‘Come with us, please,’ the fat policeman said in English. ‘What? Me?’ I said.
‘Why? What’s the matter?’ ‘And bring your bag with you,’ the tall
policeman said. I began to ask a question, but policemen never like questions
from young men with long hair. So I stayed quiet, picked up my bag and went with
them. In the station building there were a lot of policemen and some people from
the train.
They were all young people, I
saw. Some were afraid, some were bored. The police looked at everybody’s bags
and then the people went back to the train. My two policemen took me to a table.
‘Your passport, please,’ the fat policeman said, ‘and open your bag.’
They looked at my passport and I opened my bag. There was a young policewoman
with red hair at the next table. She had a nice face, so I smiled at her and she
smiled back. ‘Aaah!’ the tall policeman said suddenly. All my dirty shirts
and clothes were out on the table. The policeman picked up my bag and turned it
over. On to the table, out of my bag, fell packet after packet of US American
dollars. Nice, new dollars. Fifty-dollar notes in big packets. A lot of money.
My mouth opened and stayed open. I couldn’t find my voice. I was suddenly a
very interesting person and a lot of police ran up to our table and stood behind
me. ’50,000 … 100,000 … 150,000 … There’s 200,000 dollars here,’ the
tall policeman said. ‘What an interesting bag, Mr Tom Walsh!’ I found my
voice again quickly. ‘But it’s not my bag!’ I shouted. There was a big
happy smile on that policeman’s face. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s got your
name on it. Look!’ So I looked and of course there was my name on.
