Emilio

by Sophie Masson

  ‘Right!’ she agreed.

  Chapter 8

  Well, that was a mistake, Emilio reflected some time later. All they’d done was fill their minds with dreadful statistics. Across Mexico, kidnappings had more than doubled in the last ten years, and there were now thousands of reported cases every year, carried out by drug cartels, specialised kidnap gangs, and simple opportunists. And that didn’t include either unreported cases, or ‘express kidnappings’ in which victims were forced at gunpoint to withdraw all their money at ATMs before being released. The recorded cases were all people who had been abducted and held, imprisoned, for days, weeks, months, even years. The worst thing was the terrible images, photos sent by kidnappers of helpless victims bound and gagged.

  ‘Look,’ breathed Luz, pointing with a shaky finger at one photo of a blindfolded young man with a note pinned to his rumpled T-shirt: Please pay them, Papá, or they’ll kill me. I don’t want to die. ‘What do you think – what do you think happened to him?’

  Emilio whispered, ‘I don’t know. We can only hope that . . . ’ He couldn’t finish his sentence, but he knew Luz knew what he meant. Kidnappers often treated victims badly, at the least locking them up in cramped and uncomfortable rooms, and sometimes beating, starving and torturing them. Worse, some gangs killed hostages even after they’d been paid a ransom. It seemed that most victims were released alive, but very few kidnappers were ever brought to justice. There were just too many cases for the police to investigate. Worse, kidnap gangs were sometimes protected by corrupt police, or even run by them.

  No Mexican could ignore these things completely, but Emilio lived in a relatively safe part of Mexico City and for him and the people he knew, the underground war that raged in his country – the killings, the gun battles, the disappearances, the kidnappings – had always been a sinister rumble in the background. It wasn’t like Juárez here. Oh, everyone everywhere knew to be careful. You knew that there were districts you should never go to under any circumstances, and some that might be safe during the day but not at night. You knew that you should never hail a taxi on the street but always call one from a trusted company, and that motorists didn’t have to stop at red lights after 10 p.m. but were allowed to go straight through, because to stop meant you might be carjacked. These kinds of precautions were part of ordinary, everyday life because violence was an ever-present possibility, but despite all that, nothing of the kind had ever happened to anyone Emilio knew – until now. Now he was willy-nilly caught up in the conflict. What was reported in article after article was no longer something he could click out of and then turn away from with relief. Now, the rumble was a roar, the war had exploded into his family’s midst, and normal life seemed suddenly as far away as the moon.

  When you live in an atmosphere like that, nothing is normal. That’s what Alda had said, speaking of her cousin Joaquin. And the stories he and Luz had just read made that very clear. In this terrible civil war, the old ways of Mexico were being destroyed. People who tried to take a stand were often threatened, beaten, even brutally murdered. Oh, there were many tales of heroism, too, like the one about Marisol Valles Garcia, the 20-year-old who’d become a police chief because she wanted to make a difference, or the teenage ‘angels’ who stood on street corners with placards pleading with gangsters to give up their evil ways. But all too often it ended badly – the young police chief had to flee to the US in fear of her life, and the ‘angels’, spooked by threats, vanished from the streets. And the carnage continued. Helpless illegal immigrants from Guatemala and El Salvador were forced to become drug mules and were then slaughtered and thrown into mass graves in the desert. Tens of thousands of children had been orphaned by the violence, and boys and girls as young as ten had turned into hardened criminals who killed without a shred of pity.

  Suddenly Emilio could not bear to read even one more word. He closed down the window.

  ‘Hey! I was reading that!’ protested Luz.

  ‘Well, that’s too bad. I’ve had enough,’ snapped Emilio. Nothing had changed on the webmail window, so he closed that down too and slammed the laptop shut. ‘I need some air.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Luz, jumping up.

  ‘No you won’t,’ said Tía Isabel, coming into the room at that moment, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Neither of you will go anywhere till Alda’s back, is that clear?’

  Luz shot a glance at Emilio. She began, ‘But, Mamá—’

  ‘But nothing. You both stay here.’ Tía Isabel looked at Emilio. ‘There’s no new message, is there, Milo?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It’ll come. You’ll see. Juanita just texted to say they’re on their way back. I’ve called Vicente too. Now come to the kitchen. I’ve just made agua fresca. And we can have something to nibble on till they all get back.’ Her voice was full of a brittle cheerfulness that didn’t fool Emilio for a second, but a couple of minutes later, seated in the cosy kitchen with a tall glass of the refreshing iced drink, made with watermelon, and a bowl of Tía Isabel’s special chilli peanuts in front of him, he realised not only how thirsty and hungry he was, but how much he wanted not to think about what had happened, if only for a few minutes. Just for a little while, he wanted to pretend that he was just visiting his aunt and uncle for Saturday lunch and in the afternoon he’d meet up with his friends and they’d hang out, talk, play computer games, maybe listen to music—

  His friends! They didn’t know anything about what had happened. And he shrank from telling them. He didn’t want to have to go through the ‘Oh my God, this is so terrible, oh my God, what can we do—’ conversations. It wouldn’t help. Not at all.

