The Rwandan Hostage

by Christopher Lowery

  “Right. I’ll make you a hot drink and you’re going to take one of my sleeping pills. You’ll get six or eight hours of complete rest and you’ll be ready for anything in the morning. No arguments.” She sent her sister up to her bedroom and put on the kettle. It’s good having family around, she mused. Even in these circumstances.

  Polokwane, Limpopo, South Africa

  Coetzee listened to the five minute recording twice. The second time he put the volume up to maximum. When he heard the second person whispering in the background he replayed the part several times until he was sure he’d heard correctly. It’s definitely a woman, he thought to himself. Don’t tell me this whole business is being run by a woman? He switched off the phone and stood quietly thinking for several minutes. Then he went back to the car and gently shook Leo awake.

  The recent memories flooded back into the boy’s mind. “What is it? What are you going to do? Please just let me go, I promise I’ll say nothing. Let me call my mother and somehow we’ll get out of his shitty country. Please let me go.”

  “I’m going to get you out, but we have some cleaning up to do first. Come on, give me a hand.”

  They climbed down from the Land Cruiser and went over to Blethin’s body. Leo was shaking with fear. He’d never seen a dead person before and this man was dead because of him. He was terrified.

  Coetzee started emptying the doctor’s pockets. “We can’t leave anything which might identify him. It’ll take them at least a day to do it with DNA, so we’ll have time to make a head start.” He found his wallet with a passport inside. It was French, in the name of Ernest Blethin. That explains the accent, he realised. He passed everything to Leo then turned the body over and completed the search. “Funny. His mobile is missing. He must have had a phone on him.”

  Leo’s heart was in his mouth. He’d forgotten he had Blethin’s phone in his pocket. “I stole it from him,” he blurted out. “I’ve still got it. Here.”

  “Good, one less problem to worry about. Although we don’t know the password, so we can’t check on who he’s been calling.” He spoke in a conspiratorial tone, as if confiding in Leo. He needed to get along with him until he decided what to do next. “Shove it in the glove compartment with the other stuff.”

  Leo opened the passenger door and reached across to the driver’s side. He pressed the button and the compartment door sprang open. Coetzee was still kneeling beside Blethin. He pushed in the wallet and other items then banged the door closed again, slipped the phone back in his pocket and went back to the dead body.

  “Help me sit him up. I’m moving him to a less obvious place.” Leo gingerly took the dead man’s arm and they pulled him to a sitting position. Coetzee picked him up and threw him over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing. He carried the corpse over to the edge of the field and laid it under the bordering hedge. Gathered some branches and shrubs and threw them over the body.

  Leo went back to the front of the car, trembling at the thought of the dead doctor lying alone under a hedge in the middle of nowhere, dead by his hand. He climbed into the passenger seat and took Blethin’s phone from his pocket. It was an old Nokia shell phone. He pressed the ‘On’ switch and it lit up, no password required. The battery was down to one cell. He didn’t try to make a call, there was no time. He went to Messages, entered his mother’s mobile number, quickly typed a few words, his fingers still shaking from the emotion, and pressed Send. He put the phone in the glove compartment and turned as he heard Coetzee open the tailgate and shake the sergeant awake.

  “Are we at the hospital?” Nwosu’s breath stunk of whisky and his voice was slurred. “I thought you were taking me to the hospital. I’m badly injured, I need urgent attention. You know the penalty for wounding a policeman. If you get me to the hospital I’ll forget the whole thing. You and the kid just disappear and that’s the end of it. ” Although his mind was dulled by the booze, Nwosu could still spin a convincing yarn.

  “So I disappear without a penny and you and Jamie piss off with another hundred grand, eh?”

  Nwosu blinked his eyes rapidly. How did Coetzee know that?

  “You should be more careful when you record conversations, Nwosu. Agreeing to murder three people might not be considered ethically acceptable in some quarters, even in Joburg. The penalty could be even worse than wounding a homosexual psychopath dressed in a cop’s uniform.”

  “I don’t know what the f ...”

