Free A Sailor's Honour by Chris Marnewick Page A

reasoning. His was a world where the cold power of reason and a compelling argument based on the facts, the law and logic always prevailed and was designed to achieve justice, to restore the equilibrium and balance the scales again. That was, after all, the whole idea of justice: to restore the equilibrium which existed before the transgression which disturbed it.
    But how do you reason with people who kidnap women and children, the devil on his shoulder demanded, people who won’t even tell you why?
    His subconscious made the decision for him. He would take the law into his own hands, but stop short of killing. The police were useless, in any event. After the mandatory 48-hour wait, they had sent a barely literate constable to his chambers to take a statement from him. Then nothing. When Weber complained that the police were not taking the matter seriously enough, the station commander was unsympathetic. ‘Who do you think you are? We have more serious crimes to investigate.’ It didn’t help when Weber retorted, ‘Like the corruption in your station?’
    So Johann Weber decided to go outside the usual legal channels.
    There were several advocates in the building who had once been magistrates. They now held a virtual monopoly on the paid criminal briefs. Their clients were the very same criminals they had once sent to jail with regular monotony. Jail, after all, was what magistrates dispensed, and jail, everyone knew, was an occupational risk to the career criminal. These advocates had as their clients those to whom crime was more than a way of life; it was a business, to be conducted on the basis of the strict application of business principles, in which the degree of profit is always commensurate with the risks to be taken. Hijacking syndicates exporting luxury cars to neighbouring countries – several Zimbabwean ministers of state drove some of these – cash-in-transit robbers, Ponzi schemers, VAT frauds. Criminals with money to pay for their defence when they were caught. Money mostly taken from their victims. But Weber wasn’t interested in the white-collar criminals. He needed serious muscle, men who were not afraid to shoot or be shot at.
    â€˜I need help,’ Weber announced after walking into Steph van Onselen’s chambers without knocking and making a show of closing the door behind him.
    Van Onselen practised in a small room with no books six floors below Weber’s own chambers. The room was untidy and there was a stack of briefs on the windowsill. Suspended for misconduct for a year, Van Onselen had only recently returned to practice. He was a man who was not overly respectful of the law or the rules of the society of advocates. In court he bullied witnesses and bamboozled magistrates and prosecutors.
    Van Onselen stood up and extended his hand. He stood a head taller than Weber and his handshake was of the crushing variety. Everything about him shouted loudly: his size, his bearing, his voice and tone, even the colour of his tie and the garish pictures on his walls. Not for Van Onselen the black-and-white photographs of dead chief justices, or the faded caricatures of French courtroom scenes. The man was loud and spoke loudly.
    â€˜I owe you one,’ he said in a voice that could be heard in his reception twenty metres away. ‘A big one and I have not forgotten.’ When he had been in trouble before the Bar Council’s ethics committee, Weber had defended him on a pro amico basis – on behalf of a friend. He had still got the year’s suspension, but the general view amongst the advocates was that, without senior counsel standing up in his defence, Van Onselen might well have been struck of the roll.
    Weber didn’t waste time. ‘I need to be put in contact with a cash-in-transit robber,’ he said. ‘A good one.’
    Van Onselen raised his eyebrows.
    â€˜Don’t even ask,’ Weber cautioned. ‘You don’t want to