A Darkening Stain (29 page)

‘You don't have any olives?' I asked.

She left the room, taking her new friend with her. She came back with a bowl of fat green olives.

‘From Seville,' she said, and sat down.

We started talking at the same time. I let her through.

‘No, no, please,' she said.

‘I was just going to ask if you were getting into all this football fever with your boys in the Olympic final and all.'

‘I don't like football.'

‘You don't have to like it to get caught up in the spirit. It's all out there on the streets ... those miserable, filthy, crime-laden Lagos streets.'

‘Mmmm,' she murmured, not listening.

‘Spirit's very important,' I said, looking around the empty room. ‘Maybe you should have a house-warming.'

She looked up slowly. The sweat was creeping through my hair.

‘Who would I invite?'

‘Forget it. A stupid idea. It was just talk. I've had a long day talking, talking, talking. Can't stop the mouth when I've had a day like today.'

‘What's all the talk been about?'

‘Making a living.'

‘Loading ships?' she asked. ‘Running around the port ... chasing after work gangs?'

That chilled me. She'd done some sniffing around in Cotonou.

‘Who've
you
been talking to?'

She named a shipping agent.

‘So now you know I'm not a multimillionaire.'

‘I knew that anyway.'

I felt the pressure of her shrewdness. Her eyes drilled, letting me know that she knew I needed this deal as much as she wanted to make it work. It encouraged me that she thought my
motives were purely financial, that her Benin people hadn't reported back. Unless she was playing the long game.

‘My principal's got two thousand, two hundred and thirty-six ounces. If you're prepared to come to Benin he can let you have it at three-seventy an ounce. If you insist on delivery here then you're going to have to pay four-ten.'

‘Do you know what the market was today?'

‘I didn't hear.'

‘Three-sixty-eight. Why should I pay anything over the market rate? What's my advantage?'

‘I don't know. You might have to ask yourself that question.'

‘I'm asking it.'

‘And it doesn't sound like a positive response.'

‘No,' she said. ‘I'm not going to pay the market rate and it's going to be delivered in Lagos and that is it. Three-fifty-five on my doorstep.'

Nobody said it was going to be easy, but the toughness of her negotiating made it sound like genuine business, made it sound as if this wasn't any sort of a game, long or short.

‘How do you like your steak?' she asked.

‘
Saignant
, if it's good.'

‘It's good.'

Sunday 28th July, Cotonou.

 

I woke up still bored from the dinner conversation with Madame Sokode. Yards and yards of stuff about people I didn't know, places I'd never been to, films I'd never see, books I'd never read. Books with tides like
The Hearthunters,
eight hundred and fifty pages about love and flower-arranging.

I called Bondougou's home number and arranged to meet him in his office before lunch. I sat around and let my paranoia off the leash, let it run down dark holes and worry over who knew what about me. I decided Madame Sokode only knew what her shipping agent had told her. If she did know more it was too dangerous for her to mention the uninteresting information she had gleaned and risk frightening me off. But the nature of paranoia is that you never quite believe anything.

Then there was Bondougou. He knew I was circling. Daniel would have talked that much. My Franconelli card was keeping me out on the street but I had to pull Bondougou in tighter to me and take his eye off the ball. The easiest thing in the world if you knew Bondougou.

I arrived at the empty Sûreté just before midday. Bondougou's office was a corner room on the first floor. He was sitting behind his desk with his tunic open, a white vest stretched taut across his belly. He had a very serious look on his face that said he couldn't think of any reason why I should be coming to see him in his office ... except one.

‘Have you found him?' he asked.

‘Not yet,' I said, which ironed out a few creases in his forehead.

‘What can I do for you?'

‘I was hoping I could do something for you,' I said. ‘Solve the problem you have with Marnier before I do Franconelli's work.'

He was suddenly concerned and fascinated. His slit eyes bulged at what might be coming.

‘What's that?' he asked.

‘Franconelli's work?' I said, teasing him along. ‘I think you know.'

