The Dark Chronicles (12 page)

‘Did you catch the rugby on Saturday?’ he asked as he unlocked his door. ‘The Welsh seemed on good form.’

I climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I missed that,’ I said. ‘Do they show the matches out here, then?’

‘If only, old chap, if only. I caught the report on the World Service. Who’s your money on to win the whole thing?’

‘I haven’t really followed it, I’m afraid.’

He grunted and locked his door, gesturing for me to do the same. When I had, he said: ‘You’re Larry Dark’s boy, aren’t you?’

I nodded.

‘Fine fellow, your father. Never met him myself, but saw him break the land speed record in ’38. Extraordinary day – were you there?’

I shook my head dully.

‘Damn fine fellow.’ He placed his key in the ignition and started her up. ‘Anyway, glad you made it. Imagine you’ll be wanting to get that suit off in this heat.’

He gestured at the back seat, on which an outfit identical to the one he was wearing lay folded.

‘Pyjama party at the Yacht Club – any excuse for a booze-up.’

I told him I was fine as I was.

We turned onto the main road and he swore under his breath. ‘Not our night. Bad go-slow.’ He caught my look. ‘Traffic jam in the local argot. Marjorie will be furious – she was expecting me hours ago.’

‘Marjorie?’

‘The wife. Super girl. Don’t deserve her, really. Fine stock – Scottish blue blood, you know. Stuck with me through thick and thin.’ He mimed swigging a glass and winked conspiratorially at me.

Pritchard had said things were a little haphazard, but I hadn’t imagined they’d be this dire. I’d seen plenty of Manning’s type before. He was a spook of the old school: stockbroker parents, minor public school, army, Colonial Service. Most of them had been swept away in ’66 when the Service had taken over responsibility for the colonies from Five, but Manning had evidently managed to hold on.

I wound down the window and looked out. There was indeed a go-slow. The street was a mass of cars, trucks, motorcycles and bikes, the drivers of which were all either tooting their horns or yelling at the drivers around them. Many of the vehicles looked on the verge of collapse, either because they were overloaded with passengers and luggage or were missing vital parts: windows, wing mirrors, bumpers… The Opel Kapitän alongside us was short a door on the passenger side. Looming over the scene was an enormous billboard with a picture of a tyre: ‘GO BY DUNLOP – THEY LAST LONGEST!’ It seemed a little like trying to sell sticking plasters on a battlefield.

As Manning searched for an opening in the traffic, I considered once again his presence at the airport. I prided myself on my ability to think several steps ahead, but it had taken me totally unawares – I
hadn’t imagined my colleagues would be anxious enough to want me on a leash for just one night.

‘When did London cable to say I was on my way?’ I asked.

Manning glanced across at me. ‘About half seven. I was just changing when the office called.’

Half seven. That was fast – it usually took them a month to agree to buy a lightbulb.

‘I told the driver to take the night off and drove straight out here,’ Manning was saying. ‘Your flight came in, but there was no sign of you. Then I spotted a soldier standing guard outside one of the doors leading to the dungeons. Thought I’d better take a look-see.’

I told him I was glad he had; he waved my gratitude away. ‘That’s my job. Can’t have our people thrown in the stocks the moment they arrive in the country! Especially not Larry Dark’s boy. Not on my watch. You were unlucky – Bernard’s only in town for a couple of hours. Well, I say unlucky. Depends on how you look at it, of course. A few months back a chap from the
Telegraph
thought it was a good idea to disagree with him. Bernard had the fellow’s head shaved, got him to do press-ups for an hour, and then forced him to write out the words “I am a crappy Englishman and have no say in Nigeria” a thousand times.’

He roared with laughter at this, yanking the car into an opening in the traffic as he did so. ‘“
I am a crappy Englishman and have no say in Nigeria!
”’ he bellowed out of the window at a startled motorcyclist, who nearly swerved into the drain as a result. ‘Bernard was always a damn fool,’ he continued calmly once we were safely ensconced in a line just as slow-moving as the one we’d left. ‘Even at Sandhurst. That’s where I first met him, of course, many moons ago. I was an instructor there. Know quite a few of the commanders in this war from those days, as it happens.’

‘What’s he doing in Lagos? I thought his division was miles away.’

