The Big Killing (28 page)

'Not the kind of thing that comes out in a press briefing.'

'No. That's why I don't know how I got to know about it. It kinda flew into the circle of journalists I was with like airborne bacteria; we all caught it, but nobody knows where from.'

'What happened to Godwin Patterson?'

'Back in the States. Left a couple of days before the President was taken.'

'Anybody else turn up dead?'

'Plenty, but not with their guts ripped open.'

'Why didn't you stick at the story?'

'First off, we were all looking for Wilson. Can't find him. The guy's gone to ground. We figured he was trying to get out of Liberia and to do that he had to get out of Monrovia first, which was controlled by Finn, so maybe it took some time. Nobody saw him at the port that afternoon, so he might have already started running. Whatever, the first we heard was when he turned up dead in Abidjan nearly seven weeks later and the story was kinda cold by then.'

'How do I know you're who you say you are and what you do?'

Howard took out some press accreditation, a US passport and some cuttings from the
Philly Bulletin.

'How do I know you're a straight journo and not doing anything extra-curricular for the US government?'

'You're difficult to please, Bruce. How about thinking about what I just told you?'

'Do you know anybody on the World Service?'

'Try Mike Carter, you hearda him?'

I called the number Howard gave me from his book and got through to Mike Carter, who said he couldn't think of anybody less likely to be working for the US government than Howard Corben. He added that he was a complete bastard and to tell him, which I did.

'We don't always see eye to eye, Mike and me,' said Corben. 'I can be a bit too underground for his BBC ass. You know what I mean?'

Bagado knocked and I ran him through what Corben had said, and it set him off like something clockwork, pacing up and down the room clicking his thumbnail against his teeth, while Corben and I sat between the beds and drank. I filled him in on Fat Paul, Kurt Nielsen, Kantari, Red Gilbert and the package. Corben was writing it all down in a notebook, in shorthand that looked like bird prints in the snow, and he was cackling to himself as he did it.

'One thing,' he said, flipping his notebook shut, 'you know where James Wilson was staying when he got killed? The Hilton. The guy was on the payola.'

'But what's so funny?' asked Bagado.

'There's nothing in the package.'

'We
think
there's nothing in the package. We didn't know about the wire, we weren't looking for an audio tape,' I said.

'Wilson might have taped a meaningful conversation, he might not have. He might have had a tape, he might not have had one, too. The important thing is that somebody thought he did,' said Corben.

'What about Patterson?' asked Bagado.

'He's in the States.'

'I mean if Patterson put Wilson close to the President so that he could set him up and paid him for it. Who instructed Patterson?'

'Patterson established contact with Wilson during a delegation visit to Washington. That sounds like he's taking orders from, or he's in the pay of, a US agency,' I said.

And a US agency, if it didn't firebomb Fat Paul's office, definitely searched his house,' said Bagado.

'What about checking the names of the US West African policy unit and advisers against people who were in the Monrovian US Embassy around September the ninth?' asked Corben. 'That way we might find out if there was a connection between the Wilson/Patterson link made in Washington and what happened on the ground in Monrovia port.'

'Can you do that, Mr Corben?' asked Bagado.

'I surely can, Mr Bagado,' said Corben. 'It might not prove anything, the CIA can be dumb but not all the time.' He paused then, just long enough so that we were both looking. 'There is one consideration that might make the forward progress of this little investigation ... problematic.'

We didn't say anything.

'I'm broke, guys, no more of the green-backed monster, fresh out of spit to lick.'

'What about the
Philly Bulletin?
'

'They terminated my contract. I am really extremely freelance right now. I came here to do some pieces on the election tomorrow, the refugee camps and arms traffic to the rebels, but I have no certain buyers for the work. I'm staying in a fat cow's back room with no bathroom for one thousand five hundred CFA a night. This has been my first whisky in three weeks. I don't eat. This is not my shirt.'

'It's OK, Howard, we're weeping already.'

Bagado and I each gave him seventy-five thousand CFA and the telephone numbers in Abidjan and Korhogo. Corben stashed the money all over himself.

