Now with all privileges returned, Rodriguez had his daily 90-minutes back on the prison radio, alternating between a 7 a.m. and a 6 p.m. slot with another prisoner, Tyrone Sommer — or Tired-Drone Insomnia, as he’d been nicknamed — an ex-part-time DJ from a small station in Shreveport who played far too much country music for the inmates’ liking. Sad and lamenting at the best of times — the crops have all failed, my wife’s done left me and my dog just died — it was noticed that the prison suicide rate was far higher during and just after Sommer’s slots.
Rodriguez’ sessions were decidedly more upbeat: Latin, reggae, calypso, rock, latin-jazz, with Carlos Santana his all-time favourite. But over sixty per cent of their respective programmes and playlists were controlled by Haveling: prison activity announcements for the day and evening — which had been the original purpose of setting up the radio slots — followed by ‘uplifting’ religious music, then, interspersed with their own playlist choices, Haveling’s favourite music: swing, songs from musicals and Bacharach.
Within Rodriguez’ and Sommer’s respective playlist choices, Haveling also wielded a heavy guiding hand: no heavy rock, nothing too aggressive and rousing, which left only Santana’s lighter instrumental tracks; and nothing which might have sexual, violent or drugs connotations — which discounted most of the rest of rock music.
With swing, songs from musicals and Bacharach, Rodriguez had a far freer hand — yet even there Haveling had presented them with a list of preferred tunes he wanted playing X-number of times a week, of which Sinatra’s ‘Come Fly With Me’ was one. And when Rodriguez had studied the list in more detail one day — ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, ‘Girl from Ipanema’, ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’, ‘Bali Hai’, ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose’, ‘Beyond the Sea’ (Darren’s ‘Mack the Knife’ was banned) — he couldn’t help noticing that many of them had overt themes of freedom or far-away places, places that most of the Libreville inmates would never get to see.
Perhaps they were indeed Haveling’s favourite tunes, or perhaps he was slyly rubbing salt in the wounds of their incarceration; like most things with Haveling, you never knew. But you stepped outside of Haveling’s recommended playlist at your peril.
‘He even stopped me playin’ “MoonRiver” for fuck’s sake,’ Rodriguez once complained to Larry. ‘Thought the line “I’ll be crossing you in style tonight” might give people the idea of escapin’ across the river.’
It was great to have all privileges back, but now that he and Larry were again in general circulation, the risks from Tally and his crew were far greater. The initial guarded, warning looks had now become icy and openly hostile, as if saying, ‘You got lucky a couple of times. But that ain’t gonna be the case for much longer.’ On one occasion, Tally had even tapped his watch to make the message clear. Tally had been thwarted, made to look a fool, and that was something Rodriguez could barely remember happening before, let alone twice. Libreville’s corridors and shower rooms — or even open areas with the right distraction, like the canteen or TV room — were going to be far more dangerous places from here on in. He and Larry were going to have to be extra-vigilant watching their backs.
Rodriguez leant forward to the mike as Sinatra came to an end.
‘And that’s Ol’ Blue Eyes there, croonin’ about places that’ll be all too familiar to all you well-heeled jet-setters here at Libreville. Just lay back on your bunk and fly, fly away. But now it’s time for a touch of my main man, Carlos Santana.’ Rodriguez reached for the record and cued it. ‘Samba… Pa… ti. Played today for a very special lady. And not to be confused with Samba Party, a Swedish film which was tradin’ at some high prices a few months back.’
As risque as Rodriguez dared get, he sat back and closed his eyes, letting the softly soaring guitar and mellow background bongo suffuse through him. He was ten days late playing the tune, but then he’d been in the infirmary at the time. Better late than never, he thought, wiping a gentle tear from the corner of one eye.
While Carlos Santana’s guitar sailed and cried through the concrete caverns of Libreville prison, Larry Durrant sat up on his bed.
He knew what the tune meant to Rodriguez. He’d played it at his mother’s funeral — along with her own favourite, ‘Besame Mucho’ — four years ago now, late fall, not far from this date, and every year since on the same day. Rodriguez had also played the tune various other times over the prison radio, but with the mention of ‘for a very special lady’, Larry knew that today was significant.
Rodriguez had taken his mother’s death hard. Coming just fifteen months after his incarceration, he’d partly blamed himself. Larry could imagine Rodriguez in the radio room now, tears streaming silently down his cheeks. Then, as soon as it finished playing, he’d be back to his lively, bubbly self again, lifting everyone’s spirits, if not his own.
Larry wondered what Francine and Josh would play at his own funeraclass="underline" Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s going on’, Sly Stone’s ‘Family Affair’? Both songs a decade ahead of his teens, and so long past now, he doubted that Franny even remembered his favourite tunes any more.
Although he had no idea what Josh’s tastes in music were either — maybe something he could broach in future e-mails. But the thought had already mugged him deep inside without warning, too long apart, and a single tear rolled down one cheek at the lost years.
Nobody rushing to work that morning paid much attention to the man in a lightweight grey suit entering the car park on St Charles Street and exiting ten minutes later. He appeared just one of many hurrying to work having parked their cars.
Except the man didn’t head towards an office, he went fifty yards along the street to the nearest kiosk to make a call.
‘It’s all done.’
‘Great. And what’s the best point?’
‘Eight to eleven miles in. But I wouldn’t leave it beyond that.’
‘Okay, got it. Eight to eleven.’ Nel-M clicked off and dialled straight out again.
With another anxious check of his watch, Jac started reading through draft five — six? he’d lost count — of Durrant’s clemency plea. Please, no more changes. No time! And Coultaine’s support letter, which had arrived forty minutes earlier by messenger, he’d managed to give only a light skim, though the postscript had leapt out at him:
Thought you might find the enclosed of interest, found it amongst my old papers. It’ll save you asking Truelle for a copy. Remember, everything started with this.
Jac twirled the cassette tape briefly in one hand before bringing his attention back to Durrant’s plea on his computer screen, but found his eyes drifting back to the tape at intervals.
Finally, the distraction too much, halfway through reading what he hoped was the final, definitive version, he leapt up, grabbed a cassette player from a nearby shelf, slotted it in, and resumed reading again as soon as he pressed play.
‘Session fourteen. Seventeenth of August, Nineteen-ninety-two. Subject: Lawrence Tyler Durrant…’
One of Truelle’s sessions with Durrant. There was a minute’s preamble, settling Durrant down before Truelle hit any real topic: Durrant’s heavy drinking the night of the accident.
‘You mentioned feeling guilty about that. Was that because of what resulted — the accident — or the drinking itself?’
‘Mainly the drinking… because I’d promised Franny, yer know, to stop.’
‘And do you remember drinking other times after you’d promised to stop, or was it just this one time?’
‘There were a fair few other times I recall — all around that same time. I was goin’ through a real bad cycle, man… didn’t know what I was doing half the time.’