The Rwandan Hostage

by Christopher Lowery

  “So, what’s so important that you threaten to arrest us and take us to the station?”

  Colombey ignored the jibe and addressed Slater. “I understand you’re a British citizen, Sir.”

  He moved uncomfortably on the chair. “That’s correct.”

  “And you, Madame. You’re French, I believe?”

  “Yes I am. What of it?”

  “May I see your passports?”

  Slater looked at Nicole but she avoided his eyes and said nothing. She went out of the room and returned with both passports, handed them to the policeman.

  “Harold William Slater. Is that your full name?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Do you know anyone by the name of Robin Little?”

  At this, Slater shivered as if he had a chill. “I don’t think so. Who is he?”

  Again Colombey ignored the question. “And you are Nicole Mireille Charpentier?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was your married name Forrester?”

  “I’ve had enough of this interrogation. I’m going to call my lawyer now.”

  “Please do so, Madame Forrester. In the meantime we are confiscating your passports, computers, laptops, iPads and phones and you are coming to the Commissariat to assist us in our enquiries. Your lawyer can meet us there.”

  Marseille, South of France

  “Nothing. They’ve told us nothing and I’m starting to think they don’t know anything.”

  “C’est du Bullshit! I don’t believe it. Yilmaz might know nothing but the agent must know who he was working for. You’re telling me Favre doesn’t know who his bosses are?”

  Superintendent Treboux and Lieutenant Grandville were in the offices of the French Customs Directorate in Marseille reviewing the interrogations of the two captives. The captain of the Jeanneau was a local seaman who had been hired by telephone by the hotel and they had released him after a few perfunctory questions.

  “He says he only had phone conversations and his contact told him nothing except his name, M Valentino.”

  “What about the phone records?”

  “We’ve traced the number he was calling but it’s led nowhere. It was a prepaid US number and it’s gone dead. We can’t get any further on that track. The only other related calls are to Yilmaz. ”

  “Emails?” Treboux was becoming irritated.

  “Nothing. None sent and none received from anyone in connection with the merchandise except Yilmaz. It’s the same with the captain’s phone and emails. It’s a dead end. This is a very sophisticated operation. Looks like it was set up in two halves; the receiving end here and the sending end over there.”

  “And never the twain shall meet. Fuck!”

  “There’s one possible loose end, but I don’t know where it fits.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Favre says he had some conversations with another man, someone he’s done business with before, not drugs, but he wouldn’t tell me much about it.”

  “And?”

  “We’ve checked the calls and it’s another dead prepaid US number. There’s no trail there either.” Treboux looked impatient, so he continued, “He never learned the man’s name but he was certain it was an Englishman.”

  “Why was he so sure?”

  “Favre lived in London for a while and he said the man spoke with a posh accent. You know, when they speak French as if it’s just an English dialect.”

  “And that’s all we’ve got?”

  “One last thing. The second man told Favre to queer the pitch. He had to tell the other contact that the deal was off, so they could squeeze more commission for him. After that they just cut him off and he didn’t know who the purchaser was, nor how to contact him. Then we turned up and they pissed off to try to get to Spain.”

  Treboux’s mind was spinning. The informer’s original call to the DDGGI in Montreuil had been recorded and although the voice was slightly distorted it had been identified as an English speaker. The email had also been written by a non-French person. Now there was an Englishman who had told the agent ‘to queer the pitch’. It had to be the same person. He set the transaction up then pulled it down and presumably raked in his commission without delivering the merchandise. Treboux was impressed and infuriated by the realisation. Once again he was no nearer to identifying the top dogs and would have to make do with the messenger boys.

  Despite repeated interrogations of the two captives and many costly man hours trying to identify the mysterious English informant and track the merchandise back to its origins, Treboux was still left with only the low-hanging fruit. Favre and Yilmaz would have to pay for the crimes of the organisers, as was so often the case. Lord Arthur Dudley had been right. He and Jolidon had left no evidence of their involvement in the heroin transaction and been well paid into the bargain.

