The man was standing in a doorway to the rear bedroom; noiselessly he backed away. Alert that the room might contain a weapon, Templeman drew his truncheon, but was acutely aware of the inadequacy of the oak and steel rod.
“Stay where you are!”
“Please man…”
“I said go no further!” he shouted, as his body tautened in anticipation of a violent struggle.
The man raised his arms but took another step backward, as he did so he stumbled over a suitcase that was on the floor and fell heavily, emitting a groan. He rolled over and crawled to a soiled mattress. Templeman’s eyes scanned the room in a series of penetrating glances, urgently looking for an accomplice, for a weapon, for a trap. There was nothing. The bedroom’s furniture was scant; it comprised a wardrobe with a broken door and an armchair covered in cloth of an ancient tartan pattern. On the floor a few personal items were strewn in a haphazard pile. As his heart rate fell from racing to elevated, Templeman hazarded a step forward.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Are you going to arrest me?” said the man, sitting upright on the mattress.
“That wasn’t my question. Who are you?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, the man looked as if the information once released would condemn him.
“Anand Kalyan,” he said, a note of despair in his thin voice.
“What are you doing in this flat?”
“It’s safe place.”
“Safe place? Is someone looking for you?”
Kalyan averted his eyes, and lowered his head into his hands, his fingertips almost meeting on the crown of his head.
“If you don’t answer my questions…”, Templeman said, a note of annoyance and threat rising in his throat.
“You’ll what?!” Kalyan shot back, raising his face to show bloodshot eyes. “Will you beat me like the BOSS?!”
“No one is being beaten. Who is the boss? Is he your employer?”
“No. The Bureau of State Security. They are South African police.”
“This is England. We don’t have South African police.”
“That’s what you think.”
As Kalyan said this, Templeman made a connection between the BOSS, and the tall, blond man who had been observed calling at the house the previous day. The Service had made no reference to the involvement of any foreign police or intelligence agencies – apart from the Czechs. It was known that BOSS agents were active in London, but Templeman had not encountered any. Exiled South Africans, fleeing from the apartheid regime, had come to London: the BOSS agents watched them, on the grounds that they were domestic terrorists; the UK government tolerated both exiles and South African police.
“What are you doing in London?”
“I am a student, at the London School of Economics.”
“Why does BOSS have an interest in you?”
Kalyan looked up, for a moment disbelieving that this man would ask such a stupid question.
“I’m active in student politics,” Kalyan said.
“And in South Africa?”
“I was active in student politics.”
“I need to see some identification.”
“Are you a policeman?”
“Yes. Special Branch. Can you prove you are who you say?”
Kalyan reached inside his coat, and from a large pocket, produced a small worn bundle of papers held together by an elastic band. He opened it and extracted a passport, a cardboard student’s pass and a library card issued by the London Borough of Fulham. He handed them to Templeman, who slipped his truncheon into the concealed pocket in his trousers and examined the documents. The passport had been issued in Pretoria, the previous May. Most of the writing was in Afrikaans; below a photograph of Kalyan the words ‘Kleuringe / Coloured’ appeared in anonymous modern blank type. The passport had been stamped at Heathrow; there were no exit stamps.
“What was your purpose in coming to this country?” Templeman asked.
“To study.”
“And agitate against your government?”
“We want a better country, we don’t want to be herded into townships or shot by police for straying into white neighbourhoods.”
“You could have studied in South Africa.”
Kalyan emitted a short, brittle, laugh.
“Not after Sharpeville,” he said.
He glanced up at Templeman, with the dejected look of a captive, but his eyes glowered.
Templeman turned to the library card, which contained on its inner fold, written in blue ink in a bold hand by an anonymous librarian, Kalyan’s name and an address, close to the new M4 motorway in Hammersmith.
“You’re some way from home.”
“Not safe there.”
“Why?”
“BOSS is looking for me.”
“What would they do if they found you?”
“They wouldn’t have to DO anything Mr. Policeman, they know where my family lives! It’s a warning. ‘We’re watching you! We can get to you! Don’t do anything gam! Or we’ll beat up your mamma, gam! And arrest your pa and throw him from a second-floor window in the police office! You hear me, gam! And when you get back to South Africa, we’ll be waiting for you!’”
Copyright © David Alexander 2025