The Dark Chronicles (13 page)

Manning was also right to worry that this kind of approach might tip off Slavin’s colleagues that he was intending to defect. If they were to get the slightest sniff of that, he would immediately be deported, and probably shot on arrival in the motherland. But that wasn’t my plan: for the time being anyway, I wanted Comrade Slavin to stay alive. I had to find out what he knew, and how he’d discovered it. He had claimed that Anna had loved me, but had she been the source for that, or someone else? I had to get to him, but I had to find a way to do it without the Russians being alerted.

It wasn’t looking promising. We’d been here for twenty minutes and there hadn’t been a flicker of activity from inside the house.

‘It
is
the cocktail hour,’ Manning said, finally.

I looked at him. ‘You think Slavin might also have a pyjama party on tonight?’

He shrugged. ‘He might even be at the same one.’

‘You socialize with the Russians?’

‘Sometimes. Plenty of diplomats, from all over, are members of the Yacht Club. The Russian ambassador joined last year – chap called Romanov. Charming fellow, actually, and quite a good sailor –’

‘Is Slavin a member?’

‘Not that I know of. But anyone who is could sign him in. And it’s quite a big bash tonight, so perhaps he’d want to go.’

I found it hard to believe Moscow would allow anyone important out on the cocktail circuit: it was almost an invitation to defect. Still, Slavin
was
planning to defect, so perhaps they had as tight a rein out here as the Service appeared to, employing buffoons like Manning. Perhaps Lagos was just one big pyjama party.

Or perhaps I was just tired. Manning was worried about the rocket he was going to get from his wife and was probably using the slightest possibility that Slavin would be at the same party as a pretext to stop my goose chase around Lagos. But it
was
a possibility, however slight, and now he’d put the thought in my head it was hard to dismiss. It would be too painful to bear if we were staking out his house while he was lording it up over the road in his nightgown and slippers.

‘How far away is this party of yours?’

Manning jollied up. ‘A fifteen-minute drive – less at this time of night. It’s over on Lagos Island.’ He pointed in the direction we’d come. As he did, I noticed the field lying in darkness by the side of the road.

‘What’s that? A golf course?’

‘Yes. Part of the Ikoyi Club. I’m a member there, too. Not a bad little course, as it happens. Henry—’

I didn’t want to hear about Pritchard’s birdie on the ninth, so I opened the door and climbed out.

‘Wait here,’ I said.

*

As I approached the gate, I saw that behind it and to the right, partly shielded by bushes, was a small hut, wooden and painted blue. I pressed a buzzer, and after a few seconds a bulb went on and a man emerged from it. He was wearing grey flannel trousers and a sweater with epaulettes.

‘Who goes there?’ he called. His handsome face was half-lit by the bulb, highlighting deep symmetrical scars down his cheeks. I could see the silhouette of his rifle: from the way he gripped it, he looked to be an amateur. Surely a KGB colonel would have more protection than this?

‘Who goes there?’

‘Is Mister Slavin in?’ I asked.

He peered out at me. ‘He expecting you, sir?’

That was good. ‘Sir’ was good.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m here for the party.’

He didn’t register either way, but he raised his rifle a little. I’d guessed wrongly: there might still be people in there, but he wasn’t convinced it classed as a party.

‘Listen,’ I said quickly. ‘What’s your name?’ I needed to change direction.

‘Isaac,’ he said warily.

‘Isaac, could you do me a favour?’ I patted my pockets absent-mindedly. ‘Do you have a piece of paper I can write on?’

He went into his hut and came back a few seconds later with a newspaper. It was the
Daily Times
, Alebayo’s read of choice. As he approached the gate, I saw that his rifle was now pointing towards the ground. His neck shone under the corona of the lamp. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to overpower him at that moment. But what then? What if I broke in and Slavin had company? At best, he’d be blown. At worst, I’d be dead.

Fifteen minutes, Manning had said. I looked at my watch: it was already half ten. I handed Isaac the note. ‘Please give Mister Slavin this, and let him know I visited.’

*

‘Any luck?’ Manning asked, back in the car.

‘Not much.’

‘So what now?’

What now, indeed? It was getting on, and I was no further ahead. Come tomorrow morning, I was going to be in trouble. Even more trouble than I was already in. But I couldn’t see a way past it – the odds were too high.

