Instruments Of Darkness Read Online Free

death.
        Heidi had driven back across the desert six months later, but Heike had stayed and was running an aid project in the north of Benin. Every few months she came to Cotonou to drink us into a very dark world beyond oblivion and find out if I was worth loving. I tried to tell her these two activities were not compatible but she insisted that for her alcohol was the only approach road to love. By coming to Africa she had thrown in her job as a TV commercials producer and left her director and first 'serious' boyfriend. She had discovered he was over-generous with nothing except one part of his anatomy and not exclusively to her. She was looking for a purer life, less complicated, but like a lot of us couldn't always make up her mind. The drink parted her from her memories, gave her just enough courage to try again and, like me, she liked it.
        Heike was a beautiful woman despite this punishment. She was the daughter of a British army officer and a Berlin cafe owner which meant she was bilingual and disinclined to listen to anyone's bullshit. She was tall, just under six foot, with a long whippy body that wasn't skinny but carried no extra flesh. She had thick brown hair which she always wore put up in a way that looked as if she'd just slammed a clip in any old place, but it was always just right. The style accentuated her long neck and fragile bones. Her eyes were intimidating. They were very clear light blue and green, like aquamarines.
        I knew from the beginning that although she looked breakable she was tough. She had access to a temper that on a few occasions had caused her rather large hands to form fists and lash out on the ends of her long arms and hurt people. People like me.
        Sometimes I deserved to be hit, but never because I couldn't keep my trousers done up. That wasn't my style at all. I found out early on in life that playing around messed up my head, dealt me the clap and gave me a better understanding of the blues than I really wanted. No, she would hit me, because she couldn't get in there. She would tell me she was breaking down walls. I wasn't always sure why the walls were up in the first place or what they were guarding, but whatever it was, she wanted to get to it. I wasn't disinterested myself.

        Heike was standing in the garage, her hands on her slim hips. She was wearing a white broderie anglaise top which showed about a foot of lean torso between it and her skirt, which was red with a light brown and white pattern. The lips of her small mouth were pursed, she was gnawing at the inside of her cheek. She looked at me with disdain as I walked up to her and kissed her. She threw her long arms around my shoulders and kissed me back.
        'I've been waiting for hours,' she said in a voice that had been waiting with her.
        Moses slid past me into the garage, nudging me with the wing mirror. The tickering noise had stopped. He got out, opened the boot and pulled the bedsheet out, grinning at Heike who said hello to him in the form of a suppressed smile. He walked up the stairs and Heike and I followed.
        'You've got a lot of laundry, Bruce.'
        'The biannual wash,' I said.
        Some money fell out from the top where the corners of the sheet were drawn together. She picked it up.
        'You should empty the pockets first,' she said like a good little hausfrau, which is one thing she isn't. The door to my part of the house opened straight into the living room. Moses threw the sheet on the floor. The knot gave and two corners of the sheet burst open and the money spewed out on to the floor. Heike was not impressed.
        'Can you count?' I asked her.
        'I think I've just forgotten how.'
        'It'll all come flooding back once you get started.'
        'Can I have a drink or do I just get straight down into it?'

        Heike took a shower. I made a salad to go with the kebabs and broke open some beers and we sat on the