Robert Wilson - Blood is Dirt

‘I want a private investigation,’ said Napier Briggs, in a quiet intense voice that seemed to have stopped the traffic for a moment. ‘Anyway, this is a Benin thing.’

‘It’s a Lagos gang using a Benin scenario. Porto Novo is on the border. There are many crime links between Benin and Nigeria. Stolen cars, hi-fi, petrol, drugs …’

‘I don’t want the Nigerians involved.’

‘I’m half Nigerian myself, Mr Briggs.’

‘Then perhaps you’ll know why.’

‘Do you mean the Nigerian authorities?’

‘No,’ he said, his head seeming to operate independently of his neck, the puppeteer getting his fingers crossed. The three of us exchanged code through the volumes of smoke leaking out of Napier.

‘They used the letterheads to clear out your account?’ I asked, trying a new line.

‘They said the invoices would show goods and services I’d supplied,’ said Napier, ‘the letterheads would be used to give covering information. They’d put the whole lot through the system and effect a transfer. They needed a foreign company account to pull it off.’

‘What were you doing with nearly two million dollars in your account?’

‘They were freight payments from contracts and time charters and I’d had some good months on the spot market. It was all money due to go out to the shipowners in the New Year … apart from my two per cent.’

‘Timely,’ I said. ‘All that money being there, Napier?’

‘Not for me. Not for my owners.’

‘Who would have known about that kind of money being in there?’

‘The charterers, the owners, the bank … myself.’

‘You have someone else in your office?’

‘Karen. Out of the question, she’s been with me for years.’

‘She’d have known, though?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your associate?’

‘I told you. Nonexec. Remember?’

‘Do you have a wife, an ex, a girlfriend, a partner in life?’

‘Divorced. Three years ago.’

‘Bitter?’

‘This isn’t relevant.’

‘You’re not giving us much to go on this end, Napier. I’m just coming at it from a different angle. Did your wife know about your business?’

‘She used to.’ ‘You talked about it with her?’

‘She was a broker. She covered the Mediterranean small ships market.’

‘Was there anyone else involved at that time?’

‘Back off,’ Napier snarled. ‘This is none of …’

‘It’s only a question. Has your company always been called Napier Briggs Associates?’

‘No. It used to be Atkin Briggs Shipbrokers Ltd.’

‘What happened to Atkin?’

‘Blair Atkin.’ He said it as if he’d just got a mouthful of coffee grounds.

‘Your wife ran off with Blair?’

Napier had his back to us now, his hands above his head, leaning against the window, two fingers trailing smoke.

‘Yes,’ he said, taut as a drum skin.

‘You’re sure this isn’t relevant?’

‘They split up a year later. I haven’t seen or heard from her since. Nor has … anyway, she was a bitch.’

‘Was?’ asked Bagado.

‘Still is. I doubt it was the kind of expertise she could drop.’

‘You broke with her?’

‘She broke with me. I was very bitter about it. It bust up the marriage, tore the company in half, screwed up lives, all because she couldn’t keep her knickers on. Now let’s forget my wife, my ex-wife. She’s not involved. She’s out of the picture.’

‘How do you suggest we get ourselves into the picture, Napier? No letter. No proof. Scant information which we have to wring out of you and you turn down the offer of the Lagos fraud squad. What do you want us to do? Hang around on street corners in downtown Lagos looking at people’s back pockets? Time-consuming. Expensive. How much money have you got on you? Maybe not much beyond your own expenses. You’re not giving us anything, Napier. Chuck us a bone, for God’s sake. Spill your guts or bow out. We’ve got some paperclip chains to make.’

‘Perhaps Mr Briggs is concerned that he’s done something illegal,’ said Bagado. Napier kicked himself back off the window and turned on him. ‘Transferring funds from overinvoicing on a government contract. Whose money is it?’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Napier, backing down, leaning against the window, easing another smoke out, keeping the chain going. ‘Embarrassing.’

‘What percentage did they offer you?’

‘Forty. Thirty-five for …’

‘Who was the other five for?’

‘Someone called Dan Emanalo. He doesn’t exist, nor does the company he works for.’

‘Which was?’

‘Chemiclean Limited. I supplied them with chemicals in drums. They had a government contract to supply sewage treatment systems.’

‘But they didn’t exist?’

‘No.’

‘But they miraculously paid you for supplying the chemicals?’

Napier Briggs fell silent. He wasn’t a topnotch liar. He was pretty good at shutting up or spinning out half truths and he was an outstanding smoker, but lying … he just didn’t have it.

‘You’re binding up on us again, Napier.’

‘I have to think about this.’

‘Nothing’s going out of this room, Napier. Strictly P and C and all that.’

‘Where’s that coffee?’ he asked.

‘Coming.’

Napier clasped the back of his neck and tried to squeeze the anguish out.

‘Why can’t I think?’

‘Maybe you’re scared, Napier?’

‘Did you have particular need of this ten million?’ asked Bagado.

‘Ten million?’

‘Thirty-five per cent of thirty million dollars.’

‘Yes. No,’ said Napier, and his face crumpled. He was losing it. We sat in the silence left over by the traffic. The coffee and croissants arrived. Two cafes au lait for Bagado and I, and a double tarantula juice for Napier. He sipped it, rattling the cup back into the saucer each time. Thinking. Thinking. The brain turning and turning like a hamster’s wheel.

‘What did you make supplying the sewage treatment chemicals?’

‘Two per cent of the shipping, about three thousand dollars, but I did the product as well. Took five per cent of that. I don’t usually do product.’

‘Who did you get the product off?’

‘Dupont,’ he said, too quickly.

‘French Dupont?’

‘Yes, it was,’ he said, wanting to fill that out a bit more but having nothing else to say.

‘Sweet deal?’

‘Very.’

What are we talking about? Two hundred, three hundred grand.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Takes care of your running costs for a bit.’

‘Sure.’

‘Now, the ten million dollars, that’s different. That’s retirement money. Don’t have to push the pen any more, hump the phone to your ear. It can solve big problems, too, that kind of money.’

‘Like?’

‘Debts. Payoffs. Muscle.’

Napier slugged back the last dram of tar and refitted the cup. He lit another cigarette and threw the old butt out on to the balcony. He folded his jacket over his arm and shook his legs in his trousers, which were clinging to those parts where dogs like to stick their noses. He picked up his zip-top briefcase by the ear.

‘It’s like going to a shrink, Napier,’ I said. ‘You have to relive the trauma to get over the neurosis. Have a think about things. Straighten them out in your head. Come back and talk to us again.’

‘Do you have a home number?’ ‘I do, but I don’t give it out. This kind of business and a happy home life don’t go together. You’ve got a card, I take it?’

‘Yeah. The guy in the British High Commission gave it to me.’

‘We have an answering machine here. Office hours are eight a.m. to one p.m. and five p.m. to eight p.m. Where are you staying, Napier?’