‘Yes,' he said, resting his fingers on the edge of his desk, trying to find the right chord.

‘Marnier has close to a million dollars' worth of gold he wants to sell.'

Bondougou's eyebrows hopped over the stile. He didn't know about that and it was very interesting to him.

‘What are you proposing?' he asked.

‘I have a buyer for the gold.'

‘Here?'

‘In Nigeria,' I said. ‘What I'm proposing is to bring my buyer and Marnier together to do the deal. The buyer pays and leaves with the gold. I satisfy Mr Franconelli's requirements and we, you and I, split the money.'

Bondougou began playing with his nose, trying to remodel it into something more nose-like. He plugged his nostrils, should any of the large thoughts he was thinking want to escape down that route. He had one big knotty problem now. He'd said Marnier owed him money and I was appearing to solve that problem, but he still had to do that schoolgirl deal. If his greed won out, which I knew it would, he'd have to do the schoolgirl deal before the gold deal. He was already having trouble moving Marnier along but now there was this other huge incentive. It was good to see the extra pressure on the man, the weight of his greed pressing down on his chest.

‘How are you going to make contact with him?'

‘I'll call him on his mobile,' I said. ‘I talk to him every day. I just don't know where he is.'

‘Don't talk to him about this yet. I have to think about this. I'll call you.'

I knew we were on our way because Bondougou stood and offered me his hand to shake. I took it and he grinned at me, pleased to have found the rich seam of my corruption.

I bought more Red Label on the way back home. The heat was dreadful, the town dead on its feet. Distant clouds boiled and towered, preparing for rain. I shot back a couple of drinks as soon as I got in to take the edge off my brain. I slept until the rain crashing on the roof woke me. I lay in bed and watched the rain pouring down the windows, watched the late afternoon turn to night. The rain moved off. The streetlights snapped on. I got up and sat amongst the floor cushions in the dark with the Red Label in my lap. A car stopped outside. A door slammed. The gate creaked open. Footsteps on the stairs. I knew them. Only high heels could make that noise. She knocked. I didn't say anything. She tried the door. It was open. She came in, shut the door behind her and got used to the streetlit darkness.

‘What are you doing sitting in the dark?'

‘What are you doing breaking into my house?'

‘The door was open. I thought you might be in. You look as if you need company.'

‘If you want soda with your whisky, there isn't any ... just Possotomé.'

She wiggled into the kitchen. The black sheath getting another outing.

‘What was it like in that African jail? You didn't say.'

I didn't answer. She came back in with a glass and the water. She poured her drink and sat on the corner of the sofa nearest to me with her knees pressed together. She leaned over and clinked glasses with me, made eye contact.

‘You don't have to...'

‘What do you want, Carole?'

‘To see you.'

‘I'm not interested in becoming a part of Jean-Luc's fantasy world.'

‘I don't tell him everything. And of course ... I lie too.'

‘Then you can lie about me.'

‘I wouldn't want to do that.'

We contemplated our drinks for a moment. Carole put some shine on her plum-coloured lips.

‘What do you get out of your relationship with Jean-Luc?' I asked.

‘I don't have such a bad life.'

‘But not a very complete life.'

‘He doesn't exercise that much control.'

‘You're not answering the question,' I said. ‘Does that mean you don't know?'

‘I know why,' she said.

‘It's not the sex. Not any more,' I said. ‘Don't tell me it's money. That would be a big disappointment.'

She shook her head.

‘I've run out of guesses.'

‘I like bad guys,' she said.

‘Somebody's got to.'

‘That's very true.'

‘What does that say about you? Are you a bad girl?'

She shrugged and looked around the room as if she had a sudden need of a blunt instrument.

‘Talking about bad guys ... what's this business between Jean-Luc and Franconelli? What's Jean-Luc done that Franconelli has to cut him up and have him killed?'

‘I don't know,' she said, looking up into her head, giving me Marnier's marker for her fibbing.

