Chapter 87
The loss adjuster, Jonathan Mzenga drove them across the island and the business district, further along the harbour where containerisation was being extended. Eventually, they arrived at a colonial-era building. Here, the Harbourmaster kept an eye on all of the ships entering and leaving the port of Lagos.
Earlier, Mzenga had arranged for them to look at the records for vessels arriving in February, March and April 1980. Lagos was quite a busy port as attested by the number of ships listed in page after page of the shipping register. They looked for any ship where the master’s name was ‘Christoforou’ or ‘Kyriacou’. Many of the ships were either Greek or had Greek captains but none of them showed either name as the master.
“It looks like we’re at a dead end,” said Ashby. “But there has to be a link somewhere. Someone – we don’t yet know who – booked hotel accommodation in Lagos for the master and his crew, weeks before the Captain Stratos sank. The ship was scuttled. We know that the shipowners were involved in smuggling....”
“What ? Smuggling ?”
“Yes – and after pretending that the master and twenty two members of his crew all drowned when their ship went down, they decided to come here to Lagos for a couple of days or a week and then leave again. Obviously, they came here for a reason.....theta is the missing factor.”
“Theta ?
“Never mind. The hotel manager said that Christoforou was going out every day to see someone.”
“Perhaps Lagos was part of their escape route. Maybe they took a flight to get here,” said Mzenga.
“No, it’s more likely that they came on a ship. Their hotel is near the harbour. The Captain was in uniform every day when he was here. And anyway, why would they all want to fly here – all the way down here to west Africa ? The crew were given plane tickets to fly home after two days.”
“The Captain must have used an alias. Lagos might have been a stop-off to somewhere else.”
“He and the crew booked into their hotel in Lagos on 27th March 1980. Look at this : the shipping register shows that in the same week, six ships docked here in the port. Two of them sailed under Panamanian flags, two were Liberian and two were Cypriot. Of those, two were tankers, two were dry carriers and two were container ships. The tankers had sailed from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. One of the carriers was from the Mediterranean. The other one came from Northern Europe. One container ship was from South Africa and the other was European.”
“All different types of ships. Do you think that the Greek Captain and his crew were on one of them ?”
“I think it’s possible.....even quite likely.”
“Why would they do that, though ?”
“It could have been part of the smuggling operation.”
“But which ship ?”
“That is the question we need to solve. If you had a large consignment of contraband to sell on the black market, where would you would take it ?”
“Well....anywhere at all in Africa. You could sell it in almost every African country you can think of.”
“But where would be the closest to Nigeria ?”
“Anywhere along the west coast – that’s a very big area.”
“Are there any wars on the west coast at the moment ?”
“Ha, they’re always going on. Now, let me think – in Namibia.... Liberia.....Algeria.....Morocco.....Mauritania.....Angola.....South Africa – there are probably others too.”
“In the north west ?”
“That could narrow it down to Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and maybe Ivory Coast.”
“Did any of these six ships call in at those countries ? From the Harbourmaster’s records, both of the tankers sailed direct to Lagos, so we could rule them out. One of the container ships sailed direct from Durban, so we could exclude that one too.”
“That would leave three ships. Two from Europe and the other from the Mediterranean.”
“The carrier from Northern Europe called in at Morocco. The other carrier from the Mediterranean stopped at Sierra Leone. And the container ship called in at Senegal.”
“That doesn’t tell us much, does it ? None of them called in at countries in war zones.”
“Let’s see if we can find out something about them. The two dry carriers were Viking Trader and Marseillaise. The container ship was Western Constellation. See if you can find out what you can about each of them and I’ll speak to London to see if they have any information on them.”
When they returned to the hotel, the manager was waiting for them at the reception and collared Mzenga as soon as he saw him across the hotel lobby.
“He says that he has the other details you wanted, Mr Ashby about the booking and the cheque received in payment. Here are copies of both.”
“They’re rather faded – but they show what I wanted to see. It was a fax – from a Greek number – it should be easy to trace. The code prefix is for Athens –– I know them – and the letter was apparently sent by or on behalf of Christoforou with a long list of names for the crew. And the cheque – drawn on an account at the Bank of Corinth. We have the account number now, so it should be easy to trace the name of the account-holder.”
Plantation A Legal Thriller Page 87