Hannie Richards

by Hilary Bailey

  They sat peacefully on for half an hour, saying little, until she stood up and said, ‘I think I’ll turn in now.’

  The boy, Matthew, helped her to carry her mattress into Bob’s room. When he had gone she jammed it against the door and lay down in her clothes to sleep. She hoped nothing would go wrong.

  But it did. At two in the morning she awoke, listening. Two seconds later she heard the sound of a door being closed, very quietly, down the corridor. They were looking for her and the boy. She got up and, in a single movement, wrenched up the mattress so that it lay, widthwise, across the door. She turned and at that moment came the sound of breaking glass and a black figure launched itself through the window into the room. He fell in a crouch and Hannie, at the same time, pulled the crucifix from the wall behind Bob’s bed and hit him over the head with it. He fell down immediately, blood streaming into his eyes. He wore a black balaclava, black shirt, black trousers. Bob sat up, looking frightened.

  ‘Under the bed! Under the bed!’ Hannie yelled, pointing. She saw him get out of bed—he was back in the red robe again, she noticed—and then spun round, the crucifix still in her hand, and struck a black shoulder which was trying to push the door open. There was a cry and the shoulder went back. Hannie slammed the door and kicked the mattress further back against it. She had heard another man come through the window. She charged him with her crucifix but he was on his feet and ready for her. He seized her arm. She kneed him in the balls. He groaned and doubled up. There was no sign of Bob. He must have got under the bed. Behind her, the door strained. The man she had hit over the head was on his feet, looking groggy. The other man was doubled up on the floor. Standing above her on the window ledge was a third balaclava-ed figure, also all in black. The mattress gave way, finally, and a man half-fell into the room. Hannie hit him with the crucifix but she was tired and the blow had no force behind it. He came on. There was another man behind him and another behind that one. She gave up and stood there gasping. The third man, now in the doorway, had a machine gun.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just the boy. He’s ours,’ said the man in front, his hand to his head. He had an American accent.

  ‘What for?’ she said, still breathless. ‘He’s only a boy. Leave him alone. Who says he’s yours, anyway?’ She knew she sounded like a child in a school playground. She knew that people in such situations almost always did.

  ‘He’s not yours,’ said the man with the American voice.

  ‘I didn’t kidnap him,’ said Hannie.

  ‘You took him for money,’ said the other. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s under the bed,’ said the man Hannie had kicked in the groin. He was standing up now, his face twisted with pain. At that moment Bob came out from under the bed. He looked at the men, at Hannie, at the machine gun.

  Hannie said, ‘Don’t fight. Do what they say.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, standing beside her. ‘All right. I am happy.’ He turned round and collected his red bundle from the foot of his bed. ‘I go with you,’ he told the one of the men. ‘You fight nobody.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ agreed the man.

  ‘I’m responsible for him,’ Hannie declared. ‘You tell me who you are and where you’re taking him.’

  The man said, ‘You don’t know what you’re in. Just shut up and keep back.’ But she walked behind them down the corridor, calling out, ‘You tell me where you’re taking him.’ Just ahead of her the two injured men leaned on each other. Ahead there was a knot of the others, with Bob invisible in the middle.

  As they approached the reception area the limping man in front of her turned round and said, in a guttural accent, ‘Go away. You can do nothing. We do not want to hurt you.’

  In the hall Father Martin, the nun, Mr Omovo, the plump white man and Angelica Simms stood guarded by two men with revolvers. As the party from the corridor moved towards the front door these two backed away from the captives, following them.

  Angelica Simms said, ‘You will bring about a tragedy by this. May God forgive you.’ Hannie thought she saw one of the men with revolvers smile. At that point Angelica walked straight towards him and his companion and out into the street where the other men were with Bob. She watched the tall woman go up to the party, push through and say, in a clear voice, ‘You’ll have to kill me before you take this child.’

  Hannie had to admire her. If one of the men on their side had moved he would have been shot instantly. Only Angelica had the power of her age, her sex and her assurance to throw them off balance in this way. She challenged them now to shoot their mother. It would not work, but you had to respect the attempt. And yet it did work, in a way.

