22

MY TRIAL BEGINS

On the day that my trial was scheduled to begin, I lay in bed all morning, watching Laura on TV. But not even that could make me happy. I didn’t bother turning on the light, and I couldn’t bring myself to get up and eat breakfast or lunch. My stomach was in knots.

Finally, I rose and began preparing for my court appearance. I took special care to look well dressed. I was ready when the announcement about my court appearance came over the tinny prison loudspeaker system.

‘Thomas McFadden to the puerta principal.’

I left my room and walked quickly towards the main courtyard.

‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t San Pedro’s international loverboy,’ said a familiar voice as I passed through the Pinos gateway. I turned around and gave a cry of surprise. It was Ricardo. In my misery, I had completely forgotten about him.

‘Hey, man!’

‘Why do you look so surprised to see me, Inglaterra? Don’t you recognise me?’ He had obviously heard my name called and had been waiting for me.

‘Hey, man! Ricardo.’

‘Yes, I’m Ricardo,’ he said, taking my hand and shaking it as we walked along.

‘Pleased to meet you again. I’m glad you remembered my name at least.’ I’d also forgotten how funny he was.

‘Hey, man! Where have you been?’ I asked.

‘What do you mean, where have I been? Where do you think I’ve been? Did you think I sold my house and moved suburbs or something?’

Ricardo accompanied me to the main gates where I lined up with the other inmates on the transport list. The police marked our names off, and we then filed out into the street and onto the green police bus to be driven across town to the court.

‘Good luck, inglés!’ he called to me before they closed the doors.

There were about ten of us on the bus, with two guards. They didn’t bother handcuffing us. San Pedro was for minimum-security prisoners, and the only time we would be out in the open was when we were getting on and off the bus, when there were plenty of police around. (Later on, they did handcuff us, but that was only after an accomplice had handed one of the inmates a gun in the courthouse and he’d shot three policemen before escaping on foot.)

When we arrived at the court building, I saw my lawyers waiting for me at the entrance. They welcomed me with smiles and handshakes and then introduced me to a female colleague, who kissed me on the cheek.

‘Hello, Thomas,’ she said. ‘How was your ride?’

The policeman assigned to guard me stood aside, waiting to take me to the holding cells.

‘Don’t worry, Thomas. Leave everything to us,’ my lawyers assured me. ‘We’ll see you in there.’

I had been in those same court holding cells on my way to the prison from the FELCN eleven months previously. I wasn’t in the same cell as then, but it was almost identical – plain walls, no furniture, one small window high up, and an observation hatch in the door for the guards to look through. It didn’t seem as horrible as I remembered. I had been through a lot since then.

To me, eleven months was a very long time to have to wait for my first court appearance. However, by Bolivian standards, it was considered speedy. My lawyers said this was a good sign: it meant the money we had sent to the judge was working. There were inmates who had been in San Pedro for six years without a trial, they said. But I didn’t know whether to believe my lawyers, since originally they had said that my case wouldn’t need to go to trial at all.

The courtroom was very simple, like an old-fashioned classroom. There was nothing modern, such as cameras or microphones. All the furniture was wooden. The prosecutor, known as the fiscal, sat on one side of the room and the judge’s desk was up the front, in front of a Bolivian flag hanging on the wall. Everyone else, including my lawyers and I, sat in the middle of the room on uncomfortable chairs that made a terrible noise when you moved them. For my first appearance, there weren’t enough chairs, so the police had to go out and borrow some from other courtrooms.

When I first saw the judge coming in, I was hopeful.

‘Please stand,’ called one of the court officials. Everyone bowed as the judge took his seat. He had a nice face. It looked like the face of someone who had children. I know that doesn’t sound important, but when it’s your trial, the judge’s face is something you notice.

The proceedings began very slowly. Everything that was said had to be typed using an old-fashioned typewriter. The typist was fast, but it was impossible for him to keep up with everyone, especially when they all talked at once. Often he had to interrupt in order to get people to repeat what they had just said. On top of that, whenever anyone spoke, they had to wait for my interpreter to make the translation into English.

