It was almost dark in the alleyway where Goro lay after being mugged. The first person to arrive was an office cleaner and she almost stepped on him.

“Oh my goodness!” she gasped, jumping back, then hurriedly throwing her lesso over him to cover his naked body.

The next person shook his head while muttering, “Very bad.”

Before long, a crowd had gathered to gawk at him.

“The thieves must have beaten him up badly,” one person said.

“Is he dead?” asked another.

But Goro was not dead. He was dreaming that he was hiding from bad men. He could hear voices in the distance but he couldn’t move no matter how much he tried.

Then one of the bad men grabbed him and he snapped out of his dream.

He looked up at the faces staring down at him and tried to understand what had happened to him.

“Someone give him a trouser,” someone said.

“From the look of things, you got knocked out then robbed,” another stranger said.

“Who are you?”

“I am the chief accountant at Leaknot Pipe Manufacturers,” Goro said with a flash of pride despite his grave circumstances, then at that moment remembered he had been carrying the company’s money the previous evening.

“Yesu Christo!” he gasped, scrambling to his feet. “The money!”

“If he remembers money, then he is OK,” someone remarked.

******

Understandably, Goro’s weekend passed in a daze. On Monday he walked to the bus stop wishing the robbers had visibly hurt him instead of knocking him out with drugs. How would his bosses believe he had been mugged when there were no visible scars! They would assume he had stolen the money.

A matatu came and he hesitated, torn between entering it and running back home. The tout ushered him in and he found a seat near the window. Twenty minutes later, he looked up, stunned to see they were only five minutes away from the office.

A wave of panic swept over him. What would he tell his bosses? The matatu stopped at the lights and, without thinking, he jumped out leaving the tout shouting at him.

The next thing he knew, he was being lifted by the waistband by a policeman who had been waiting to pounce on law breakers.

The policeman pulled him all the way to the nearby police post. He stared at the officer at the counter, then at the grim faces behind the bars.

“Book this one for alighting at an irregular stop.”

“Yes, officer.”

“Name?”

“Ezekiel Goro,” he said nervously.

“ID?”

“Sir, I was robbed last Friday. You see...”

“Did you report the incident?”

“Sir... it’s a long story.”

“We will cut it short. You have been fined a bond of three thousand shillings for alighting at a non-designated area, and two thousand shillings for not having an ID.”

The officer stretched out his hand for the money while yawning, but Goro only had one thousand. He stared at it sadly.

“Sir, This is the only money I have,” Goro pleaded. “The rest of it was in my M-Pesa account but the phone was also stolen — including a lot of company mon...”

The officer shot up, grabbed him by the collar, spun him around, and threw him into the crowded cell.

“You will go cook porridge today,” he said, referring to prison.

Goro grabbed the bars to the cells. “Sir, I can expla...”

Heaving him like a stalled vehicle, the policeman sent Goro flying into the crowded bodies and then banged the heavy metal door shut.

Goro felt something sharp poking his back.

“I’ll take care of that money,” a rough voice whispered, the knife poking him harder. “Now hand it over or we spill gizzards!”

******

The bell in Block C rang at 5:31 in the morning. Goro looked up as the prisoners were handed dented aluminium bowls of scorching hot porridge with tiny black things floating in it. Weevils!

“The government has run out of good flour,” said the prison warder, “Think of those black things as extra protein.”

Goro pursed his lips in disgust, but still sipped the hot porridge. Then he noticed that some wardens were poring over a newspaper then pointing at him.

“It’s him all right!” one of them finally said, racing towards him.

“I spotted him first, Sergeant Njung’wa!” another one said, racing after him.

“And if I didn’t buy the newspaper?” retorted Njung’wa, both now pulling Goro back and forth.

“Then we will share him!”

The prison boss came in, picked the newspaper then hurried towards them urgently.

“What kind of example are you setting for the prisoners?” he growled, glaring at them, then turned to Goro. “You! Come with me!”

He led Goro into his office and sat into a big, swivelling armchair. “There is a reward of fifty thousand shillings for you.”

Goro gulped, “A reward?”

“For theft of company funds. But if you match the reward, I’ll let you go.”

“Sir, I was robbed of every...”

Ignoring him, the boss made a quick call.

“Yes, hello, I've just seen today’s paper — about the wanted office thief? Yes I have him. You need to come and pick him up. As you know, we’re not allowed to claim such rewards. Not to worry. I’ll give you your cut.”