Chapter 29

    By the time I hit the roundabout by Lomé port, the democratic road block had been moved away and I put my gun down on the passenger seat and enjoyed the clear run through down the coast road back to Jack's house. I was glad it was clear because I found that Jack's Mercedes was capable of 154 m.p.h.

    I parked by my own car to pick up the photographs and checked them: even in the dim courtesy light of the Peugeot the missing detail stood out. All it had needed was a change of thinking, instead of looking for what was in the picture I looked for what wasn't. Then I drove to Kamina Village in Jack's Mercedes, but didn't go in because it was barriered off at night. I parked outside on the road by the hedge around Nina Sorvino's garden, put the photographs in my breast pocket and pushed the gun down the front of my trousers with the T-shirt over it.

    I skipped over the shallow ditch and ran straight through the half-hearted hedge, which brought me out at the back of Nina's house. I walked around to the front and up on to the terrace outside her bedroom window. The light was on in the empty bedroom and there was an open packing case on the bed.

    Through the living room window, I saw Nina in her stockinged feet standing in front of a full-length mirror on the far wall, her hair tied in a temporary ponytail. She was wearing a red raw silk suit and was looking over her shoulder to see what her bottom looked like with all that material stretched over it. She turned and positioned her feet so that she looked slimmer, less curvaceous and placed both hands on the tops of her thighs and leant back slightly. She pouted and then she laughed as if she was the luckiest bitch in the world.

    I went into the garage and tried the door at the end of it, which, like the last time, was unlocked. I waited and listened to Nina shuffling in front of the mirror and then I heard her go into the bedroom. I went into a living room redolent of expensive perfume and sat on the sofa which backed on to her bedroom wall and stared at the empty TV screen and full bottles on the sideboard in front of me. There were three other suitcases parked by the front door.

    She came back in again, at a swift pace now, with some high heels chocking the tiled floor and her hair loose, holding a red hat in her hands which she set on her head in front of the mirror. I got up and stood about five metres behind her. She was so in love with her situation that she didn't see me for a while and when she did she walked towards the mirror as if there was a problem with it. It was only when she turned that reality closed in on her and she squeaked.

    'Going somewhere?'

    'As a matter of fact, I am.'

    'Far?'

    'Up north, Kara for a few days.'

    'Four suitcases for a few days?'

    She moved towards the table and I lifted the T-shirt and showed her the gun.

    'No cheap lines, Nina.'

    'I wanna cigarette.'

    'You're going to need more than that to get you through.'

    She lit a cigarette. I asked her to get some whisky. She poured two stiff ones into some glasses on the sideboard with the TV.

    'Four suitcases?'

    'I travel heavy,' she said, taking a good suck on the whisky.

    'When are you going?'

    Tomorrow morning.'

    'Who with?'

    'On my own.'

    'You always like to look good and smell nice for yourself, on your own? You always like to dance around in front of the mirror with your new clothes on and your fancy new hat before you hit the hot spots of the Hotel Kara on your own? You always pout and laugh at yourself in the mirror the night before you go somewhere… on your own?'

    Nina sucked hard on her cigarette in the hope that the nicotine could do more for her than calm her down. She wanted something with a little more punch to it that was going to make all this nastiness go away. I handed her the photograph of Kasparian and Kershaw. She took it and stiffened.

    'There are three people involved in that photograph. Kasparian, he's the one on the left, Kershaw, you know, and the third guy's behind the camera. Two of them are dead. Now, this is by way of a test, Nina. I want to make sure you don't start off our discussion by lying to me, which is what you seem to like doing. So I ask a question and you tell the truth and if you don't…' I took out the gun, pointed it at her and clicked off the safety. 'Which two are dead?'

    'Kasparian… and… Kersh…'

    She didn't finish and I'd just found out how difficult it was to shoot straight with a handgun with a silencer attached. I'd aimed a yard to her right but the bullet, I could tell from the mark on the wall behind her, must have passed close enough to go through that thick black mane of hers. She screamed, dropped her glass, cigarette and the photograph and wet herself. A dark patch spread out in the raw red silk of her skirt.

    'Oh Christ!' she said, holding her cheeks. 'Oh, my God!'

    'Two people you haven't had much contact with recently,' I said. 'Now, pick up the photograph.' She knelt in the tight skirt, cutting a knee on the broken glass. The cigarette had been doused by the whisky. She slipped the photograph off the wet floor.

    'Cigarette?' she said.

    I picked one out of the packet on the table, lit it and gave it to her.

    'Try again.'

    'Kasparian,' she said and dragged on the cigarette, 'and Gildas Sologne.'

    'Thanks. I didn't know who he was, but I knew he was dead. He's the painter who was in the pool, right?'

    She nodded, finding her mouth with the cigarette.

    'Do you want to know how I know?'

    She nodded again.

    'Look in the bottom right-hand corner of the painting.' She looked. 'There's nothing there.'

    'So?'

    'There should be a signature that says "Kershaw", but it doesn't because Gildas Sologne is still alive and Steve hasn't painted on his signature yet.'

    'Next question. Ready, Nina? Where's Kershaw?'

    'I don't…' She didn't finish again, and this time I shot straight and over her other shoulder, and with a splat a hole appeared in the mirror glass which held for a moment and shifted and then fell to the floor in pieces.

    'There doesn't seem to be any point in asking you these questions. You're just a junkie. A compulsive, lying junkie.'

    'The Harveys,' she said in a half scream, looking back at the mirror which no longer reflected her tight, red, stained backside.

    'Good. That's right. That's why when I followed you from the Pharmacie pour Tous on Route de Kpalimé and you went to the German Restaurant in town, you called the Harveys. I went in there after you and hit the 'Redial' button but I didn't know why someone like you would want to talk to someone like Elizabeth Harvey about you being pregnant.'

    Nina was shaking now and it was with some difficulty that she took the cigarette out of her mouth.

    'Last question before we leave. Where's Heike?'

    She held out both her hands, waving them at me, the hot long cone of the over-smoked cigarette fell off and hissed in the liquid at her feet. The red of her lipstick had broken its boundary and huge fat tears were rolling down her cheeks, bringing black mascara that left tracks to the corners of her mouth. She coughed her first sob. I picked her handbag up and checked it, then took some Kleenex out of a box on the sideboard and handed them to her.

    'Clean up; we're going.'

    'Why?' she asked, with some distant logic for her present position.

    'You're my currency of exchange. I hope you're worth something.'

    While Nina patched up the damage to her face, I picked up the phone and left a very quiet message on an answering machine which I hoped would get listened to.

    Nina wasn't capable of driving. I pushed her through to the passenger seat and drove myself with her curled in the corner of the seat looking into the ball of tissue in her hand. The Harveys' house was back on the east side of town between the Sarakawa and the Hotel de La Paix. We were there in a quarter of an hour and Nina had got herself back together. I told her to leave her high heels behind. She took two minutes to put some make-up back on so that she looked just right for the man in her life.