  “No? I suppose you’re going to deny calling them back just before we left? Bullshit! It was probably to confirm that poor old Lambert was a goner. One down, two to go, right? And your clever plan got fucked up by the fifteen year old kid you were supposed to be hijacking. Ironic doesn’t do it justice.” He spat on the ground. “You’re a piece of filth, you depraved maniac.” Coetzee didn’t mention his other discovery, that the second voice was a woman’s. Nwosu seemed unaware of it and right now knowledge was power. Or at least it might be.

  Leo was in a state of shock. Nwosu had killed Lambert and had agreed to kill Coetzee and Blethin. He’s a policeman and he’s a murderer. He shivered with fear. What the hell is going on here? Who’s organising all this? And why? What’s going to happen to me?

  “Get out the car!” Coetzee continued, his Beretta in his hand.

  Nwosu sat up slowly, holding his bandaged shoulder. “You have to take me somewhere to get treatment, you can’t just leave me here. I could die of exposure or get mugged or attacked by animals. You owe it to me to get me to a hospital or a doctor. We’re partners.”

  “Partners!” Coetzee laughed mirthlessly. “Partners are people who work together and help each other, not plot to murder each other as soon as they turn their back. Just consider yourself lucky I’m not as pathologically motivated to kill as you are. Get out the car.” He grabbed the sergeant’s legs and swung them over the tailboard. “On your feet and walk!”

  Nwosu stepped clumsily down onto the hardpan, swaying dizzily from the pain of his shoulder and the effects of the whisky. “Give me my phone. You can’t leave me with no gun and no phone. This is a dangerous place. You don’t want to be responsible for leaving me with nothing that can help me. I’m begging you to leave me my phone, Marius. ”

  “I’m leaving you with your life, Nwosu. It’s more than you’d have done for me. Now piss off before I change my mind.” He slammed the tailboard shut and got into the driver’s seat. “Come on Leo. Our police escort has been dismissed.”

  Leo sat back in the passenger seat, thinking about what had happened in the last hour. Thinking about what he’d done. He didn’t dare say anything in case Coetzee saw how terrified he was. I have to stay alert. My mother will have seen the message. She’ll be taking action. I need to be ready to escape if I get the chance. He fastened his seat belt and tried to show no emotion.

  Leaving Sergeant Nwosu standing in the middle of the hardpan, Coetzee started up the Land Cruiser and headed back to Grobler Street. He had a plan. Now he had to execute it.

  It was seventy-two and a half hours since Leo had been taken.

  DAY FIVE

  Thursday, July 15, 2010

  THIRTY-NINE

  Malaga, Spain

  It was seven am and Espinoza was reading the South African Broadcasting Corporation online news page. One of the headlines caught his attention;

  ‘Hotel Manager in Suspicious Fall from 7th Floor’.

  The article related how Barry Lambert, an Englishman, who had been manager of the Packard Hotel in Johannesburg for only two months had been found dead in the car park after apparently falling from a seventh floor balcony. An enquiry had been opened into the death, under the direction of the Johannesburg Central Police Station.

  His mind went back to an affair he’d been involved with almost twenty years before, in 1992. A suspect in a Malaga murder he was investigating, a black South African, had managed to flee to Johannesburg to escape justice. Unfortunately for the man, he was wrongly identified at immigration as an anti-apartheid te
rrorist and was imprisoned in the police station building. At the time it was named ‘John Vorster Square’ and was the Headquarters of the infamous South African Security Branch, where countless innocent people were held and tortured and afterwards died in custody. Espinoza didn’t know what had become of the man, he had never heard anything more about him. Subsequent enquiries proved that he couldn’t have committed the murder, but by then it was too late.

  He snapped out of his reverie, printed out the news page, kissed Soledad goodbye and went out to his car for the drive to Marbella. It was a sunny morning and he decided to take the Autopista del Sol, the pay road, where there was always less traffic. The reason was simple; it was far too expensive; the toll fare was over seven Euros for the thirty kilometre stretch between Mijas and Marbella.