‘I heard it wasn't anything as simple as business.'

‘What did you hear?'

‘That it was something personal.'

‘And what do you conclude from that?' she asked, putting her drink down, running her nails through her hair.

‘I haven't bothered to think that far.'

She looked around the room again, bored this time, irritated by the line of questioning. She ran her hands down her legs to her ankles and rested her chin on her knees.

‘It's about a woman,' she said. ‘If it's not business, that's what bad guys fight about.'

‘You should know,' I said, ‘which makes me wonder what you're doing here unless you think I've got potential.'

She dropped her eyes, licked her lips, pressed them together and let them spring into the split-plum pout. She raised her eyes and gave me a long steady look that said I could move in if I liked.

‘You can kiss me if you want,' she said.

‘I've not been in the kissing mood recently,' I said. ‘Lost my appetite for it.'

I put my glass down and got to my feet ready to shoo her out. She stood with me, got very close, close enough for her hardish breasts to nudge my stomach. She took my hand, put it round the small of my back and pressed herself into me. I had a sudden dislike for this woman and a rush of nastiness shuddered through me. I pulled her up and gave her an ugly, lascivious kiss, pushing my tongue into the back of her throat. You want kissing, I thought, here's kissing. She tensed with the shock of it. I felt her repulsion. Then her teeth clamped down on my tongue. I let her go. She bit down harder. I looked into her eyes. They had a chill dead look in them. She released my tongue and staggered back from me.

‘Don't do that,' she said, wiping her mouth with the side of her hand.

My throat was so full of self-disgust I couldn't swallow. I could feel the dent of her teeth marks, the taste of her lipstick. She backed off to the door, wary, as if I was the date who'd become the rapist. I picked up the drink to swill my mouth out but
got hers by mistake and more taste of her lipstick on the rim. She opened the door still looking at me, hate in her face.

‘I'm not a whore,' she said. ‘Jean-Luc knows that.'

And she left.

I slammed the glass down on the table, picked up my own. These people. They've infected me. I threw back a jag of whisky which travelled down my oesophagus like a chunk of coral. The phone rang. More nasty people wanted to talk to the nasty man. I yanked it to my ear.

‘I'm interested,' said Bondougou. ‘I'm interested in your idea.'

‘That's good.'

‘But look,' he said, ‘there's a piece of business that Marnier has to finish for me before you do your deal.'

‘What's that?'

‘He has to deliver something for me.'

‘In Cotonou?'

‘No, it's in Nigeria as well.'

‘That's interesting,' I said. ‘Are you supposed to be present at this delivery?'

‘Of course.'

‘Do you think there's a chance we could do the two deals back to back? You and Marnier make your delivery and half an hour later I bring my buyer along and we finish it.'

‘Perfect.'

‘Let me talk to him,' I said. ‘Don't make any suggestions to him. I'll get him to put the idea to you.'

‘Very good,' he said, pleased to have teased that knot straight.

We hung up and I looked at the phone for some time. Bondougou's satisfaction made me think he'd already decided that neither Marnier nor I were going to come out of this business alive. Would he tell Madame Sokode about the gold business she wasn't supposed to know anything about? Get her in on the act, help him solve some of his problems? No. Bondougou would
want it all to himself. As far as he was concerned, all he had to worry about was me. I could see the scene playing in Bondougou's head—with the schoolgirl business completed the anonymous buyer would pay for the gold and leave, I'd kill Marnier for Franconelli, Bondougou would take care of me and disappear into the night with the cash.

Then it occurred to me—even if Bondougou and Madame Sokode did compare notes and deduce my role it wouldn't matter. They'd still want me out there on the lagoon where they could get rid of me easily. Whatever happened I was going to be present so all I had to do was make sure my back was protected.

Now that the bees had started to hum in the hive, it was time to ram the stick in and wiggle it about. I went downstairs to Moses's flat, checked the Browning .380, and got in the car. I laid the gun on the passenger seat where it gleamed dully in the occasional streetlighting.