The usual evening train pushed through the traffic, horn honking, heading out across the bridge to the industrial zone with a line of empty cars that screeched and grated on the rails embedded in the tarmac. I stopped off at the Lebanese supermarket round the corner from the La Verdure and bought a half of Bell’s and some black wrinkly olives imported directly from the Bekaa Valley. I went back to the office with my goodies. The gardien was off somewhere doing what gardiens do best, not looking after the place. The door of the office wasn’t locked as it should have been. I opened it, stood on the threshold and looked in. It didn’t stink of beer any more, which was good. I put a hand in to turn on the light.
‘Leave it off,’ said a voice in English with plenty of French sewn into it. ‘Come in and shut the door behind you.’
Someone was sitting in my chair, backlit by the glow from the streetlights and supermarket hoardings on Sekou Touré. The people who come to my office these days just don’t recognize their side of the desk. I got annoyed.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I asked.
‘You’ve been looking for someone. Have you forgotten already?’
‘Well, you’re not Marnier, not with all that ronronnement in your voice.’
‘Only cats ronronnent.’
‘You know what I mean. So who are you?’
‘I’m representing Marnier. Jean-Luc’s not ready to come out into the open yet.’
‘Well, that’s tough because I’m only going to talk to Marnier, the man himself. And while we’re talking about talking, you can do your talking from the client side of the desk and let me sit in my own chair.’
‘I don’t want to be involved in this business. I’m doing a favour for Jean-Luc. I’d rather you didn’t see my face.’
‘If you’re worried about your ugliness, don’t be. There’s plenty of that in this business.’
‘What do you know about ugliness?’ he said, as if I was new on the playground.
‘It’s not skin deep like yours probably is.’
‘You’ve got a very strong backhand, M. Medway.’
‘That wasn’t a compliment,’ I said, and nodded at him. ‘How’d you like my forehand?’
‘Vous êtes un peu fâché, M. Medway. Ça ne va pas en Afrique,’ he said, imitating a French West African accent.
‘It’s just been one of those days,’ I said. ‘The rainy season or my biorythms, I don’t know which.’
‘I don’t want to be here, you know.’
‘Well, you are. So you’re in it.’
‘I have to be here.’
‘You owe Marnier?’
He ducked his head as if weighed down by his dues.
‘I’ve a feeling Marnier’s debts could run very deep, the kind of man he is,’ I said, and the man nodded. I sat down and put the whisky and the olives on the desk. ‘There should be a couple of glasses in the top drawer, help us relax a little in each other’s company.’
‘C’est mieux comme Ça,’ he said, and took out the glasses.
I filled them.
‘Olive?’
We sipped whisky and ate olives, made mounds of pits on the desk top.
‘What’s your task, Monsieur…?’
‘Jacques will do.’
‘Tell me, Jacques.’
‘The name of your company is M & B. Who is the “B”?’
‘Bagado. He’s a police detective. He lost his job a few years back and we worked together for a while. Now he’s back on the force. Been back three or four months now. So he doesn’t work with me any more.’
‘What’s your involvement with him?’
‘We talk. We like each other. We’re friends. My girlfriend likes him a lot too. They’re friends. We don’t talk about work. Not much, anyway.’
‘Do you exchange information?’
‘I don’t tell him about all my bad-boy clients, if that’s what you mean. If I did, I wouldn’t get any work, might even get myself uglied-up a little, like you or worse. You know what business can be like out here, Jacques.’
‘I know,’ he said, sounding miserable about it.
‘Does Marnier have something in mind for me? Something for me to do? I mean, I’ve already met his wife but maybe he doesn’t trust her opinion, maybe the words come out too small from that little mouth of hers. Yeah, he certainly didn’t seem to think much of her in one department.’
‘I don’t know what Jean-Luc is thinking. He asked me to come and talk to you so I do. Carole? I don’t know what he thinks about Carole. I don’t know where she is any more. Maybe you coming along was all they needed to know that things were getting…hot.’
‘So now they’ve disappeared. They’re not at the office. I dropped by their home and they’re not there either. Do you know where they are?’
‘Why were you in their office?’
‘Ambulance-chasing. Looking for work. I had some privileged information.’
‘From your police friend?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘I thought the information might make his life less problematic and fatten my pocket at the same time.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Only Marnier. Face to face.’
‘He says he wants you to do something for him.’
‘Then he’ll have to tell me himself. And if he wants me to pick something up from somebody or drop something off to somebody, at night, on a lonely road in the rain…forget it. Not for any money. Go and tell him that, Jacques.’
‘But…’
‘I don’t want to hear any more. Tell Marnier to make direct contact or what I know stays with me and what he wants me to do, I won’t. Now buzz, busy bee, because I’m tired of this.’
The phone rang. Jacques jumped. I tore it off the handset.
‘Bruce Medway.’
‘Jean-Luc Marnier.’
‘We were just getting bored with each other, me and Jacques.’
‘I could tell,’ he said, which made my neck bristle.
I stood and looked through the windows and out on the balcony.
‘Are you watching this?’
‘Tell him to leave.’
I buzzed Jacques off and he stalked out, keeping his face away from me.
‘He’s shy, your friend. Are you coming up?’
‘Doucement, doucement, nous sommes en Afrique.’
I got round my side of the desk with my ear still connected and settled uncomfortably into the warmth left over by Jacques.
‘Carole tells me you’re “beau”…Is that right?’ asked Marnier.
‘I’ve just been talking to your friend about ugliness…’
‘But are you “beau”?’
‘That’s a strange question, Jean-Luc.’
‘Not for me, it isn’t.’