At six twenty-five, Emma walked out of the airport terminal in the company of Shane, a smart, good looking pilot and Tasha, his co-pilot. They were both Australian, apparently there were lots of Ozzie airline staff all over the world. Alison was their daughter and they were the owners of the little private jet hire company. Today, Alison would act as flight attendant and they were going to spend a few days on a family holiday in Mauritius. Not having travelled with an airline where you got to meet the pilot or the owner, Emma was suitably impressed.
They were about to climb up into the plane when she heard Alison calling her. “Mrs Stewart. Can you come back for a moment? I think we have a problem.”
A feeling of dread invaded Emma’s mind. I knew it was too easy, she told herself. They’ve managed to track me down. She turned to go back to the building.
“We’ll prepare for take-off, Emma. Take your time,” Shane called, as he and his wife climbed the staircase.
Alison was apologetic. “Mrs Stewart, I’ve just realised you don’t have a visa. I’m not sure you can fly without one. I’m sorry, but I’ve only been helping my parents for a few weeks over the holidays and I’m not really up on these things.”
Emma had never felt so relieved. She thought quickly, “Let’s look it up on the web. It’s sure to tell us if UK citizens need a visa.”
It took Alison a few minutes to locate the proper section of the site, only to find that she’d been wrong, English visitors didn’t need a visa. Emma breathed a sigh of relief and walked quickly back to the plane.
At six thirty-five, a car from Wonderboom Poort screeched to a halt in front of the terminal building and two policemen ran up the stairs to the MyJet Aviation office. The door was locked and there was nobody there. A sign on the door said the place was closed for the rest of the week. They called Sergeant Nwosu, in Diepkloof, to report the news.
Emma was already fast asleep in the most comfortable armchairbed she’d ever encountered, leaving South African air space on a Dassault Falcon 2000 twin engine jet, next stop, Mauritius. She was safely on her way to rescue her son.
It was twenty-one hours since Leo had been taken.
DAY THREE
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
FIFTEEN
Diepkloof, Gauteng, South Africa
Nwosu and Coetzee were arguing again in the policeman’s office. It was Tuesday morning and the news was not good. Nwosu was looking for somebody to blame before they received the call from the Voice. After learning that Emma had probably taken a private jet from Wonderboom, he’d requested the flight details from airport flight control. There were very few departures from the airport and the only MyJet Aviation flight at six-thirty had filed Mauritius as its destination. Subsequent enquiries showed a booking for Emma Stewart on an Air France flight to Paris at midnight. Calculating four and a half hours for the Mauritius sector, he assumed she had made the flight, so he asked further questions which revealed a booking for Malaga, also with Air France, on their Tuesday morning flight. Knowing Emma didn’t have money, he also discovered that the flights had been paid for with a Swiss credit card in the name of Jenny Bishop. Further investigation showed that this was Emma’s sister, who had a home in Marbella.
“The bitch is in a plane on her way to her sister’s house in Spain now and we’re screwed. Why didn’t you work out that she wasn’t staying at the airport? It was too obvious, going there, and she wasn’t due to fly until tomorrow.”
“Sergeant Nwosu, you didn’t even tell me she’d gone to the airport. If I’d known she got out at arrivals I might have been suspicious. But you didn’t tell me.” He looked sarcastically at the policeman. “I hope you’re not looking for a scapegoat. ‘cos I don’t do scapegoat.” He lit up a cheroot and went on, “You’re probably right. When she wouldn’t tell us anything, she must have already been plotting with her sister to get out, and now the bird has flown.”
“These people you hired are all incompetent pricks. Lambert or the doctor or someone must have let the cat out of the bag and she’s caught on that the whole thing’s a set up. She’s a crime writer and she’s got plenty of imagination. The Voice isn’t going to be happy with you.”
“We’re in this together Nwosu. If you remember, she cottoned on to you right away because you knew too much about her son. Not smart, was it?” He paused, enjoying the moment. “And neither Lambert nor the doctor was my choice, so don’t play pass the parcel with me, it could blow up in your face.