'It's been very interesting talking to you about James Wilson and that,' he said, 'but as you know, that was not my original line of inquiry. It's scratch-my-back time, Brucey-babe. What were you doing with Malahide?'

Bagado was standing behind Corben now and shook his head. Corben had the full range of journalistic sensitivities—the rhino skin, a cat's gut and a nose for rats.

'Don't go holding back on me, you two, now that we're friends.'

'Malahide's contacted the rebels for us.'

'Well, Bruce, I kinda guessed that, but I also know that two and two never equals four. Why d'you need to speak to the rebels, and if it's not too much of a cliché—who
are
you guys?'

'That,' said Bagado, 'is a very good question.'

'I'm in the question business,' said Corben, 'and when I don't get answers...'

'You make them up,' I said.

'Only if the truth's a bit constipated or what I come up with is more interesting. The truth, you know, can be awful dull.'

'We're freelancers,' I said. 'Freelance what?'

I looked at Bagado, who was checking out the ceiling. 'Investigators,' I said.

'You know, Bruce, you don't sound very sure to me. Maybe I should ask who's payin' you to investigate what.'

'The official line is that we're a charitable organization.'

Corben fell back on the bed and roared. I didn't think it was that funny, but then I hadn't been dipped in cynicism and hard-boiled in china glaze like he had.

'You done some kinda media training to come up with that kinda bullshit?'

'I'll tell you what we're doing,' I said. 'But not now.'

'When?'

'Next week.'

'Monday?'

'I doubt it.'

'OK. I tell you what. I give you the stuff from Washington when you give me the Malahide connection.'

'I can give you
some
dirt on Malahide now,' I said, and Corben's notebook flipped open. 'He's doing some small arms shipments...'

'...to Ireland,' said Corben. 'I been to the timber yard.'

'You spoke to Ajamian?' He nodded. 'The only other thing we know is that he has a lot of Libyan stamps in his passport and he's a great supporter of the underdog.'

'I'm smelling something,' said Corben. 'I'm smelling something bad from that guy.'

'Here's a theory,' I said, 'nothing to do with the Krahns paying Wilson back, nothing to do with the Americans setting the President up. Malahide. Malahide has access to Liberia. He
could
have killed Biécké. He was in Abidjan at the time of the Wilson, Nielsen and Fat Paul killings. He could have an interest in the tape, if it exists. That tape buys him influence. He has a leopard skin draped over a carving in his house which he tells me makes the wearer invisible so that he can observe good and evil in the community. When he sees the evil ... he rips it out.'

Corben nodded, sizing us up.

'You still want me to talk to Washington?'

'It's all circumstantial.'

'So what colour is the Leopard?'

'Black,' I said.

'White,' said Bagado.

'I'll go for spotted,' said Corben, finishing his drinks.

He packed up his satchel and asked to use the bathroom. Bagado's hands hung limply at his sides, his shoulders sagging. Corben came out of the bathroom.

'Don't smoke in there for a few minutes,' he said, and left.

'Is Malahide the Leopard?' asked Bagado. 'Do you think there's a connection between the James Wilson package and the Ron Collins kidnap?'

'Don't waste your brain cells on that one, Bagado. It was just something to throw in the pot.'

'If he is then he must know who you are, he must know that you have the tape to send "Red" after you, but ... he's letting you off the hook. Why would he do that?'

'The diamond deal is more important than the tape. The tape would be useful. It would improve his business position but it doesn't implicate him in any way. It's not
his
arse on the line if the world knows that the Americans were involved in getting rid of the Liberian president. Diamonds and arms are money.'

'If you were the Leopard would you hang your uniform in the living room?'

'You haven't met Malahide.'

'I asked you if he was insane.'

'No, he's just a teaser. He likes to stir things up.'

'You know what I would do if I was the Leopard after that tape? I'd watch Kantari. He led them to Nielsen. They must know he's the buyer.'

'I've already been to see Kantari.'

'Which means they're not watching him, or they're watching him and biding their time, or Kantari has already met the Leopard and we don't know about it.'

'Why don't we stop talking about this until we've taken the package to pieces and found that audio tape ... if it's there.'

'All right,' said Bagado, lying down on the bed. 'Let's talk about something else.'

