A Darkening Stain

by Robert Wilson

  ‘I’ve got another problem at my end. The buyer’s going to be very suspicious if both deals happen on the same night in the same location.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Marnier. ‘Psychology. Your buyer will tell you the deals are going to be done this way.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Your buyer wants delivery in Nigeria. I only want to deliver in Benin. Une impasse. You can talk about the difficulties and danger of moving gold across land borders, how we don’t have the right contacts on either side, how for ... what did you say he was going to pay?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Three-fifty-five dollars an ounce delivered Lagos.’

  ‘You know what the market is?’ he said, fast and angry.

  ‘Thirteen dollars above that.’

  ‘Putain merde. You’ll have to push for more. You can’t give in too easily. And when the buyer won’t come up any more you say that I’m not prepared to make the necessary contacts for that kind of money. Three-fifty-five an ounce ... my God. Then maybe you throw in the possibility of doing something on the lagoon. It’s quieter out there. I think your buyer will see the beauty of it. Maybe if you’re clever you can get your buyer to propose it even.’

  ‘Where are the deals going to take place?’

  ‘Why do you need to know?’

  ‘Because,’ I said, holding up the Browning, ‘I’d like to deliver this there in advance. I should think Bondougou’s knowledge of your character might make him cautious.’

  Marnier pointed to a drawer in the dining table. Carole opened it and laid out a detailed map of the lagoon system up to and including the Nigerian border.

  ‘Where’d you get this from?’

  ‘You’d be surprised what you can dig out in Paris. L’Institut Géographique National still has a lot of maps of our ex-colonies ... all out of date but better than nothing.’

  He smoothed the map out with his damaged hand and traced a line from Cotonou up the Lagune, into Lac Nokoué, on to Porto Novo and the Nigerian border. On the other side of the border was a village in the middle of the lake.

  ‘Is that an island?’ I asked.

  ‘No, it’s built on stilts and completely abandoned. There are only two houses standing and only one of them is safe, the bigger one, which used to be the town hall. There are remains of other houses but they are just stilts sticking out of the water.’

  ‘What’s the town hall consist of?’

  ‘A large wooden platform about ten metres by eight. The house is built so that there is a walkway all around it. It’s made of canes and dried mud. Inside there are four rooms. The dividing walls are made out of some kind of matting, the doors are wooden and in good condition. The roof is thatch resting on wooden beams. Originally the same matting on the walls was used on the ceiling but it’s mostly fallen down. There’s only one access point. There used to be four, one on each side, but the steps have rotted. The south end is the only way in.’

  ‘So I’ll have the guns taped up underneath the platform next to the steps at the south end.’

  ‘And not too far underneath. The reason the house is still standing is that it’s built on lots of pillars, all close together. You can’t get underneath it in a large boat ... only in a pirogue ... I don’t know what sort of boat you’ll be in. The idea is that we exchange boats rather than shift the girls around, and swap them back later. I would think you’d be in some kind of launch. If you’re going to do the job you should hire a pirogue to yourself. There’s a station outside Porto Novo. You can get anything you like there for the right money. Are you going to do it yourself? Because we can’t. We’ve got our hands full here and it’s a day trip out there and back.’

  ‘I can’t either, but I’ve got somebody who could.’

  ‘Somebody you can trust. Not an African, they’ll fuck it up, believe me.’

  ‘Bagado will do it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I said Bagado will do it.’

  ‘First of all he is a policeman...’

  ‘He’ll do it.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘He’s the only man I can rely on, and anyway I said at the beginning of this we were going to do it my way so that’s the way it’s going to be done. I’ll need a copy of the map.’

  ‘Take this one. I have the original,’ said Marnier, sullen.

  ‘Concentrate on what you’re going to say to Bondougou when you find he hasn’t got the four million absolutely on him and he hasn’t quite got the contract ready. You know what I mean? Don’t cave in too easily.’

  ‘I don’t cave in,’ said Marnier, severe, testy.

  I felt Carole’s eyes on me, deliberate and cold.

  ‘Where’s Carole in all this?’

  ‘She’s with me,’ he said. ‘And what about you? Where are you? You’ve still got a job to do.’

  ‘For Franconelli, you mean?’

  ‘It’s not something I’m likely to forget about.’

  ‘I told you I’m not a killer. You know it.’

  Marnier nodded. He knew that. And he also knew that Franconelli didn’t take any man’s word for anything, especially when it came to the maximum penalty. The Italian would want to see something. I decided to let Marnier think about that. Think about what Franconelli could possibly find acceptable other than his head on a plate.

  Chapter 29

  Monday 29th July, Cotonou.

  The streets were flooded and it was still raining hard when I got back home. I left a message for Heike on Gerhard’s answering machine and went to bed without drinking any more Red Label. The rain eased off at midnight. I was awake to hear it, couldn’t shut down the ticking in my head. I cracked and brought a half glass of whisky into bed with me. It dulled life to a haze beyond the mosquito net and, with the rain gone, I drifted into sleep and a series of long dark dreams that all took place on large expanses of flat, black water and were peopled by faceless beings, some making me kill and others forcing me into sexual liaisons I didn’t want to have.

