The Dark Chronicles (17 page)

The previous night’s events flooded back. I flicked the bedside light switch, but nothing happened. Taking care not to wake Isabelle, I climbed out of bed and walked over to the door. The main light wasn’t working either. That explained why I was drenched – there’d been a power cut, so there was no air conditioning.

I looked at the luminous dial of my watch. Twenty past five. Pritchard’s plane would be here in just over two hours. I had to get dressed and get outside. But to where, and to do what, exactly? It was too early for Anna to be starting work at the embassy, and I would be too conspicuous hanging round there at this time of night. There was nothing more to do until dawn.

The wind was shooting volleys of rain against the window, making an eerie fluttering noise every few seconds. I went over, parted the curtains by a finger’s breadth and peered through the mosquito net. I couldn’t detect any movement, either in the street or in the cars parked by the entrance. The rain was beating furiously against the surface of the swimming pool – no diplomats sipping cocktails now. Across the dark water, the lights of the trawlers pulsed softly.

I took a seat in the corner of the room and considered the naked woman sprawled carelessly across the bed. I’d deliberately brought her back here, blowing my base, because if she was working against me that was the quickest way to force her hand. It had been my strategy from the start, and in some ways it seemed to be working. Since my arrival in Lagos less than twelve hours previously, Slavin had been killed, his assassin had taken his own life, and I’d been shot at by the local police. Someone was working against me, and pretty effectively. Was it Isabelle, though? I was starting to have second thoughts. She hadn’t been out of my sight since leaving the Yacht Club, except for those two minutes in the Afrospot when I’d left her to return to the green room. But even if she had found a telephone in that time, the police couldn’t have reached the club so fast. There had been close to a dozen cars. Perhaps she had given a signal earlier – to one of the bouncers, or even someone at the Yacht Club.

But none of this seemed to fit the woman sleeping so easily a few feet away from me. After we had made love, I’d feigned sleep with one hand gripping the Tokarev, waiting for any sudden movement. But she had drifted off faster than most husbands. If she had wanted me dead, would she have slept naked and unarmed in the same room as me, knowing I had a pistol and rifle within easy reach?

It wasn’t just Isabelle that didn’t add up. In the turmoil of the previous evening’s events, I’d made several assumptions on the hoof – as light began to seep into the room, I went through them again.

I started with the killer on the golf course. My first reaction had been fury at Sasha: I had presumed that, despite my threats, he’d sent someone out to kill Slavin. But that couldn’t be right. The rifle had been left at the club for the Russian, but it had not been involved in the killing of Slavin – that had been accomplished easily enough with a pistol. A cold thought swept through me: Slavin’s killer had to have already been out here.

But why?

I thought back to the Afrospot: had I missed anything? Quite possibly – I’d had very little time to investigate. I tried to picture the green room again, but nothing new came to mind. What else had been there – and why had that woman stared at me like that when she’d first seen me? Perhaps she was the contact, and had thought I was the Russian. When I hadn’t quoted poetry at her, she’d realized her mistake and retreated.

My immediate instinct was to return there at once and forget meeting Pritchard, but I rejected the idea just as quickly. Slavin’s death implicated me as the traitor, and unless I gave a plausible explanation for it, Pritchard would come hunting my hide with the full might of the Service. I’d have to give him the impression we were working together, while at the same time not allowing him to draw too close. It would be a delicate balancing act, especially if my thoughts about the rifle were correct, in which case he’d stick to me like glue. I could, of course, neglect to tell him about the rifle. But Pritchard had clout, and I might be able to use some of it to get some more answers.

I picked my shirt from the carpet and reached for the cigarettes in the pocket. There were twelve left in the pack. I wondered if I would find Anna before they had all been smoked. I changed the focus of the thought: I would find Anna before they had all been smoked. The phrase from Slavin’s interview that I had been trying to avoid thinking about once again slipped into my mind: ‘the one true love of her life’.

