The Rwandan Hostage

by Christopher Lowery

  “Mrs. Stewart. Do you know how many people there are in that crowd? There’s more than ninety thousand. Your son could be anywhere in the stadium, it’s the size of a small town. Maybe he met someone he knew and he’s sat with them, or he’s still in the lavatory, or he went to get a coke.”

  “You don’t understand, I told him….”

  He interrupted her response, “Lady, it doesn’t matter what you tell teenagers these days, believe me, I know all about it. I’ve got one of my own in there and I haven’t a clue where she is.” His manner seemed to imply that he didn’t care either and neither should she. He went on, “Have you tried his mobile phone? Even though it should be switched off.”

  Emma fished two mobiles from her bag. “I switched them both off and put them in here. He hasn’t got his with him.”

  “Well, you’re just going to have to wait in your seat until the game ends and hope he turns up. Or you could go down to your gate and watch for him to come out.”

  “And that’s all you have to say? I thought you were head of security?”

  For the first time the man looked slightly abashed. “Have you got his passport?”

  “They’re both in the safe in our hotel room.”

  “A photograph?”

  She shook her head. “No, wait.” Switching on her mobile, Emma found her photo album and scrolled through the latest pictures. “Here. Taken yesterday.” She showed him a snap of Leo standing by the hotel pool.

  “Right. Send it to my phone, here’s the number, and I’ll have it circulated to the guards throughout the grounds. There’s over a thousand of them. Someone might have seen him.” She noticed he avoided asking the obvious question. “Now go and wait in your seat until the end of the game. If he doesn’t turn up, come back here just before full-time and one minute after the final whistle I’ll make an announcement. I doubt if anyone’ll hear it in the chaos, but it’s all I can do at the moment.”

  Reluctantly Emma followed his advice. She sat on tenterhooks for the rest of the game, repeatedly peering around the stadium, watching and listening to the raucous behaviour of the crowd, trying not to think of how vulnerable she and her son were in this tough and unforgiving country.

  A half hour after extra time was over, Emma and Coetzee were still standing by the stairwell watching the last of the crowd making their way out. She had hardly registered the second half of the match and was already running down to the security office when Andrés Iniesta’s goal for Spain in the 116th minute caused the crowd to errupt with delight. The security man had waited until there was a slight lull in the pandemonium after the final whistle, so his announcement over the Tannoy system was more or less audible, but Leo hadn’t turned up.

  “What now?” She turned to the security chief, the mounting panic in her mind now showing in her sharpened tone. “What do we do now?”

  “Well he must have left the stadium at some time, because he’s certainly not here.”

  “Then we’ll have to look at the videos from the CCTV cameras at the gates. We must be able to spot him if he left.”

  “Mrs. Stewart.” Coetzee looked even more jaundiced. “There are twenty gates here, twenty, and it’s almost two hours since you lost him. It would take a night and a day to look at all the footage. It can’t be done.”

  “Very well then. So what do we do, in your expert opinion? What’s next in the operations manual?”

  He gave her a sharp look. “What do you do for a living?”

  “I write books, but..”

  “What kind of books?”

  “Thrillers, crime stories, that kind of thing, but I don’t see..”

  “I’m just trying to get to know you. It’s background. It could be important. You should know that if you’re a writer. Anyway, which hotel are you staying in?”

  “It’s a small hotel, the Packard, near Mayfair.”

  “I know it. We’ll call there now, see if they’ve seen him.”

  He led the way to his office which stunk of cigarette smoke. “What about your daughter?” Emma tried to break the ice a little. “Don’t you have to take her home?”

  He shrugged and moved some papers around on the desk. “She texted me. Her mother picked her up. She lives with her.”

  “Oh, I see. Sorry, I just assumed..” So that’s his problem, she realised.

  “It’s OK. Anyway, how long have you been in SA?”

  “We were in Cape Town for a week and the last three days here in Jo’burg.”

  “Right. Where did you stay in Cape Town?”

  “The Best Western Suites Hotel. I booked it online. Same for the Packard. I can’t afford expensive hotels.”