  The news article worried him. If Lambert had been killed by the conspirators, which seemed more than likely, it meant two things. Firstly, they had no compunction in killing anyone who might be considered a weak link or a source of danger. Secondly, they were already cleaning up behind them, which might signal a change or an acceleration of their plan. Although he was still convinced that Leo was in no danger until some financial negotiation had occurred, he knew that Emma would not have the same attitude. It was going to be a difficult morning.

  Then another thought occurred to him. He pulled off to the side at the Calahonda toll station and made several phone calls. Fifteen minutes later he continued on to Marbella, a plan forming in his mind.

  Polokwane, Limpopo, South Africa

  Blethin’s body was found at seven-thirty by a labourer crossing the field from Grobler Street to the farm where he worked. The corpse was lying under the hedge where he stopped to relieve himself. The body had been badly savaged about the head by some creature, probably a large rodent. Most of the lips, nose and ears were missing, the throat had been ripped out and the eyes were just black holes. The man vomited at the horrific sight then ran to the farm and delivered the news in a hysterical panic. Human nature being what it is, his employer went to look for himself. He too spewed up then ran back to dial the emergency number with trembling fingers.

  By eight-fifteen the police had ascertained that the deceased had been killed by a blow to the head. Blood and tyre tracks were found on the sandy hardpan about fifty metres away. A quickly organised search showed up signs of a struggle and more blood nearer to Grobler Street. No papers or identification of any kind were found on the body and without a recognisable face it was likely that identification would be difficult and time consuming. The corpse was taken by ambulance to one of the morgues in Polokwane Central. By ten o’ clock the mysterious death in Polokwane was a headline in the online news reports.

  Phalaborwa, Limpopo, South Africa

  “How you feeling, Leo?”

  “Much better, Mr Coetzee.” Last night he had lain awake for hours, reliving the events in Polokwane, unable to get the sight of Blethin’s dead body, lying under the hedge, out of his mind. Wondering what would happen to him, how he would get out of this nightmare and back to his mother. Finally he fell into an exhausted sleep until Coetzee woke him at eight and he was now devouring a breakfast of pastries and fruit. His foot wasn’t hurting and he’d placed a band aid over the small cut.

  “It’ll be easier if you call me Marius, or just Coetzee if you like. Nobody calls me Mr Coetzee, OK?”

  “OK, I’ll call you Marius. Why did you kidnap me, Marius?”

  They were having breakfast on the terrace of the Riverside Self-Catering Safari House that Coetzee had booked in the Olifantsrivier Lodge, about twelve kilometres south of Phalaborwa. It had taken him just under three hours the previous night to drive there from Polokwane. The lodge was the largest place around, with accommodation for over two hundred guests. He had stayed there several times and knew they’d have space available when he’d called from the car. It was costing him over a hundred Euros per night for the two bedroom house but he figured they could go unnoticed in a place that size. In any event he wasn’t counting on staying long. He had other plans.

  Leo was mesmerised by the surrounding panoply of tropical bush, water features and wild life. The house was situated on the Olifantsrivier, a majestic waterway on the western edge of the Kruger Park, about fifty metres from a massive lake, created by a cleverly constructed wooden dam. He could see two other buildings around the curve of the river, but there was no sign of human life anywhere. The area around the lodge was effectively a bird sanctuary for hundreds of brightly coloured winged creatures, swooping and hovering over the water and calling from the leafy branches of the dense groups of trees on the banks of the lake. Some of the less timid birds flew down to the terrace and tried to steal food from the table. He threw some bread on the ground for a couple of red-breasted birds with blue heads and tails, more beautiful than he had imagined a bird could be.

  “Those are called Southern Carmine Bee-eaters. They come down from Zimbabwe at this time of year.” Coetzee put on a friendly and relaxed tone, which didn’t reflect how he was feeling.

  Despite it being winter time, the temperature was a balmy twenty-five degrees under a cloudless, clear blue sky. Leo was having a hard time reconciling his enjoyment of the location and the weather with his present predicament. His attention was caught by a family of black faced monkeys playing in the branches of an immense tree, at least twenty metres high, the pinkish-brown leaves being reflected by the morning sun.