Manning was looking at me expectantly.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Just for half an hour.’

He turned the key in the ignition.

*

‘The bar only opened last year, you know,’ said Manning as he handed me my drink. ‘Very controversial – the debate raged for years. A lot of us were worried the place would fill up with non-sailing types. There was even one chap – German, wasn’t he, Sandy?’

‘Dutch, I think,’ said Sandy, who was a small elegant man in a long white nightshirt.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Manning, popping a peanut into his mouth. ‘That’s right. Dutch. Well, he came along one week and asked if he could join just to
socialize
. Brazenly admitted he had no intention of sailing at all! Put him right, didn’t we?’ He snorted, and Sandy nodded his head sagely.

‘Oh, Geoffrey! I’m sure Robert isn’t interested in the intricate workings of the Yacht Club.’

Marjorie Manning had been flirting with me outrageously since we’d arrived. She might have been a beauty twenty-odd years ago, but too much drink, sun, and Geoffrey had shaken most of it from her.

‘What would you rather discuss, dear?’ Manning asked her sweetly. ‘The shops in London?’

‘Why not?’ she said. ‘What’s in fashion this season, Robert? Tell us, please. We have to rely on the local supermarkets to provide us with our clothes, and it’s hardly Yves Saint Laurent.’

‘I don’t think fashion’s quite Robert’s patch,’ said Manning, winking at me.

I’d been a bloody fool to listen to him, of course: there was no sign of any Russians, let alone Slavin. The party reminded me of dozens I’d been to in Istanbul and elsewhere: several dozen expats, mostly Brits, getting sloshed on brandy and sodas and munching stale crisps. We were seated at a table outside, making the most of the faint breeze coming in off the water. Stewards in white uniforms and guests in nightclothes milled about the lawn, giving the place a somewhat ghostly air. A group of men directly behind me discussed the merits of fibreglass hulls and wondered how long
it would be until the rainy season. The consensus seemed to be that it would arrive any day now.

I glanced at my watch: twenty-five past eleven. My note had asked Slavin to meet me at midnight. Despite the needless detour, this was still marginally preferable to sitting in the car with Manning for half an hour, which was what I would have been doing otherwise: and staying on for that length of time might have been unwise if there had been any sort of surveillance of the street from inside Slavin’s villa. I took a sip from my drink and wondered again if he was being guarded. Perhaps he was being questioned about my note right now: perhaps I’d blown his defection. And that would be disastrous, because I couldn’t afford for him to be carted away before Pritchard arrived. But I was being too pessimistic, surely. The most obvious explanation was the most likely: he hadn’t been at home. Perhaps he was working late at the embassy. Men about to defect often become conspicuously loyal to those they are about to betray. If he
was
at the embassy, it was stalemate – I couldn’t get near him there.

‘Mister Kane?’

I looked up. The man called Sandy was speaking to me. ‘Sorry?’

‘I said, “What is your patch, exactly?” I can’t remember seeing your byline in
The
Times
.’

I’d been wondering when he would pounce. Manning had introduced him as a property developer, but I recognized his name – he’d been a BBC correspondent in the war, and was now connected behind the scenes. Still did some work for
The Mirror
, I seemed to remember.

I mentioned a few of the stories that had appeared in
The Times
credited to Robert Kane in the past couple of years. Each had been written for short-term operational reasons, using the name as a convenient blanket – they hadn’t been intended to build cover in the field. If Farraday hadn’t suddenly fancied having a go playing at spies, Manning could simply have introduced me under my own
name as a second secretary at the embassy. Instead, I was going to have to be on my back foot defending a half-formed legend.

‘Out here for the PM’s visit, I suppose?’

I nodded. ‘My editor wants something about the feel of the place, how the Brits see the war, that kind of thing. Perhaps I can interview you at some point?’

‘Certainly – just call my office. I was here for the Queen’s trip in ’56, so I’m quite used to the pomp and ceremony. Wilson’s rather small potatoes, isn’t he? Reminds me of a bank clerk in those silly raincoats he wears.’

‘He’ll have to ditch them in this heat,’ said Manning.

We all laughed politely.

