As Spokes looked at the two manila envelopes lying side by side on his desk, he reminded himself that he had successfully solved 113 cases in his twenty years at the Western Commonage, and 38 cases before the move to the City of Kings. Justice had prevailed 151 times. The good fight had been good to him, and he had no right to ask more than it was willing to give. It was time.

He deliberately opened the envelope on his left first, removed the single sheet of paper it contained, and then placed it on top of the manila envelope before repeating the same actions with the other envelope. Two forms lay before him: the one on the left was an application to the 33rd Annual City of Kings’ Township Ballroom-Dancing Competition, and the one on the right was a BSAP Application for Retirement. Because he wanted his intentions to be clearly understood, Spokes took from his desk a new sheet of blue carbon paper and two pristine white sheets of bond paper. He placed the blue carbon paper under the ballroom-dancing competition’s application form first and then placed one sheet of white bond paper underneath it. In this way, he went about the business of filling in both forms.

Both documents required almost the same information:

Prefix – Mr; Surname – Moloi;

Christian Name – Spokes; Middle Initial – M;

Date of Birth – 30 August 1923;

Current Date – 20 December 1979; and

Signature – his two initials and his surname written in a dignified and controlled cursive that was both decipherable and decorative, and which the missionaries who had educated him had taken great pains to inculcate, believing as they did that good penmanship was an outward sign of good character.

The difference between the two forms was that the one on the left wanted information pertaining to his ballroom dancing experience:

Number of Previous Competitions – 10;

Number of Placements – 5;

Year of Competition and Position Held: 1969 – Honourable Mention; 1971 – 4th Place; 1973 – 3rd Place; 1977 – 2nd Place; 1978 – 2nd Place;

Professional or Amateur Category – Amateur.

The form on the left wanted information pertaining to his career as a police officer:

Division – CID;

Current Rank – Chief Inspector;

Years in Position – 1;

Years in BSAP – 32;

Other Ranks Previously Held – Constable, Sergeant, Senior Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Sub Inspector.

Now that both forms had been completed in duplicate, Spokes was rather amazed at the ease with which it had all been done. Even though he and his wife had promised each other that after their twenty-fifth anniversary they would retire to the ten acres in Krum’s Place they had painstakingly saved for and had only been allowed to purchase legally in 1976, Spokes had found it difficult to actually act on the promise and had procrastinated in applying for his retirement for the past year.

His wife had been understanding while the prospect of his becoming the first black chief inspector loomed – so understanding that she had allowed them to forfeit the year’s Annual City of Kings’ Township Ballroom-Dancing Competition – even though it was strongly felt that 1979 was their year to win the title. But now that Spokes had achieved the particular distinction of his promotion, she felt that they should happily retire, as agreed, and had recently filed her application for retirement from the Midwifery Unit at Mpilo Hospital.