Read Online The Big Killing by Robert Wilson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Wilson
Tags: Mystery
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outside the bank hard on the inside of his left knee and he went down so fast on to the concrete slabs of the pavement that his head hit the ground first. I turned, the taxi coming in front of me now, the kid from across the road in between the parked cars and the one with both ears between the taxi and me, a flash of silver in his hand. The driver, still coasting, opened the passenger door and hit the kid on the point of the elbow. The kid went down and the knife span across the pavement. I got in the taxi, the other two boys backing off.
I told the driver that when a man goes into a bank and tells the taxi to wait it wasn't just out of a feeling of importance. He said he knew that but the traffic police didn't give a damn. Then he thought about it and said he reckoned they were on the take. They were always there for a parking fine and nowhere near a bag snatch. I told him it was the same the world over.
We drove around the block. I pointed him down Avenue Chardy and into a car park at the back of some buildings. I went into a travel agent called PanAfricAbidjan and found a Swiss guy in there who spoke seven languages, one of which was mine. I asked him if he could make 75,000 CFA available in a travel agent called Bénin-Bénin in the quartier Zongo in Cotonou. He made a phone call and said he could. I gave him the money from my Coq Sportif bag.
At the Novotel reception I took some more money out of the bag and asked them to put the rest of it in the hotel safe. I went into a chemist and picked up Moses's prescription and bought a large supply of condoms for him which they were decent enough to wrap. It was a short walk from the chemist's to the Danish Embassy and I was shown straight into the vice-consul's office with its windswept off-white carpeting that looked like snow on its way to sludge.
Leif Andersen was a short, powerful, mid-thirties guy with a friendly brown moustache and a face that had enjoyed a few too many drinks, as it was puffy with vein maps leading nowhere on his cheeks. He was wearing a sports jacket, a white shirt, and some kind of club tie with wine glasses and bottles all over a burgundy background. He sat with his fingers dovetailed across a bit of a belly beneath a painting of some bleak North Sea-whipped Danish coastline which made me grit my teeth in the overstrong air conditioning.
'How can I help you?' he asked.
'Got a visitor's jacket?'
'Sorry,' he said, opening his hands. 'The AC's stuck.'
'At minus five?'
'Plus sixteen, zero humidity.'
'Any chance of something to drink?'
'Tea?' he asked, and I shook my head.
'I'm looking for a guy called Kurt Nielsen.'
'The one running a sheanut operation in Korhogo?'
'You know your nationals pretty well.'
'What's your interest?'
'My client's a Syrian businessman in Accra. He owns the sheanut operation.'
'Kurt Nielsen's wife was looking for him, too.'
'Was?'
'She called a couple of weeks ago. We asked for passport details and photographs and she called two days later and said he'd reappeared.'
'You weren't curious?'
'Not really. Men take time off from their wives. They spend a lot of time together in these isolated places.'
'So the men go off without telling their wives where they're going?'
'We don't do marriage guidance here.'
'So you didn't do anything about it then?'
He shook his head. 'One, he reappeared. Two, there are a lot of Nielsens in Denmark, and Petersens and Andersens. We all have the same names. We need more than "Nielsen" to help us find him.'
I held out the photocopy of the passport details which B.B. had given me and he looked at them for a few seconds and left the room. I did some running on the spot to keep the circulation going and looked around Leif's minimalist office for a drinks cabinet with something warming in it. Ten minutes later he came back with a computer print-out and a pair of black-framed glasses on his nose.
'I'd like to find Kurt Nielsen as well,' he said.
'He's on the run?'
'No, he's
I told the driver that when a man goes into a bank and tells the taxi to wait it wasn't just out of a feeling of importance. He said he knew that but the traffic police didn't give a damn. Then he thought about it and said he reckoned they were on the take. They were always there for a parking fine and nowhere near a bag snatch. I told him it was the same the world over.
We drove around the block. I pointed him down Avenue Chardy and into a car park at the back of some buildings. I went into a travel agent called PanAfricAbidjan and found a Swiss guy in there who spoke seven languages, one of which was mine. I asked him if he could make 75,000 CFA available in a travel agent called Bénin-Bénin in the quartier Zongo in Cotonou. He made a phone call and said he could. I gave him the money from my Coq Sportif bag.
At the Novotel reception I took some more money out of the bag and asked them to put the rest of it in the hotel safe. I went into a chemist and picked up Moses's prescription and bought a large supply of condoms for him which they were decent enough to wrap. It was a short walk from the chemist's to the Danish Embassy and I was shown straight into the vice-consul's office with its windswept off-white carpeting that looked like snow on its way to sludge.
Leif Andersen was a short, powerful, mid-thirties guy with a friendly brown moustache and a face that had enjoyed a few too many drinks, as it was puffy with vein maps leading nowhere on his cheeks. He was wearing a sports jacket, a white shirt, and some kind of club tie with wine glasses and bottles all over a burgundy background. He sat with his fingers dovetailed across a bit of a belly beneath a painting of some bleak North Sea-whipped Danish coastline which made me grit my teeth in the overstrong air conditioning.
'How can I help you?' he asked.
'Got a visitor's jacket?'
'Sorry,' he said, opening his hands. 'The AC's stuck.'
'At minus five?'
'Plus sixteen, zero humidity.'
'Any chance of something to drink?'
'Tea?' he asked, and I shook my head.
'I'm looking for a guy called Kurt Nielsen.'
'The one running a sheanut operation in Korhogo?'
'You know your nationals pretty well.'
'What's your interest?'
'My client's a Syrian businessman in Accra. He owns the sheanut operation.'
'Kurt Nielsen's wife was looking for him, too.'
'Was?'
'She called a couple of weeks ago. We asked for passport details and photographs and she called two days later and said he'd reappeared.'
'You weren't curious?'
'Not really. Men take time off from their wives. They spend a lot of time together in these isolated places.'
'So the men go off without telling their wives where they're going?'
'We don't do marriage guidance here.'
'So you didn't do anything about it then?'
He shook his head. 'One, he reappeared. Two, there are a lot of Nielsens in Denmark, and Petersens and Andersens. We all have the same names. We need more than "Nielsen" to help us find him.'
I held out the photocopy of the passport details which B.B. had given me and he looked at them for a few seconds and left the room. I did some running on the spot to keep the circulation going and looked around Leif's minimalist office for a drinks cabinet with something warming in it. Ten minutes later he came back with a computer print-out and a pair of black-framed glasses on his nose.
'I'd like to find Kurt Nielsen as well,' he said.
'He's on the run?'
'No, he's
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