Counterfeit!

by Elizabeth Ducie

  The sound of a car in the distance woke her to a room no longer pitch black. She waited with dread to hear whether it was coming towards the hut, and yet, wondered what she would do if it didn’t stop. But it did stop. A door opened and slammed shut; footsteps approached the building and she heard the bolt on the outside sliding back. As the door opened, a shaft of bright sunshine illuminated the hut and temporarily blinded her.

  When she could see again, she was no longer alone. A tall figure in black, wearing a knitted ski mask, was standing in the doorway, staring at her. The absurdity of his apparel struck her and she gave an involuntary giggle, which she stifled with a grubby trembling hand to her mouth.

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’ she asked quietly and calmly.

  ‘Don’t worry, you are safe, we will not hurt you,’ was the muffled response.

  ‘But why am I here?’ she repeated.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Yes, I’m hungry. I’m hungry, thirsty, tired, cold, and dirty,’ she said, clinging to her calm as though by her fingertips. ‘Who are you and why am I here?’

  The man merely shook his head and dropped a bag on the table, which was right by the door. He placed a bottle of water next to the bag.

  ‘Drink, it is safe,’ he said. Then he turned to leave.

  ‘Noooo,’ Suzanne screeched, her calm shattering. ‘You can’t leave me. You must tell me why I’m here.’

  ‘It won’t be for long, I promise,’ said the voice. And before she could say anything else, the door shut and the bolt slammed home again

  Suzanne threw herself across the room and hammered on the door with both fists. She heard the retreating footsteps pause and held her breath, praying the man would come back. But the steps resumed, the car door slammed and the vehicle drove away. She slumped to the ground, pressed her back against the wooden planks and hugged her knees. Then the tears she had managed to hold back since the shock of being kidnapped finally came.

  Time passed. She had no idea how long. Her watch was gone, probably lost as she was manhandled from the car to the hut. At some point, she ran out of tears, but still she sat, head on her knees, waiting once more. Finally, she wiped the back of her hand across her nose, rubbed the drying tears from her cheeks and pushed herself upright. There were small unglazed windows at the top of the wall, giving a dim light to the room. It was sufficient for her to see the bag on the table contained food. There was bread, a little hard, but still smelling fresh—well fresh enough to eat, anyway—some rancid-smelling dried meat, and a couple of apples. She pulled a chunk off the loaf, stuffing it into her mouth and chewing eagerly. But then she caught sight of the bucket in the corner and the taste of the food died in her mouth. She pushed the bag away from her. She could live with the hunger for now, and the man had said it wouldn’t be for long. But she couldn’t stand the thirst. She grabbed the bottle, broke the seal and greedily sucked in the cool liquid. After her first few mouthfuls, caution returned and she left the rest, screwing the top back on tightly to keep out insects. A glance at the jug on the table showed she had been right to avoid it; it was indeed water, but it was faintly green and dead flies floated on the surface.

  ‘Okay, Suzanne’, she said out loud, ‘let’s put those famous analytical skills of yours to work.’ Her voice croaked and she glanced at the bottle of water, before resolutely turning her back on it. ‘What do we know so far?’ She began ticking off on her fingers. ‘Firstly, the purpose of all this is not to kill me. They could’ve just done that last night and left my body out in the bush somewhere.’ This thought made her shiver and a single tear rolled down her cheek, but she gave herself a mental slap on the hand and carried on. ‘So, if they don’t want me dead, they either want me to do something, or they want someone else to do something in order to rescue me’—and then another possibility occurred to her—’or they want to stop me from doing something.’

  She paced up and down the hut. For some reason, which she couldn’t explain, she trusted her captor when he said, ‘we won’t hurt you.’ That proved he wasn’t working alone, although she already knew that. There had been at least two people manhandling her when she was grabbed, plus the driver, who was obviously in on it—whatever it was.

