William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

‘Two hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds,’

Adekunle said with feeling. ‘For a ten-thousand pound investment,’ Morgan said. ‘Not bad.’

Adekunle came up to him and seized his arm. Morgan could smell his cigar smoke. ‘This is why, Mr Leafy, you are going to help me, otherwise I take my complaints about your behaviour to the High Commissioner,’ he threatened. ‘I will not need to go to Mr Fanshawe: I will go to the top man.’ He released his grip. ‘Your kind offer of a visit to London was most useful. I have some’ good friends there now. Believe me, Mr Leafy, if I so wish I can make serious trouble for you. Find your own way to approach Murray. That is all. And before the twenty-ninth.’ His voice was harsh and angry again.

Morgan tried to coax some saliva into his dry mouth. ‘But how?’ he wailed. ‘Jesus Christ, I told you I…’

‘I don’t care!’ Adekunle spat out suddenly, trembling with rage. ‘I certainly won’t give one bloody damn shit for the career of a junior diplomat!’

‘All right,’ Morgan said weakly. ‘Alright. I’ll think of something.’ He felt very tired, overcome with weariness. He turned and set off back down the road to his car. Adekunle caught up with him.

‘Forgive me for losing my temper,’ he said quietly, ‘but as I told you the financial costs of an election campaign are high.’ He added in a surprisingly meek tone, ‘You don’t know what this…this obstruction by Murray means. I have my own concerns.’ Morgan said nothing. ‘There is no reason,’ Adekunle went on, ‘Why we should not both benefit from this, ah, how shall we say it? partnership.’

‘Thanks,’ Morgan said hollowly. He would do it, he knew: primarily to save his own tattered skin and secure his piddling job. But there was another reason. Something in him made him feel that Murray would accept the bribe this time, and he desperately wanted to be there the day his feet turned to clay and his pedestal was kicked out from under him. And he wanted to be the one to apply the boot.

He stopped in his tracks. He had an idea.

‘Do you know the golf professional at the club?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Adekunle said. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Bernard something. Bernard Odemu I think.’

‘Is he a Kinjanjan?’

‘Yes.’ Morgan paused. ‘Do you think you could ‘persuade’ him somehow to partner me with Murray in the Boxing Day golf tournament? I should think he’s the man responsible for the draw. Would that be possible, do you think?’

‘Is that all?’ Adekunle asked, amused. ‘Then of course.’

Power, Morgan thought, an amazing thing.

There was, Morgan decided, a distinct smell now coming from Innocence’s body: a sort of sour-sweet smell. Which wasn’t surprising, he admitted, as she had been lying out in the sun for nearly four days. It was the morning of 24 December — Christmas Eve — clear, bright, the sun shining, the temperature in the high eighties. He was waiting for Fanshawe.

Fanshawe had summoned him to the servants’ quarters to, as he put it, ‘sort out this Innocence-problem once and for all.’ The Innocence-problem lay — as it had always done, unmovingly, stoically — beneath its garish shroud. As each day had gone by so the juju tokens had multiplied and now there were twenty or so little cairns or assemblies of leaf, twig and pebble clustered around the body.

He saw Fanshawe stride into the compound. He could tell from the quick no-nonsense pace that his superior was not in the best of moods. He sighed quietly to himself.

‘Morning,’ Fanshawe said brusquely. ‘How are things going?’

Morgan felt strangely composed and lethargically in control for some reason. His meeting with Adekunle seemed to have jolted him out of his incipient crack-up, shaped the random nature of his various problems, given him a direction to follow. At least he had to act now; however unsavoury those acts might be. He also had the feeling that things couldn’t get much worse — but that, he knew, was a dangerous assumption to make.

‘Well,’ he said with a shrug in response to Fanshawe’s question, indicating at the same time Innocence’s body. ‘Not much change as you can see.’ He was quite pleased with his insouciance; he decided it was a pose he should strive to adopt more often in future.

‘Damnation!’ Fanshawe swore, his brows knotting fiercely. ‘Intolerable bloody country,’ he seethed. ‘They just go about their business — without a care in the world, as if it was an ordinary day — stepping over dead bodies without a second thought…Savage, unfeeling brutes.’

‘Well,’ Morgan said thoughtfully. He liked beginning his sentences with ‘well’: it gave them a pondered, considered tone. ‘That’s only from our point of view you know, Arthur. Shango’s a fairly top-notch deity out here and we have to respect…’

‘I’m not interested in this hocus-pocus rubbish, Leafy,’ Fanshawe hissed through clenched teeth. A drop of spittle flew out of his mouth and landed on Morgan’s sleeve, but he charitably decided not to draw attention to it by dabbing it away with his handkerchief. He was cool. He had also noticed the pointed use of his surname: Fanshawe was really heating up, he thought, it was all getting on top of him.

‘This bloody juju claptrap gets right up my…For Christ’s sake, man, the Duchess of Ripon is coming here tomorrow. The Queen’s personal representative! It’s impossible.’ Fanshawe shook his head vigorously. ‘It can’t be here.’

‘Well…’ Morgan began.

‘I do wish you wouldn’t keep beginning all your remarks with ‘well’, Leafy, it’s most irritating,’ Fanshawe burst out temperamentally.

‘Sorry I’m sure,’ Morgan said, his eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘I was just going to say that the Duchess is hardly likely to wander over to the servants’ quarters.’

‘That doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference,’ Fanshawe expostulated. ‘It’s the principle of the thing. For heaven’s sake, this is Commission property, you just can’t have it littered with decomposing bodies. And,’ he added contemptuously, ‘if you can’t see that then I’m sorry for you. Very sorry indeed.’

A strained silence ensued. With his thumb-nail Morgan pushed back some encroaching cuticles.

‘I suppose we’d better get it over with,’ Fanshawe said suddenly and marched towards the body. ‘Come on,’ he called to Morgan. Morgan joined him, wondering what he planned on doing.

‘What are you going to do?’ Morgan asked, looking round apprehensively at the audience of children and mothers that had gathered.

‘I’m going to have a look of course,’ Fanshawe said, the points of a blush appearing on his cheek-bones.

‘Why?’

‘Ah, to see for myself,’ he said, smoothing his moustache, adding vaguely, ‘check up, you know.’ Morgan realized that Fanshawe was fascinated: he felt the cloth was keeping something from him.

‘It’s not a pretty sight,’ Morgan cautioned.

‘Please, masta,’ a voice called from the crowd. They looked round, it was Isaac. He advanced a few paces. ‘I beg you, sah, nevah totch ‘im one time. Make you go leff am, sah. Dis no respec’.’

‘I am only going to look,’ Fanshawe declaimed pompously. ‘Now don’t worry, Isaac.’ He whispered to Morgan, ‘Pull back the cloth.’ Morgan felt like saying pull it back yourself. He was beginning to resent the assumption that he was some kind of mortuary assistant. However, he obeyed the order.

Fanshawe lurched back as if he’d been punched in the chest. His eyes bulged. ‘God,’ he said hoarsely. Morgan breathed through his mouth. The crowd edged forward to catch a glimpse. Morgan threw the cloth back over Innocence’s body. He stepped away carefully.