When Trouble Sleeps Read online

  The killers formed a circle around their victim. Amaka, with her back to them and facing the dead man, recorded their faces across the rising smoke, pretending to be recording their victim, and like this she worked the circle, her back to the people, her face to the bonfire, her phone capturing the culprits’ images.

  A woman was fighting to get through the crowd, screaming, crying, clawing, snatching and grabbing at bodies in her way, dodging an elbow here, absorbing a repellent jab there. She looked like she was in her twenties. She was slender and tall, her dark-chocolate skin smooth and shiny, her hair short and tangled and browning at the twisted tips. She was in a white flannel skirt with a large rose embroidered on the front, a white sleeveless tube top, a pair of red pumps, with a red scarf around her neck and red coral earrings.

  She broke through and ran towards the body that was too late to save. Amaka watched her through the screen of her phone. Men grabbed the woman to stop her from reaching the fire, but another group tried to snatch her from the ones trying to save her and appeared to be dragging her towards it.

  A lanky man held a tyre over the girl’s head, attempting to get it round her body but other hands worked to stop him.

  Amaka tucked her phone into her skirt, ran past the fire, feeling its heat on the side of her face, and grabbed the belt of the man attempting to put a tyre around the woman. She yanked him until he fell backwards. He dropped the tyre and it rolled towards the smouldering body.

  Another man was holding up a metal pipe, trying to get a good aim at the girl’s head. Amaka grabbed his hand and he swung round, his fist bunched, but Amaka thrust her knee into his groin before he could deliver the blow. As the man collapsed onto the floor, Amaka and the young woman locked eyes. The woman was being dragged away into the crowd and she stretched out her hands to Amaka, her eyes wide and unblinking, mouth open. Her fingers stretched outwards as if they could somehow bridge the distance between her and Amaka; as if touching Amaka was all that was needed; as if Amaka was the one who could save her and even her dead friend. Amaka stretched her hands towards the girl as splinters of wood flew past her face and tiny sparks danced before her eyes, obscuring her vision. Her knees gave way and she blacked out.

  4

  A man with sunken cheeks, his faded brown Ankara outfit loose around his gaunt frame, looked around the crowd before stooping to the ground and picking up the phone he had seen fall from the woman trying to fight the men.

  As he stood, he looked around before putting his hand into his pocket. The phone vibrated. It startled him, but nobody noticed. They were too busy filming the thief they had caught. He looked down at the screen of the ringing phone. ‘Guy Collins.’ He looked at the woman the area boys had knocked out. He looked back at the phone. He frowned at the sky; at God who had seen him stealing the poor woman’s property, and he answered the call.

  ‘Amaka, where are you?’ the caller shouted into his ear. He cupped his hand over his other ear so he could hear the man over the noise. ‘Amaka? Amaka?’ She was Igbo. He was Igbo. He bit his lips. He cursed. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Who are you?’ He turned his back to the action and began to edge his way out of the crowd.

  ‘Who is this?’ the man on the phone shouted. He sounded like a real oyinbo, not just someone with an oyinbo name.

  ‘Where is Amaka?’

  ‘Are you her friend?’

  ‘Yes. Where is she?’

  ‘You better come here now, now. They are going to kill her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She is on the road here. They are beating her. They are going to kill her.’

  ‘What are you saying? Who’s beating her? Why are they beating her?’

  ‘The area boys. They have already killed one thief. They are descending on her now.’

  ‘What? Who are you? Where is she?’

  ‘She is at Oshodi market.’

  ‘Market? Who are you? Can you help her?’

  ‘Me? What can I do? You better come now-now, before they put tyre on her neck and pour her petrol.’

  ‘Please help her.’

  He ended the call and switched off the phone. It was too late for anyone to help the woman, but God saw that he had done all that he could.

  A skinny young man stood with his back to Amaka’s car and looked around. He opened the door and ducked inside. He snatched the handbag from the passenger seat and tucked it under his shirt. At first he walked quickly through the crowd, then he jogged along the road and finally he turned unto a narrow, overgrown passage between the walls of adjacent buildings. He sidestepped mounds of excrement and swatted at flies. He checked behind him before taking out the handbag. There was a notebook laptop inside. It felt light. He tucked it under his armpit and searched for its power adapter.

