A Darkening Stain (33 page)

The driver took me to the middle of the room and pressed me down on to the uneven, wide-spaced planks of the floor.

‘Have you checked the other rooms?' said Madame Sokode in perfect French, laying her briefcase on a table.

‘There's nobody here,' said Marnier.

‘Have you checked the other rooms?' she asked again.

Bondougou picked up a hurricane lamp and went to check the other rooms. I could only see Carole now, dressed in a black lycra body suit, night wear for night work. She wasn't looking that scared, a little rigid, her face tauter over her bones, but her eyes, if they weren't smiling, they were satisfied and there was nothing else to be read in them.

‘There's nobody here,' said Bondougou, coming back into the room.

‘Have you checked under the platform?' she asked.

‘I'll go,' said Marnier, which was when I knew we were in big trouble because it meant he didn't have the guns either.

‘You stay here,' snapped Madame Sokode. ‘Give him the torch.'

Bondougou went out and down the steps, came back up again. Thunder rolled out long and rough as a wooden-wheeled, ox-drawn tumbrel.

‘Nothing,' said Bondougou, getting emphatic now that he'd done what he was supposed to have done before we'd got here.

‘What's he doing here?' asked Madame Sokode, giving me a kick in the leg.

No answers, not even from Marnier who had answers for most things. Bondougou shifted uneasily.

‘He told me there was going to be someone here to sell me two thousand ounces of gold. Is there?'

Bondougou jutted his head but fell short of letting his mouth go slack. Mean but not stupid.

‘
You're
buying
his
gold?' said Bondougou, turning his head on Marnier.

‘And who's he?' asked Madame Sokode, following Bondougou's look to Marnier. ‘Don't tell me. He's the one who's supplying the girls as well.'

Bondougou looked at me as if I might have some suggestions, then changed the look to half a beat off murderous. Marnier knew it was his turn, he could hear the brains ticking even over the distant thunder, could see the way the combinations were falling, the assumptions beginning to be made. He came into Madame Sokode's idea a bit further down the line than she expected.

‘Why?' he asked.

‘Is he armed?' she spat at Bondougou, cocking her head at Marnier.

Sam's gun went in Marnier's direction.

‘I can see she isn't,' she said, glancing at Carole, who crossed her thighs as if she might pee herself, the lycra so tight you could see the outline of her spleen.

‘But what about him?'

‘He's clean,' said Bondougou.

Marnier held his arms up, parted his legs.

‘Take a look,' he said.

Sam frisked him.

‘Why?' said Marnier again.

‘I don't understand why
he,'
she said, toeing me in the ribs, ‘should come out here on his own. There's a whore from Lagos on the boat out there who says he's interested in what we're doing here tonight with these schoolgirls. So why should he come out here on his own with no weapon?'

Marnier stepped forward, trying to assert himself on the situation.

‘You get back over there,' she said. ‘You don't need to be in the middle of the room to answer that question.'

‘Why should I be working with him?'

‘He came into this on
your
gold.'

‘But he didn't tell me who you were and even if he had it wouldn't have meant anything to me because Le Commandant hasn't told me your name. I still don't know who you are,' said Marnier.

Madame Sokode glared at Bondougou, who nodded.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I think...'

A sudden wind rushed through the house. Thunder boomed closer. The rain approached, hissing loud over the lagoon. It hit the thatched roof of the house with a dull roar, raising the pitch in the room which was already crackling with high-voltage paranoia.

‘I don't know what he's doing here,' said Marnier. ‘We've come here unarmed. We've brought the girls. I was expecting him to come later on with—'

‘Have you checked the girls?' she asked Bondougou.

‘They're in the boat,' he said.

‘All of them?'

‘Yes,' he said, and even I heard the uncertainty.

‘You haven't counted them.'

‘Why should he...?'

‘I don't know,' said Madame Sokode. ‘Go and count them.'

‘At least wait until the rain stops,' said Marnier.

‘Where's the gold?' she snapped at him.

‘In the boat ... with the girls.'