  Dublin, Republic of Ireland

  Esther Rousseau, née Bonnard, was in her room at the pub, revising the emails she’d prepared. With some luck they might bring her more than the measly fifty thousand dollars she’d earned from the aborted abduction. She now knew, from the online South African news reports, that the late Sergeant Nwosu had been blamed for the murders and therefore Dudley and his partners, including her, were in the clear. However Leo Stewart had disappeared and she wondered if Jenny Bishop, whom she hated like a venomous snake, had been involved in the débacle.

  Esther knew Ray would have been proud of her plan to get some of his money back; it was clever and audacious, like him. After his disappearance two years ago she didn’t go back to Switzerland from Ireland; it was too dangerous. She returned to France under her maiden name, staying as far as she could from the capital, in Nice, on the south coast. But she never forgot the diamonds; she was still determined to get her share, Ray’s share. Her first step was to find a way to cultivate a friendship with Claude Jolidon, at Ramseyer, Haldemann in Geneva. He was the guardian of the diamonds and, as she had learned from d’Almeida, he was also an inveterate gambler at Divonne Casino. She signed up with an agency specialising in casino employees and her looks and sharp brain quickly earned her a job at the Casino d’Azur in Cannes. From there she networked her way through to Jolidon. A quick visit to Geneva had cemented their relationship. She was adept at appealing to people of all sexual inclinations and always felt safer with gay men than heterosexuals who had only one thing in mind from the moment they saw her.

  The decision to take the casino job turned out to be a monumental piece of good fortune. In July 2009, Nicole Charpentier, a French woman newly arrived from Australia came to work at the casino. Nicole was a status seeker and she deliberately let slip to Esther that she had come into a lot of insurance money when her husband, Tony Forrester, had died in an accident in Australia. Money was a great motivator with Esther and she began to socialise with Nicole and her partner, Harry Slater. Casual ‘girl talk’ in the casino and loose chatter after a few glasses of wine revealed that she had stolen Tony from another woman, Emma Stewart, in Rwanda. The name immediately rang a bell with Esther and she remembered from her investigation of Jenny Bishop that Emma was her sister. The penny dropped when Nicole told her ‘confidentially’ that with Tony’s help, Emma had illegally adopted a Rwandan child and smuggled him into the UK.

  The last coincidence was the one that clinched the story for her. One of the regular players at the casino was an old friend of Nicole’s. Dr Antoine Constance had worked with her in Rwanda. He was now a reconstructive surgeon at the nearby Clinique Saint Christophe. Like most men she met, he fell for her and often stayed late in the evening to buy her a drink and try to seduce her. With each drink Constance became more and more indiscreet and she learned a lot about him, including the profitable side line that paid for his losses at the gaming tables. She used her sexual favours to glean as much information as he could supply and also obtained from him a very valuable service which could prove useful to her in the future.

  His drunken, rambling narratives included a vital anecdote whic
h confirmed Nicole’s story. He had been at the clinic in Rwanda and assisted at the birth of a boy called Leopold who disappeared at the time that Emma returned to the UK. Esther knew she was onto something. Something potentially very valuable.

  Emma’s son would now be fourteen years old, still a juvenile. From online research of UK law concerning juveniles she learned that he could be taken away from Emma if she had acted illegally. A plan began to form in her mind. She pulled together the various strands of the story into a scenario to make Jenny and her sister pay for Ray’s disappearance. She carried out constant surveillance on them, via Emma’s web page, her and Leo’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and through Claude Jolidon and other contacts she’d made in Switzerland. Then she began to plant the seeds for what she dreamed would blossom into a full-blown revenge on Jenny Bishop and her family.

  In November, Constance left the St Christophe and moved abroad. Esther knew the reason. He was about to be arrested for his involvement in a fraudulent passport scheme and had fled to South Africa to escape punishment. She also knew he had changed his identity and was now known as Ernest Blethin.

  From her surveillance she then discovered that Emma was taking Leo to South Africa, where Constance, or Blethin, was in hiding. They were going to the World Cup in July, 2010. She had six months to prepare a plan to be executed in Johannesburg.

