“I can’t wait. I love you. Goodbye.” She paid eight pounds twenty for the tea and walked out towards Piccadilly underground station to take the tube back to her three star hotel in Bayswater.
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Prince Muhammad Samir Ismail Abdullah El Moutawakel Bensouda took too large a swig of his Glenmorangie single malt and swallowed uncomfortably, trying to supress a cough. The smooth ten year old whisky wasn’t helping his frame of mind. It was well after midnight and he was sitting in the member’s bar of the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco, a quiet haven, subtly removed from the bustling throng of wealthy and not so wealthy gamblers and tourists who still crowded the gaming rooms and public areas. Bensouda pondered his situation. The tables hadn’t been kind to him tonight. In fact they hadn’t been kind to him for the last year, any of them. Macau, Las Vegas, Divonne, London, he’d contributed heavily to their record profits and gone a long way towards squandering the impressive fortune he’d inherited.
He took an envelope from his inside pocket, unfolded the letter and reread it for the umpteenth time that day. Although he was becoming used to receiving threatening letters from his many creditors, he was obliged to take this last one extremely seriously. If he lost the family home in Spain his very life would be at risk, even his siblings would not tolerate that level of profligacy. He ordered another whisky from the tail-coated waiter and sat quietly reflecting on the rapid erosion of what had seemed like an inexhaustible mountain of wealth. Perhaps it’s time to stop gambling and find a more reliable source of income, he told himself.
Bensouda finished his drink, left a hundred Euro note as a tip and walked unsteadily out to the entrance hall. At least they weren’t hassling him to pay for his drinks. He’d already paid through the nose on the tables, the drinks were on the house, even the great number he consumed while throwing his money away.
His chauffeur drove up to the entrance and helped his employer into the back of the Rolls Royce Phantom. The drive back to his hotel at that time of night was less than a half hour, unlike during the day, when it could take several hours along the beautifully picturesque but hopelessly congested coast road. He tried to focus on his problems, making mental commitments, not for the first time, to stop drinking and gambling, lose weight and get back into competition shape. After a few minutes he dozed off and was woken by the door being opened by the concierge of the Hotel Negresco on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
“Bonsoir, M. le Prince.” The Rolls drove off towards his driver’s lodgings and the concierge led him through the lobby towards the elevators. “Vous avez votre clef? You have your key?”
The man took the key and inserted it into the panel and pressed the top floor button.
Bensouda took a one hundred Euro note from his pocket and folded it into the concierge’s hand.
“Merci et bonne nuit, M. le Prince. A demain. Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He returned the key and the lift doors closed.
Bensouda managed to open the door of the suite, walked across the wide entrance hall into the principal bedroom, kicked off his shoes and fell onto the king size bed. The curtains were open just enough to show the lights on the promenade around the Bay of Angels, but he didn’t see them. He was already dead to the world.
DAY ONE
SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2010
FOUR
Johannesburg, South Africa
The score in the World Cup Final was Netherlands 3 - Spain 2. No goals yet, just yellow cards. The noise in the FNB stadium, Soccer City, was unbearable, almost worse after the half-time whistle had been blown than during the match itself.
“Those bloody vuvuzelas! They should be banned. I’ll be surprised if I don’t get a burst eardrum by the end of this match.” Emma Stewart held her hands over her ears to try to block out the incessant blast that seemed to emanate from the throat of every one of the 90,000 fans who packed the stadium.
“Never mind, Mum. Just think of the headlines in the Newcastle Herald; ‘Local writer struck deaf during World Cup Final’. That’s pretty cool.” Her son Leo stood up and stretched painfully, trying to get the circulation restored after sitting with his knees under his chin for the last hour. Emma’s books sold reasonably well, but not well enough to afford seats with enough leg room to comfortably accommodate his six foot three frame. But he wasn’t complaining. Just being at the final was a terrific reward for his eight grade ‘A’ GCSE passes the previous year. At age fifteen, Leo was not only tall beyond his years, but clever enough to be already submitting applications to the best universities in the UK. With any luck, he’d have three or four ‘A’ levels under his belt and be an undergrad in a top college before he was eighteen.
“I have to go to the loo,” he announced. “Can I get you anything? A drink, hot dog, whatever?”
“I’ll come with you. I need to stretch my legs too and I don’t think I can sit for another hour without a toilet break.”
They fought their way along the aisle to the main thoroughfare then followed the signs through the masses of football-crazy supporters to the toilets.
“Wait for me here,” instructed his mother. “It’s bound to be bedlam in the Ladies. Don’t budge until I get out.”
Five minutes later, Emma struggled out of the door, still wiping her hands dry on her handkerchief, and swept the crowded area with her keen gaze. She couldn’t spot the easily identifiable tall slim figure of her son. After a few minutes wait she realised the crowds were returning to their seats for the second half. That silly boy, she said to herself, he just doesn’t listen to me at all.
She made her way back to their aisle but Leo’s seat was vacant and he wasn’t to be seen. Supressing her exasperation she went back to the toilet area and asked an attendant to look inside for a tall teenager.
“No one”, he reported.
She visited the drinks stand, the hot dog stand and every other place she imagined he might be – but he wasn’t. When she came back into the stadium, play had resumed and she could see around their seating area more easily. She anxiously scoured the crowded rows one after the other but she couldn’t pick out his tall figure. Leo was nowhere to be seen.
Another attendant directed her to the security office, which was near to the main stadium entrance. A young black woman listened to her story and showed her into a small ante room. A burly, hard looking white man in a creased linen suit came in. He looked like a sand bag with arms and legs.
“I’m Marius Coetzee, head of the security company. What’s wrong?” His skin was pock marked and his breath smelled of stale cigarettes. He spoke in an arrogant manner with a strong Afrikaans accent and didn’t seem to be particularly interested in Emma’s problem as he lit up a small black cheroot.
“It’s my son. I can’t find him,” she said, trying to supress the feeling of panic that was invading her. She explained the circumstances and described Leo. “He’s fifteen, slim and very tall, it should be easy to spot him, but I can’t.”
“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. Sure 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?”
The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set Page 63