A muscle in my stomach tensed. It was partly hunger – except for a handful of peanuts at the Yacht Club, I hadn’t eaten anything since getting off the plane. It was partly fatigue – I’d been under huge strain and had only managed a few hours’ sleep. But I knew that it was also partly a sudden, overpowering longing for Anna. Something had awoken when Isabelle had touched me, but I had to put it to sleep. It didn’t matter if Anna had loved me, or I her – that was over twenty years ago, and a lot of blood had passed under the bridge
since. She was a highly dangerous professional who had gone to extraordinary lengths to betray me, and who had almost certainly had a hand in murdering Father. This was not a woman to long for. This was a woman I had to find.

I finished my smoke, then felt for the case beneath the chair and lifted out the rifle. The night hadn’t been a complete waste, after all: I had found this. Perhaps, if I looked hard enough, it might offer up some clues as to what was going on.

It was in perfect condition. Even in the dim light, the laminated hardwood had a noticeable sheen. That meant it hadn’t been used yet – gum would have been applied to lessen its visibility in the field otherwise. I wasn’t sure if that meant anything, but I stored the thought anyway.

Then I started to feel my way around the weapon, figuring out how it fitted together. It was a very different beast from the Enfields I’d used in the war. The sight, as I had already discovered, was mounted over the receiver instead of the buttstock, which was itself unusually long and sleek. Hard to transport something this size. How had it been brought into the country? Diplomatic bag?

I spent several minutes sorting through all the thoughts that came to me. When my eyes had fully adjusted to the dark and I thought I could see how the rifle worked, I began a field-strip.

I detached the magazine, then lowered the safety and emptied the cartridge chamber. Then the sight. The eyepiece was still a little wet, so I took hold of a corner of curtain and dried it as best I could. Finally, I detached the cheek plate, followed by the receiver cover and retracting mechanism…

‘What you are doing?’

I looked up to see Isabelle staring at me from the bed.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘I’m cleaning the rifle. There’s been a power cut.’

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. ‘It is what time?’

I told her. She picked her damp dress from the floor and slipped it over her head with a shudder. It was a shame to watch her body
vanish beneath the fabric – I had an urge to get up and help her take it back off.

I placed the rifle back in its case and walked over to the bed.

‘I’m sorry about last night,’ I said, seating myself beside her.

She pushed her hair behind her ears and smiled, her teeth gleaming in the soft bluey-greyness of the room. ‘You have nothing to be sorry about.’

‘Not that,’ I said. ‘Earlier, when I made all those accusations. Mistaking you for a spy.’

She tilted her head up sharply. ‘Why do you say that?’

It was my turn to smile. ‘Last time I checked, French intelligence still insists its agents have basic driving skills.’

She punched me in the shoulder. ‘
Connard!
’ But it was said with affection. ‘Did you also search my clothes for transmitters after I fell asleep?’ I didn’t react, and she punched me again.

‘What story did they give you?’ I asked. ‘They didn’t say it was your chance to help
la patrie
, I hope?’

She shook her head. ‘That wouldn’t have worked.’ She paused, wondering whether or not she could trust me. Then, perhaps realizing she now had little to lose, she shrugged her shoulders and continued. ‘Before I was due to travel to the front last year, an old colleague of my father approached me. He said they were doing everything they could to end the war here, but if I could provide any information on what I saw it might help end it sooner.’ She narrowed her eyes and looked at me straight on. ‘It might save lives, you know?’

I nodded. ‘The usual lie.’

It was too quick for her and she bristled. ‘I forgot – you are British. Of course you say this. Your government arms the Nigerians so they can isolate Biafra and starve innocent women and children. How could you think any differently?’

I smiled tolerantly. ‘I never discuss politics before breakfast.’

She looked at me with all the scorn she could muster. ‘Do you treat all questions you cannot answer this way?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I treat all questions asked by people who have already made up their mind this way.’ She stared blankly at me. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’re supplying the Nigerians with arms. So are the Russians, and others. Guns, tanks, planes…’

‘That is your justification? That you are not alone?’