  Her first step was to start an affair with Harry Slater and that had been the easiest part. Ray had taught her tricks that would drive any man mad with desire and she had been an eager and adept pupil. After Slater had fallen head over heels for her, it was a simple task to get him involved in the scheme then to get Nicole’s agreement and more importantly, the funding. She was the one with the money.

  Lord Arthur Dudley was recommended to her by Claude Jolidon as a ‘facilitator’ and he was a hard nut to crack. Together they sketched out an abduction scenario to force Emma Stewart to pay a ransom which could only be financed by her sister. Before his disappearance, Ray had cornered Jenny Bishop in her house and recovered twelve million dollars from the Angolan Clan, but they hadn’t been permitted to enjoy it. Based upon her inside knowledge gained as Eric Schneider’s assistant, Esther knew the woman’s wealth must still be substantial. However Dudley had been unconvinced; until February, when Jolidon confirmed to her that the diamonds were still at Ramseyer, Haldemann and Jenny Bishop had both keys. Then the stakes became immensely high and he was immediately hooked.

  Dudley had lived up to his reputation in planning and implementing the strategy and she had been impressed by his professionalism, his decisiveness and his extensive knowledge and contacts. He was a truly amoral person, ready to sacrifice anything or anyone in the pursuit of his objective. Ray would have greatly admired him. If he had been younger and better looking, she mused, I might have been attracted to him as much as he was to me. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

  Under Dudley’s management they had assembled the abduction team and put the plan into operation. With Nwosu, Coetzee and Blethin in Johannesburg and Lambert, a friendly Englishman at Emma’s hotel, they had an abundance of talent, experience and local connections. Apart from a few minor hiccups the abduction had been highly successful and the plan was progressing well. Until someone, probably Jenny Bishop, she guessed, had somehow screwed it up and with it her chance of recovering Ray’s legacy.

  But that was all in the past and Esther always looked to the future. Now it was time to send her emails. She reread them one last time, checked the attachments then pressed Send. That should create some surprises, she thought to herself.

  SIXTY-NINE

  Marbella, Spain

  “That’s how the whole plan started. The common themes were Nice and gambling casinos. On this occasion a poisonous combination.” Espinoza was at York House with Jenny and Emma. Leo had also been invited into the discussion since he was the principal character in the plan. The Spaniard didn’t yet have final confirmation of the last details but he had just explained his theory about Esther’s involvement and how and why Nwosu, Coetzee and Lambert were involved.

  He confirmed that Nwosu had been found dead in his apartment but didn’t mention that Jamie had probably been abducted in the place of Leo. Nothing could be done about it and it would only cause upset and feelings of guilt. He also said nothing of his suspicions about Dudley for the moment. If he was right, that might complete his jigsaw puzzle, but he still had no real proof.

  “In Johannesburg the whole matter is now filed away in Hendrick’s successful solving of the triple murder case, so if we ignore Coetzee’s apparently unwilling participation, the only other culprit we are certain of is still at large; Esther Rousseau.”

  “Incredible!” Jenny said. “After two years she’s still blaming me for d’Almeida’s death and still trying to get her hands on my money.” She turned to Emma and Leo. “I’m so sorry. I feel terribly responsible for what’s happened.”

  Espinoza replied. “You’re underestimating your contribution to Emma’s escape and to the ultimate outcome. Your dream was prescient, as usual. Esther has turned out to be as ingenious as her late lover. We’re fortunate they weren’t working in tandem again. The outcome might have been different.”

  “Where is she now? Have they managed to catch up with her?”

  “For the moment we don’t know where she is, but it’s possible that we’ll have further news of her later.”

  “You worked all that out? They should call you Sherlock Espinoza.”

  The Spaniard laughed. “That’s generous praise, Leo, but the truth is that my detective powers have not been quite up to the task.”

  “How come?”

  “There is still one link that I haven’t been able to connect. We still don’t know how Esther or Dudley knew about your trip to South Africa and it’s causing me an immense amount of annoyance.”

