Dear Beneficiary (28 page)

‘They'll know where we have to go,' I told Tracey as I pulled up in front of them and we both got out of the car.

‘Is this yours, madam?' said one of the officers in a voice that might suggest he'd been to a rather posh English school.

‘Er, no, it is a friend of mine's,' I said. ‘I'm hoping you might be able to tell me how to get to Lekki market.'

The man walked around the car and gave one of the tyres a kick. I wondered if he'd have done that if Lady Osolase had been driving.

‘Do you have the MOT certificate?' he added, getting out a notebook and pen from his top pocket. Meanwhile the other man was standing some distance away and talking into a phone.

‘I told you, it isn't my car,' I said, feeling a surge of indignation. He reminded me of that silly police constable outside the bank.

‘Come on, mate,' said Tracey. ‘Just tell us where to go. It's not our car and I'm getting married tomorrow.'

The officer looked up from where he was writing in his notebook and raised his eyebrows.

‘Really?' he said, adding, ‘How wonderful for you,' in what could only be described as a very patronising tone. ‘So, no MOT. That will be fifteen thousand naira fine. Payable now.'

‘You 'avin' a bleedin' laugh,' said Tracey, more affronted by the officer's lack of interest in her wedding than by the fine. ‘Ain't you got anything better to do?'

She flung herself back into the car, leaving me to negotiate.

‘That's rather a lot of money, isn't it? I'm sure the car has an MOT. The owner only bought it a while ago and I am sure it is new.'

‘If you don't have the certificate then you have to pay. Now.'

I went back to the car where Tracey had been going through the glove compartment looking for paperwork and found nothing. She had also tried to call Lady Osolase in the hope she could help.

‘Bugger, no signal,' she said.

It just so happened I had fifteen thousand naira in my purse and so I handed it over, vowing to sort the matter out when we got back to the bungalow.

‘Don't I get a receipt?' I shouted out after the officer as he marched back to his car, an unmarked and quite old Nissan which didn't look much like an official vehicle. The two men jumped into their seats and were soon making dusty tracks as they disappeared into the distance.

‘You thinking what I'm thinking?' said Tracey, picking a bit of apricot skin from between her teeth with an old match she'd found in her handbag.

I hope not
, I thought, suspecting Tracey's mind to be occupied with wedding nonsense and underwear designs.

However, her thoughts were quite valid on this occasion.

‘I think we've been had,' she said, prising out the bit of fruit between her finger and thumb before taking a look at it and wiping it on her car seat.

I felt I had to agree, but dismissed the fact we'd been subjected to a further con and drove on to the market, which turned out to be only a few more miles down the road. I suspected we had been stopped at the ideal place for unsuspecting tourists who believed there was an on-the-spot fine for not having an MOT on a brand new car.

But what was I to do? Had I not coughed up, anything could have happened and, quite frankly, I'd had enough of being held to ransom. It was a shame they had taken every bit of my cash, though.

We struggled a bit to get the roof back on the car once we had parked up, but Tracey found the right buttons and, using a bit of brute force, managed to close it, with only a slight gap above the driver's door which she stuffed with some used tissues. Not necessarily very logical, but I did have to agree that passing thieves might think twice about dealing with snot-filled handkerchiefs.

‘Wow, look at all this,' said Tracey, as she came across an entire street dedicated to shoes and fashion accessories. She tried fourteen pairs of shoes, six hair extension pieces of varying colours and a large hat – which we soon found out belonged to the stall owner – before finally moving on.

Small children flocked around us, touching us for luck and, on one occasion, jumping up to touch Tracey's voluminous breasts.

‘Cheeky little shitbag,' she shouted after him, before his friends came back with him, also wanting a feel.

‘Get stuffed,' she said swinging her bag at them and they fled, only to be replaced with some more determined young men, aged about twelve, who insisted on showing us round.

‘We show you all the lovely things of the market,' said the leader, who spoke exceptionally clear English. ‘Stay with us and we find you many bargains.'