  ‘So, on the plus side, they don’t want to kill me,’ at least not yet, a small voice at the back of her head tried to whisper, but she resolutely ignored it, ‘and they’ve given me some food and water, so they want me to be reasonably comfortable. No-one knows where I am—even I don’t know where I am—but the rest of the team know I came to the Copper Belt to inspect Kabwe’s factory, so they will have somewhere to start searching from. The driver was Kabwe’s friend, so maybe he can be persuaded to help—’ and then with blinding clarity, it hit her! The driver was Kabwe’s friend. Kabwe was nervous the whole time she was inspecting the factory. The real car arrived at the factory just after they left. ‘It’s Kabwe! Kabwe is in on this! No, it can’t be!’ The idea seemed such an unlikely one, but the more she thought about it, the more obvious it became. ‘Well, I’ve seen some extreme reactions to inspections, but this tops the lot,’ she said. She gave a giggle, which turned into a laugh. And once she started, she couldn’t stop until tears flowed down her cheeks, and her laughter turned to sobs once more.

  Much later, she decided the possibility of Kabwe’s involvement reassured her. The gentle factory owner had been very nervous although without justification; she had found few problems in the factory. And he had been unwilling to answer all her questions. But despite this, she didn’t believe him capable of doing anything really bad. So long as Kabwe’s calling the shots, I should be okay, she thought. She wondered if Kabwe was the man in the ski mask. She thought the height and build was about right, although he’d been standing in the doorway, with the sun behind him and she hadn’t been able to see him clearly. The voice was muffled but she believed it was African. Then she remembered Kabwe’s right arm. Damaged in the childhood accident WB had told her about, it was twisted and shrunken. He held it awkwardly and frequently put it out of sight behind his back. She would look more closely at her captor next time he returned.

  Tired from pacing around the hut and dizzy with hunger, she tore another chunk from the loaf and chewed it slowly, sinking back on the bed. Her stomach churned and she glanced with loathing at the bucket in the corner. She would NOT use it. To occupy her thoughts, she began to go back over every second of her visit to Mazokapharm. It wasn’t actually true to say Kabwe was nervous the whole time she was there. He had been fine to start with, if a little shy. He had been positively affable at lunchtime. The problem only started when they walked around the factory. When she picked up the labels in the warehouse; and then later when she wanted to get in touch with his contractors. But why should that be a problem? Then she groaned as the truth finally became clear. ‘Because the contracts don’t exist,’ she said, the words echoing around the hut and disappearing into the silence. ‘It looks like we were closer to Banda than we realised.’

  ‘I have to get out of here. How do I get out of here?’ The panic rose in waves, threatening to choke her. ‘And when they come, I can’t let Kabwe—or whoever it is—know I’ve worked out the connection between the factory, Banda and this kidnapping.’ Of course, she had no idea how long it would be before anyone came. She just hoped it would be sometime today. She didn’t want to spend a whole day and night without seeing anyone else, even an anonymous captor in a ski mask.

  The temperature in the hut rose steadily. Suzanne stripped off her suit and blouse, wrapping herself in the grubby tablecloth.

  The dim light in the hut was starting to fade when she heard the car once again. There had been no other vehicles passing during the day and no sound of pedestrians. Wherever they were keeping her, they had chosen well (what am I thinking? she asked herself—I’m not inspecting these premises—but old habits die hard.) Now she heard the familiar sounds: car, doors opening and closing—more than one door, so probably more than one person—foo
tsteps approaching the hut. She pulled her crumpled clothes back on and seated herself calmly on the bed, staring intently at the door. She would use logic and quiet persuasion to get her captors to release her and take her to a telephone—the rest of her team must be going frantic at her continued absence.

  The bolt shot back and the door swung open. The figure this time was of a woman—possibly only a young girl—with no mask on her face. Maybe they weren’t concerned about the young girl being recognised. She stopped in the doorway, as the man had that morning, and dropped more food and a bottle of water on the table.

  At some point during the interminable hours, Suzanne’s resolve had finally been broken and she had been forced to give up what she saw as the last shreds of her dignity. The bucket had become malodourous in the heat and when the girl pointed to it and then pointed to outside, Suzanne nodded, glad they were willing to relieve some of her discomfort. The girl sidled across the room, keeping a close eye on Suzanne, then picked up the bucket, replaced it with a clean one and carried the soiled one out of the hut.

