Instruments Of Darkness (16 page)

    When they'd first arrived, the vultures had landed on the lawn and had bounced around Moses like shadow boxers looking for a line in on their lunch. Moses had been deft with the stick and enjoyed himself hugely. The parrot, from his ringside seat, had urged Moses on with clicks and whistles and the odd squawk when the stick thudded into the solid breast of one or other of the vultures.

    I leaned against the french window inside the house trying to erase Kershaw's bloated, rotting, distorted features from my mind. The stench from the garden, the deprived vultures and the sheet-covered mound on the lawn ensured that the image was pin-sharp in my brain.

    Bagado had crawled around the pool and patio with his face and fingers at grass level, grooming for clues.

    He had produced a little forensic kit and fingerprinted the corpse and found that rigor mortis had come out of the body since we pulled it from the pool. In passing, he had said that rigor mortis lasted for up to four days, which meant that the earliest he could have been killed was Monday, the same day as Perec. He had checked the fingerprints against the whip handle and crocodile clip in the bag, the magazines in the chest and on the paint pots in the back room. They all matched. Then, to give himself a deadline, he had told me to make my call. I'd left a short message on the big man's answering machine, informing him about Kershaw's death and telling him to call this number. While Bagado had run around the house roaring in his own language like a touretter, triple-checking things that he'd already double-checked, a call came through telling me to inform the police. It had given me a number which I'd called.

    The arrival of the police had been a relief. Bagado had produced a passport that he'd found in another pocket of the bag, and was talking in French and Ewe, waving the passport in the faces of the six policemen who had formed a semicircle in front of him. They encouraged his narrative with a range of clicks, braying noises and high-pitched squeaks which shot their credibility to pieces. Several of them glanced with sly eyes at the plastic bag with Kershaw's wallet, watch and AA card which hung from Bagado's hand.

    On the few occasions that our paths had crossed during his final search, Bagado had told me he would do all the talking.

    'I know these people,' he said with a flat hand that blocked any dispute. He had also been vehement about not mentioning the absence of water in Kershaw's lungs. 'That could be a very serious error. We have no idea what game these people are playing. A slip like that and we could be face down in the lagoon breathing sewage.'

    At about eleven o'clock a senior policeman arrived who seemed to be wearing the same uniform he'd been issued with as a cadet. He put his arm around Bagado, like a big gorilla grabbing hold of its young, and steered him off into the garden where they talked with only the parrot in hearing distance. The police officer looked as if he didn't like wearing shoes, because he hobbled around the garden treating Bagado more as a walking frame than a fellow officer. In a short time they were back with the police officer, coughing from the smell in the garden. He gave some brutal commands and the junior policemen stampeded out of the house. Bagado and the policeman went upstairs, Bagado's back straining at every step as the policeman hauled himself up. They made it and the policeman held the banister, his face twisted with pain. They went into the master bedroom.

    In the garden, the junior policemen were being ordered to lift the stretcher and take it off down the side of the house to load into the ambulance. The vultures were looking at each other not believing this was happening to them. The police officer giving the orders was the same one running the road block after the riot on Thursday who'd taken me off to meet the big man. He saw me through the french windows and moved off with his men.

    There was some loud guffawing from upstairs and Bagado came out of the bedroom with Kershaw's bag in one hand and the policeman leaning on his shoulder. They made it to the bottom of the stairs where they shook hands, the policeman roared again at something that must have been said before, because Bagado hadn't said a word. Bagado gave him the bag and Kershaw's effects and the officer gave him his card and asked him to confirm a time for the body to be identified. The policeman turned and his face dropped as if he had lead in his cheeks.

    'What was all that about?' I asked.

    'The laughter? These people when they get their own way, they laugh at a blade of grass.'

    'What did you give him?'

    'Our integrity.'

    'Nothing serious, then.'

    'I just said we would keep our mouths shut.'

    'Does he want anything from us?'

    'He wants a very bland statement from me, nothing from you and Moses.'