  “When did you make your bookings?”

  “Almost a year ago. It’s the only way to get flights and rooms at a reasonable price.”

  He gave a rare smile. “Too right. You got the Packard number handy?”

  Emma gave him her key card and he dialled the number and asked for Leo Stewart’s room.

  The number rang out for a while, then the telephonist came back on the line. “There’s no reply. Do you want me to try his mother’s room?”

  She came back on the line again, “They’re not in the hotel. They were booked to go to the match and the coach hasn’t returned, so I doubt they’re back yet.”

  “Pass me the duty manager, please.” Coetzee avoided Emma’s gaze as he waited. “Barry, Hi, it’s Marius Coetzee.” He quickly explained the problem. “Mrs. Stewart’s here with me now. Have you seen the kid, Leo?” He listened again. “Well, if he turns up, call me right away, OK?”

  He lit up another cheroot and stared across his desk at Emma. “Now, Mrs Stewart, I want you to dig in your memory and be absolutely honest with me about what your son’s been doing for the last two weeks in South Africa, where he’s been, who he’s been seeing and anything that’s happened which would explain his behaviour.”

  “What do you mean ‘behaviour’? Are you completely mad? My son is missing. That’s not a behavioural characteristic. Something has happened and he’s somehow got lost amongst ninety thousand people. He’s fifteen years old and still at school, for God’s sake! He doesn’t know anyone in South Africa, never mind Johannesburg. We came here a week ago for the football and he doesn’t even know the way back to the hotel, because we came on a special coach.” She put her hand to her mouth, “And he hasn’t got enough cash with him to get a taxi. If that’s your idea of behaviour then it’s a waste of time continuing with this conversation.” She stood up, her rage overcoming her anxiety. “Where’s the nearest police station? I’m going there right now to see if I can find someone who talks sense.”

  Just then, Coetzee’s phone rang. He listened for a moment or two, looking at her intently, then gave a sharp order in Afrikaans. “Sit down, Mrs. Stewart. I’m sorry about my last question. But kids these days are into everything; drugs, guns, robbery, it’s just unbelievable. I’m only trying to find out what kind of a kid he is that might explain him going missing. Anyway, it seeme he might have been seen. One of the guards is on his way up. His name is Jacob Masuku. Be nice to him, we might strike lucky.”

  Neither spoke until a small, wiry black man of about fifty with frizzy hair and a security badge on his shabby shirt came into the room. He started jabbering away in a kind of pidgin English, showing the photo on his mobile and gesticulating. Emma couldn’t understand a word he said.

  She jumped up from her chair. “What’s he saying? Has he seen Leo?”

  “He says he saw a young person like the one in the photo leaving the stand at half time.”

  “What? That’s not possible. He was waiting for me. I was only three or four minutes in the toilet.”

  “Wait. He’s not finished. Just wait until he’s finished please.”

  The guard continued his story, waving his arms and rolling his eyes, glancing sideways at Emma.

  Coetzee stopped him and asked a question, the same question, twice. The man nodded vehemently. “Yes Boss. Sur
e Boss.” He said in plain English, looking again at Emma, who was shifting around nervously on the hard seat.

  “Right. Mrs Stewart, please just sit still and calm down.” He cleared his throat. “This man says he saw your son at half time. He says he’s sure, because he got a very good look at him. Leo was leaving the stadium by gate number fourteen.”

  “That’s the door near where we used the toilets.” She paused and looked at the guard. “Why did he wait all this time? Why didn’t he come up when you sent the photo?”

  “He didn’t switch his phone on until just now, to call his wife. They’re all the same, they don’t like to leave them on in case the battery goes down. I don’t know why we issued the bloody things in the first place.”

  “But why was Leo leaving? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Coetzee dumped the remains of his cheroot in the ashtray. “He says Leo was unconscious, or asleep. He was pushed out in a wheelchair!”

  FIVE

  Johannesburg, South Africa

  “He says there was a white man in a dark shirt with a badge on it and a woman who looked like a nurse and they pushed Leo out the stadium gate in a wheelchair. He’s certain of it.”