'What did you have in mind, Bagado?' I asked, recognizing the tone of voice.

'Let's talk about Heike.'

'One of my other unsolved problems,' I said. 'Do we have to? She must be paying you to do this.'

'She doesn't need to. I know a good woman when I see one.'

'And a bad one.'

'Just the wrong one.'

'When did you appoint yourself my guardian angel?'

'The day I met you.'

'Was it that obvious I needed one?'

'We all need one at some time or other.'

'Some more than most.'

'Only when they've decided to diverge from their destiny.'

'Christ, I didn't know it was that serious. I thought I was just taking an interest in the condition of another fellow human. I really had no idea I was diverging from my destiny. Had I known—'

'What happens in the next few days will decide whether you're going to be a lonely man ... or not.'

'How do I know Heike is going to come back?'

'If she does and she finds you with Dotte, you will be a very lonely man.'

'But if she doesn't.'

'I didn't realize you were that afraid,' he said, sitting up. 'Maybe it
would
be better if we talked about Malahide.'

'Yes. I've always found solace in solving crimes. It's as nothing compared to the detection work you have to do on yourself.'

Sunday 3rd November

The bus arrived in Abidjan at 6.30 a.m. We took a taxi from the
gare routière
to the Novotel in Plateau, where it was sunny with a stiff breeze blowing off the sea. It was election day and people were out in the street getting excited, but not so excited that they'd attract the attention of the
loubars,
military-dressed thugs, paid to beat some sense into opposition FPI members.

At the Novotel the girl who'd given me the cakes was off and had been replaced by a tougher, middle-aged woman who worked with her elbows out. She gave us a room and said we'd have to be out by 4.00 p.m. I asked her for the packages from the safe and she stonewalled us until Bagado hit the desk hard enough for her complicated hairpiece to take off into the back office. We got the packages and went up to the room.

Bagado unscrewed the cassette and lifted out the two spools. He checked the casing, which was clean, and the inside of the spools, clean too. Then he unwound the tape. Close to the end he saw a lighter brown audio tape stuck to the inside of the darker VHS magnetic tape. Bagado peeled off the slice of Sellotape securing it and unwound the rest.

'Now we need a dictaphone, a cassette and some Sellotape,' he said, looking at me, letting me know I was the younger man and it was time to get on with it. He said he was going to shower and for me to take the room key.

I went down to the lobby and out into Avenue Général de Gaulle and found my way blocked off by the widespread arms of David, the cocoa-cutter I'd got out of prison last Wednesday.

'My brother,' he greeted me, giving me the fluffy chicken handshake followed by the finger click, Ghanaian-style.

'I'm busy, you know that,' I said, walking down Rue du Commerce with him at my shoulder, following a tall, slim African woman holding her wraparound western dress in a sheaf halfway up her thigh, the wind wanting to tear it off her back.

'Is jes' I'm thinkin', I like you, Mr Bruce. I like to work for you.'

'I haven't got a job for you.'

'You must have job.'

'What can you do?'

'You have car, I clean it.'

'I have a driver, too.'

'Ah-haaa,' he said, letting that sink in. 'I'm ver' strong. I proteck you.'

'I don't need protection. What makes you think I need protection?'

'Ever'body need protection. Why you in jail? You doin' somethin' dangerous. You doin' dangerous thin's, you need protection.'

'I haven't got the money for it, even if I needed it.'

'Money no problem.'

'You work for free?'

'Nooooooooo,' he said, 'free trial mebbe.'

'Mebbe,' I said and clapped him on the back. I told him to come to the Novotel at 2.00 p.m. I went into the only open electronic goods shop and bought a dictaphone. They sold me some used Sellotape they had in there too. On the way out somebody bumped into me from the side and I stiffened as I felt a hard nozzle jab me under the ribs.

'Let's go for a walk,' said an American voice with a heavy cold. 'Look straight ahead, keep calm, and move it.'

The nozzle moved to my kidney and nudged me forward and I walked back down the street to the Novotel. I crossed the street again when the voice told me to, and turned left just before the hotel and walked down a steep side street towards the lagoon. We turned left into a dead-end alley and stopped.