  ‘Is Kabwe coming tonight?’ Suzanne said quietly. The young girl spun around and looked at Suzanne with startled eyes. Then she looked across the veranda and Suzanne realised there was someone else standing outside, hidden from the doorway. ‘Kabwe, is that you, Kabwe?’ she called, jumping up and running towards the doorway. But it was too late. With a bang, the door was slammed shut and bolted. ‘Come back, please come back,’ she called, hammering on the door. Suzanne could hear the man talking before the pair ran to the car, starting the engine and driving rapidly away. ‘What have I done?’ she sobbed. She threw herself across the bed and lay, shuddering, as the darkness and the silence descended slowly into the hut and cloaked her once more.

  And once more, with the darkness came the insects, the rustlings, the imagining. The bites she had managed to ignore during the day throbbed and itched now. She rubbed, she stroked and finally she scratched, tearing at her skin to ease the pain. It was many hours before exhaustion overcame her. In her dreams, the giant insects came again—and in the morning her arms and legs were a blood-streaked mess of aching lumps.

  When the dawn finally came, Suzanne pulled herself off the bed and used some of the dirty water in the jug to try and clean her face. It wasn’t very refreshing and without a mirror, she had no way of telling how successful she’d been, but it made her feel better that she’d tried. She ate a mouthful of bread and allowed herself a tiny ration of water. And then she sat at the table gathering her thoughts ready for the next meeting with her captors. She had to find a way to engage with them and get them to talk; to set up some sort of relationship with them. But how?

  After a couple of hours that seemed more like days, Suzanne finally heard the car drive down the track. Just one door opened this time and the footsteps that approached were quieter than she was used to. She was not surprised, when the door opened, to find the young girl from yesterday standing on the threshold looking in at her.

  18: ZAMBIA; DEC 2004

  The two stared at each other in silence. The young girl looked to be about fifteen years old. She wore a faded cotton dress that must once have been very colourful, but now barely showed smudges of pattern against the cream background. Her feet, which were very dusty, were shoved into a pair of bright orange flip flops. But the most unusual thing about her was her hair, braided into elaborate plaits running across and around her head. The ends of each plait were held in place with blue and white clay beads which clicked quietly as she moved her head.

  Suzanne watched a mixture of emotions flit across the young girl’s face. Regret was one she thought she recognised; another was sympathy. But the one that most surprised her, while at the same time giving her hope, was fear. Good gracious, she thought, the poor thing’s terrified of me. Aren’t I supposed to be the one who’s frightened? For the first time since she was brought to this deserted spot, Suzanne thought there was a distinct possibility of getting free.

  The girl put yet another bag of food down on the table, together with two bottles of water. The bag of food was larger than on the previous two occasions. Why was that? Were they starting to feel sorry for her and wanted to give her a little more comfort? Was it because the young girl, rather than the tall man with the ski mask and the muffled voice, was in charge of bringing the rations today? Whatever the reason, she was grateful, especially for the extra water. Grateful? What was she thinking? If it wasn’t for these people, she wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

  Next the girl collected the bucket from the corner of the room and replaced it with a clean one. But there was something different about this too. When Suzanne looked closely, she realised there were three buckets in total, all stacked together.

  ‘Will you talk to me?’ Suzanne said gently, desperately trying not to make her ‘captor’ more scared than she plainly was already. ‘Please, I need to understand why I’m here and what’s going to happen to me.’ The girl just looked at her with sad eyes and shook her head. Suzanne tried again. ‘You’re frightened, aren’t you?’ The girl stared at her and slowly nodded her head. ‘Well. You can’t be frightened of me; so it must be of them, whoever ‘they’ are. Is that it?’ The girl nodded again, more hesitantly. Suzanne smiled to herself, realising she was finally getting somewhere. ‘That’s why they don’t bother to cover your face, isn’t it? They’re not worried about you getting caught.’ Once more the girl nodded. ‘Look, I know you’re only doing what they tell you to. I promise you won’t get into trouble if you help me.’ Suzanne didn’t really know whether she could make good on that promise. She had no idea about police procedures in Zambia, but she suspected they might be a little harsher than back home. And of course ‘they’ might harm the girl if they found out she had helped their prisoner, but at this point, after nearly three days in a filthy dirty hut, with no washing facilities, little food and only rudimentary comfort, quite frankly, she didn’t care. She crossed her fingers behind her back and carried on talking in the same quiet voice.

