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reddening with indignation. The Palace had been deserted. The army had been in the barracks. The mercenaries had shot innocent people. Then they all went back to the airport and flew away.
    â€˜All of it,’ he said, ‘was fake.’
    â€˜Well,’ I said, ‘if it was a fake, it certainly fooled me.’
    It took another day for the airport to open, and another two before I got a seat on the Abidjan plane. I had a mild attack of bronchitis and was aching to leave the country.
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    On my last morning I looked in at the ‘Paris-Snack’, which, in the old days when Dahomey was Dahomey, was owned by a Corsican called Guerini. He had gone back to Corsica while the going was good. The bar-stools were covered in red leather, and the barman wore a solid gold bracelet round his wrist.
    Two Nigerian businessmen were seated at lunch with a pair of whores. At a table in the corner I saw Jacques.
    â€˜Tiens?’ he said, grinning. ‘Still alive?’
    â€˜Thanks to you,’ I said, ‘and the Germans.’
    â€˜Braves Bosches!’ He beckoned me to the banquette. ‘Very intelligent people.’
    â€˜Braves Bosches!’ I agreed.
    â€˜Let’s have a bottle of champagne.’
    â€˜I haven’t got much money.’
    â€˜Lunch is on me,’ he insisted. ‘Pierrot!’
    The barman tilted his head, coquettishly, and tittered.
    â€˜Yes, Monsieur Jacques.’
    â€˜This is an English gentleman and we must find him a very special bottle of champagne. You have Krug?’
    â€˜No, Monsieur Jacques. We have Roerderer. We have Bollinger, and we have Mumm.’
    â€˜Bollinger,’ I said.
    Jacques pulled a face: ‘And in Guerini’s time you could have had your oysters. Flown in twice a week from Paris . . . Belons . . . Claires . . . Portugaises . . . ’
    â€˜I remember him.’
    â€˜He was a character.’
    â€˜Tell me,’ I leaned over. ‘What was going on?’
    â€˜Sssh!’ His lips tightened. ‘There are two theories, and if I think anyone’s listening, I shall change the subject.’
    I nodded and looked at the menu.
    â€˜In the official version,’ Jacques said, ‘the mercenaries were recruited by Dahomean émigrés in Paris. The plane took off from a military airfield in Morocco, refuelled in Abidjan . . . ’
    One of the whores got up from her table and lurched down the restaurant towards the Ladies.
    â€œ66 was a wonderful year,’ said Jacques, decisively.
    â€˜I like it even older,’ I said, as the whore brushed past, ‘dark and almost flat . . . ’
    â€˜The plane flew to Gabon to pick up the commander . . . who is supposed to be an adviser to President Bongo . . . ’ He then explained how, at Libreville, the pilot of the chartered DC-8 refused to go on, and the mercenaries had to switch to a DC-7.
    â€˜So their arrival was expected at the airport?’
    â€˜Precisely,’ Jacques agreed. ‘Now the second scenario . . . ’
    The door of the Ladies swung open. The whore winked at us. Jacques pushed his face up to the menu.
    â€˜What’ll you have?’ he asked.
    â€˜Stuffed crab,’ I said.
    â€˜The second scenario’, he continued quietly, ‘calls for Czech and East German mercenaries. The plane, a DC-7, takes off from a military airfield in Algeria, refuels at Conakry . . . you understand?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said, when he’d finished. ‘I think I get it. And which one do you believe?’
    â€˜Both,’ he said.
    â€˜That’, I said, ‘is a very sophisticated analysis.’
    â€˜This’, he said, ‘is a very sophisticated country.’
    â€˜I know it.’
    â€˜You heard the shooting at Camp Gezo?’
    â€˜What was that?’
    â€˜Settling old scores,’ he shrugged. ‘And now the Guineans have taken over the Secret Police.’
    â€˜Clever.’
    â€˜This is