  He pulled out a passport and flicked through its pages before sliding it into his back pocket. He found a mobile phone and its charger, a cardholder, and a wad of pound notes. He stuffed everything into his pockets. He threw out a compact mirror, a lip balm, a nail file, and a bunch of keys, unzipped a side pocket and felt inside. He grabbed the contents. In his palm there was a black SD memory card among four mobile phone SIM cards. He picked up the memory card and inspected it, then looked up as two men walked past the entrance to the passageway. He dropped the memory card and the SIM cards back in to the bag and tossed it away. As he walked away, the bag sank into the vegetation until only its thin black strap was visible, curled over the stem of a plant like a snake hiding in the foliage.

  5

  Chief Olabisi Ojo groaned and turned over in his bed. He was naked. He put his hand to his forehead and groaned again. The throbbing radiated across his eyes to the back of his head. Lying on his fat belly, eyes closed, he stretched out his hand and swept it over the sheets. He opened his eyes. The lights hurt. He turned his head and looked on the other side of the bed, rolled himself onto his side, paused to let the throbbing subside, then heaved himself up and sat on the edge. The headache intensified.

  He looked round the room of the presidential suite at Eko Hotel. His vision was blurred. He tried to focus on the armchair on which his friend, retired Navy Commodore Shehu Yaya had sat, next to a stool cramped with glasses, a dirty ashtray, empty bottles of Star and Guinness, and one empty bottle of Remy Martin - the bottle the girl had brought. Where was she? He tried to remember her name. It hurt to think. Iyabo?

  Pain tore through his right eye. Removing his hand from his face, he tried again to focus. He stood and walked out of the bedroom into the living area of the presidential suite. ‘Iyabo!’ he called out.

  He wrapped his fingers round his gold watch before checking the time. 7am. He walked to the dining area. ‘Iyabo!’ He looked around. Her clothes were not in the room. He couldn’t see a bag. He wrapped his fingers round his watch a second time. In the bedroom he found his clothes on the ground beside Shehu’s chair. He picked them up and patted the pockets of his trousers; from one, he retrieved a bound, inch-thick wad of one thousand naira notes. He held the money between his index finger and thumb as if he could tell if any were missing. He returned the money and from the other pocket he removed his wallet, spread it apart, and stared at its contents: hundred-dollar notes. Without removing the money, he counted two hundred and fifty notes. Next, he thumbed through each of his credit cards. Confused, he dropped the clothes on the chair. She hadn’t stolen from him. She wasn’t a thief. But she had left without telling him she was going. Or did she? When did she leave? Did they have sex during the night? He reached under his belly and held his limp penis. He couldn’t remember.

  He checked the time again, began walking back to the bed, and stopped. His eyes flitted from one bedside stool to the other, then to the floor. He returned to his clothes, picked them up, and patted them down once more. He felt his money and his wallet but nothing in his other pockets. He went to the telephone by the bed, dialled and held the receiver by his side to listen for his phone to ring somewhere in the suite. His eyes fell upon the stool by the chair.
He replaced the handset.

  Standing over the stool, he looked at the ashtray in the midst of empty bottles and used glasses. Pieces of a SIM card lay atop the ash and butts in it. He bent down for a closer look and saw his phone on the rug near the foot of the stool, its battery and the back cover next to it. As he went down on one knee to pick them up he noticed that the SIM card had been taken out of the mobile.

  ‘Iyabo!’ he shouted in the direction of the open door. His head hurt as he bent to pull on his Y-fronts and trousers. It didn’t make sense. Did she remove the SIM card and break it? Why? Was she angry with him? Perhaps because he fell asleep? At the club she had made it clear that she wanted to fuck him – and not for money. In fact, she warned him that the deal would be off if he as much as tried to give her any money. She was not a prostitute. Did he get too drunk and try to pay her after sex? Did they have sex? He just couldn’t remember anything. He replaced the battery and back cover and slid the phone into his pocket. Why had she broken the SIM card? So he wouldn’t have her number?