Stall holders called after us, ‘Please come and look, looking is free', and so it was until you got hauled into areas behind curtains and fed a sales pitch intended to make you buy something you didn't want.

‘Lucky lady, take this beautiful gift,' said one elderly man who took pride in carving up bits of elephant tusk to resemble other animals such as giraffes and snakes. The irony seemed to be lost on him.

Three of our young hosts decided to take us through some back streets which led into a meat market, where whole sides of beef were being axed inefficiently into unrecognisable lumps for sale.

‘Aagh, that's gross,' said Tracey, as blood spurted out from one shop, hitting her in the legs.

‘Wish I'd kept those tissues now,' she said, taking the offer of a grubby rag from one of the boys and spitting on it before rubbing the blood even further around her clothes. ‘I want shoes, not bits of cow.'

I didn't bother telling her that the leather shoes she'd been trying on were also bits of cow and let her weave her way through the colourful bangles and cloth that lined the stalls.

‘Here, lovely ladies,' said a man in a loosely fitting suit as he came out from a hidden alley. ‘Come with me, special discounts. Looking is free.'

His teeth moved up and down as he spoke, and I wondered if Nigeria had a second-hand denture trade, as his certainly didn't seem to fit.

I wanted to walk past this man but he pulled Tracey by the arm and into a narrow passageway which led, after many turns and twists, to a workshop where a number of young girls were busy making carpets by hand.

‘Very, very good quality,' said the man as he invited us into his office at the back of the shop, which I noticed looked out onto water. I also noticed that our young guides had disappeared, which I found disappointing, as they might have helped us at this point.

‘I don't want a bleedin' carpet,' said Tracey, pulling back her top where it had been man-handled out of position. ‘I want shoes.'

‘You, lovely lady,' he said, looking at me for rather too long. ‘You have good taste; lovely hand-made, beautiful carpets – any size or colour. You are rich lady. You can buy, no?'

I had to admit they looked good so I engaged in some conversation, keen to get out of the place. I was aware of the fact he kept staring at me. One of the girls brought us mint tea, which Tracey spat out on the first sip.

‘That tastes like toothpaste. Haven't you got any builder's tea?' she asked, and was ignored by the man who sucked his teeth before turning his back on her. I thought he was very rude.

‘Anyway, we must be going now,' I said, at which point he stood up and walked around the office until he was in front of the door. ‘Could you please just take us back to where you found us?'

He looked at me, again for too long, left the office and locked the door behind him. There were no windows on that side of the office so we had no idea what he was up to.

‘I want to go for a pee,' said Tracey. ‘That bloke is getting on my tits.'

A bit like everyone else today
, I thought.

It was only a few minutes before the door opened and the man, accompanied by another wearing a better-fitting suit, came back into the office. But it was long enough for panic to start rising. Getting kidnapped was becoming something of a habit.

‘See, it is her,' said the first man to the other. ‘I know it.'

The second man looked at a piece of paper he had in his hand and then back at my face. He looked over to Tracey, who stuck her tongue out at him.

‘I need the loo,' she said, crossing her hands across her chest defiantly. ‘When you tossers going to let us out of here?'

‘Aha, it is you, too,' said the second man. ‘I recognise your English, sickly face.'

‘Get lost, rude boy,' said Tracey, pinching her cheeks tightly and producing a red flush. ‘Nothing sickly about my face.'

‘You are wanted by people,' said the second man. ‘We get money to hand you in.'

I groaned.

‘For goodness sake, we are worth nothing. Please just let us go.'

The first man stood in front of me. ‘Well, we could let you go if you match the finders' fee for handing you in. Fifteen thousand naira would do it. We're not greedy people.'

I thought of the MOT fine and how that money might have come in very handy right now.

‘Have you any money, Tracey?' I asked, knowing it was unlikely. Any cash she managed to get was usually ‘borrowed' from her purse by Baz almost the minute she put it in there.

