A Shadow of Myself

HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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This edition 2001

First published in Great Britain by Collins Crime 2000

Copyright © Mike Phillips 2000

Mike Phillips asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006511977

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007400362 Version: 2016-01-04

For Jenny, Kip and Kwesi

In memory of Ronald Ivor Phillips

With gratitude to the Arts Foundation for its support and to John Akomfrah, and David Upshal for the vital sparks,

and with heartfelt thanks to Tereza Brdeckova, Trevor Carter, Grigory Chartishvili, Daria Chrin, Sacha Dugdale, William Elliott, Masha Gessen, Henri Jansova, Maria Kozlovskaya, Yelena Krishtof, Julia Latynina, Milada Novakova, Martina Moravcová, Kevin O’Flynn, Sergeant Stiina Rajala, as well as all the others who so generously contributed their memories and experiences … and last but not least, Radka, for lending me her name.

Then I told him to let me go away from their church and I do not want to marry again, because I could not bear to be baptised with fire and hot water any longer, but when all of them heard so, they shouted, ‘Since you have entered this church you are to be baptised with fire and hot water before you will get out of the church, willing or not you ought to wait and complete the baptism.’ But when I heard so from them again, I exclaimed with a terrible voice that, ‘I will die in their church.’ So all of them exclaimed again that, ‘You may die if you like, nobody knows you here.’

AMOS TUTUOLA – My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

The whole people in the village saw us but as we were strange to them although they recognised us, they gathered together and were following us with wonder. They were also shouting on us as they were following us: ‘Why the moneys you bring from your journey are nearly to kill you? Why? Are these lumps of iron which you carry now the moneys you bring? Wonderful.’ It was like that the whole people of the village were making mockery of us.

AMOS TUTUOLA – Ajaiyi And His Inherited Poverty

… it is not that I would forbid the making of statues, shaped in marble or bronze, but that as the human face, so is its copy, futile and perishing, while the form of the mind is eternal, to be expressed, not through the alien medium of art and its material, but severally by each man in the fashion of his own life.

TACITUS – from the Epilogue of Agricola

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Hamburg

One

Prague

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

London

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Prague

Fourteen

London

Fifteen

Sixteen

Berlin

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

September 1998

The two Africans in the forecourt of the Hauptbahnhof were playing an old Motown hit. One of them was standing up, strumming a battered old guitar, the other was seated cross-legged on the ground behind him, beating on a drum balanced between his knees. You could hear them all over the railway station, but it took George a long while before he could make out the tune or the words. He had heard the song a few times on the radio, but the Africans gave the melody a mournful, wailing twist which made it almost unrecognisable. George also spoke English well enough to realise that their intonation was so peculiar and their pronunciation so incorrect that they were mangling the words, running them together into lines which made no sense. Another three Africans sat alongside in a short line, open suitcases spread out in front of them stacked full of curios, carved wooden figures, necklaces and bracelets made from beads and shiny stones. All of them wore loose shirts made from printed material, cheap imitations of African cloth.

It was about lunchtime, and the station had begun to fill up with office workers making short trips. It wasn’t as crowded as it had been earlier in the morning, or as it would be later during the rush of the evening, but there was a constant flurry of people coming and going. Around the margins prowled a scattering of hucksters, buskers, hawkers and hustlers; a flock of gypsy women, brown faces and heavy eyebrows shrouded in rainbow shawls, a couple of Turks selling lottery tickets, three lurking Uzbekis, swarthy and battered, red eyes darting furtively, a red-haired German youth in a tight black suit and dark glasses playing riffs on an alto sax, a middle-aged drunk with a ravaged face above his outstretched hand.