  Again, Coetzee observed his gaze. “It’s a Jackalberry tree and they’re called Vervet Monkeys. You’ll find them all over the Cape. You want to watch out. They’ll bite your hand off if you get too friendly.”

  After installing Leo in one of the bedrooms, Coetzee had grabbed a whisky from the mini bar and sat out on the terrace. It was well past midnight, but after the stress of the day he needed to relax and clear his mind. He lit a cheroot, switched on his Kindle and pulled up Emma’s story, An Extravagant Death. It was two thirty and two whiskeys later before he went to bed, fascinated by her inventive narrative and already feeling a bond with the two detectives, Angus Skelton and Tory West. They argued and bickered like an old married couple, somehow managing to stumble onto clues, motives and clever deductions, seemingly by pure chance. He enjoyed the banter and the witty repartee. Typically British, he thought. Inimitable. They were actually falling in love with each other and just didn’t realise it. It reminded him of the early years of his marriage. But then Karen had fallen out of love with him and he hadn’t realised that until too late.

  He had gone to bed in a maudlin mood, the whisky, lack of nicotine and the day’s traumatic events taking their toll. But Coetzee was a military man. Military men didn’t suffer from broken hearts. He had now slept for six hours and was fully focused on the problem in hand. He had to win Leo’s confidence to get out of this mess, not just alive, but in good shape and able to start again. And that meant money. He needed money and he knew the deal with the Voice was now down the pan. In any case he was never going to put Leo’s life in danger again. He had some cards in his hand and he had to play them well, better than he’d ever done, otherwise it would all have been in vain. Lambert, Blethin, Nwosu, Leo; it was a recipe for life incarceration. He was in deep shit and only money would get him out of it.

  Now, he responded to Leo’s question. “I did it for money, Leo. Just for money. No other reason. I didn’t know you or your mother, it was just a job. I got paid and I helped to organise your abduction and get you to the safe house on the promise of more money and that’s all. I will never hurt you or your mother, believe me. I don’t even know why you’ve been abducted. It’s all being manipulated from a distance by people I’ve never even met. I know it’s not much compensation but I’m sorry for what I did. I swear I would never have let you get hurt.

  He looked straight at Leo, trying to gain his confidence. “Just think. Now that I’ve taken you out of their clutches, my chance of getting another penny from them is zilch. On the contrary, they’ll try to get it
back out of my skin, so I’ve thrown away a chance of being paid and put myself in harm’s way by helping you.”

  “Well Marius, if you did it only for money, I’ve got really bad news for you. We’re skint! My mum spent all her savings on this holiday and I’ve got about thirty quid in my savings account. Will that do?” He tore up a bread roll and threw some more pieces for the birds. “And while we’re at it, why don’t you tell me where my mum is? You’ve been lying to me for two days now. What’s happened to her? Where is she?”

  Coetzee lit up a cheroot and blew the smoke away from the table. “I told you part of the truth. Your mum is fine, nothing’s happened to her and nothing is going to happen to her.”

  “So why can’t I see her?”

  “Your mother has left South Africa, Leo. She became very frightened and managed to get away. And I don’t blame her. Between you and me, her life was worth much less than yours. You’re valuable, therefore safe, but she wasn’t. Simple mathematics. There are some dangerous people involved in this game. Sergeant Nwosu was only one of them.”

  Leo thought about Coetzee’s reply for several moments. He must be lying. My Mom would never leave me behind in a foreign country. “When did she leave?” He asked.

  “On Tuesday afternoon. One of the cleverest escapes I’ve seen. She had everybody fooled. You’d have been proud of her.”

  Leo was taken aback. “She’s at home in England?”

  Coetzee was careful not to give too much away. “I’m not sure where she is, but she’s out of danger, I promise you that.”

  “Where did she get the money to buy another ticket? I know she didn’t have any.”

  “I have absolutely no idea. I have my suspicions, but I honestly don’t know.”

  Leo decided he’d find out nothing further about his mother. If Coetzee knew, he wasn’t telling for now, he’d have to bide his time. He changed tack. “So what’s the point of kidnapping me if we’ve got no money? It kind of defeats the purpose doesn’t it?”