  Emma jumped to her feet. She was in a state of complete shock. “What’s he talking about. Why would he be in a wheelchair? It’s total madness. There’s nothing wrong with him at all, he’s the healthiest person you could find.” She turned to the guard and grabbed his arms. “You’re lying! Why are you lying? Where’s my son?” What have you done to my son?”

  The guard fell back, trying to release himself from her desperate grasp. “Boss! Boss!” He cried out, afraid of hurting this crazy Englishwoman and getting into trouble.

  “Mrs Stewart. Stop that now! The man’s just telling you what he saw.” He pulled her away from the terrified guard. “Just calm down and stay in your seat. If he’s the only person who saw your son we need his help and you’re not going to get it like that.”

  Emma sank back down in the chair, her mind a turmoil of emotions. As if in a dream, she listened to Coetzee cross examining the security guard until he seemed convinced of his story. He took the man out and sat him in the ante room then returned and closed the door. Took a bottle of brandy and a glass from a drawer in his desk and poured a couple of fingers.

  “Here, drink this, it’ll make you feel calmer.”

  She pushed the glass away. “I don’t want to feel calm. I want to find my son.”

  “Well, the guard says he seemed to be completely unconcious and they wheeled him out about half way through the break. He didn’t speak to the man and woman, just assumed they were medical staff, which isn’t smart since there hadn’t been an emergency call. But these security guards are frightened of anyone who looks important, so he just kept stumm, until he saw the photo on his phone.”

  He lit another cheroot and blew the smoke away from her. “Now. Tell me about Leo’s evening. This was a big occasion for him, wasn’t it? Had he met some friends, taken a drink or two? Experimented with something maybe?”

  “I already told you he doesn’t drink or take anything. He’s still at school and he doesn’t know anybody here. You must know better than me that there was trouble near the hotel just after we arrived, Two men were shot in the street. Do you really think I would let my son go out and make friends in a country where people get shot in front of your hotel? Don’t be so idiotic. Why do you keep asking stupid questions?”

  “OK. I’ll ask a less stupid question. Why didn’t you tell me Leo’s father was black?”

  Emma had been waiting for the question, but it still came as a shock. “Because it’s not relevant. Not relevant at all. Anyway, it’s clear from the photo I sent you. His father was black, but that’s got nothing to do with him being abducted from your football stadium.” She looked the man straight in the eyes. “Unless you’ve worked out a really clever theory without any facts to support it.”

  “Was his father South African?”

  “No he wasn’t and that’s the end of this interrogation. I’m not the problem here, it’s the lack of security in your stadium that’s the problem.” She got to her feet again. “Now, either take me to the police station or get a taxi to take me.” She walked to the door, stopped, then turned back to him, her eyes alight. “Wait! Now it makes sense to look at the CCTV video for gate fourteen. We know the approximate time, so we should see something.”

  They found Leo on the video monitor at exactly 21:24, just when Emma calculated she would have been emerging from the toilets. As the security man had described, he was sitting in a wheelchair, his head thrown back, obviously completely out of it. A man, wearing a white cap and gauze mask, dark shirt and trousers was pushing the chair and a black female in a nurse’s outfit, also wearing a medical mask, was leading the way through the crowded area. The camera was situated above the doors at the stadium exit, looking back along the corridor and the shot was about twenty seconds long until they went out of camera range.

  Coetzee looked away from the screen at Emma. Her face was aghast, her hand to her mouth, breathing in short panic gasps.

  “Who are they? Can you see their faces? Why are they pushing my son outside? What’s wrong with him? Why didn’t they come and find me? I was right there just a moment later.” She paused, thinking about the scene. “There must be a vehicle outside if they are taking him in a wheelchair. An ambulance or a van or something. Is there a camera outside so we can see what they do? ”

  “The cameras outside are pointed at the turnstiles, in case of trouble at the gates. There’s some in the car park, but I doubt they went there. They’d get him into the vehicle as quickly as possible, right outside the gate, but we don’t have that covered.” He re-ran the shot, slowing it down and peering intently at the screen. “I can’t make their faces out. I’ve got no idea who they are and I don’t recognise the badge the man’s wearing. They’re looking down and sideways, away from the angle of the camera. I’d say they knew it was there and they’re avoiding it to hide their faces.”