  From inside there came a shot, a cry from Father Martin of ‘Omovo!’ The young Nigerian minister appeared in the doorway, holding a revolver he had snatched from one of the attackers. One of the men in the street raised a machine gun and riddled him with bullets. After that there was complete silence. Hannie stood looking at the splashed body in the doorway and at the group outside in the street. Behind her a woman, the nun, wept. Then, by the buildings opposite the Mission, she thought she saw a shadow move. She took a few steps towards the door, as if to go to the minister’s body, and as the party in the street were attacked by what seemed like ten, twelve, black-clad bodies, as shots were fired and a voice cried, ‘Dolce Chris—’ she, who had placed the exact position of Bob seconds earlier, was into the throng and pulling him out by one hand. She found Angelica had his other hand and together, in a chain, they ran past the Mission and round the side of the building. They crouched in the garden, under a tree, hearing shots and cries from the front of the building.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ gasped Hannie, ‘what the fuck’s going on.’

  Angelica said, ‘They’re inside the Mission.’ Hannie turned. A black figure showed in a window. There was shooting. The figure leaped, twisted, fell. There was an explosion. Another window shattered out. Fire sprang up inside the room, throwing a patch of light on to a bed of flowers.

  Hannie whispered, ‘Where are the keys to the car?’

  Angelica whispered, ‘In the Mission. We’ll have to get to the open country back there—find shelter.’

  Hannie thought if they took to the countryside behind the Mission garden they would be easily found at dawn. There was no alternative, though. Here, they would be spotted by someone soon. Then she heard, beneath the cries, the shots and the crackle of fire, the sound of an engine starting up.

  ‘That’s the Mercedes,’ Angelica hissed.

  Hannie, bent double, crept as fast as she could through the garden to the side of the building. She tripped on a heap of stones and, as she recovered herself, saw a dim figure sitting in the driving seat of the car. As she scuffled up to it a hail of machine-gun bullets hit the wall opposite the vehicle. Plaster and brick showered down. She wrenched open the door of the car. ‘You!’ she whispered fiercely. ‘Listen! We’re in the garden. Keep the engine running and wait.’

  He was trying to shut the car door. ‘Fuck off,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving.’

  Hannie kept on pulling at the door. ‘You wait,’ she said, ‘or I’ll kill you now. I mean it.’ It was true that as she half-crouched, hauling on the door he was trying to shut, she could have killed Dugdale-Smith with her bare hands in order to get the car. Pure conviction carries weight. ‘Hurry up, then,’ he said. She did not trust him so, in order to keep hanging on to the car door, she had to stand up and call out, ‘Angelica! Run over here!’ There was a rustling and Angelica and Bob appeared suddenly. As they scrambled in and got down on the car floor at the back Hannie said, ‘Are you any good as a driver?’

  ‘Get in,’ he ordered. As he put the car in gear he muttered, ‘I used to drive in rallies—shut up, get down. I’m risking my skin sitting here.’ He backed, horribly fast, down the entrance. Two men with guns who had just appeared round the corner fell back against the wall. As he pulled the car back into the street he h
it another. In front of them, an attacker with a machine gun raised it, then lowered it again. Dugdale-Smith put his foot down, and they screeched off. A moment later the back window was shattered by machine-gun bullets. Dugdale-Smith said, ‘Ugh,’ and the car swerved as he took the impact of a slug. Hannie, crouched in the front seat, thought that he might be dead. At any moment his feet would slip from the pedals and they would career off the road. She grabbed for the handbrake and found Dugdale-Smith had a firm grasp on it. She straightened up. The jacket of his white suit was red.

  ‘You’re hit in the shoulder,’ she said. ‘Pull over, I’ll drive.’ He glanced at his coat and said, ‘Christ!’

  ‘Pull over,’ she said urgently. ‘When you feel it, you’ll lose control. Hurry, they’re going to be chasing us.’

  He pulled up. She got out and raced round the car as he half-fell into the passenger sea. She got in and started the engine.

  Dugdale-Smith groaned and said, between his teeth, ‘Get me to a hospital. I’ll bleed to death. Get me to Kano.’