  I got up early feeling sour and chill but with a slick of sweat on my forehead that told me I might be getting sick. I cooked bacon and eggs and drank too much coffee without thinking about it. The clouds were still turbulent in the low grey sky. Helen came in and worked around me like a cat looking for attention. I waited until office opening hours and put a call in to Bagado, told him to meet me at the house in an hour.

  I drove down Sekou Touré and took a left into the friperie zone. Amongst the second-hand clothes warehouses and the Lebanese and Indian cloth shops was a small 1950s type place called Trois As which sold medical supplies. I bought the basics for a first-aid kit and a bottle of iodine, along with two scalpel handles, six blades and a litre bottle of formaldehyde. I went back on to Sekou Touré and down to the Caravelle where I bought two croissants and drove home. I got the guns, the Browning and Daniel’s revolver, and a half million CFA from Moses’s flat and went upstairs. I had Helen make more coffee and sent her out. Marnier called.

  ‘It’s done,’ he said.

  ‘You got your contract and the four million?’

  ‘I’ve allowed myself to be fooled. I’ve just signed the original contract with my name and my company name on it and I’ve seen a copy of the transfer document from a Nigerian bank for four million dollars. Of course, Bondougou says they need the originals to send the money so I have nothing in my hand but I played nervous and I’ve agreed to transfer the girls.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I tried to get you some more time but there was no good reason to delay. It’s tonight. He’s already confirmed that from his buyer. We’re doing it tonight.’

  ‘And the deals are going to be back to back like we said?’

  ‘Back to back and I’ve managed to push it to midnight. That should be enough time for you.’

  ‘What if it isn’t?’

  ‘Then you’ll never see those girls again.’

  I hung up.

  I took the ph
one, guns and money to the dining table and sat down with the coffee. I put the guns and money on a chair beside me and tore a horn off a croissant. I dialled Madame Sokode’s office number.

  ‘The quality’s very good,’ said Madame Sokode.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll come past your house tonight and pick it up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The deal’s off. He’s not going to do it, not for three-fifty-five an ounce.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s too cheap. My guy doesn’t want to drive over a land border with something like seventy kilos of gold in his boot. He doesn’t have the contacts to do that kind of thing and the money doesn’t help him pay to make those contacts. It’s all off and I’m sick of it.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Where are you going to be tonight? I can’t get to Lagos until late. If I meet you at your house between ten and eleven will that be OK?’

  ‘Wait.’

  She put the phone down on her desk. I heard her pace the room. The door into the living room opened and Bagado walked in. I fingered my lips and pointed him into a chair. He poured coffee and wolfed his croissant. Madame Sokode came back on line.

  ‘Can he get hold of a boat?’

  ‘A boat? What sort of a boat? He’s not going out into the open sea.’

  ‘I was thinking of the lagoon.’

  ‘Anybody can get hold of a boat for money, I suppose. What’s the idea?’

  ‘There’s a village on the lagoon right on the border, abandoned. I’ll meet him there.’

  ‘Is there any more money in it?’

  ‘No, the same money.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Ask him.’

  ‘When would it be for?’

  ‘It has to be tonight, and, this is important, it has to be at twelve thirty in the morning, not before and not after.’

  ‘What’s this window of opportunity?’

  ‘It’s exactly that.’

  ‘Like I told you, Elizabeth, he’s a very shaky guy, out on the lagoon, middle of the night, same money, that’s a hard sell.’

  ‘He can’t be that shaky,’ she said, her shrewdness echoing down the phone line. ‘Maybe you should ask him how he acquired the gold in the first place. That might give you an idea how much nerve he has. And on the money. It’s the best deal he’s going to get on this coast. If he doesn’t like it tell him to take it to Switzerland.’

  ‘Have you got a map of this place? This village?’

  ‘I’ll fax you.’

  I gave her the fax number of the Lebanese stationer’s round the corner and hung up. Bagado started on the remains of my croissant.

  ‘Got your appetite back?’

  ‘What have you found?’

  ‘I know who’s holding José-Marie and the other schoolgirls. I just don’t know where now, but I do know where they’ll be at midnight tonight.’

  I unfolded Marnier’s map and talked him through the abandoned village as Marnier had described it.

  ‘And what do you want me to do?’ he asked, as if he already knew.

  I took the two guns and the money off the chair and laid them on the table in front of him. He clasped his hands and looked at them very seriously.

  ‘I want you to hire a pirogue, take it out to this village and tape the guns up underneath the platform of the southern access point of the town hall.’

  ‘What’s going to happen?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘She’s my daughter, you know, Bruce.’

  I shook my head again.

  ‘You’re not thinking of me as a policeman. If you were you wouldn’t ask me to do this work. So tell me what’s going to happen.’

  ‘You’ll just worry about it.’

  ‘I will, but I still want to know.’

  I told him the whole deal from start to finish. He nodded his way through it, sat back and thought about it all. I went down to pick up the fax. When I returned he was still in the same position, his eyes glazed with thought.

  ‘One thing,’ he said, ‘how are you going to get there? You can’t go with Marnier and Bondougou. They don’t want you there until twelve thirty.’