  ‘I can see you’re scared, so let’s take this gently, shall we? Can you tell me your name?’ The girl shook her head once more and pointed to her mouth. ‘You aren’t able to talk?’ Suzanne asked, ‘Is that it?’ The girl nodded. ‘Can you read and write?’ The head shook more vigorously this time and the little beads clicked noisily. Suzanne finally realised exactly why there had been no attempt to disguise this young girl. They probably didn’t care about her safety; but more importantly, unable to either speak or write, she would be incapable of informing on anyone—and she certainly wasn’t going to be able to give evidence against any of ‘them’ even if they were caught and brought to trial. Suzanne wondered how this young girl had come to be involved with Banda, and hoped vehemently that she was related to one of the men that had kidnapped her. Any other explanation just didn’t bear thinking about. She scratched her head and looked with a rueful grin at the young girl.

  ‘So, we have a bit of a problem,’ she said. ‘You can’t speak and you can’t write, so it’s going to be very difficult to communicate. Can we try doing it with questions?’ The girl looked puzzled and shrugged her shoulders. Suzanne patted the bed beside her. ‘Look, why don’t you sit down for a bit?’ The girl bit her lip and cast a look out of the doorway towards the waiting car. Just then, the horn blared and Suzanne realised with a jolt that the young girl hadn’t come on her own. She reached out and tried to take the girl’s hand. But she flinched at the touch and pulled away. Then she walked to the door and reached out onto the veranda. She picked up another bag, this time a large black sack and dropped it on the table. Then, with a backwards look filled with regret and sympathy, but from which the fear had somehow disappeared, she pulled the door shut and slid the bolt into place. Her fading footsteps were rapid and no sooner had she climbed into the car and slammed the door shut than the engine started up and the vehicle drove away.

  Suzanne let her whole body slump and she gave a little sob. She’d tho
ught she was getting somewhere with the young girl. If only she’d had more time; if only the girl had come on her own—but that wasn’t likely—there would always be at least one of the gang there with her.

  Then she straightened her shoulders and pushed herself to her feet. She checked through the bags and confirmed, as she’d suspected, that they had left her twice as much food as before, as well as twice the amount of water. ‘How very strange,’ she said out loud. ‘Maybe they’re not coming this evening for some reason.’ Then she examined the buckets in the corner and confirmed that indeed, there were three clean ones, all stacked neatly together. Finally, she pulled open the black bag, tipping the contents carefully on to the floor, wary of closed containers in countries where much of the wildlife is small, agile and potentially lethal.

  But in this instance, there was nothing to worry about. There were two objects that fell out of the sack: her briefcase and her handbag. ‘Oh, thank God,’ she gasped. ‘They’ve had a change of heart.’ Opening her handbag, she rummaged around and pulled out her mobile phone, the new one she’d purchased just a few days ago—was it really only a week or so since she’d had her previous one stolen in Heathrow airport? She clicked it on, praying there would be battery left; there was—she’d charged it up before leaving Lusaka and it had been switched off since she arrived at Mazokapharm. She clicked the numbers for her sister’s mobile and put the phone to her ear. Silence. Absolutely nothing! She tried again. Same result. Maybe there was no signal out here? But then she noticed the words across the top of the screen: Insert SIM card. She wrenched the back off the phone and pulled out the battery. Sure enough, the SIM card was missing. She threw the pieces of the phone across the room with a cry of despair and lay back against the pillows staring at the roof. So, no change of heart, then—or at least not a complete one. Why would they have given her back her things like that? They were no use to her stuck out here. But if they’re with me, they don’t create evidence against the gang, she thought suddenly. The suspicion that the bags had been returned to her as a matter of expediency rather than as a humanitarian action was an uncomfortable one, but one she found impossible to shake off.