‘So it exists,' she said and another flicker of uncertainty twitched at the corners of Bondougou's eyes.

I didn't hear anything but I felt something. Underneath me the plank shifted. Sam felt it too and the gun moved off Marnier. The rain stopped. Everyone in the room was on animal sense. The hiss of the rain moved away. Silence, now, apart from the lapping of the water against the stilts. Then a noise, unmistakable this time, in the next room. Madame Sokode slapped Sam's arm. He left the room. The door closed behind him. A shot roared out immediately. A body hit the planking. I rolled on to my back. Madame Sokode snapped open her briefcase and produced a chrome-plated revolver. She knelt and pointed it at the door. She shook the gun at the door.

‘Sam?' she said.

Not a word. A grunt squeezed out from a crumpled mouth but no word. The water rippled underneath us. The door opened in the partition wall, framed a vacant black oblong, revealed Sam face down in the next room, but nobody came through it.

Another roar and Madame Sokode's jaw and cheek parted from her face, her head kicked back, her knees lifted up from the floor, the gun fell from her hand, clattered on the wood and slipped through the planking into the water below. She fell back with a cracking sound as if her knees had popped. Her legs and arms twitched. A gargling noise came from her throat. Her
sharp pointed upper teeth were visible through the hole torn in her face. Her black eyes blinked at the roof. She coughed a spray of black blood.

The boats knocked against the stilts. Bondougou was pressed against the wall now, he seemed to be more aware than any of us that there was some terrible avenging presence in the room. I rolled and stood, moving away from him, Marnier retreated two steps, Carole shrank further into her corner, none of us knowing why or what was making us back off.

Bondougou's legs shook in his trousers. His eyes rolled in fear and his hands fluttered about him as if he was trying to protect himself from a bat loose in the room. He dropped to his knees and shouted something out, an appeal, in his own language, to some greater ancestral power. He fell forward on all fours and stared into the floor and was transfixed by it. He grimaced, his head reared back, jiggling on its neck. And only then did I see the barrel of the Browning appear through the planking.

The gun roared three times.

Bondougou's pumpkin head split and sprayed.

The force of the shots knocked him back against the cane wall which cracked and splintered. He fell sideways, landing inches from Carole who was crammed into the corner and looking out of the side of her face.

The water lapped underneath us. Blood, from Bondougou's appalling head wounds, leaked through the planking. A boat knocked into the stilts of the house.

Bagado, stripped to the waist, shining wet, stepped into the room. He had two weapons, the Browning .380 hung at his side in his left hand, the other, Daniel's revolver, was held at waist height. His face was set as hard as the gunmetal he was carrying.

Madame Sokode was still making grotesque noises. Her life, hard, gritty and stubborn, hung on. Bagado stood beside her and looked at Bondougou's lifeless form. His left hand jumped
at the sixth roar of the night and Madame Sokode's stomach arched off the floor and thumped back into it.

Bagado took a step towards Marnier and levelled the Browning. Marnier looked straight down the outstretched arm and said:

‘If you're looking for your daughter, I didn't bring her with me.'

Tuesday 30th July, on the lagoon near the Nigerian border.

 

‘Count the girls, Bruce,' said Bagado.

‘You'll need these,' said Marnier, throwing me the keys.

I picked up the torch and went down into Marnier's boat. I unlocked the cabin. The girls were all asleep, drugged, with their hands and feet cuffed, mouths taped and arranged like the cargo diagram for a slave ship. There were six and José-Marie wasn't one of them.

I crossed over on to Madame Sokode's boat and tore open the cabin door. Sophia was squealing a rat-like noise in her throat, a pure terror noise, convinced that she was next. I stroked her back down, tore the gaffer tape off her face, wrists and ankles. I found my holdall, gave her some clothes and told her to get on to Marnier's boat. She hadn't got a hold of herself yet and I had to carry her across with my bag. I went back into the house.

Two pairs of eyes were fixed on Bagado, whose face was still as hard and as stubborn as pig iron. The gun was still levelled at Marnier. Carole had slid to the floor and was looking at Bondougou's ruined head with fascination. There'd been no chat while I'd been gone.

