‘According to Jens Rath, the project is at a critical stage. Can you see any other reason?’
Kaja shrugged. ‘What if even a killer is capable of loving someone so much that he simply wants to be with her? Is that so inconceivable?’
Harry nodded. As if to say ‘yes, you have a point’, or ‘yes, it is inconceivable’.
There was a humming and a clicking, like a camera in slow motion, as the wheels were lowered.
Kaja stared out of the window.
‘And I don’t like the shopping, Harry. Why the weapons?’
‘Leike is violent.’
‘And I don’t like travelling as an undercover cop. I know we can’t smuggle our own weapons into the Congo, but couldn’t we have asked the Congolese police for assistance with the arrest?’
‘As I said, we have no extradition agreement. And it’s not improbable that a financier like Leike has local police in his pay who would have warned him.’
‘Conspiracy theory.’
‘Yep. And simple mathematics. A policeman’s wage in the Congo is not enough to feed a family. Relax, Van Boorst has a wonderful little ironmongery and he’s professional enough to keep his mouth shut.’
The wheels emitted a scream as they hit the landing strip.
Kaja squinted out of the window. ‘Why are there so many soldiers here?’
‘UN flying in reinforcements. The guerrillas have advanced in the last few days.’
‘What guerrillas?’
‘Hutu guerrillas, Tutsi guerrillas, Mai Mai guerrillas. Who knows?’
‘Harry?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s get this job done quickly and go home.’
He nodded.
It had already grown lighter when Harry walked along the line of taxi drivers outside. He exchanged a few words with each and every one until he found someone who could speak good English. Excellent English, in fact. He was a small man with alert eyes, grey hair and thick blood vessels above the temples and sides of his high, shiny forehead. His English was definitely original, a kind of stilted Oxford variant with a broad Congolese accent. Harry explained to him that he would hire him for the whole day, they quickly agreed a price and exchanged handshakes, a third of the agreed sum in dollars, and names, Harry and Dr Duigame.
‘In English literature,’ the man elucidated, openly counting the money. ‘But as we’re going to be together the whole day you can call me Saul.’
He opened the rear door of a dented Hyundai. Harry indicated where Saul was to drive, to the road by the burnt-down church.
‘Sounds like you’ve been here before,’ Saul said, steering the car along a regular stretch of tarmac which, as soon as it met the main traffic artery, became a moonscape of craters and cracks.
‘Once.’
‘Then you should be careful,’ he smiled. ‘Hemingway wrote that once you have opened your soul to Africa you won’t want to be anywhere else.’
‘Hemingway wrote that?’ Harry queried with some scepticism.
‘Yes, he did, but Hemingway wrote that sort of romantic shit all the time. Shot lions when he was drunk and pissed that sweet whiskey urine on their corpses. The truth is that no one comes back to the Congo if they don’t have to.’
‘I had to,’ Harry said. ‘Listen, I tried to get hold of the driver I had last time when I was here, Joe from Refugee Aid. But there’s no response from his number.’
‘Joe’s gone,’ Saul said.
‘Gone?’
‘He took his family with him, stole a car and drove to Uganda. Goma’s under siege. They’ll kill everyone. I’m going soon, too. Joe had a good car, maybe he’ll make it.’
Harry recognised the church spire towering over the ruins of what Nyiragongo had eaten. He held on tight as the Hyundai rolled past the potholes. There were nasty scrapes and bumps to the chassis a couple of times.
‘Wait here,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll walk the rest of the way. Back soon.’
Harry stepped out and inhaled grey dust and the smell of spices and rotten fish.
Then he started walking. An obviously drunk man tried to ram Harry with his shoulder, but missed and staggered into the road. Harry had a couple of choice words hurled after him and walked on. Not too fast, not too slow. Arriving at the only brick house in the square of shops, he went up to the door, banged hard and waited. Heard quick footsteps inside. Too quick to be Van Boorst’s. The door was opened a fraction and half a black face and one eye appeared.
‘Van Boorst at home?’ Harry asked.
‘No.’ The large gold teeth in the upper set glinted.
‘I want to buy some handguns, Miss. Can you help me?’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry. Goodbye.’