    'You let him have your evidence.'

    'Only the things I don't want. This will never make court.'

    I told Bagado about the police officer from the road block and he told me what had happened with the Françoise Perec investigation in Cotonou. He had been stuck in a meeting and got to the apartment late. By the time he had arrived, the place had been hoovered and wiped down and the contents removed, apart from the furniture and the coffee filters. The body remained on the bed. The only constructive thing he had managed to do was to get the report into the
Benin Soir,
which he had done by pushing the 'sex session gone too far' theory, which the paper had liked. It meant that Françoise Perec's death was public knowledge, the French were furious and so was his superior officer.

    'He took my phone away and suspended me without pay. My boss is a man very strong on irony.'

    'The French will get to them in the-end.'

    'Yes, but too late. The investigation will reopen with nothing to go on. They will have no chance… but we will.'

    'We?'

    'You and I, Bruce.'

    I explained that I hadn't finished the job that I had been hired for, that I was supposed to run the sheanut business that Kershaw had been running, that I would have to organize identification of the body which, by the state of the corpse, Mrs Kershaw was going to have to do, that I would have to help her get the body released and out of the country. Bagado listened with a fraction of his brain while the rest of it worked with a ferocity that was showing in his face. His eyes twitched as he slotted other pieces of information next to the facts and theories that tore through his head like ribbons down a wind tunnel.

    'Who is your client?' he asked.

    'A Syrian businessman in Accra called B.B.'

    'B.B.? What is B.B.?'

    'It's his name. In full it's unpronounceable.'

    'How do you know him?'

    'Through Jack Obuasi, another client - an English/

    Ghanaian who lives here and who I do jobs for in Cotonou.'

    'Why can't he do his own jobs?'

    'Because he runs a lot of trade along this coast and he doesn't have the time to be in several places at once… and he's lazy.'

    'Did B.B. contact you directly?'

    'No. Wednesday morning, I turn up at Jack's with the money from a job. Jack takes a call and volunteers my services.'

    'Money from what job?'

    'Seven thousand tons of parboiled rice into Cotonou off a ship called the
Naoki Maru.'

    'When?'

    'Tuesday.'

    'What did you do?'

    'I arranged the papers, received and counted the money. There was a problem.'

    'What was the problem?'

    The woman

    'Which woman?'

    'Madame Severnou.'

    'Mr Obuasi does business with Madame Severnou?' said Bagado with a voice that pounced.

    'Is that a problem?'

    'I wouldn't like to do business with Madame Severnou.'

    'Nor would I, but I have,' I said. 'What's so grubby about Madame Severnou?'

    'It's not entirely clear where Madame Severnou's money comes from.'

    'Meaning?'

    'Not very nice people have money that they can't put in banks so they send it to Madame Severnou's laundry.'

    'How dirty?'

    'Not just kick-backs and bribes.'

    'Drug money?'

    Bagado nodded. It was well known that Lagos was one of the main trans-shipment points for heroin from Asia and cocaine from South America going into Europe. The corruption was sufficient and the money big enough for the drugs to get in and there were enough unfortunate women prepared to fill their guts full of condoms to courier the drugs to London. Sometimes the condoms broke and the women died, sometimes Heathrow Customs decided to keep the women until they just 'had to go' and sometimes they got through.

    'Twenty per cent of the women in British jails are Nigerian drug mules,' said Bagado. 'They all work in the kitchens, and you know the pity of it? The pity of it is that the few pounds' jail pay they get every week they send home to their children. It's good money to them.'

    'How many's twenty per cent?'

    'About three hundred and fifty.'

    Three hundred and fifty women in jail for carrying maybe two to three kilos per head - more than a ton of heroin, and that was the stuff that didn't get in. The mule business was diversionary, gave the drug enforcement agencies plenty of work to process while the big shipments came in containers. None of it was small beer, not even the mules, and it was a better explanation of Madame Severnou's gorillas than Jack's.

