Blood is Dirt

‘That’s a shame,’ I said.

‘Oh, why’s that?’

‘Because he’s a vain, arrogant, opinionated, self-centred fake-liberal with the sensitivity of an Alabaman cockfighter,’ I said, as calm as a triangle of cucumber sandwich.

‘I thought he handled us very well.’

‘Did you?’

‘Two hundred and fifty thousand for all this talent.’

‘Plus the favour. You’ve no idea how expensive that favour’s going to be.’

‘You said no money.’

‘Services, Bagado, services.’

‘I see.’

Another half hour went past, the car packed tight with the unsaid thing.

‘So what did Bondougou say?’ I asked. Bagado looked blank. You tore my ears off before that meeting and now you don’t remember?’

‘I remember,’ he said, quietly so that my nerve quivered.’ Bondougou offered me my

Job back.’

‘He wants you on the inside pissing out and you told him where to go …’ Bagado didn’t respond.’ You did tell him where to go

,Bagado?’

‘The way he put it was that since the trouble in Togo and with the regime in Nigeria, Cotonou has become the new business centre. More business, more money, more crime.’

‘And if there’s anybody who should know about crime, Bondougou should. He’s a one-man gangland.’

The job offer is political. The politicians want a safe place. They don’t, for instance, want dead British shipbrokers with their mouths cut off lying face down across the railway tracks. Bondougou has to make a show of getting things done. The Cotonou force is short of the right kind of manpower and, for a change, they have money to spend. I am one of the most experienced people in Benin.’

Bondougou was right. The Togolese capital, Lome, had been an important centre of the business community in West Africa. It was a free port with hard currency, good restaurants, smart hotels and a congenial atmosphere. It had also been the largest exporter of gold along this coast and it didn’t even have a goldmine. There’d been political problems, multiparty democracy riots and one day the army had opened fire indiscriminately on a crowd of civilians and hundreds had been killed or injured. In the three days after the incident three hundred and fifty thousand people left Togo for Benin. Lome was a ghost town now, the people who remained imposed their own curfew. All the business was in Cotonou, which was itself a free port and had hard currency, too, but more important, the army didn’t feel the need to impose its authority on the civilian government, something that had happened in Nigeria. There, the elections had been annulled, pressure applied on the press, and key figures put under house arrest. On top of that there were strikes, petrol shortages, piles of stinking refuse in the streets and the odd corpse. The locals were getting very restless.

Bondougou needed policemen in Benin, good ones, who could handle big numbers and get the politicians off his back. The only thing he’d never liked about Bagado was that the man didn’t have a corrupt cell in his body. That made Bondougou nervous. He didn’t know where Bagado was coming from and he could never rely on him to keep his mouth shut at the right time.

‘Has Bondougou told you your duties?’

‘In outline. Nothing specific.’

‘But we know there’s no such thing as a gift from Bondougou. Did you talk about Napier Briggs?’

‘No. He started off playing the patriotic card. He teased me about working for the white man. He told me I had more important things to do for my country. He called me un caniche Parisien. A Parisian poodle. He made it sound as if I’d thrown it all in for the money. I felt like showing him our accounts. I felt like reminding him why I lost my job in the first place. It made me very, what’s that word Brian used, you know, my detective friend in London … narked. That was it. He go’ me bloody narked.’ Bagado finished with a perfect glottal stop in his imitation South London accent.

‘Bondougou is a …’

‘We know what Bondougou is.’

‘Bondougou is the biggest bastard in the Gulf of Guinea. You go work for him again and you know where you’ll end up …’

‘The same place as last time.’

‘Uh-uh, Bagado, no way, not the shitheap this time. You won’t just get fired this time …’

Bagado nodded. The tyres roared on the hot tarmac, which glistened in the sun as if glass had been shattered across it. He passed a hand over the dusting of white in his hair – tired of all this.

‘He’s giving me no choice,’ he said.

‘You’re going back to him?’

‘If I don’t, we’re finished. That was his last card, Bruce – he’ll close us down, strip you of your carte de séjour and have you deported.’

A dog slunk across the road and I braked. The tyres squealed in the heat and women walking with their heads loaded into the sky shot off the road into the bush followed by their children who maintained line like chicks after a hen. The car kicked up a jib of dust from the edge of the road. The women stopped and turned, their necks straining under their loads to see if anybody had been hit.

‘Christ, Bagado, what did I ever do to him?’

‘You know me, that’s enough.’

‘This is it then?’

‘What?’

‘The last job.’

‘Until …’

‘… until they find Bondougou down a storm drain. The pies he’s got his fingers in are very hot.’

‘Yes. It might not be so long.’

‘Then it’ll be Commandant Bagado, maybe, and we’ll all have to bow and scrape.’

‘Kiss the hem of my mac.’

‘I’d rather worship the ground you walk on, if that’s OK.’

‘You don’t sound very annoyed.’

‘Oh, I am, Bagado. I am. But what can a poor boy do?’

We drove on in silence. The car fuller now with that and the unsaid thing still there. Another half hour passed.

‘What did you make of the Napier Briggs thing?’ I asked.