“We’re not telling the Voice anything. We’re in enough trouble as it is. We’ve got to figure out what he wants to know, so we can work out why this kidnapping was ordered. It’s time we started asking the questions. We’ve taken all the risks for a few thousand dollars and he’s sitting there calling the shots.
“Just ask yourself, why would he kidnap a schoolboy whose mother doesn’t have enough money to buy an airplane ticket? It doesn’t make any sense. There’s some bigger play here and we need to get to the bottom of it. I agreed to go into this for only one reason, money, and I’m not about to get short changed.”
“Be careful what you say or do, Coetzee. Those guys are ruthless and I don’t want to become their next problem.”
The security chief laughed. “Sergeant Nwosu has spoken, eh? Well just think about this. Who wants the kid? They do. Who’s got the kid? We do. That boy is staying glued to my side until he gets handed over to his mother and we see the ransom money paid. We’re holding all the cards and if they want us to play the game that means a bigger payoff.”
Nwosu nodded begrudgingly. “OK. I wouldn’t object to more money. You handle the conversation and we’ll see what happens.”
Coetzee walked out to get a coffee, past the conference room where they’d interviewed Emma. He checked the laptop, the CD was still in the machine. He ejected it and slipped it into his pocket, just in case.
Marbella, Spain
Emma’s taxi turned right into the Las Manzanás Golf Course and drove past a security office towards Calle Venetia. The driver seemed to know the way. He drove around a high wall made of white stone and stopped at a pair of iron gates with CCTV cameras on each side. He was about to press an intercom button by a plaque that said, York House, when the gates slid back and he continued on into the property.
Jenny was standing on a terrace at the top of the drive. It seemed like half a kilometre away. Wow! What a house! Emma thought, mentally comparing it to her two bedroomed apartment in Newcastle, on Quayside, by the river, with a partial view of the Tyne Bridge. Perfect for her and Leo, small, but cosy, but this was a property out of Hello Magazine.
They drew up in front of the house and she climbed out into the arms of her sister, tears of relief in her eyes. “Welcome to York House, Emma. Oh, it’s so good to see you. You must be shattered. Just leave your bag with Juan and come in with me.” A balding man in a black tee shirt paid off the taxi driver then took her laptop bag from her. “Buenos Dias”, he said and she shook his hand.
Jenny led her up to the terrace and into the house. “Would you like to freshen up first or have a coffee on the terrace and tell me all about your round the world trip.”
Emma smiled wearily. “Coffee would be wonderful and I can’t wait to give you a blow by blow account.”
They walked through a large hallway out onto a wide, sunny terrace littered with settees and loungers. Emma gasped at the panoramic view. Swimming pool, gardens, golf course and the Mediterranean were laid out in front of her under the warm sunshine.
A large, happy looking Spanish lady was fussing with the cushions on the settees. “This is Encarni,” Jenny introduced them. “She’s the boss around here, so you’ll have to be nice to her. Dos cafes con leche, por favor, Encarni,” she said, and the woman laughed and went into the kitchen. “Encarni loves my Spanish. She’s the mother of Leticia, with whom I share the house,” she explained. “It’s a bit complicated, but I’ll explain it to you when we’ve caught up on your travels and what’s happened in Johannesbu
rg. Now, sit down and tell me all.”
Emma sighed and wiped her eyes. “It was a wonderful trip, thank you, Jenny. If only I hadn’t been leaving Leo behind, it would have been the trip of a lifetime. But it must have cost you an absolute fortune. First the private plane, then the business class seat to Paris and to Malaga. I’ve never been so spoiled in my life. I suppose you fly like that all the time, but it was a very special treat for me.”
“Good. If you’re feeling rested and ready for the next stage, then it was money well invested.” Jenny didn’t mention that she almost always travelled with easyJet and always in economy. “How did you leave things in Joburg?”
