Robert Wilson - Instruments of Darkness

The border had become a lake on the Ghanaian side. The flow of traffic was going back to Ghana now and I was through in five minutes. The traders on the Togolese side stared out from under plastic sheeting, holloweyed and dismal behind their banks of cigarettes, tinned tomato purée and sardines. Mud worked its way up the buildings of this strange quarter of Lomé that butted right up against the wire of the frontier. The sea was grey and the sand looked hard and dark. Africa, after rain, was a place of the living dead.

I drove around town before going to Jack’s house. Through the drizzle still whimpering over the city, I saw the red lights marking the height of the 2 Fevrier Hotel, its glass walls reflecting the greyness of the late afternoon. The smell of the rain made me think of London on a November evening. I had a sudden nostalgia for a dim pub with warm beer and a cheese roll with courtesy lettuce.

There was no light at Jack’s house or in his area. Parked behind Jack’s Mercedes was a larger, longer Mercedes with Nigerian plates and windows tinted so that only a squat version of myself was visible on them. Looking in, I’d expected to see a bowling alley at least.

Jack was glowing strangely in the yellow light of a hurricane lamp where he sat by the french windows of the living room. His legs were stretched out and his hands were clasped behind his head. He was nodding as if he was listening to somebody, which was unusual because, as B.B. said, he never did. The guy he was with must have been important or Jack would have been flicking through Hello magazine and playing with his nose.

Mohammed came over and directed me towards the spiral staircase leading to the breakfast verandah. I got a back view of Jack’s guest who was sitting in a cane two-seater sofa which wasn’t reacting well to the circumstances. This man was wide and made wider by his suit whose cloth and tailoring values could still be discerned in the oily light. He moved for his drink and the sofa cracked like a splitting redwood.

His hand buried the glass. A heavy gold watch hung on a thick loose chain from his wrist as if he wanted to shake the worthless thing off. The light shone down the back of his shorn head and revealed three horizontal creases in the skin where there was supposed to be a distinction between where the head ends and the neck begins. It was a thick neck, a working ox’s neck. I wouldn’t have liked to be the man to strangle it.

Night fell faster after the rain and I stood at the rail of the verandah and looked down into the darkness of the garden. A drink had fitted itself into my hand with no complaints from me. I heard the booming laughter of a man who hadn’t found anything funny but knew a cue when he heard one. There was more cracking from tortured furniture and the heavy footfall of a man who walks little.

The huge Nigerian appeared at the bottom of the portico steps. Beneath his pewter grey super lightweight suit his black shoes shone with a better shine than patent leather. A chauffeur appeared from nowhere. He must have been sleeping on top of the tyre under the front wheel arch. He opened the car door which swung out with magnificent weight. Mohammed stood holding a torch so the Nigerian could see where he was.

Jack was saying something I couldn’t hear which was probably just as well. Mohammed moved the torch’s light between Jack and the Nigerian, drawing attention to himself. Jack’s voice told him to stop being a bloody fool. Mohammed held the torch steady. The Nigerian was jangling something in his pocket which must have been the keys to his Swiss bank’s safe deposit box because he didn’t look like a man who’d ever heard of loose change. He was chuckling a low, rich, deep chuckle that he must have bought in Harrods and displaying great white teeth and a thick, pink tongue. He walked in a stumbling way to the car following the pool of light from Mohammed’s guiding torch. Jack appeared between the pillars of the unlit portico.

The big man bent over and got into the car while the chauffeur danced around him in case something stuck and needed to be levered in. He must have thrown himself back into the seat because the Mercedes’s suspension coughed politely, just to show that it hadn’t really been a problem. The chauffeur pushed the door to and it closed with a satisfying thunk.

The engine of this car was no louder than Heike breathing in her sleep. The car rolled backwards, arced on its power steering, negotiated a few bumps and floated off into the black shrubbery. Jack was waving, maybe the Nigerian waved back or maybe he gave him the finger. Jack will never know.

The spiral staircase shivered against the house as Jack climbed up to the verandah. He made it to the drinks tray and poured himself a beer. He drank and sighed the sigh of someone who has been so unfortunate as to have made such money.

‘Who was Mr Big Shot?’ I asked.

‘That was Mr AA International Commodities Traders Limited,’ said Jack with a smug look that would have earned him a dead leg anywhere in the world.

‘He looked like Mr Kiss My Arse from over here.’

‘Sometimes, Bruce, arses have to be kissed.’

‘Tell him before you do it, or he won’t notice.’

Jack drank some more beer and ignored me.

‘How did you get on with B.B.?’ he asked.

‘He gave me the job and he paid me an advance.’

‘I told you.’

‘I bought him a packet of cigarettes first.’

‘He likes generous people.’

‘Millionaires do.’

‘Did you get the lecture?’

‘On wok, you mean.’

‘He loves eating Chinese.’

‘He spoke very highly of you.’

‘He tink I neffer haff to wok for my monny.’

‘Someting like dat, ‘I said, and we both laughed.

I put my empty glass down and poured us both some whisky into fresh glasses with ice.

‘Do you know anything about Kershaw?’ I asked.

‘I know what he looks like.’

‘You’ve never spoken to him.’

‘B.B. likes to keep things separate.’

‘You got anything to tell me?’

‘He lost a bit of weight.’

‘Thanks, Jack, don’t strain your brain. Did you speak to Madame Severnou?’

‘She’s calm now.’

‘I’m glad about that,’ I said, mustering some acrid sarcasm to spread on my tone. ‘I was worried for her. I’d hate to think of her out of pocket or inconvenienced. It must be tiresome to have to send the hit squad out every time someone questions your integrity.’

‘Bruce,’ said Jack, ‘calm down. What I meant was that the misunderstanding that made her do that has been cleared up.’

‘What misunderstanding was that, Jack? It must have been a pretty big one, and if they’re that big I normally see the dust cloud coming over the horizon well before.’

‘She thought that when you gave her the non-negotiable copy you were acting on my instructions. That…and she didn’t like the way you handled it.’

‘Look, I know this woman is used to people throwing themselves on the ground in front of her so that she doesn’t get dust on her toenails, but she has to understand that I’m there representing you in a deal where with very little effort she gets to make fifty thousand dollars.’

‘Without her…’

‘Spare me the horseshit, Jack. You could sell that rice to anyone. They’re screaming for it. You’re doing her the favour and, don’t forget, she did short you by a hundred thousand pounds.’

‘I’m going to tell you this, Bruce’ said Jack in a voice that wasn’t used to getting annoyed but when it did it was time to hit the deck, ‘and then I want you to mind your own fucking business. The fifty million CFA is for some cotton fibre I’ve bought from AAICT and her fee. I didn’t know that she was going to turn it round that way but it’s done now and it works out the same. More important, she got me the contact with AAICT and this is her payback.’