She opened up her bag and let out the predictable lament about her husband-to-be and how he was always taking her cash. I thought she had some dollars but, if she did, she was hanging on to them.

‘I've got about three hundred naira,' she said, looking up at the two men. Then, in a flash of inspiration that altogether surprised me, Tracey suggested the men take her bank card and her PIN number and go and get the cash themselves.

‘That way you'll know you've got it and that we will be here waiting for you.'

I didn't for a minute think they would go for it, but they were soon on their way armed with Tracey's Nectar card and a fictional PIN number of seven digits.

They walked through the door and made sure to lock us into the office.

‘Well, that's all great, Tracey, but what happens when they come back empty-handed?'

‘We won't be here,' she said. ‘Look, the window's unlocked. We can get out here.'

The drop the other side wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. There was a narrow pathway around the water's edge, and just as we were making our way round what looked like a makeshift jetty, the boys who'd been showing us around appeared in a small boat.

‘Come on board, ladies. We take you to safety.'

There was just enough room for us, and I was delighted that they could row even better than Tracey and get us to the road leading to the car park, way before our escape had been noticed.

‘Thank you so much,' I said to them, but they refused to leave.

‘We need a reward,' said the lead boy.

‘I don't have any money,' I explained, but they weren't worried. They wanted a phone.

‘Here, have this,' said Tracey. ‘It's the only one we've got.'

I thought of the one I had, which Tom had given me before this trip started. I'd have been happy to hand it over.

Once they had gone, happy with their day's takings, Tracey explained that the phone could be locked and even traced back to them.

‘It's worth nothing to us, really, but everything to them,' she said. ‘For the moment, anyway.'

We got back to our bungalow, pleased with ourselves. We were safe and sound. I didn't tell Lady Osolase about the MOT business, or the attempted kidnap. It just seemed better to keep it to ourselves.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Lady Osolase hadn't wasted any time setting the wedding wheels in motion. Being a churchgoer and having such high standing she had no trouble finding a suitable minister. The speed and efficiency at which she worked was inspiring. She was a woman after my own heart, one who got things done.

‘It's all arranged,' she told us only hours after agreeing the date. ‘We have da priest and da church. I haf my son ready and he will do da decent ting.'

She'd also booked for Tracey to see a dentist, no doubt thinking of the wedding pictures, and offered up the services of her own dressmaker, Noelle, to make whatever clothing was required for the day.

Tracey was a bundle of nerves on the big day and on numerous occasions lit up a cigarette, only to cough violently and put it out again. She was marginally pleased with the dress Noelle had made for her, after much discussion, and although the shoes weren't the Louboutin copies she'd asked for, were sufficiently high-heeled to prevent a major tantrum.

‘I wish me dad could be here,' she said, tripping around on the shoes like a kid playing dressing-up games with her mum's clothes.

‘We can take photos,' I offered by way of consolation.

‘He's been dead ten years, so he won't be able to see them,' Tracey said, matter-of-factly.

‘I'm sorry,' I offered, wondering whether Baz would be so keen to have family witnesses to his impending marriage.

‘Don't be. I hadn't seen him for thirty years before that. Wouldn't recognise him if he came up and punched me on the nose.'

There was a knock on the door and Lady Osolase came in, bringing with her three glasses of brandy, which she placed on the coffee table.

‘Ma goodness. There's a treat for da eyes,' she said kindly to Tracey, looking over in my direction for support in her false praise. ‘She clean up well!' she added, holding up her glass. ‘Let's have a toast!'

‘Oh, I'm too nervous to eat,' said Tracey as she swilled the brandy in one swallow. ‘And I don't think we've got any bread.'

Noelle and one of the kitchen maids came in, holding bunches of beautiful pale pink flowers and a larger orange bouquet of lily-like stems wrapped in lemon and red silk. They handed the bouquet to Tracey.

I sneezed seven times and, after recovering, told Tracey she was the perfect bride. She beamed and I was surprised not to swallow my tongue, having had to place it so firmly in my cheek.