Amaka lit another cigarette, stood up and walked to the curtains. I walked up to her, stopped behind her, our bodies inches apart, the tip of my nose almost touching her braids. She didn’t move. I raised my palms to the sides of her shoulders and they just floated there. I dropped my hands back to my sides. I wanted to say something but couldn’t come up with the words. I held my breath, tucked my hands under hers and wrapped them around her body. I was ready to let go at the slightest objection. Her fingertips touched my forearms. She gripped and pulled them tighter round her. She held my arms in place with one hand while holding her cigarette with the other.
I buried my head into her neck, drew in the faint smell of her perfume, and said ‘Everything is going to be OK’ as she stroked my arm.
‘I got a weird call this morning,’ she said, ‘A girl. Her friend followed a man last night and by morning she had not returned.’
She pulled my arms apart, gently, went to get the ashtray and sat back in the chair. I sat opposite.
‘She had the man’s plate number.’
‘Was he on your list?’
‘Yes. Chief Amadi. He has a huge house here on the island.’
‘I’m not sure. He pays well. He treats them well. He usually takes them to his house. Two at a time. Always. He’s only been on my list for a few months. None of the girls have complained about him, but a girl once said she recognised him. She said that about five years ago, on the mainland, he and his friends picked up six girls and none returned. Apparently, it was a big thing then. It happened before I started keeping the records. The girl said she wasn’t a 100 per cent sure it was him, and no one else seems to have heard the story. But all the same, anytime a girl calls about him, I tell them not to go, just to be safe. I hear some girls still go with him but he tends to stick to the same girls.’
‘Could he be the one we are looking for?’
‘Looking for?’ She looked bemused.
‘Yes. The one who murdered that girl? Is that what you are thinking?’
‘Look who has suddenly become the detective.’
‘If you think it might be him, we have to do something about it.’
‘Slow down, cowboy. I didn’t say I think it’s him, just that the call was strange.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, for one, the girl sounded scared.’
‘We need to talk to her again.’
‘That’s the thing; she called with a hidden number.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘I’m not sure. She told me her name. Rosemary. I’ve called every Rosemary on my phone. It’s none of them. I should have asked for her number. There are so many of them. The girls, I mean. The way it works is they never meet me. It’s safer for me and for them that way. They don’t know who I am. They don’t even know my name. Someone tells them about me and they call. First time they call, I save their number and I tell them what to do when they get to a man’s house. They take pictures if they can, copy down the licence plates of the cars in the compound, the address, anything at all that can be used to identify the person. They send everything to my phone and when they get back they call to tell me what he was like. I usually recognise the voices but this girl’s voice escapes me, maybe because she was scared. Nervous. I should have asked for her number.’
‘We must find her, Amaka.’
She looked into my eyes and smiled. ‘That’s why we are going to see Aunty Baby. If anyone can find someone in Lagos, it’s her.’
The way she looked at me seemed odd, but she was smiling.
‘What?’ I asked, smiling back.
‘You just called me by my name for the first time. And you pronounced it correctly.’
My smile turned to a blush.
Her eyes focused intently on mine, perhaps waiting for me to say something. Those eyes of hers: she could stare at me with them till I shrunk and backed down. She could smile with them without moving another muscle on her face. Now she was doing something I’d not seen yet. Her eyes were speaking to me, saying what she wanted me to know, what was OK for me to do. I saw myself lean towards her, put my arms around her and kiss her. That is what I should have done, but instead I said the first string of words that popped into my mind: ‘Are you hungry?’
Her body shifted slightly – as if she was surprised. She held my eyes for a moment longer then stood up so swiftly that the towel, now loose, simply stayed back on the chair. She stood in front of me, perfectly and beautifully naked, just inches away. We both went for the towel and our hands touched. Something flowed from her fingers into mine, raced up through my body and gathered at my groin. I let her have the towel. She wrapped it round her body, went to the bathroom, and the lock clicked.
Inspector Ibrahim’s car pulled up in front of the Eko Hotel lobby. He had changed into a pair of blue jeans and a black t-shirt that he kept at the station. He picked a spot close to the elevators where he could see people coming and going. He scanned the faces around him. Sooner or later, Ade, the man who had called Guy’s phone, would walk into his trap and eventually lead him to the journalist.
The muffled sound of the shower running behind the locked door convinced me that it was pointless to check if she was OK. Anyway, we were going to have lunch. The lock clicked and she peeped through the gap in the door. She smiled shyly.
‘Can you please pass my clothes?’ she said and stretched out a wet hand.
I gathered her stuff and handed it to her. She locked herself back into the bathroom. I didn’t know what to make of the fact that she felt she needed to lock the door. I was still processing my thoughts when she stepped out, smiling, dressed, and looking smart in the clothes she had worn the night before.
I got clean clothes from my bag and went into the bathroom. It was steamy. The mirror was misted up. I stepped into the shower cubicle conscious of the fact that she had just been there, naked.
‘Shall we?’ she said when I stepped back into the room. She didn’t look at me.
Why didn’t I kiss her when I had the chance? Was it because of Mel? Was it cowardice? Did she want me to kiss her? Had she dropped the towel intentionally?
We didn’t speak as we waited for the elevator. Inside, she gave me that polite smile again and looked away. I couldn’t take it anymore.
‘Amaka.’
‘Yes?’
She turned to look into my eyes. I had not thought of what to say so I pulled her to me and kissed her.
Ibrahim was standing with his back to the elevator when it opened. A porter behind him picked up two Louis Vuitton bags at his feet and stopped. The woman standing next to the porter lowered her large shades and said ‘Oh my.’ The man in the lift, eyes closed and still kissing the woman whose arms were around his neck, found a button without looking and the doors began to slide together.
Ibrahim turned to see what the fuss was about. He caught the last two seconds of the metal doors closing and he turned back to searching for Ade.
I expected her to push me away but she put her arms round my neck and drew me closer. Our lips did not part as we fumbled to our door and I tried to open it.
At the foot of the bed I pushed my hand under her shirt, pretended to just want to rub her back, then I began to work my way up to her bra fasteners. She took her arms away from my neck and forced them between us. I thought I’d blown it and I let her go, ready to apologise, then I realised she was undoing the bra herself. I went to kiss her again and our heads bumped. We laughed. As we kissed she unzipped her skirt and I pulled back to yank off my shirt. By the time I was done, her skirt was on the floor and she was standing in front of me naked.
She began to undo my belt. I went to kiss her again but she had started to bend at her knees as she pulled my trousers down. If she took me in her mouth, I just knew I would come, so I pulled her up and began to move us onto the bed.
We climbed in. I lay her on her back and with my lips I found each breast. Her fingers ran through my hair. I placed one leg between hers. She moved her other leg away from under me so I was fully between her. Then she curled her legs round my waist and pulled my lips to hers. We were still kissing when she suddenly pushed me till I rolled on my back and she climbed on top of me. She took my arms and placed them on her breasts, then she lifted herself off slightly and with one hand she found my erection and slid it into her.
Ibrahim studied all the faces lingering around the lobby. He found Ade’s number on Guy’s phone, pressed the call button, and put the phone into his pocket.
A man with his back to him, in blue jeans and a sleeveless khaki jacket, pulled a phone from his pocket. Ibrahim already suspected he was his man. He smiled and walked towards him.