  Leo looked thoughtful. “I think I might know that. It could be really simple.” He went to fetch his laptop from the kitchen. “Look.” He scrolled back up the timeline on his Facebook page to December 2009 and showed them the status update:

  LEO’S MIND-BOGGLING CHRISTMAS GIFT. MY BRILLIANT MOTHER IS TAKING ME TO THE WORLD CUP IN JULY! WHO SAYS EXAMS ARE RUBBISH?

  “And by that time Esther was obviously following your account.” The Spaniard shook his head in disbelief. “So simple and so obvious and I never even thought of it.”

  “Welcome to the digital world, Pedro. Everyone knows everything and understands nothing.” Emma said. “Except that Esther understood exactly what an opportunity it was to kidnap Leo while we were in a hostile and unknown environment on the other side of the world. You’re right. She’s an ingenious woman.”

  Espinoza’s mobile rang and he got up to leave the room. “Excuse me, I’m waiting for one last piece of information and this may be it.”

  A few minutes later he returned, a resigned expression on his face. “I think my reputation as a detective may have been redeemed, although I’m very unhappy at the price. Now I can continue with the rest of the story.”

  He sat next to Emma and took her hand. “There is no easy way to tell you this, but Nicole Forrester and her boyfriend, Harry Slater, have just been arrested in Nice for the murder of Tony Forrester and three other people in Australia in the airplane crash in 2008.”

  Espinoza paused to let everyone cope with their shock and distress. The first to speak was Jenny, “That’s dreadful news about Tony, but I think we’re all trying to work out how Nicole fits into the abduction scheme.”

  “And this man Slater,” added Emma. “We have no idea who he is.”

  The Spaniard put his notes in order. “I’ll explain as simply as I can,” he said.

  “The story starts in Perth, where Tony and Nicole were running N-Jet, their private airline business. In late 2007, a young Englishman joined the company. His name was Robin Little. He was a pilot and engineer, good looking, ambitious and apparently what you would call a lady’s man. He started an affair with Nicole
Forrester, his boss’s wife, and she became infatuated with him. Early in 2008, they hatched a plot to get rid of Forrester so they could start a life together. It was a diabolical plot.

  “The company had a weekly flight arrangement with a large oil firm which had regional offices in Perth, Hobart and Sydney. In the first week of July they were flying two executives from Perth to Hobart, then on to Sydney. Forrester and Little were scheduled to fly the plane in tandem. On longer flights they always had two pilots on board in case of sickness, fatigue or other possible problems. A young woman cabin attendant would also be on board. The weather forecast was predicting severe storms, which are common in winter time at that latitude.

  “The morning of the flight was stormy, as the forecast had warned. It was not a good day for flying but Forrester knew his passengers were used to conditions of this kind and it wouldn’t put them off. A couple of hours before the flight Little rang to say he had food poisoning and had been ordered by his doctor not to fly. In addition he couldn’t risk bringing a viral infection onto the plane. Forrester didn’t want to fly alone and asked Nicole to find a replacement for him. She pretended to make several calls and told him there was no one available at such short notice, but another pilot could join him in Hobart to complete the flight. This wasn’t true of course, but Forrester believed her. The flight time to Hobart was only four and a half hours so he decided to fly the first leg alone then take the other pilot on from Hobart to Sydney. Nicole and Little had counted on that decision, which turned out to be a fatal one for Forrester.

  “As I mentioned, Little was an engineer and the previous night he had interfered with the aircraft fuel supply, so that it would fail about half way into the flight when they were at the most vulnerable point, far out over the deepest part of the ocean, hundreds of kilometres from land. And that was what happened. After two and a half hours, Nicole received an emergency call from Forrester to say he was having problems with his fuel supply, just as Little had calculated. She informed the coastguard and the aviation authorities and opened up the call to their wavelengths. It was difficult to hear clearly because the transmission was broken up by the effects of the storm. All they could make out was that the fuel supply was failing. Then within a few minutes the call was cut off. They heard nothing further from Forrester; his plane had come down in the Indian Ocean.”