**Extract from The Shadow of a Smile by Kachi Ozumba**

The policeman motioned with the rifle hanging from his shoulder. “This way mister man.”

Zuba stepped into the dim corridor. His steps echoed on the pockmarked concrete floor strewn with pieces of broomstick. The yellow walls had a thousand blotches like the albino skin of the policeman. A smoky amalgam of stale sweat, urine, fermenting faeces and desolation hung over the passage.

“You think rich man son no go cell?” the policeman called after him.

The words did not sting this time. Zuba had been lashed with dozens of them during the interrogation and had got used to them. He walked down the corridor, staring blankly. Ike followed behind him, his face tight with rage. The imprint of the interrogator’s palm was still visible on his cheek.

The smell intensified as they passed the rust-and-dirt-coloured bars of a cell door. Bare-chested men squatted on the floor in the dimness beyond. The words “New man” floated out – whispered, repeated, passed from mouth to mouth. Bodies began to stir within the cell.

“Idem, they say you suppose get space for your cell for this two,” said the albino when they got to the office at the end of the corridor. He placed a white sheet on the counter before a chubby-faced man in police uniform. Then he studied an almanac on the wall with its photos of gaily dressed women: NIGERIAN POLICE WIVES ASSOCIATION 2000.

Idem looked down at the sheet. “Hmmmnh, threatening violence and stealing.” He looked up and glanced at Ike’s glowering eyes. Then his gaze settled on the softness of Zuba’s face, at the eyes that seemed to stare back at him from a dizzying distance, and down at the gold cufflink that winked at him from the manicured hand Zuba had placed on the counter. “Undress, undress!” he barked. “Or you want enter cell with your fine-fine dress? Bring your money and valuables too.”

His words must have carried down the corridor. Shouts erupted from the cell:

“If you people dare to come in here without your *cell-sho* we’ll pummel you till you forget your mothers’ names.”

“Make sure you bring your *cell-sho* or we’ll dip your head into our shit bucket.”

“We’ll kill you here today...”

Zuba and Ike exchanged glances. The dread they had nursed beneath their calmness, hidden like some venereal disease, broke out in a rash of symptoms…