  He went to the window and drew back the thick curtain. It was dark outside. Panicked, he looked at his watch again; it wasn’t seven in the morning. He had slept till seven in the evening.

  He tried to gather his thoughts. He’d arrived at the hotel around one. Or maybe two. Shehu joined him not long after. Iyabo arrived about 4am. He had met her at Soul Lounge. She did not look like a prostitute; she said she wasn’t one. She spoke with an accent, like someone who studied abroad. She wore a skirt suit; she said she’d come from work, that she was a lawyer.

  The last thing he remembered was seeing Shehu off – that was a few minutes after Iyabo arrived – but he strained to remember what happened next.

  Pain seared through the crown of his head as he stood up. He groaned, held his head in his palms and sat back down in the armchair. It creaked under his weight. His eyes darted around as he tried to think, then they shot back to the ashtray. With his index finger he searched amongst the stubs and the broken pieces of his SIM card. He turned the ashtray over onto the table. Nothing. He flicked the ash off his fingers and rushed to fetch his phone from his pocket. As he slid off the back cover and removed the battery, it was as he feared: the memory card was missing. An alarm went off in his head. He looked around, pushing his hands down behind the corners of the cushions. On his knees he searched on the floor and under the chair. He pushed himself up onto one knee and shouted, ‘Fuck!’

  6

  Horns were going off everywhere on Bourdillon Road, cars lined bumper-to-bumper remained static. Exhaust fumes hung heavy in the air. Okada drivers straddling their motorcycles used their feet to move their machines between cars, their handlebars scratching paintwork in the process. A mass of people walked down the road and the traffic police watched from the enclosure of the roundabout under the flyover.

  Inspector Ibrahim and the two officers with him joined the throng of people heading towards the crash site. All around them, men with scratchy voices spoke the bastardised form of Yoruba popular amongst Lagos touts. Men shouting and waving fists bumped their shoulders into the police officers as they passed them.

  A man pushed past Ibrahim and, after four steps, scratched the road with his machete. Ibrahim placed his hand on the arm of the officer to his right who had begun to raise his AK-47. In front of them, the man was now circling the machete over his head. Ibrahim looked behind. In the midst of the approaching crowd, there was a group of men holding up leafy branches and machetes. A shot went off while Ibrahim was still watching. He jolted. The crowd continued past him and the other officers, unperturbed. Ibrahim had seen where the shot came from. The barrel of the black pump-action shotgun was still pointing upwards.

  ‘What is going on?’ Ibrahim asked. Among the men walking towards them, one was loading cartridges into a shotgun. The man looked up at the officers and continued loading his weapon. As he passed between them, his shoulder pushed Ibrahim, who had to be stopped from falling by the officer to his side. Again, Ibrahim restrained his colleagues.

  Another shot went off, this time closer. ‘Jesus,’ Ibrahim said. The sound of a helicopter made him look up. This time it was a green one. The army. Just as it circled back on itself and hovered, another one flew over the crowd, made a large arch, then hovered opposite the first.

  The crowd were marching past Oyinkan Abayomi Drive. They looked like they didn’t know the geography of Ikoyi. The officers went down the drive. It was much less crowded. Two lines of immobile cars, many of them with their drivers still at the wheels, stretched back to where the lagoon began. The trees on the lagoon side partially obscured street lamps that had just come on. A third helicopter flew in.

  ‘What is going on?’ Ibrahim asked again.

  They continued past Mekunwen Road, choosing their route by the position of the helicopters above. At Macpherson, a white Toyota LiteAce bus was parked lengthwise, blocking the road. In front of it, men in civilian clothes, brandishing AK-47s, stood guard. Opposite, civilians and police officers stood with their backs to the lagoon and watched the noisy aircraft.