    'What was the problem with Madame Severnou?' asked Bagado.

    The money for the rice was fifty million short and it wasn't part of the plan - not the one in Jack's head, anyway. He tried to cover up by telling me it was part commission payment and part a cotton-fibre deal, but I could tell he was pulling out flannel by the mile.'

    'Why?'

    'I don't know, but I do know he wanted me away from that rice deal. I was all ready to lean on Madame Severnou but Jack said no, and threw me the Kershaw job. Ever since then it's been "Come back to me"; "Let me know how things are going"; "Call me".'

    'You're getting the feel of it now,' said Bagado. 'I can see from your face that you're beginning to understand your duty.'

'My
duty?'

    Bagado walked off down the room, across the squash court floorboards with his hands behind his back, one hand opening and closing with each step. He still had his raincoat on. He turned, walked back and stood in front of me looking into my chest. He cocked an eye up which locked on to my own.

    'Where did this rice come from?'

    'Thailand.'

    'Where is it going?'

    'Nigeria.'

    'Via Cotonou because of the rice ban?'

    I nodded.

    'How long will it take to get it across the border?'

    'Maximum twelve days - could be a lot less.'

    'We're going to take a look at this,' he said, dropping his head and moving off around the room again.

    'Jack's got too much money and too little nerve to start dealing drugs.'

    'There's no such thing as too much money to rich people. That's why they get richer. As for nerve, if you haven't got it, you're often too stupid to admit it to yourself, and anyway, you're thinking about the money too much to worry about your balls.'

    'What's it got to do with Kershaw?'

    'He worked in Cotonou.'

    'So do I.'

    'He was unlucky, maybe, like Françoise Perec.'

    Out in the garden, the urn lay on its side by the pool, the rope still attached. The parrot clung to the wire mesh at the front of the aviary with its feet and beak. It opened its wings, stretching, and flapped them once. The heat pressed down on the lawn. The stink of rotten flesh remained. I turned to Bagado.

    'You were going to tell me about my duty.'

    'Technically, your job is finished. You have found Kershaw.'

    'Thanks.'

    'Kershaw is dead. We know he's been killed. The officer with the bad feet isn't going to do anything for him, just as the Cotonou police aren't going to do anything for Françoise Perec.'

    'You're going to tell me about the duty you feel to these people as a policeman?'

    'No, as a human. There's not many of us left. I know this is nothing to do with you. I know the English have a fear of "getting involved" but you're already involved - Yao's boss has seen to that. I know that law and order should prevail so that you shouldn't have to get involved, but to use an English expression: "It's all fucked up." You are the only person who can do anything for these people. I am suspended. I have no money. Today, I don't even have socks.' Bagado lifted up his trouser legs and showed his bare ankles. Bagado saw me looking out into the garden squinting through the rank air.

    'Dead bodies,' said Bagado. 'You've never seen a dead body.'

    'Not in that condition.'

    'A layer of innocence gone,' said Bagado, flicking nothing with his forefinger out of the french windows. 'We lose them all the time.'

    That was a layer I wouldn't have minded hanging on to.'

    'And now it's gone. So you deal with it. We can only learn from experience, but she's a ruthless, barbaric bitch of a teacher.'

    'She?'

'Experience
in French is feminine and most of what I know about myself, I've learnt through women.'

    'Where are you taking me, Bagado?'

    'Put it this way, I think you think you're unusual. An Englishman living in Africa doing this strange work of yours. An odd job man who looks for missing persons. It sounds unusual. Your friends in England poking around their computers in London must think it's unusual. But to me, it's ordinary. Where you live and what you do doesn't make a man extraordinary. It's what's in here,' he said, thumping his heart and tapping his temple. 'You might have something in there, but you're not showing it and until you do you're just another one of them.'

    'Is this what they teach you at the police academy?'

    'People murdered with extreme violence, money laundering, drugs, government and police corruption. A nasty combination. I can see why you