  “So you’re saying they don’t want to be seen. They’re taking my son against his will and they’ve given him something to knock him out. And no one saw anything on the CCTV monitor and the guard wasn’t trained to say anything and we don’t know where they’ve taken him. How could you let this happen in your stadium? What kind of a security manager or whetever you call yourself are you? Oh, my God. I don’t believe this is happening.” Emma collapsed into a chair, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Mrs Stewart, you’ve got to calm down. There must be a reasonable explanation for all this. You told me there is no one in South Africa who has any interest in you or your son, so either he was taken ill, or it’s some kind of mistaken identity. I can’t be held responsible for everything that goes on in a stadium with ninety thousand football-mad fans inside.” Coetzee sounded almost as frantic as Emma felt. “We need to get to the police and find out where they went and why. Just wait a moment.”

  He selected a two minute sequence from the video before and after Leo’s appearance and burned it onto a CD. “I’ll call the police right now and we’ll take this CD down to the station. Come on, my car’s downstairs.” He pulled out his mobile phone and ushered Emma to the door.

  Diepkloof, Gauteng, South Africa

  It took them only 15 minutes to get to the Police Station at Diepkloof, since most of the traffic was going the other way, towards Joburg. The precinct appeared to be in a state of complete chaos, mostly full of drunken and bloodied soccer fans, but Coetzee’s call seemed to have had some effect. They waited only a few minutes before Sergeant Nwosu appeared, looking smart and fresh in his beige trousers and cream shirt and carrying a brown cap. He was a good looking, tall, skinny man, smelling of a powerful after shave or perfume, his head shaved and gleaming with oil. It was now after midnight and Emma was embarrassed by her dishevelled, sweaty appearance, but the man smiled kindly and shook her hand.

  “How do you do, Mrs Stewart, I�
�m sorry to hear about this problem. Please come inside and we’ll talk about it. Our job is to help our visitors if we can, whatever the circumstances.”

  He led them into a small conference room with an old Sony laptop and a projector on the table top, pointing at a white wall. Coetzee gave him the CD and he loaded it and prepared the laptop. “I understand this concerns your son’s disappearance from the game tonight?”

  “It wasn’t a disappearance, Sergeant. Just look at what happened.” Emma braced herself to view the kidnapping again.

  He adjusted the projector beam and the scene was visible on the wall, much larger and not quite so distinct as on the monitor in the security back room.

  “There! There he is.” Emma put her hand to her mouth again.

  “You’re sure that’s your son, Leo?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I’m absolutely certain of it. But I have no idea what’s happened to him and who those people are. I left him five minutes before and he was absolutely fine.”

  “Hmm. I agree it’s uncommon to get suddenly sick at fifteen years of age.” The policeman reran the clip again, peering closely, as Coetzee had done.

  Emma’s mind was suddenly clouded by an intruding doubt. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was nagging at her subconcious. Something she’d heard. What was it?

  Nwosu stopped the clip with the frame of Leo lying back in the wheelchair. “I see he has African blood in his veins.”

  Emma switched back to the policeman’s words and she shifted nervously on the seat.

  “Now, tell me about his father? Where he came from, where he is? Just a few details so I can get a picture of Leo’s background. It might help us to unravel this mystery.”

  All at once it dawned on Emma what the nagging doubt was. ‘Leo, only fifteen years of age’, he’d said. But I didn’t tell him that and neither did Coetzee. She quickly reran in her mind the security man’s call from his mobile as they drove to the station. He’d mentioned Mrs Stewart and her ‘young son, a schoolboy’, who was missing and had possibly been abducted from the stadium, the guard’s testimony and the CCTV shot of the ‘boy’ in a wheelchair. He’d never mentioned her son’s name, nor his age. How did this policeman know these details? She shivered, her feeling of panic increasing, disbelieving and frightened at this latest revelation. What in God’s name is going on here?