She ignored him as best she could. Tried to go back to indexing lives and copy-editing textbooks. Couldn't.
You have ruined me.
And all the while, the money sat in her bank account, quietly breathing.
CHAPTER 125
Nausea and night sweats brought a skewed sense of perspective. It felt as though she were going to slide off entirely at times—off the edge of the bed, off the edge of the world.
Warren had been badgering her, demanding more details, wanting to know when the rest of the money would be released.
She let the phone go to voicemail in the other room. She'd collapsed into bed after returning from the mall's medical centre, where the doctor on call had scolded her for not coming in sooner.
—I couldn't walk.—You should have called someone.—Who?
Blood tests, Malarone treatments and heavy doses of quinine, dire warnings about organ failure and a poisoned liver. "It can't be malaria," she insisted weakly. "I was never bitten. Not a scratch."
The doctor's litany of dangers blurred in with her brother's financial tirades; the two seemed intertwined. She put her hand to the side of her head. "Winston, please," she said, finally answering the phone. "My head is pounding."
"Warren," her brother said.
"What?"
"My name. It's Warren. That's the second time you've done that."
And in that moment, she realized that Winston Balogun of Lagos, Nigeria, only son of Marcus and Mariam, brother of Rita, was right: he
would
be an asset to Laura's country. She could picture Winston here perfectly, in this city, with her brother, could picture him thriving.
And now. Days later and she was back in Springbank. At Warren's dining room table.
Her brother was armed with glossy printouts and pie-chart diagrams.
"Until the banks release the rest of the money, and who knows how long that will take, right?, we can't just leave what we do have parked in some low-interest chequing account. That's for chumps, is all I'm saying, so take a moment and look at these figures instead, that's all I'm asking. Give me access to that money and I'm telling you, Laura, I can double our investment in sixty days, and we can still get Mom's house back. Everybody wins."
Everybody wins.
She thought again of Winston, back in Lagos.
Just a matter of paperwork. Forms to sign. A declaration as guarantor.
Laura went down to the basement, sat across from her mother in silence.
"Why did he do it?" she asked.
"Your father? Oh, I suppose he felt trapped, got bogged down in despair."
"Not the accident. The con. Why did he fall for it? It wasn't the money, was it? Tell me this whole thing wasn't just about the money."
When her mother spoke, her voice was soft. "I don't think it was the money, no. I think it was the girl. I think your father wanted to be a hero to someone, just once."
The car tumbled through darkness, end over end.
CHAPTER 126
"Another transfer, Ms. Curtis?" The tellers at the bank knew her by name now. "You can transfer some into my account, if you like!
Just kidding. Nigeria, right?"
Laura nodded. The fever had left her paler and thinner, and she still felt weak on her feet.
"You didn't fall for one of those internet scams, did you?" the teller asked with a laugh.
"No," she said. "I'm sponsoring someone. Trying to get a visa for them. It's complicated."
Laura had been wiring money to Lagos in larger and larger batches. There were endless rounds of forms to fill out and paperwork to submit, with every transaction requiring additional fees.
Everything seemed to be in order now, though, which was good, as she had no more money to give.
And so it was that Laura Curtis found herself at Arrivals Gate C at her city's international airport. She'd maxed out the last of her credit cards to pay for the ticket and now stood waiting as the passengers filed off, bleary-eyed and yawning, some waving to relatives, some striding forth with purpose, others alone and looking small. A young man in a tailored suit came out, grinning wide in all directions, searching the crowd for someone. Not Laura.
Laura was waiting, but not for Winston. She was waiting for a girl with scars on her face and a child on her hip.
In Lagos, Inspector Ribadu was working late. He leaned back, eyes closed, various and assorted files open on his desk.
At the International Businessmans Export Club, Tunde was napping in a chair, and Mr. Ironsi-Egobia was coughing blood.
And Amina of the Sahel? She never got off that plane, because she never got on it. She'd cashed the ticket as soon as it arrived for her at the hotel. Had kept it along with all the other money Laura had forwarded to her.
Laura waited till the next flight landed, and the next, then drove back into the city under chinook skies.
In spite of herself, she smiled. The money was gone and would never come back, and yet—she couldn't help but feel her father would have been proud of her nonetheless. And later that evening, as she sat at her desk, indexing lives, the intercom in her apartment would ring. It would be Matthew Brisebois, asking if he could come up, if she might buzz him in. The only question remaining was whether she would.
CHAPTER 127
Computer screens, lined up in rows. Bodies huddled in front of keyboards, pecking out messages. A young man in a silk shirt, lost in the labyrinth. He is sending emails into the ether, distress signals and fairy tales.
"Dear Mr. Sakamoto, I thank you for your kind response."
A young man in a silk shirt, dreaming impossible escapes.
Down the hallway, the coughing had stopped. Not that it mattered. That young man is typing still.
CHAPTER 128
Nnamdi's mother is calling out.
"Slow down, Nnamdi! Slow down."
And here he comes running, his little legs powering him through the crowd, dodging rackety carts and head-balanced basins.
"Nnamdi! Not so fast!"