  ‘I’ll go with Madame Sokode.’

  ‘You better hope she invites you.’

  ‘That’s a good point.’

  ‘I think she’d naturally expect you to turn up with the seller.’

  ‘Very good point, Bagado.’

  ‘Just something that occurred to me.’

  ‘You’re back on form, aren’t you? The treatment’s working.’

  ‘It’s working very well. I’m converted.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  He stood without answering.

  ‘Also,’ he said, ‘your plan relies on Bondougou not talking about your interest in schoolgirls to Madame Sokode, and Madame Sokode not mentioning her gold deal to Bondougou.’

  ‘Why should she?’

  ‘Something you said about her mentality,’ he said, pacing the length of the dining table. ‘You say she’s Nigerian but thinks like a white person. That means endless questions, plenty of talk. Anything could come up.’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll speak to him. They’ve already organized their schoolgirl deal between themselves. Do you think she’d call Bondougou specifically to mention the gold deal which has nothing to do with him? She’d probably have to pay him a commission. These people are as tight as a beggar’s fist with money and information.’

  ‘It feels risky. Maybe her people in Benin have spoken to her about you.’

  ‘If they had I think I’d be dead. They’re down that money I took from Daniel, they probably don’t want to go talking to her just yet and getting her annoyed. I also understand she keeps her distance from the prostitution operations and that they’re run separately. Besides, I imagine Bondougou’s thought of a way of solving their little financial difficulty.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I was just trying to think about things you might not see when you’re close to it.’

  ‘There’s a risk, I know. I’m not absolutely certain how much Bondougou knows and there’s a subtlety and shrewdness about Madame Sokode that scares me, but the main thing is that those guns have to be there. They can solve any risk element, those things.’

  ‘If you can get to them,’ he said.

  A truck crashing through the puddles outside filled in the silence.

  ‘But don’t worry,’ he said, ‘they’ll be there. I’ll put on my fisherman’s outfit, hire a pirogue this afternoon and be back here by evening. You don’t have to worry about the guns.’

  ‘Let me confirm it all before you go.’

  I called Madame Sokode.

  ‘You’ve taken your time,’ she said, and I realized I’d been more than an hour with Bagado.

  ‘He’s nervous. I had to be persuasive.’

  ‘Will he do it?’

  ‘He won’t go out there alone.’

  ‘You can hold his hand.’

  ‘I can’t. I told you, I have to be in Lagos tonight and it’ll be a late finish.’

  ‘Where will you be?’

  ‘In the Apapa docks.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up.’

  ‘And I go with you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It doesn’t solve his problem. He said he doesn’t want to go alone. If I can’t be with him he has to pay somebody else. Give him an extra dollar an ounce on top, for God’s sake.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, Madame Sokode, it’s a deal. I’ll go with you to the village and back to Cotonou with him. Can you meet me at Mile Two? There’s a ferry comes in there from Apapa.’

  ‘Be there at ten.’

  We hung up. I called Marnier and confirmed.

  Bagado sat back down.

  ‘I think that’s it,’ I said.

  ‘I spoke to Heike,’ he said.

  ‘And
you’re still talking to me?’

  ‘It didn’t sound good, not from her side.’

  ‘You might find it difficult to believe this, but I was lying.’

  ‘What a thing to lie about,’ said Bagado.

  ‘If I hadn’t lied I’d have been a dead man.’

  ‘And there was nothing else for you to lie about?’

  ‘Marnier invented the lie for me. He thought it was convincing. He thought it would be the only thing I would desperately want to be dishonest about. But I didn’t expect to have to tell the lie in front of Heike. She being there was not in the plan. On the other hand, with her there it became the perfect lie. It saved my life and destroyed it in one.’

  ‘You could have lied about anything else except...’

  ‘And I’d have been a floater in Lagos harbour,’ I said. ‘Marnier was right. Sex was the only thing.’

  ‘Maybe that’s something you should think about.’

  ‘When this is over.’

  ‘I’d like to help.’

  ‘You can help by believing me.’

  ‘That might not be good enough.’

  ‘I know, I hurt her very badly that night.’

  ‘I saw it,’ he said. ‘What about Marnier? Would he...?’

  ‘I can’t see myself bringing those two together.’

  ‘What about with me?’

  ‘After tonight...?’

  ‘Yes. I take your point. He’ll disappear ... if he has any sense.’

  ‘And signed confessions are a bit old-fashioned.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ he said, getting up to leave. ‘Don’t worry.’

  He waved from the door, more positive than I’d seen him in months. I went down and rooted about in the garage and came up with an empty bottle of Ballantines. I transferred the formaldehyde into it. I packed the bottle and some clothes into a small holdall, put all the first-aid things, the iodine and the scalpels in a wash bag with the usual stuff and laid more clothes on top.

  I put a call through to Heike in her office. They wouldn’t connect me, said she’d gone out and they weren’t sure when she’d be back. I pushed to find out where she’d gone. The girl said she’d gone out of town, and she didn’t have to, but she added, with Gerhard.

  I went down to the autogare in the Jonquet and caught a taxi to Lagos.