‘José-Marie's not there,' I said.

Bagado, who hadn't seemed to be breathing, suddenly sucked in a deep involuntary breath and sighed it out. Marnier looked away from the gun barrel and shrugged.

‘Security,' he said, ‘or is it insurance?'

Bagado shivered and adjusted the gun in his hand.

‘There's a plastic bag in the pirogue underneath the house. Throw it in the boat for me. See if there's a spare tank of gasoline in the other launch and spray it over this place. We'd better set fire to it and get moving before someone comes out here. What's in the briefcase?'

I kicked it open. It was packed with old copies of the Lagos
Daily Times.

I threw the plastic bag from the pirogue into Marnier's boat and found the spare jerry can of petrol in the cabin of the other launch. Bagado moved Marnier and Carole into the boat. I sprayed the petrol over the launch and then through the four rooms and over the bodies in the house. I picked up the two hurricane lamps and hurled one into the far room, heard the thump of the gas as it caught, and ran. I threw the second lamp into Madame Sokode's launch and jumped into Marnier's boat, which was already moving away.

Marnier opened the throttle full and the two outboards dug in, the nose came up and we spanked across the black and flame-lit waters of the lagoon, heading for Benin. In a matter of moments the canes, thatch and raffia of the house were cracking thirty-foot licks of flame and belching burnt detritus high into the night sky. After a few minutes, only a roaring skeleton remained until the main tank of Madame Sokode's launch went up and the explosion blew the supports out from under one end of the house. The platform dipped violently, the house broke in half and part of it slid into the orange flickering water.

Carole and Sophia sat at the back, not talking, Sophia still shaking. Bagado, in his mac now, was up front with the gun nosed into Marnier's left kidney. I was sweating hugely as if I'd done twelve rounds in a hot town hall. My guts trembled and I felt the first rush of fever.

‘Where are we going?' I asked.

‘Another house on the lagoon, on the Benin side,' said Marnier. ‘You can tell your friend he doesn't have to point the
gun any more. This is a rough ride and I don't want it going off by accident.'

Bagado rested the gun on his knees but kept his eyes on Marnier. I leaned in between them, thought we could get one little thing out of the way before we started on the bigger stuff.

‘Tell Bagado what happened that night in Grand-Popo,' I said to Marnier.

‘What night?'

‘Don't be difficult, Jean-Luc,' I said. ‘Your Italian night, remember?'

‘The night of your infidelities, you mean?'

‘I can see this is going to take some time.'

‘But I think we're getting somewhere,' said Marnier. ‘I don't think your friend is going to shoot me like he shot those other two.'

‘They had to be killed,' said Bagado. ‘They were too powerful to let live. You're not.'

‘I can tell you I'm not going to an African jail for the rest of my life.'

‘That depends if you murdered the girl we found in the lagoon.'

‘That was an accident,' he said. ‘Very regrettable.'

‘The girl was strangled,' I said, hardening up on him. ‘That doesn't sound very accidental.'

‘Don't you start getting angry,' he said, ‘you need me too.'

We rounded a point on the north shore of the lagoon and the flaming house behind us disappeared. Marnier shut down the searchlight and throttled back. The engine ticked over and we drifted in the dark. Marnier folded his arms.

‘Let's negotiate,' he said.

‘You know what I want,' said Bagado.

‘And you're not going to get it, not all of it,' said Marnier. ‘I'll take you to your daughter. She's in a house a few miles away but then I'm going to leave you there ... with the other girls. I want some time to get back to Cotonou and across the border to
Togo. And that's
all
I want. Free passage. But if you want revenge, well ... you won't see your daughter again.'

‘I don't think I can accept that,' said Bagado.

‘Nor can I,' I said.

‘Ah, yes,' he said, turning to me. ‘There's the question of your debt to Mr Franconelli. What does he want?'

‘You know what he wants.'

‘I know he wants you to kill me and I know you won't do it; your friend here might but you won't. But what does Franconelli want ... my scalp this time? He's already had my dick...'