  ‘I’m going,’ said Hannie, wondering how fast she dared travel on a road she’d only driven once. The mirror had shattered. She said to Angelica, ‘You and the boy can get up now. Keep an eye on the road behind—look for their lights.’

  Glass tinkled as they rose from the floor.

  ‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ said Angelica.

  Hannie drove faster. They should be able to outrun nearly anything in the Mercedes, given luck.

  ‘I must make a call,’ said Angelica.

  ‘When we get to the hospital,’ said Hannie.

  ‘There must be somewhere nearer—’ said Angelica.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Dugdale-Smith. ‘Are you mad?’ He was now in great pain. Hannie flinched when she thought of the smashed bones in his shoulder. From the corner of her eye she saw Bob’s black hand travelling over the back of the seat towards the spreading red patch on Dugdale-Smith’s jacket. ‘No!’ she cried out. ‘No! Bob!’

  She braced herself in anticipation of Dugdale-Smith’s sudden leap when the hand touched his wound. He might even faint on to her as she drove.

  ‘All right, Hannie,’ came Bob’s voice as the hand landed softly on the bloodstained coat. Hannie bit her lip. Dugdale-Smith breathed out, as if relieved. The hand stayed on his shoulder. He said, ‘Ah—better.’

  Meanwhile Hannie drove on grimly. On this long, flat stretch of road it would be easy to see if there was a vehicle in pursuit of them.

  ‘Angelica—anything behind?’ she said.

  ‘Oh—’ said Angelica. Then she said, ‘There are some headlights.’

  ‘How far?’ asked Hannie and, getting no reply, repeated, ‘Angelica—how far?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Angelica. ‘About half a mile.’

  ‘Keep your eyes off the boy and on the road,’ Hannie said grimly. Bob’s hand was still on Dugdale-Smith’s shoulder. The man’s head had dropped back against the seat. His eyes were closed.

  ‘Sleeping now,’ Bob said reassuringly.

  Angelica said, ‘Thank you, Bob. That’s wonderful.’

  Hannie, sensing mysteries, which she hated, thought: Passed out cold, that’s what he’s done. She drove on furiously and said, ‘Keep your bloody eyes on the road, Angelica. How far away are they now?’

  ‘I think they’ve gained a bit,’ said Angelica.

  ‘They must have rockets,’ said Hannie.

  The other car, a low black vehicle containing four men, was on their back wheel as they entered the suburbs of Kano. As they screamed up to the hospital Hannie prayed they would be left to get Dugdale-Smith out of the Mercedes in peace. She noticed a police car outside the hospital and thought, thankfully, that the men in the car would not dare to give them any trouble. They swept past looking straight ahead. Dugdale-Smith was pulled out by attendants and taken to the operating theatre. Angelica Simms took over. First she drew a sister to one side for a whispered conversation. She disappeared for two minutes, returned, took the police inspector aside for another consultation, disappeared again, came back, talked to the Matron and then led the whole contingent, by now ten strong, into a small sitting room, where something like a party began.

  Hannie sat on a vinyl-covered bench at the back of the room, with Bob sleeping beside her under a blanket. He lay on his back, sweet-faced, like a boy carved on a tomb. Even so, everyone in the room came over to see him from time to time. They stared down at him with curiosity, respect and affection. They ignored Hannie. She thought it must be something Angelica had said. A small nurse brought her a cup of tea. She sat and sipped it, wanting now nothing more than a hot bath, a good sleep and a one-way ticket home. And, she supposed, to see the boy on his way to somewhere good. In the meanwhile, how did Angelica have all this influence over nurses and policemen and local bigwigs? Why did they all inspect Bob regularly? Above all, why the constant attacks on them?

  She thought she should not sleep in case of another arrival by terrorists. But she did sleep, dreaming that she was back at the head of a long column of men, women and children walking the rocky, dry trade route through Chad. Vultures swooped overhead. Flocks of goats and sheep marched among them, or to the sides. Donkeys carried bundles and packs. The sun beat down on their heads. Hannie felt thirst, heat and weariness. She was holding the hand of a little girl, who stumbled and fell. She bent over her, tried to get her to rise, but knew she was too ill. Round her the people still moved. Then at her side was a tall man, dressed in a robe, with a beard and a staff, which had something carved on it. She knew the man could help the child. She pleaded with him, but he could not understand her. Then to her great relief and joy he touched the child with his staff. The child stirred, got up. Hannie, knowing the man was Moses, awoke and found Angelica in front of her, calling her name. She looked into the severe face and felt depressed.

