The Final Charge

Citation

Alistair Tough (2015), "The Final Charge", Records Management Journal, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 134-135. https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-11-2014-0045

“The final charge” is a novel. Novels are not often reviewed in the RMJ, but there are, at least, two good reasons for reviewing this one. Firstly, it is written by a Records Manager. Secondly, records feature both in the plot and in the delineation of character. Equally important is that, in this reader’s opinion, “The final charge” is a cracking good story.

The story is set in Kenya, a country where the police apparently have to be bribed to put away records in the files where they belong. It opens with an elderly Briton, Dr Tom Miles, being arrested on a charge of war crimes that arises from military operations against Mau Mau during the 1950s. The relationship between documentary evidence and human memory plays a key role in the complex plot: Tom Miles’ recollection of events is revealed to the reader in fragments that serve to sustain both suspense and curiosity. The book opens not with conventional text but with a document: an extract from the verbatim transcript of court proceedings. Within the transcript is nested another document – a photograph. The photograph has been copied from a file in The National Archives at Kew. But the file is closed, so how has it come into the possession of a Kenyan prosecutor?

The story is, in large part, a courtroom drama. Many of the most important characters are lawyers. The prosecution is led by Paul Muya, a devout Christian who seeks justice for his father whose murder Dr Miles is accused of. The defence is led by Leo Kane, a hard drinking and rather shabby white Kenyan. One of Kane’s near obsessive interests is the annual Rhino Charge – a cross-country driving challenge, the route of which runs past the scene of the alleged crimes. The book’s ambiguous title refers to both the Rhino Charge in its final year and to the prosecution of Tom Miles.

Two of the lawyers are developed as identifiable characters by reference to their record-keeping behaviours. One of these is Ayisha, a British war crimes prosecutor of East African Asian origin, who finds herself thrust into the unfamiliar role of acting for the defence. Her coolly methodical character is portrayed when the reader first encounters her – carefully filing away the papers of a prosecution that has had to be abandoned. The contrastingly sentimental character of Deepak Kapadia is established in a similar fashion:

His office was, as always, awash with paper. At various places on his wide desk […] on top of bookcases, and in the middle of his conference table, these papers coagulated into piles of files, which bore witness to forlorn attempts to bring them into some sort of order. On top of the piles, lay scraps of paper […] “Basement”, “Bring forward in six months” and “Destroy”. But, […] the paper never left Kapadia’s office […].

Of the prime record of the case – the verbatim transcript – McCallum observes that it is “[…] as revealing as a series of sharply focussed monochrome photographs […] a clear image, accurate within its own parameters; precise but without the colour, heat and movement”.

A tangled relationship between truth and justice is an overarching theme of the plot. This is complicated in thought-provoking ways by the active role of (fictionalised) contemporary politicians in the management of the court case. This culminates in a splendid scene where the President of Kenya and his principal opponent in an impending election are both present in the courtroom. The difficulties inherent in judging events in the past by the mores of today are handled with skill. McCallum does not bring these issues into the foreground, presumably because to do so would run the risk of damaging the novel as an entertaining read. Nonetheless, he displays an awareness that reminds one of the guidance given by another writer of the first-class fiction – George MacDonald Fraser:

You cannot, you must not, judge the past by the present; you must try to see it in its own terms and values, if you are to have any inkling of it.

There are, inevitably, a few minor points of detail that might be queried. The use of the term “firefight” by British soldiers in the 1950s is surely anachronistic. And it seems odd that Major Sandford should describe the colonial authorities as having cleared land and closed down Kikuyu schools to make way for settlers. The Kikuyu people had been cleared off the arable land of the Aberdare Range pretty effectively by slave traders and their allies before the colonial government even existed.

Anybody seeking a book to read on a holiday or during their daily commute will find “The final charge” both entertaining and thought-provoking.