Lucky and I got to Heathrow on a private jet arranged by a friend of Lucky at Huawei.  The flight was lovely.  

When Lucky and I got to London, troubles started.  Somebody at Heathrow told Lucky her visa was no good.  We waited thirty minutes in a room without character.  At length, a trim woman with red hair joined us.  She sat down in one of the uncomfortable chairs in the room.  As soon as she entered, Lucky whispered MI-5 to me.

The redhead told Lucky that there was a hold on her entry into the country.  Lucky said nothing.  Instead, she requested to call her embassy. When the redhead said, she did not know if that was necessary, Lucky contradicted her.  “It’s necessary. ” 

The redhead ignored what Lucky had said.  In lieu of being responsive, the redhead told Lucky of a problem that had occurred in Lagos.  Perhaps Lucky knew somebody whose names included Binky Dalrymple. Lucky kept to her silence.  

Mr Dalrymple, the redhead told us, had an unsavoury history that included working for the CIA when he could spare time from molesting children.  The redhead spoke of Mr Dalrymple’s gifts as a money launderer.  Lucky’s face was a model of a tabula rasa.

The redhead kept going.  She wondered if Lucky had heard about Mr Dalrymple’s change in status.  President Putin had sent an emissary to central Africa to talk about the degradation of morality in Africa as various parts of Africa had had an influx of perverts from godless states in the EU and in North America.  The emissary then offered a Jeremiad from President Putin on the need for Africans to reclaim their moral heritage by relying on self-help justice.  He took the liberty of mentioning Binky by name and added that Binky was practising his nasty habits in Lagos.  

An enraged mother was aware of Binky’s presence but had not understood that he was buggering her son.  When she questioned her boy, she learnt he had been among Binky’s sex snacks.  She then went to Binky’s house and pretended to be carrying a meal in for him, which got her by Binky’s lax, pretty security squads.  Once with Binky, she used a chef’s knife to gut him.  He never saw it coming, or so I imagine. 

The redhead gave a lengthy summary of Lucky’s alleged misdeeds in England, especially the Reading Rumble, as well as commentary on Lucky’s alleged involvement in wetwork across several continents.  As the redhead went through what she supposed, probably accurately, what Lucky had been up to the past 5 or so years, we heard a knock on the door.

When a guard opened the door, a man said something in Mandarin to Lucky.  Lucky said something back.  The guy then began to explain in Oxbridge English that it was an outrage that MI-5 was attempting to interrogate Lucky, whom he described as an inveterate tourist and travel reporter for Xinhua.  The insult of Lucky’s detention made both her and the Chinese government unwilling to submit her to further smears from MI-5.   

The guy surprised me.  He was wearing, despite his education, a suit that looked like it was bought off the rack from a Third-World street vendor.  He needed braces to hold the pants up.  The jack puffed at the shoulders.   Sleeves of a white shirt several sizes too large extended almost a forearm length below the awful jacket. In theory, the jacket and trousers were indigo-coloured, but the dye was poor so there was no uniformity of colour.  The shoes were risible black clodhoppers and his feet were covered with white socks. But whatever the guy lacked in fashion, he made up for with his eloquence.

After a few telephone calls, Lucky was headed to a new jet with me in tow.  I asked where we were headed.  “Lagos.  I want to find out what secrets leaked from that sorry paederast Binky.  To get the sources I need, I can go to Lagos or Amsterdam.  Lagos has the advantage of a free arena of operation or at least compared to A-dam it does. 

Little at that time did either of us know that Constance had been chatting to boys from Langley about Binky.  She argued his murder was a scheme out of China.  She viewed the alleged Russian role as pure misdirection but was also not willing to rule out an Israeli plot. Constance never let an opportunity to entertain the possibility that any instant calamity was the work of lefties or Jews.  She could be persuasive.  She left Langley with a ticket and visa to Lagos.  

Lucky and I flew into Murtala Muhammed International airport, an architectural study in concrete and glass, ahead of Constance. Lucky had booked us into a suite at the Casa Mae, a hotel saturated in whites.  One might have gotten the impression Malevich of White-on-White liked to paint here.   

We went from our suite to the Avenida restaurant. Lucky ordered me some prawns in garlic butter sauce (delicious!) at the Talindo Steakhouse.  She had truffle fries, seafood soup, and a mixed grill with steak, prawns, calamari, chicken garlic mayo and chili sauce, and sauteed vegetables.  When we got back to our room, we went to sleep.  Lucky expected a busy morning.