He has outrun the men from the mosque who are chasing after him, breathless and laughing at this bundle of determination they call a boy.
Nnamdi tumbles upward into his mother's arms. She sweeps him in, asks, as she always does, "Are you hungry?" A sweetened slice of plantain and some dried mango, and off he scoots, past his mother's countertop display of
kilishi,
past trays of dried meat dusted with savannah spices, past the thick folds of indigo laid out on tables, past it all and through the beaded curtains behind. Onto his bed, where his play clothes have been laid out for him.
"Nnamdi, fold your good clothes. Don't just let them fall in a heap!"
But he has already reappeared, shirt misbuttoned and tail untucked, wearing short pants and a very large smile.
The Lagos women laugh. Such a big smile on such a little boy.
They tease his mother. "Nnamdi? That's not a Hausa name."
"I'm not Hausa," she says. "And he was named for his father."
CHAPTER 129
The car finally came to rest at the bottom of the embankment, leaning against a splintered stand of poplar trees under falling snow.
Sirens and lights followed.
The would-be rescuers came down on grappling lines, leaning into the angle of their descent, boots crunching through glass and snow.
The driver: an elderly man in a blue sweater, face pulped, white hair matted with blood.
"Sir, can you hear me? Sir?"
He tried to speak, but no words came out, only bubbles, and something that sounded like love.
Sign on a Lagos wall: "This house is not for sale, beware of 419..."
Notes toward an index
anger
mirrors
(see also:
windows)
beauty
(see:
scars)
mud
courage
oil
distances, crossed
rain
distances,
imagined
resolve
(see also:
courage)
dreams
(sleeping)
sadness
dreams
(otherwise)
scars
(see:
beauty)
dust
silence
dry season
smiles
(with eyes)
earth
smiles
(without)
elements
(see:
dust, earth, fire,
snow
wind, snow, mud, oil)
spring
(see also:
dry season)
falling
thank you
(see also:
hello)
fire
waiting
fear
walking
hello
(see also:
thank you)
whispers
hesitation
(see also:
resolve)
wind
(chinook)
hope
wind
(harmattan)
laughter
windows
(see also:
mirrors)
love
winter
(see also:
spring)
memory
L.C.
AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The police investigation described in this novel is based on interviews, information, and contacts provided by a number of people, whose kindness and assistance are greatly appreciated: Bob Evans; Brian Edy of the Calgary Police Commission; Emma Poole at the Media Relations Unit; Chief Crown Prosecutor Lloyd Robertson; Staff Sergeant Jim Rorison and Detective Ronda Ruzycki of the Economic Crime Unit, who provided a frank and fascinating look into the world of fraud investigations; Crown Prosecutor Jonathan Hak, who answered a long list of questions; and Constables Colin Foster and Greg Mercer of the Calgary Police Services Collision Reconstruction Unit, who not only walked me through the would-be accident scene investigation at Ogden Road on a blustery cold day in January, but even managed to solve several plot points for me along the way.
Many thanks to all of those listed above. I strove to present the entire sweep of the investigation, from the initial accident to the Economic Crime Unit's later involvement, as accurately and as honestly as possible. This is a work of fiction, however, and any errors or inaccuracies remain solely my responsibility and should not reflect in any way upon the individuals who helped me during the research for this book.
I was fortunate as well to have several superb early readers who provided insights, advice, and corrections: Kirsten Olson; Jacqueline Ford, who has travelled extensively in the francophone region of West Africa; Kathy Robson, who has lived and worked in Nigeria; and Helen Chatburn-Ojehomon, who is married to a Nigerian citizen and working in Ibadan, north of Lagos. Many thanks to all of them for the feedback! The depictions of Nigerian culture and customs are solely my responsibility, however, and should not in any way be attributed to the views of any of the people listed above. Helen and Kathy in particular gave me excellent advice on the English spoken in Nigeria, but in the end I found the richness of the dialect too difficult to capture on the page. Instead, I added only the slightest touch, to give readers just a hint of the full flavour. Likewise, the image on the cover of this book is of a woman in the Sahel region of West Africa and is not meant to represent Nigeria as a whole, but rather the larger cultural group to which the character Amina belongs.
As well, I would like to acknowledge my debt to Lizzie Williams's entertaining and comprehensive guidebook
Nigeria: Second Edition;
Toyin Falola's
Culture and Customs of Nigeria;
Chidi Nnamdi Igwe's
Taking Back Nigeria from 419;
John Ghazvinian's
Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil;
Philip E. Leis's
Enculturation and Socialization in an Ijaw Village;
Karl Maier's
This House Has Fallen;
and Michael Peel's
A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria's Oil Frontier.
For a full list of the sources used in writing
419
please see my website, willferguson.com.
At Penguin Canada, I would like to thank Editorial Director Andrea Magyar, Senior Production Editor Sandra Tooze, Managing Editor Mary Ann Blair, and proofreader Catherine Dorton. Finally, with a novel whose main protagonist is an unflinching editor (redundancy, no?)—it is particularly important to thank my own editor Barbara Pulling and copy editor Karen Alliston, both of whom did a fantastic job with