‘Your government only started selling arms to the Biafrans last year,’ I went on. ‘Its contribution is still tiny compared to what the Nigerians receive from us and Moscow. And no heavy weapons. At its current level, France’s support isn’t enough to give Biafra even the slimmest chance of victory. That’s because the idea isn’t to help Colonel Ojukwu win the war – it’s to help General de Gaulle win votes. Your government doesn’t give any more of a shit about starving Biafrans than mine, and any information you’ve given your father’s friend has, like the arms he has supplied, merely prolonged the bloodshed. You haven’t saved lives – you’ve helped take more of them.’

I saw the slap coming, and steeled myself for it. Now we were even.

She started crying soon after, so I took the rifle case into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub. I reached for the collapsible rod tip: the bore looked filthy.

She didn’t know anything about Anna, or Slavin, or any of it. She was just an amateur, a hopeless idealist caught in the crossfire.

‘I have to leave soon,’ I called out. ‘Can you get ready?’

I went over to the basin. A dead rat lay face up in it, its eyes staring glassily at me from the darkness. I opened the window and threw it into the street below. Perhaps that’s what I am, I thought: a dead rat flying towards a gutter, where larger creatures wait to devour me.

Melodramatic fool. I was as bad as she was. Nobody was going to devour me. I’d devour them first.

The water from the tap was tepid, but I splashed it all over my face and body anyway.

‘I leave now.’ She was standing in the doorway.

I dried myself, and she waited for the words of kindness that were not going to come from my lips. I suppose she was used to men begging her to stay.

‘If you have to pay any traffic fines, the AFP office has my details.’

There was no need to humiliate her, so I smiled. ‘You’re heading back to the front, then?’

She nodded. ‘This afternoon.’

The phone started ringing in the main room, and I went through to answer it. Could this be it? Could it be her?

‘Paul,’ said the man’s voice on the other end. ‘It’s Geoffrey. Have you seen this morning’s
Daily Times
?’

I looked up to see Isabelle walking past the bed. ‘Best of luck,’ I said to her. She nodded, but didn’t make eye contact. The door made barely a click as she closed it behind her.

‘Who are you talking to?’ Manning was saying. ‘Hello, is anyone there?’

‘Hello, Geoffrey,’ I said. ‘No, I haven’t read the papers yet – it’s barely dawn. Why?’

‘The entire front page is about bodies being dug up from bunkers on Ikoyi golf course, that’s why!’

Alebayo had been right – it wasn’t a bad paper. They’d put the story together in just a few hours. I told Manning we could discuss it at the airport.

‘I’m not sure you should come,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we should be seen together. It might—’

‘What?’ I asked. ‘Blow my cover? You’ve just used my real name on a line that may well be tapped, so I think it’s a bit late to be worrying about that, don’t you? I’ll be at the airport at half-seven, as agreed. I’m leaving your car here – the police will be looking for it. Send one of your secretaries to come and pick it up.’

‘Looking for it? Are you pulling my leg?’

‘Unfortunately not.’ I didn’t tell him the back window had also been shot off, but he’d find out soon enough. Instead, I told him
that the Afrospot had turned out to be a club, and that the owner was a certain J. J. Thompson-Bola. I spelled it out for him, and when he’d got it I told him to see if there was anything in the files.

Then I hung up and called the Soviet Embassy again. It was a different clerk, but much the same message: Third Secretary Grigorieva had not come into the building yet and no, he had no idea when she was due. I left my details again, then dressed, reassembled the rifle and called reception to order a taxi. Part of me wanted to direct it to the embassy, so I could sit and wait for her to turn up, but I knew I couldn’t. There was something else I couldn’t put off: it was time to face Pritchard.

*

The rain had finally stopped, and the sun was rapidly climbing the sky. It looked as round and yellow and artificial as a child’s drawing up there, but its effect on me as the taxi sped along the main road was real enough: my cheek facing the window felt like a branding iron had been placed on it. The city outside seemed flat and colourless in the glare and the haze, and I felt a little dizzy and nauseous – perhaps the previous night’s activities had taken more of a toll than I’d realized. Luckily, there were few cars on the road, so we arrived at the airport in good time. The driver charged me two Nigerian pounds, despite a sign saying it was a fixed fare of one and ten bob the other way. There were more important arguments to be had, so I paid him.