how am I doing with this chick, Gordon? it said.
    ‘Oliver.’ Beloved was looking at him in that direct way she had, but without any of the affected modesty and flirtatiousness Yudel had come to associate with her. ‘I want to tell you that the sound you make adds character to your voice. Is it the result of an injury?’
    ‘No. I’m told it’s genetic.’
    She nodded, her eyes never leaving his face. ‘You were a soldier of the army of liberation, yet you turned to crime although the country is now democratic. I don’t understand why.’
    Hall was waiting for the question. Yudel knew that Hall’s entire life was made up of an alertness that never left him. Every man, warder or prisoner, was a possible attacker or a prospective victim. Every woman he had contact with, and there were few of those these days, was an opportunity that could be exploited. ‘Beloved, people from your country don’t understand what it was like for people like me under the oppression of the apartheid system. We were nothing. The authorities did with us what they chose. I was not a man to them, I was a thing to be manipulated as they thought fit.’
    And since the end of apartheid, Yudel thought, what about your activities since then?
    ‘I made mistakes, but I made honest mistakes. I’m not an evil man.’
    Yudel had the photographs of what remained of the Du Toit family after Hall had finished with them and decided to show them to Beloved when this was over.
    But she had seen the weakness in his protestations. ‘Some of your crimes were committed after 1994 though.’
    ‘They tell you