PART ONE

Marion Sparg

Hillbrow, Johannesburg. 7 March 1986. Marion was bent over the bath in her flat, washing clothes, pondering her next move. She had just returned from a trip to the shops. She had been followed; she knew that. Normally – and this was normal in her world – you would be followed for days or weeks, sometimes even months.

So, then, she had time to move. She could disappear back over the border as quickly as she had come: a white girl with a rucksack.

Only this time it would be lighter. Because the limpet mines were gone.

Then it came. A knock; no one had ever knocked at her door before.

She approached cautiously and pulled the blue curtain across its wire rods. A woman stood there. She was nervous; she looked to her side.

Now Marion knew what was coming. She backed slowly away from the door.

Then, as what followed began to happen, seemingly in slow motion, she was back in Maseru with her commander.

I want a gun for this job. I want a gun.

No. I will not give you a gun. If I give you one, you'll use it. And if you use it, you'll end up dead.

I want a gun.

There will be more of them than you. And if you use the gun, they'll kill you. You might kill one of them, but they will kill you. Marion, trust me here. You can't take a gun.

Now there were at least five policemen in the room and she was on the floor. She hadn't opened the door; it was hanging off its hinges. And they were shouting, jostling her, screaming obscenities.

And then she was angry. Not afraid – angry.

'I was furious,' Marion tells me. 'Furious because there was nothing I could do. There were security policemen all over me with two pistols on either side of my head. A dangerous situation. A situation in which it is best to remain calm if you want to come out alive. But I was too angry and so the shouting match continued. And then I remember the lieutenant in charge, who had remained outside, walked in and said, "Stop shouting, everybody!"'

She laughs. 'It was a bit crazy. But that anger was so real and so unexpected. It came from nowhere.

'I had now been handcuffed and seated on the bed. The lieutenant who had come in and calmed the situation down sat down next to me. He gave me some piece of paper where he was described as an officer of the peace.

'I saw these words and lost it again. I screamed at him. I remember this poor guy looking at me like he was thinking, Have I met a lunatic here? And he said, "What has made you so angry?" And I said, "How can you describe yourself as an officer of the peace?"'

It was a situation that Marion would meet again and again: the sheer farcical nature of exchanges with the law. South Africa under apartheid had an Orwellian air. There may not have been a Ministry of Truth, but the 'Ministry of Co-operation and Development' ran the apartheid system, which was itself called 'separate development'. Then there was the 'Ministry of Justice' – applying laws that countered human rights. The 'Immorality Act' that rendered any sex act across the racial divide an imprisoning offenc