I watched the judge closely. I found it hard to believe that this man had received fifteen thousand dollars from my lawyers and was now sitting there, pretending he hadn’t. At first, this made me feel confident; I thought he was a good actor. However, he kept his performance up for so long that I began to doubt whether he was corrupt at all.

In the whole time I was there, the judge looked at me only once, when the prosecutor said my name and pointed to me. When the judge’s eyes met mine, his expression was completely blank and there was no hint of softness in his face. I began to wonder whether the two bribes had reached him. By the end of the afternoon, I was convinced that they hadn’t.

No significant developments occurred during that first hearing. I had been hoping that the judge would dismiss the charges immediately, but it had become obvious that this was not his intention. Reaching a finding of inocente was going to take longer than expected. My second court appearance was scheduled for three weeks later.

‘How did it go?’ asked Ricardo, when I arrived back at San Pedro. He had been waiting for me at the gates.

‘I don’t know. It’s hard to say.’

‘Apparently he’s a good judge,’ Ricardo said, rubbing his fingers together. ‘Very fair. So, you’re lucky, inglés. You might be out of here before you know it.’

‘How long, do you think?’

‘What are you asking me for? I’m not a lawyer.’

‘Come on! Let’s go and have a chat in my room,’ I suggested, not wanting to think about it anymore.

‘Ahhh, so you want your old friend back. Didn’t have time for me when the girly was around, hey?’ said Ricardo. ‘But now she’s gone …’

‘I’ll cook you something.’

‘I’d love to, Thomas, but I can’t. I’m sorry, I’m busy.’ He tapped his watch. ‘Gotta fly. I’ve got a hot date tonight. You know how it is.’

‘Come on! We’ll smoke some ganja. I’ll pay.’

‘You’ll pay, hey? So, she’s rich too and giving you money!’ He put his arm around me and we walked up the stairs towards my room. ‘You must be San Pedro’s only toyboy.’

Ricardo kept making jokes about what a bad friend I was, but I could tell that he was actually a little hurt that I had forgotten him when Yasheeda was around. I knew that he wouldn’t stay mad at me for long, though, and after the first joint he stopped teasing me. Just like old times, we were stoned and watching the ATB news, when Ricardo suddenly jumped out of his chair. ‘Look! There’s that politician. They caught him again!’ It was Gabriel Sanchez, the director of the workers’ pension fund who had stolen forty million dollars. The reporter said that there had been an anonymous tip-off that he was hiding out in Mar de Plata in Argentina. They brought him in by plane under armed guard. The picture showed him at El Alto Airport, handcuffed and surrounded by police, about to be transported somewhere. But you could hardly recognise him because he’d had plastic surgery.

Hundreds of the workers who had been cheated out of their retirement money were protesting with their families. Some of the women were crying. The police had formed a ring around Sanchez, but they weren’t trying very hard to protect him. Sanchez didn’t try to shield himself, either. In the short time it took to bundle him into a vehicle, the protesters spat on him and threw things at him and one guy got past the guards and landed a big punch. The angry mob continued to kick and bang the car until it sped off. The reporter then started interviewing some of the people in the crowd.

‘Can you believe that guy?’ yelled Ricardo, pointing at the television and banging his fist on the table. ‘When he goes to prison, he’s not going to last the first night. They’ll kill him. Just like they did those rapists.’

‘He’s not going to prison, man. He’s got money. It’s all a show trial. Money buys you a lot of friends.’

‘But he has to go to prison,’ argued Ricardo. ‘He’s already escaped once, so now the whole country is watching. There will be riots if he doesn’t go to prison, at least for a little while until things calm down.’

I disagreed. ‘No way, man. Where’s the forty million dollars he stole? They haven’t found any of it. I say that while he’s still got the money, he can pay his way out.’

‘I still say he’s going to prison.’

‘How much will we bet, then?’ I asked, holding out my hand.

‘Forty million.’

‘OK.’ We shook hands.

‘Wait!’ I said, not letting his hand go. ‘Dollars or bolivianos?’

‘Hey, inglés. You know this is a Bolivian jail,’ Ricardo laughed. ‘Everything is in dollars, remember?’