Blood Is Dirt by Robert Wilson Page B

investigation by the Nigerian authorities?’
    â€˜Because...’
    â€˜He obviously didn’t offer Mr Briggs the four-one-nine squad option in the first place. Why not?’
    â€˜He wanted him out of there. He was a potential embarrassment?’
    â€˜Could they have known about the toxic waste?’ asked Bagado. ‘What could the British government’s involvement be in a loser like Briggs?’
    â€˜All the writing on the drums at the dump was Italian, but maybe it’s British waste, or there’s a British connection in there somewhere?’
    â€˜It could, of course, just be something private between your friend at the High Commission and Briggs.’
    â€˜Anyway, we’re finished with Napier Briggs now. He was never even a client.’
    â€˜
You
might be.’
    â€˜Ah, yes. I forgot. You’re a policeman again.’

Chapter 8
    By the time I’d dropped Bagado at home and climbed the steps up to my own house it was 8 p.m., but the lights were on, which promised cold beer.
    I was about to open the door when I heard Heike and another woman, whose voice I didn’t recognize, talking. The other woman sounded English from the expressions she used but I could tell she’d spent some time in a foreign country. She was used to speaking to foreigners, choosing her words, even though Heike was completely bilingual. The woman was talking about a lover, or a husband maybe.
    â€˜...there always had to be this ritual,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t just go to bed together and get on with it. The bedroom door had to be locked, the lights positioned, the mirrors in place. He would say things, strange things like, “You and me,” which made me look around the room, you know, relieved. I wasn’t allowed to say anything. I had to be wearing the right things. Normally black, occasionally red, but always the whole bit, suspenders, stockings. He spent a fortune on my underwear and there was always the other things...’
    â€˜What other things?’
    The woman paused.
    â€˜Oh Christ,’ she said, not embarrassed, just remembering it all.
    â€˜That bad?’
    â€˜One word. I’ll give you one word.’
    â€˜Go on then.’
    â€˜Cufflinks.’
    â€˜Cufflinks?’
    â€˜Right.’
    â€˜Cufflinks
,’ said Heike, completely stunned, ‘are you sure you mean cufflinks?’
    â€˜Oh shit,’ said the other woman, slapping the table, ‘of course I bloody don’t. Handcuffs. I mean handcuffs.’ They roared.
    I opened the door. Heike was sitting on the floor in a big white calico dress propped up on a cushion facing me. The other woman I couldn’t see, apart from her size-nine bare feet hanging over the edge of the sofa. My bottle of Black Label was on the low table between them and it had taken quite a pounding. Heike was still laughing and blowing smoke into the ceiling. The other woman’s hand appeared on the back of the sofa. It was huge, as big as a man’s hand. I went to the sofa and looked down. A blonde-haired woman in her mid-twenties, who I’d never met before, looked back up at me, giggling.
    â€˜The man with the cuff...’ she started, ready to hoot. ‘What happened to your face?’
    â€˜You guys pissed or what?’ I asked. They forgot about my face and roared at me, which was all the answer I needed.
    Heike stood up and skipped around the room to me. She put an arm around my neck and kissed my ear with whisky breath.
    â€˜This,’ she said, pointing down at the sofa with her cigarette, ‘is Selina Aguia. Selina Aguia, this is Bruce Medway.’
    â€˜He’s very pretty, isn’t he?’ she said, with mock seriousness. ‘Apart from the lump on his head.’
    â€˜Not when you get to know him,’ said Heike, and they giggled some more.
    â€˜I’ve got some catching up to do,’ I said. They weren’t listening. I went into the