Instruments of Darkness. Robert Thomas Wilson

a blazing oil drum whose flames slashed out at the night. As I approached the lagoon, two kids ran across the road and into the dark. Further on, a young woman trotted with her hands covering her cheeks. A young man stood at the side of the road as I rolled past with my elbow out of the window. He slapped my arm.

      ‘Go back. Go back,’ he said.

      I cut the lights, got out of the car and looked down on to the causeway. A car was parked diagonally across the road, its headlights flaring out across the lagoon. In the light, three people stood looking out into the lagoon, their hands behind their backs as if inspecting something. They crumpled forwards off the road. The sound of three shots, delayed, cracked across the water. The black, still lagoon rippled out in silver lines before the lights died on the causeway.

      ‘Go now. They’re coming,’ the young man said to the back of my head.

      ‘Who’s they?’ I asked.

      ‘Nobody knows,’ said the young man.

      We heard the car approaching. The young man ran, his shirt tail flapping. I drove down a side street and parked by a house out of sight of the road, got out and looked back down the street. A single car drove past at walking pace with no lights on.

      Ten minutes later I drove across the lagoon. The mosquitoes screamed across the water.

       Chapter 9

       Thursday 26th September

      By morning, my face was welded to the bed, I had an arm like a plastic leg and a brain as dry as a monkey nut and no bigger. Something rattled in my inner ear as I sat up. I drank the best part of a litre bottle of water and felt intimidated by the brightness of the sunlight slanting through the slats of the shutters forming white bars on the marble-tiled floor. I stared into them for a while until they lost what little meaning they had.

      I made it to the shower and rehydrated to full size underneath it. I shaved with limited success. I flossed for the first time in a month and ended up with a cat’s cradle in my mouth. I dressed as if I’d done it before but could use some maternal supervision. I flipped off the air conditioner, opened the shutters and staggered back as the sun slapped a white rhomboid across the room. By the time I’d got to the bottom of the stairs I was ready for bed.

      On the verandah, Jack was asleep in the lounger with the radio murmuring on his stomach, the TV quiet for once. I poured some coffee, ate some pineapple and retreated to a shady corner with a pair of sunglasses.

      ‘Morning,’ said Jack.

      ‘Should be,’ I said.

      Jack opened one eye and found me with it.

      ‘What happened to you?’

      ‘Man to man with Charlie. The usual. Half pints of whisky, no water.’

      ‘Did he get ugly?’

      ‘He’s never been pretty.’

      I sipped the coffee. It was that robusta again. It rippled through my system as if I’d mainlined it.

      ‘They found twenty-one dead bodies in the lagoon this morning,’ said Jack.

      The black and white images of last night played themselves through my head.

      ‘There’s a taxi strike. We’re going to have trouble,’ he said.

      ‘Who did it?’

      ‘Nobody knows.’

      ‘That’s what the guy said to me last night.’

      ‘Which guy?’

      I told Jack what I had seen.

      ‘Did they say whether they came from the north or south?’ I asked.

      ‘Both.’

      ‘A mixture?’

      ‘No. Some people say all northerners, others all southerners.’

      ‘Who’s trying to scare who?’

      ‘I’d say the army were scaring the southerners.’

      ‘And the army says the southerners are trying to discredit the army and are killing their own people.’

      ‘Dead people make everybody think about what’s going on. Everybody’s thinking twice about changing their nice, boring stable lives. Trotsky’s bloody omelette; just give me fried eggs sunny side up any time,’ said Jack, with a full stomach and an empty head.

      ‘Don’t talk to me about fried eggs.’

      ‘Restraint…’

      ‘Don’t talk to me about that either. You are no authority.’

      ‘I myself had an evening of ecstasy and restraint.’

      ‘Acid house comes to Lomé?’

      ‘I spent an evening in the company of…’

      Jack who was already supine managed to sink even further back into the lounger.

      ‘Elizabeth Harvey. You don’t waste your time.’

      ‘It’s my challenge.’

      ‘What are you doing on your lounger then?’

      ‘I didn’t restrain myself all night.’

      ‘I’d hate to think you were slacking.’

      I finished my coffee and called the US Embassy and arranged to meet Nina Sorvino at the German Restaurant for lunch. She said she knew who I was from Charlie, so I didn’t need a carnation and a copy of The Times. Her accent was from the wrong side of the tracks. I called Dama, the friend of B.B.’s who had introduced Kershaw. We arranged to meet after lunch in his house up the Kpalimé road.