“I did a runner, just as you suggested. Took two taxis and then the jet. I was terrified to look behind me, but as far as I know they didn’t find out until too late. Once I got to Mauritius I was more relaxed. I knew they wouldn’t have time to get a warrant or suchlike to stop me there. After that I just let myself be pampered and tried to think positive thoughts, but they’ve still got Leo and it’s breaking my heart.
“I’m sure they must have wanted me too. That’s what all the questions were about. You’re right, there’s something they want that I know or that I’ve got and I have an idea what it is but I can’t think it’s of any importance after all these years. Now that I’ve got away from them I suppose they’re trying to work out what to do next.”
Jenny waited until Encarni had brought their coffees then said, “Now, Emma. I think it’s time you told me about Leo and his father. Maybe we can work out what it is they’re after. She took her iPad to make notes. Take your time, we’re in no hurry.”
“Right.” She took a couple of deep breaths and assembled her thoughts. “This is going back fifteen years, Jenny, so it’s going to take a while and I’m going to have some memory gaps, but I’ll do my best.
“After the genocide in Rwanda, I wanted to go down and help. It was such a dreadful situation down there. A million people massacred in just three months, most of them with machetes. The Red Cross wasn’t ready to send people, but the SOS Médicale, it’s a small French medical relief organisation, they went into action with a few teams and I was able to go down with them. It was March, 1995. I remember arriving there; it was a Sunday, a lovely, sunny day. Flying in over the mountains I thought I’d never seen such a beautiful place. Then I discovered what was waiting for me on the ground. I worked in a dilapidated, makeshift clinic, looking after young women and girls who were pregnant from being raped. It was too horrible to describe, but I really felt I was making a difference.”
Jenny settled herself back into the settee and took a swallow of coffee. Her sister was in full flow now, finally able to tell the story she’d concealed for fifteen years, since the day her son was born. She would listen, take notes and learn, hoping to find the reason for Leo’s abduction.
It was thirty-eight hours since Leo had been taken.
RWANDA
1995
SIXTEEN
April, 1995
Bumbogo, outside Kigali, Rwanda
“Poussez, Mutesi, Poussez. I can see the baby’s head. One more big push. A deep breath, that’s it. Now poussez!”
After ten years of non-use, Emma Stewart’s school French wasn’t exactly fluent, but in the circumstances, there was no room for misunderstanding. She concentrated on her midwifery duty and ignored the rancid, suffocating stink of sweat and filth in the makeshift clinic. Once a bicycle storage and repair warehouse, the building, near Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, had been ‘converted’ a few months previously to a ‘Family Assistance Clinic’. It could accommodate fifty females. There were presently ninety of them in the building, most of them rape victims who had managed to survive the Hutu genocide. The sanitation system was still nonexistent and a dozen battered tin baths of tepid water could hardly stretch to all the women and girls who hadn’t bathed for days as they made their way to the clinic in the hope of giving birth to their child in some vestige of civilisation.
As usual, the decision to send any kind of help to Rwanda after the genocide was discussed by many governments at all levels and for many months. Meanwhile the country was in chaos as the new Tutsi leaders commenced their retaliation to the Hutu massacres. There was no government in place to run hospitals, schools, shelters, food programs, or factories. Public utilities; telephones, electricity and water had ceased to function. Most of the previous Hutu officials had either been killed or had fled to neighbouring countries. Perversely, the initial international help was provided to the Rwandans who had fled to refugee camps in Zaire, Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda and not to those who were still in Rwanda itself. In other words, the help was being provided mostly to the perpetrators and not the victims.
Non-government bodies, like the UN, the International Red Cross and Médecins sans Frontières, were stymied in their desire to intervene in the country. A few smaller, less orthodox organisations made the first moves. At that time Emma was employed by the British Red Cross, in London, but when she heard that a small, effective French charity group, called SOS Médicale, was to send in a few medical teams, she immediately applied for a position with them. With a little help, she managed to convince them her school French was good enough to pass muster and her previous work in a hospital maternity ward made her a suitable candidate. She was amongst the first volunteers to arrive in Rwanda in the aftermath of one of the greatest human catastrophes since the Second World War.