  ‘Sergeant,’ Ibrahim called, and beckoned to police officers amidst the onlookers. They were not from Bar Beach police station. They were probably posted to stand guard outside homes in the neighbourhood, Ibrahim figured.

  There were four officers in all, one woman and three men, who all saluted and stood in front of Ibrahim.

  ‘What is going on here?’ Ibrahim said. He read the name badge of the plump female officer he had directed the question to. Fatokun.

  ‘An aeroplane crashed, sir.’

  ‘I know that. But who are those men there and why are you standing with the civilians?’

  ‘They are not allowing people to pass, sir.’

  ‘Which agency are they with?’

  ‘Agency, sir?’

  ‘Are they DSS?’

  ‘No, sir. They are party loyalists.’

  Ibrahim shook his head. It was a euphemism for thugs. He looked at the armed men by the bus. The men stared back. It was illegal for civilians to own assault weapons, but here he was, a police inspector, unable to do anything but watch and pretend not to see. The traffic jam had made it impossible for appropriate security agencies to get to the scene. Other police commands would have received the same signal he received, and in time they would arrive along with FAAN officials; meanwhile he appeared to be the first respondent. With two of his own officers, another five conscripted officers, and only two rifles and his service pistol between them, diplomacy was the only option.

  ‘Do you know which party?’

  ‘Sir, you haven’t heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘The plane landed on Chief Adio Douglas’s house.’

  ‘Crashed into,’ Ibrahim corrected.

  He knew Chief Douglas. Everybody in Lagos knew Chief Douglas. He sat on numerous boards and he was chairman of Douglas Insurance – ‘the insurers to Lagos state’ as Ibrahim once read in a newspaper. His house was on Magbon Close and he was going to be the next Governor of Lagos State. His opponent, a doctor who returned from practising in America, whose name Ibrahim couldn’t even remember, lacked the money, the popularity, and the political clout to run against the ruling party. Chief Douglas on the other hand was a former central bank director and a former finance minister.

  ‘Was he in the house?’ Ibrahim asked. At least the plane had crashed into just one household, Ibrahim thought, then it occurred to him that Douglas was just one life; there were other lives that could have been lost: his family, his servants, his gatemen, not to talk of the passengers and crew on the plane. As a gubernatorial candidate he would have been travelling with his security detail. Officers who bade their family goodbye in the morning, not knowing they would never see each other again.

  ‘He was in the plane.’

  ‘He was in the plane that crashed into his own house?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They are saying the other party bombed the plane.’

  Ibr
ahim remembered the men brandishing machetes and firing shots. They were the party loyalists, and the men armed with AK-47s, not letting people through, were waiting for them. Reinforcements. Lagos was about to explode.

  7

  Chief Ojo stepped out of the presidential suite, closed the door behind him and removed the ‘Do not disturb’ sign from the handle. He stared at the glossy door hanger – he didn’t remember placing it there. Downstairs in the lobby, waiting for the woman at the desk to get off the phone, he continued trying to put together the disjointed pieces of the night before, all of it muddled in the haze of his fantastic headache. Iyabo had been on the bed when Shehu left. He couldn’t remember if he followed his friend to the door, out into the corridor, or to the lift.

  ‘Good evening, sir. How may I help you?’ the woman said, jarring Ojo out of his thoughts.

  Ojo placed his key card on the counter. The suite had been paid for. Originally booked for a visiting diplomat, the man had been unable to use it and Ojo had asked if he could have it. All Ojo had to do was pay for the drinks he and Shehu ordered through room service.

  The girl typed on her keyboard, all the while maintaining her smile. A printer began to spool out a sheet of paper onto a table behind her. She fetched the invoice and placed it in front of Ojo.

  ‘What the hell?’ he shouted, reading the total on the bill.

  ‘What is the matter, sir?’

  ‘What is this?’ He waved the bill in front of her face.

  ‘It is your bill, sir,’ she said, uncertainty in her voice as she inspected it.

  ‘For a few drinks? How much is Star and Guinness?’

  ‘It is including the charge for the room, sir.’ Her voice became quieter as she spoke, as if retreating.