Keppelberg Read Free Page A

station and unlocked a cell door holding it open for me to enter. I did not resist and watched him locked the door behind me before his footsteps faded away into the distance. I was absolutely furious at the ill-favoured treatment and I would insist on an inquiry and make them pay for their deed. How was it possible to get into such a mess in a law-abiding country? I looked around the cell... it was hardly worth the effort. It was dank and dismal, six feet by four. It had an open window in which had been set three stout steel bars and I noticed that the dampness was rapidly eroding the outside wall. There was a bed of a straw mattress which had seen far better days, an ordinary wooden chair and a bucket which smelled of urine. It was very reminiscent of the prison in which Arab suspects were held in the vicinity of Basra before being interrogated. How long I would remain in this hell-hole was anyone’s guess. The village seemed to be remote from the rest of the world and I didn’t recall seeing a telephone on the front desk. The local police here seemed to be able to decide on the punishment to be meted out to any individual without recourse to the law. Not even the army would go to such desperate measures and they would not be tolerated in Iraq for fear of exposure to the rest of the world or subsequent resentment and reaction.
    I became annoyed at intervals during the day when food was brought. It was sparse and barely edible. Then, after a very uncomfortable night on the flea-ridden mattress, the Desk Sergeant came to see me.
    â€˜Are you prepared to leave the village and never return?’ he asked as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
    â€˜I’m going to bring the law down on your head!’ I shouted angrily. ‘You’re going to pay for this in no uncertain terms!’
    â€˜I asked you a simple question,’ he went on solemnly as though I hadn’t replied.
    â€˜I’ll leave here when I feel like it!’ I reacted irately. ‘But first I’m going to the national Press and the television networks to tell them of your illegal actions. That should open up this village to a few strangers. You’ll feel the weight of the nation’s might on your shoulders... you wait and see!’
    â€˜Then I have no option but to hold you in this cell for another twenty-four hours to see whether you change your mind,’ he told me calmly.
    â€˜You’re in deep trouble. I hope you know that,’ I continued fiercely with every fibre shaking in my body at the injustice.
    â€˜If you insist on causing trouble,’ went on the Desk Sergeant, ‘we could make you disappear. No one would ever know you’d been here.’
    His comment sent a chill running down my spine. It was a threat I should have foreseen. They could kill me and bury me in a place where no one would find my body. I was puzzled as to the reason why they should ever want to go that far. What was so special... so secret... about this remote village in the northern part of Britain that they were so willing to go to such lengths? However, I knew that if I didn’t conform, my life could be in serious danger. It was time to pull in my horns.
    â€˜I’ll do a deal with you,’ I told him thoughtfully. ‘Give me twenty-four hours to look around this place and then I’ll leave. We’ll forget the false arrest.’
    â€˜Why would you want to stay here for a whole day?’ asked the Desk Sergeant puzzled at the request.
    â€˜I’ve just been demobbed from the army,’ I explained quietly. ‘I want to find a place to live. My sister lives at Bishopstown, I’d like to live near here’
    â€˜Well you can’t!’ he expounded curtly. ‘We already have one thousand one hundred people. That’s enough as far as we’re concerned.’
    â€˜How is it there’s only that number exactly?’ I asked him.
    â€˜I’m not here to answer