‘She’ll soon be here. Give me a cigarette, please.’
‘I don’t trust this place. I don’t know why, but I feel a bit scared.’ The nurse glanced nervously round. ‘Suppose she discovers I’m no nurse, but a quack?’
‘Give me a cigarette.’
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘You sound annoyed. Why, now?’
The nurse glanced about the room. At every footfall he rose and went to the door. ‘I thought it was our patient . . .’
‘She’ll be bringing the whole five guineas,’ Bayo said. ‘She’ll give me the money and we’ll split it. You will have —’
‘You will have one pound ten shillings. That’s what we agreed, Bayo.’
‘I’m having two-twelve-six!’ Bayo said, his eyes flaring. ‘But keep quiet. We don’t want Sam to know what we’re doing. If possible too, I don’t want him to know what we’ve done. Sango is very queer. He may disapprove.’
They turned when they heard the knock. Aina’s mother had entered the room. ‘Where is . . . the other man? The one who lives here?’ She sounded disappointed.
‘Do you want the man, or do you want your medicine?’ Bayo asked. ‘Don’t worry about the man who lives here. Me and my friend will attend to you. My friend is a famous nurse.’
She looked about her suspiciously. ‘I was here – once. When Aina fell into trouble.’
‘You . . . must be Aina’s mother? Lord save me!’ Bayo did not like this new turn of events. So this woman knew that Sango lived here, knew perhaps that the racket was against the law. And with the painful plight of her daughter in mind, what could she not scheme?
‘Five guineas, not so?’ She fumbled in her cloth and produced a little envelope. ‘Here is your money.’
Bayo and the nurse exchanged glances. It was the easiest thing ever. Ten cases like this, twenty cases, a hundred . . . and they would be rich. Bayo took the money from her, checked the notes expertly, almost contemptuously.
The woman rose. ‘Excuse me, I’ve just remembered something. I’ll be back just now.’
She was out of the room before they could stop her. Bayo and the nurse again exchanged an uneasy glance. Bayo went to the table, poured himself a glass of water. He raised it to his lips, then stopped. An idea had struck him. Suppose this woman did not return before Sango came back?
And then, by one of those odd things that happen once in a lifetime, Bayo in returning the glass to the table upset it. The water poured on the notes which the woman had given them in payment.
Immediately they became an intense violet. On the back of each note appeared the letters C.I.D.
‘Nurse! We’re finished. Betrayed! The woman has gone to call the police. Look, marked notes. Get your bag and let’s run!’
•
Sango paid off his taxi at Twenty Molomo Street and got in quickly, hoping to rattle off the story of the Apala dance in good time to catch tomorrow’s edition. He felt that he had stumbled on one of the mysteries of the city. This was his chance to catch McMaster’s attention with his handling of the assignment. Two women go to a dance, and while dancing one of them collapses and dies. There is no explanation. She has been in a state of elation before her sudden death. The dance has taken her into a kind of trance and she is foaming at the lips. Why? What is the significance? The more he thought of the woman’s face, her eyes glazed, staring about her unseeing, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, the more terrified he became. Everyone had sat forward, waiting in suspense. They knew she was possessed. Even the drumming had ceased, and yet she continued to dance – without the music. He could never forget it.
The pathologist had said something about the woman ‘at the time of her death . . . undue physical exertion . . . advanced state of myocardial degeneration . . . in the grip of an all-possessing emotion . . .’ or some such jargon, very convenient but still leaving the mystery uncleared.
He glanced at his watch. It was past nine. The story could not possibly get through now for tomorrow’s paper. In the corridor he met Sam carrying a cooking-pot and Sam told him: ‘Your friend Bayo is here. Himself with some strangers. I think C.I.D.’
He stopped, his heart leaping into his mouth. What could he have done? He was no politician, or youth leader. He knocked at his own door and went in. Apart from Bayo, Sango could not say where he had seen the others before. One of them was slender and badly tailored. He had the air of a man on the verge of panic and his fever tended to be contagious. His trousers were greasy and unlined. He showed dirty teeth when he smiled. He held his card and Sango saw he was from the police.
‘We are searching your room.’
Another ma
n, robust, in dark sun-goggles even in the room, looked at his watch.
‘We have found nothing in the room. Now I’m afraid we must search the clothes of the two gentlemen.’
Sango’s heart sank. He saw Bayo close his eyes. The robust policeman patted the bulges on his dress.