  ‘They want a statement from you, Hannie,’ said Angelica. ‘Then we can go.’

  ‘Where to?’ asked Hannie.

  ‘Rome,’ said Angelica.

  ‘Why Rome?’ asked Hannie.

  ‘I can’t tell you. But you can get a flight back to England from there.’

  ‘All right,’ said Hannie. ‘Is Bob coming with us?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Angelica.

  ‘What happens to him then?’ asked Hannie.

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ Angelica told her. ‘Of course, we’re all grateful for your help. You’ve been very brave. And I acknowledge that if we’d put guards at the Mission as you suggested, a great deal of danger would have been avoided. Nevertheless, that doesn’t entitle you to ask questions. This matter is highly confidential. Now, will you come over here.’

  She had commandeered a desk. On one side of it stood a police inspector, on the other a consular official, looking tired and holding a cup of tea.

  ‘Mrs Richards,’ he said. ‘The Nigerian authorities have decided that there is no need for the innocent victims of an attack, which is now under investigation, to remain in the country. What they would like is a statement about what took place from your own point of view. Just as regards the attack, of course. Then you and Miss Simms may go.’

  Hannie, reluctantly, began to write as short an account as possible of the event. She much disliked the idea of giving written evidence, under her own name, to the authorities. In a world full of computers, every time her name appeared her professional life grew more dangerous. A traffic offence in Bogota could now link her to a strange attack in Nigeria and, as it happened, to a false arrest in Prague, which had been reported to the consular authorities, on a charge of smuggling out state secrets. The charge, a result of an informer’s passing on of a rumour, had been dropped, and Hannie had got out with what she was actually carrying, in micro-fiche, in the false bottom of a bottle of vodka which had been made by a sympathetic worker in one of the Czech glass factories. It was just a few poems, a testimony from a labour camp, a writer’s last letter to his son, photographs’ scraps of paper left
over from the Inquisition. Hannie was surprised to get the bottle of vodka back after they had torn her luggage apart. This drifted through her mind as she wrote, slowly, using her left hand, on the grounds that there was a good chance she could dispute the handwriting at a later stage if she had to. The consular official looked at her pityingly as she struggled slowly through her story. She put in a few spelling mistakes to add to the impression.

  ‘Did you catch them?’ she asked the police inspector as she signed her name badly. She was fairly sure they had not, or the questions would have been harder to answer, but it seemed an obvious thing to say.

  ‘Three dead men were left behind,’ he told her, ‘but there was no evidence about who they were. They must have taken the wounded with them.’

  ‘Hope you catch them,’ she said and went to ask the Matron how Dugdale-Smith was faring. They were, she heard, surprised and pleased by how little damage had been done. The bones had pieced together nicely. He had lost less blood than they would have expected. As she spoke, the Matron glanced, involuntarily, at Bob, who was still asleep. Hannie, crossly, went over to Angelica, who was in animated conversation with two clergymen, one a bishop, and waited for a pause in their chat. She had seen Angelica’s signature on the statement she had made. It showed her to be an Anglican nun, Sister Angelica Simms, from an organization called the St Anne’s Orphanages, in Lagos. This was obviously a good way to explain Bob away and provide him with papers claiming him to be a Nigerian orphan. It also answered Hannie’s questions about why Angelica was playing a dominant part in the affair.

  ‘When are we leaving?’ she asked Angelica.

  ‘In half an hour,’ said Angelica. ‘The Inspector’s kindly arranged an escort to the airfield.’

  They howled through Kano and not long after were airborne in a small private plane containing only Hannie, Angelica, an Irish Jesuit priest, Bob and three burly stewards. Since the priest and Bob had craftily fixed it so that they could sit with the pilots, Hannie and Angelica were forced to make the best of each other’s company. It was five in the morning so they had coffee and toast side by side.