Her preparation period had provided her with many dreadful statistics; almost a million Rwandan people, both Tutsi and Hutu, had been massacred in the space of just one hundred days. Adult males now represented only twenty per cent of the Tutsi population and many families were now headed by women or even young children, because all the men had been slaughtered. Over one hundred thousand children had been orphaned. The majority of the population suffered psychological damage, either from being victims, seeing atrocities or being forced to commit them. Many of the victims remained disfigured and physically handicapped, making their reintegration into society an almost impossible task. Very few survivors were able to bury their relatives, perform mourning ceremonies or even see the remains of loved ones. Afterwards, Ihahamuke, a new word, appeared in the Rwandan vocabulary to describe the post-traumatic stress and grief caused by genocide.
The most astounding fact of all was that the Tutsis had then overthrown the Hutu government, to take control of a country where their own people had been almost wiped out.
Emma had digested all these facts and figures, but nothing could have prepared her for the devastating sight of the young female survivors, great with child, walking, stumbling or being helped towards the clinic, overcoming their fear and terror to try to bring their unborn child into the world in their home country. A country that had showed no mercy to them, but which was the only option they had to try to regain some kind of dignity and peace of mind, beginning with the most historical and natural role of women everywhere - motherhood.
She had already assisted several teenage girls to give birth, some more successful than others, but none of them had been as young as her present charge. Mutesi was just fourteen. Thirteen when she’d been raped the previous July, when her luck ran out, and she, her father, mother and eight brothers and sisters were caught by a group of Hutu Interahamwe, the so-called ‘self-defence’ organisation that led and coordinated the atrocities after the death of President Habiyarimana in April. Ironically and sadly for Mutesi and her family, it was only a few days before the killing frenzy came to an end, at least the Hutu part.
Along with about forty other Tutsi men, women and children, the family had fled from their home in Rukara, one of the most eastern villages of Rwanda, about seventy kilometres north east of Kigali and close to the lakes on the Tanzanian border. A final murderous wave of Hutu violence was washing closer and closer to their isolated village, leaving no survivors. They crossed the hilly terrain along the western edge of the Akagera National Park and were hiding in the Gabiro High
School, supposedly under the protection of the school staff. They were hoping to make their way across the park into Tanzania, unaware that already forty thousand of their tribespeople had been slaughtered or had committed suicide on the banks of the nearby Akagera River, their bodies being swept through the park in the fast flowing river and deposited in Lake Victoria.
Just after nightfall on the Saturday evening they were to make their escape, a dozen machete-wielding Hutus were let into the building by the teachers. After raping the screaming women and adolescent girls for hours on end, with the men and children forced to watch, the Interahamwe finally hacked every member of the families to death in a frenzied bloodbath. Everyone, except Mutesi.
Over the last two days, Emma had managed to glean the story of the young girl’s escape, often needing to consult her pocket dictionary to translate words and phrases that were beyond her vocabulary. Mutesi spoke a little French, which was easier to understand than the local language, but it was still a challenge for her and the dreadful story she learned in dribs and drabs from the girl made her want to go out and commit murder herself. She knew every one of the women and girls in the building had a similar story to tell, but she hadn’t yet learned to suppress her feelings of disgust and helplessness at the pain and suffering that these poor innocent victims had born.
“Voilà! Il arrive. Here he is.” She gently manoeuvred the baby’s shoulders until it slid free and she could take the tiny body into her hands. “It’s a boy, Mutesi. A beautiful little boy.” She tied and snipped the umbilical cord then bathed the child and laid him, wrapped in a piece of clean towelling, alongside Mutesi’s breast, helping to put her arms around the screaming infant. She wasn’t strong enough to hold him safely and Emma sat beside her, holding the baby in position.
The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set Page 69