‘Is Lagos as safe as everyone says it is?’ I asked Sandy. ‘It seems very quiet.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘we haven’t had any action here since one of the rebels’ planes attacked the Motor Boat Club two years ago. Didn’t do much harm, though everyone got frightfully excited, of course.’

‘“Rebels”? You don’t think secession was justified, then?’

‘Not really. Ojukwu’s a thug, and Gowon’s doing his best to control a very difficult situation.’

‘What about the accusations of genocide? I’ve heard there were seven thousand Biafran deaths a day due to starvation over the summer.’

He grimaced. ‘A lot of do-gooders with no idea of how this part of the world works are swallowing the genocide line whole. Propaganda, of course – people throw around these enormous figures, but nobody really has the slightest idea. I think the Federals have actually dealt with the situation very well, considering the paltry support they’ve received from our government – and I’ll be telling the PM that when I meet him at State House on Thursday. At the moment, we seem to be simply watching from the sidelines, as usual. Nigeria will carry on with or without us.’

‘Wawa,’ said Manning, nodding his chin.

‘Sorry?’

‘West Africa wins again. Another drink, old boy?’

‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I’ll get it.’

I pushed my chair back and headed for the bar.

*

A steward in a gleaming white uniform and scarlet cummerbund stood behind a makeshift table crammed with bottles and paper cups. With all the poise of a Sotheby’s auctioneer, he surveyed the small crowd gathered round him, eventually nodding to a man in khaki shorts and deck shoes.

‘Star,’ said the man, in the manner of someone who had been wandering through the desert for forty days and nights.

The steward leaned down, scooped a bottle of beer from an icebox, opened it deftly and handed it to the man.

And that was when I saw her.

She was sitting by herself on a stack of breeze blocks just beyond the bar, in a black bathing suit, a cigarette dangling from one hand. Her face was turned away in contemplation of the water, but the line of her jaw was unmistakable. I made my way through the crowd, stepped over the steward’s icebox and tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Anna.’

She turned and peered at me in puzzlement. And for a fraction of a moment, it was her – but her twenty years ago. And then the illusion faded, and I was apologizing for my error. What a fool I was! What a bloody fool to mistake the first dark-haired stranger for her. I was losing grip, and fast.

‘You do not wear pyjamas,’ said the girl. Her accent was French, as was her tone. I looked at her again. She had one of those androgynous cat-like faces that were so much in fashion, the effect highlighted by her lack of make-up and slicked-back hair. She was more conventionally beautiful than Anna had ever been,
but there was something rather hard about her. She looked like she should be marching through Parisian boulevards holding a placard.

‘No,’ I said in answer to her comment. ‘But neither do you.’

‘I was swimming.’

I glanced down at the water – it looked filthy.

‘It is not so bad once you have entered,’ she said, white teeth flashing in the dark face.

I offered her my hand. ‘Robert Kane.’

She shook it perfunctorily. ‘Isabelle Dumont. Tell me, who did you think I was just now?’

‘Someone I knew a long time ago,’ I said.

She smiled softly. ‘I see. So what do you do, Mister Kane? I haven’t seen you here before.’

‘I’ve only just arrived. I’m a reporter, for
The Times
.’

‘That is a coincidence. I write for Agence France-Presse. Are you here for your prime minister’s visit?’

I nodded, already bored of the pretext.

She grinned again, and lifted her chin. ‘Look on the good side of it: you meet such very interesting people.’

I followed her gaze back to the table I’d left. Manning was stuffing his face full of peanuts, his wife was laughing like a hyena and Sandy was trying to fish a dead fly from his drink with a spoon.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why is it one can never stand one’s countrymen whenever one meets them abroad?’

‘One has no idea,’ she said, curling her lip a little.

‘Still,’ I said, ignoring the crack. ‘I’ve met you. You’re interesting. Have you been out here long?’

‘I grew up here,’ she said. ‘My father was the French ambassador.’

‘Have you seen much of the rest of the country?’

There was a noise from further down the jetty, and we both looked up. A woman in a cocktail dress was squealing as a man lifted her over his head and threatened to throw her in the water.
People at other tables stopped their conversations to stare at the scene, but nobody did much, and a few seconds later there was a splash as her spine hit the water.