‘Yes, he’s over at Port Harcourt. I asked him the same question myself, and he said he was picking up troops and supplies. Apparently he can’t trust the other divisions not to steal his stuff unless he
comes up and supervises things personally. Typically African way to run a war.’

I remembered the soldiers I’d seen on the tarmac. ‘What’s he up to? Preparing for the final push?’

Manning snorted. ‘There’s been a final push every blasted month of this war. They’re calling this latest one the
final
final push – but nobody believes it.’

The traffic was at a complete standstill now, and it looked like we might be in for a long wait: Manning said it could sometimes take hours to clear. I took out my Players and watched as a mangy dog with great gaps of fur and a missing leg wandered up between the lanes of cars. Despite its limp, it had a strangely proud demeanour – almost as though it knew it would reach the centre of Lagos before us.

‘What else did London say?’ I asked Manning.

‘Not much,’ he replied, somewhat blithely. ‘That Chief’s gone missing. Reading between the lines, there’s a flap on that he may have something to do with the double agent this Russian johnnie has told us about, and you’ve flown the nest to prove them wrong. Am I right?’

‘Close enough,’ I said. ‘Did London mention when Pritchard would be arriving?’

‘No, just to expect him soon. Good chap, Henry. Came out here a few months ago. Thrashed me at golf. Beautiful swing.’

‘What were your instructions?’

‘What? Oh. To pick you up at the airport, then provide you with any assistance you required.’

‘I need to arrange accommodation,’ I said. If they were going to assign me a nanny, I might as well make use of him.

‘Of course. I’d have done it already, only nobody was sure what cover you’d be using.’

‘Robert Kane.
Times
hack covering the Wilson visit.’

‘Yes – so I gathered from Bernard. Well, we can check you in somewhere now if you’d like. Any preferences?’

‘What’s
the best-known hotel?’ I asked, and Manning glanced over at me. Most agents would have wanted somewhere discreet, but I wanted to make my presence felt in the city, fast.

‘The Victoria Palace,’ he said. ‘It’s the closest Lagos gets to the Ritz. Not that it’s particularly close…’

I knew the name. Pritchard’s dossier had mentioned it a couple of times, notably because an Ibo had tried to blow it up in advance of a peace conference a few years earlier. That it was enough of a landmark to be a target meant it was precisely the kind of place I was looking for.

‘I’ll drop you there,’ said Manning. ‘If this traffic ever gets going, that is. Oh, and before I forget…’ He plunged a hand inside the pocket of his pyjama jacket and fished out a small package, which he passed over to me. ‘You’ll also need these.’

I opened the box and took out a dozen white tablets sandwiched between some cellophane.

‘Paludrine. Anti-malaria. Take them once a day. It’s all there in the instructions: “Best absorbed with evening G and T”.’ He had another chuckle, and I began to wonder if he might simply be drunk. He caught my look. ‘Sorry. But see it from my view, if you can.’ He gestured at the Lagos night. ‘Stuck out here in the sticks miles from the bloody war and suddenly people start flying in looking for Chief – this is the most excitement we’ve had in yonks.’

I nodded, and packed the medicine in my hold-all.

‘Seems we’re in luck,’ said Manning, pointing ahead. The cars were starting to move.

*

The hotel was a horrendous white modernist building that looked like a collection of giant window-boxes, but the car park was stuffed with diplomatic plates and flagpoles jutted importantly from the entrance marquee, so it was clearly the right spot. I told Manning to wait for me and walked through to the reception, where a sullen-looking young woman behind a marble counter sold me an air-conditioned
double room for a hundred and eighty Nigerian shillings a night – the single rooms were all gone, she claimed. After filling in the registry and handing over my passport, I took the stairs to my room on the third floor.

It didn’t quite live up to the picture I’d been given in reception, but it looked like it had the basics: the air conditioning worked, and there was a telephone and a radio. Was it secure, though? I threw my bag and jacket onto the mattress and checked the strength of the door from the outside. After a few minutes, I was satisfied that anyone wanting to break it down would have to make a hell of a noise to do so. The windows also shut firmly, and I rigged an elastic band across the two handles to make sure. They led out onto a fire escape, which would come in handy if anyone tried anything. I was directly above the swimming pool. Despite the lateness of the hour, there were still a few people lounging on deckchairs sipping from long-stemmed glasses: diplomats, or aid workers. Nice life. Not mine.

There was a tiny en suite bathroom with a sink that trickled lukewarm water, and a cracked mirror above it. After splashing my face and drying it on my shirt – towels didn’t appear to be part of the service – I called reception and asked them to put me through to the Soviet Embassy. Amazingly, this took only a couple of minutes.

‘
Da?
’ The voice was cold. Night shift.

‘Hello,’ I said in Russian, but playing up my English accent. ‘Could you put me through to Third Secretary Irina Grigorieva, please?’

‘Everyone’s gone home,’ she said. ‘Do you want to leave a message?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tell her it’s an old friend calling: name of Paul Dark. I’m at the Palace Hotel on Victoria Island, room 376. Did you get all that?’

She said she had, and I replaced the receiver. Slavin was my first priority, because he was planning to defect and might have more information that could point to me. But Anna could also expose me –
she wasn’t volunteering to do so, but she could – so I had to get hold of her, too. She would be unlikely to return to the embassy until the morning, and they wouldn’t have given me her address, so I’d taken the next best option, which was to leave a message to try to bring her to me.

I locked up, and headed downstairs.

*

‘Everything okay?’ asked Manning.

‘First class,’ I said, fastening my seat-belt.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Tell me what you know about Slavin,’ I said.

‘Slavin?’

‘Yes. Russian johnnie. Was there anything you didn’t mention in the dossier you sent?’

He looked at me blankly. ‘Like what?’

‘How about the woman he mentioned – Irina Grigorieva? What’s their relationship?’

‘I have no idea,’ he replied, irritated. ‘I sent all the information we have.’

I smiled. ‘Just double-checking. I’d like to talk to Slavin – see if I can make him open up some more.’

‘You can do that tomorrow morning. He’s due at the High Commission at nine…’

‘I’d like to talk to him tonight.’

He tensed up. ‘Sorry, old chap, I don’t follow.’

‘Tomorrow may be too late,’ I said. ‘Did he have any surveillance on him when he arrived at the High Commission?’ He stiffened, but gave no reply. ‘And when he left?’ No reply. ‘So you see, we have no idea how secure his position is, let alone how he’s handling the pressure of being about to defect. He could already be under suspicion, or he could be getting horribly drunk and about to spill everything to one of his colleagues while we sit here discussing it. Have you put his home under surveillance?’

He shook his head defensively. ‘Too risky. He was quite clear we should make no further contact until tomorrow.’

‘But you know where his house is?’ A nod. ‘Well?’

‘It’s in Ikoyi, near the Russian Embassy.’

‘Near, but not in?’

‘That’s right. Most of the Russians have their own villas, same as us. But I don’t—’

‘Right, then. We’ll go and knock on his door, see if he’s still alive, alive-oh, and then you can head off to your party and I back to my little rat-hole.’

He frowned. ‘If he’s under surveillance, we could blow him.’

‘If he’s under surveillance,’ I said, ‘he’s probably already been blown. London told you to hold my hand, and that’s precisely what you’re going to do.’

After a while, he shook his head and let out a deep sigh. ‘You’ll have to think of something to tell Marjorie,’ he said. ‘She’ll be livid.’

*

Like many others in the neighbourhood, the villa sat behind an imposing set of iron gates. ‘Villa’ was Manning’s word, and was perhaps a little generous. It was a large but plain-looking bungalow, with mosquito nets on the windows and a jacaranda tree in the drive helping to mask the peeling paint.

Slavin’s house.

We were at the easternmost edge of the city: Ikoyi was the last island. On the way over, Manning had told me that many of the city’s expatriates, himself included, lived here. I could see why. Its houses, even the run-down ones, were spacious, its gardens neatly trimmed and, in comparison to the cacophony of traffic elsewhere in the city, it was eerily quiet: the only sounds I could hear were the mosquitoes buzzing around my ears, the ticking of my watch and the creaking of leather as Manning shifted his bum in his seat.

A Peugeot 404 was parked in the drive, so it looked as if Slavin was in. However, I had no way of knowing whether he was in there
alone
. I’d made
Manning drive around the neighbouring streets to check for surveillance. I hadn’t found any, but that wasn’t conclusive: they could be watching us from inside the house itself. And so could Slavin. I’d told Manning that surveillance would mean he was already blown, but that wasn’t strictly true. This man was a KGB officer and, if his work was important enough, he could be guarded around the clock as a matter of course.