  Chapter 9

  Later, as Luz and he were setting the table – still with no new message in the webmail account – he asked his aunt, ‘Why hasn’t there been anything about Mamá’s kidnapping on the radio or the local newspaper?’

  ‘Because the police don’t think it’s a good idea just yet, cielito,’ she said, deftly patting tortillas into shape before cooking them on the stove. She’d made lots of food: caldo de res, a hearty beef and vegetable soup, juicy pumpkin and sweet potato empanadas, arroz con pollo, fragrant chicken with yellow rice, an array of colourful salads made with corn, tomatoes, avocados, peppers and black beans, and for dessert a flan con nata, a crème caramel with whipped cream. And to drink they had agua fresca of two kinds, the watermelon one and also mango. She was always a good cook and today, she’d been driven by the need to distract herself. Emilio couldn’t help feeling his mouth water, despite the worry about this mother.

  ‘Why don’t they think it’s a good idea, Tía?’ he asked, sneaking an empanada.

  ‘Because it’s better if the kidnappers can’t get any information. Maybe later, if the police think it will jog someone’s memory, then we’ll do something. For the moment, they’re trying to keep it out of the news. Just as they’ve asked us to make sure none of us says anything on any social media. You haven’t, have you, Milo?’

  Emilio shook his head. The last thing he wanted to do was to share this horror on Facebook. But he wasn’t sure what to think about the police view on publicity. Surely someone would eventually talk. Would it make things worse if they did? Did the kidnappers want their crime to be kept a secret, or to be known? You’d need to think like a criminal to know that.

  Think like a criminal. It must be what Alda had to do, in her job, day after day after day, constantly trying to outwit ruthless people who lived by their own wicked wits.

  He shivered. He really should not have looked at all those stories on the internet. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about them.

  The front door banged. Once, twice. Emilio could hear Tío Vicente’s voice raised in boisterous chatter. He must have had a few Cervezas too many. Tía Isabel’s lips tightened, but she said nothing.

  ‘Wow,’ said Juanita, as they all came in together, with Alda carrying an overnight bag. ‘You have been cooking up a feast, Mamá!’

  ‘T
hat’s my Chavelita,’ said Tío Vicente, ‘what a good woman,’ and he tried to plant a sloppy kiss on his wife’s cheek. She stepped away briskly. ‘Come, Vicente,’ she said warningly. ‘We have a guest. Remember? Now sit down.’

  ‘A guest? Oh, that’s right,’ said Emilio’s uncle. ‘Ah yes, our cute little Nicaraguan cousin,’ and he winked at Alda.

  She didn’t look embarrassed. But Juanita was, and so was Luz, while Tía Isabel looked furious. Emilio couldn’t help a tiny inward smile. His uncle’s naughty behaviour was oddly comforting. He hardly touched drink during the week, but at weekends he relaxed, meeting local cronies at the cantina to drink beer and tequila, play cards, gossip, listen to music. He was never a mean drunk. Clownish, yes. Silly, certainly. Annoying, often. But never mean, never shouty, never violent. After lunch he’d probably fall fast asleep on the sofa in front of the football or the boxing, and snore. He always did that on a Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Please help yourself,’ said Tía Isabel to Alda, deliberately ignoring her husband.

  ‘Thank you. It looks muy delicioso.’ Alda had her phone out on the table next to her and as the dishes were passed around, Emilio noticed that she glanced at it more than once. (The laptop, though, had been left on the living-room table.) Staring at the screen was like willing a maths lesson to end, he thought. It wouldn’t, if you watched the clock. You had to not look, pretend you didn’t care. Only then would the time slip by, as if it thought it had tricked you.

  ‘Do you like music, Señorita?’ Tío Vicente gazed earnestly at Alda.

  ‘Please, call me Alda,’ said the investigator.

  ‘Alda, then. What sort?’ he persisted.

  ‘Guitar, ballads, that kind of thing.’

  He beamed. ‘You have good taste! My friend Miguel, he brought his guitar to the cantina today, and we sang the old numbers. You’d have enjoyed it, Alda – real music, not like that silly rubbish Milo likes, what is it, that one where they don’t even sing properly, they just talk and say swearwords all the time?’

  ‘Rap, Tío,’ said Emilio. ‘It’s called rap.’

  ‘Yeah. That. What has this gringo music got to do with us Mexicans? As if we don’t have to put up with enough from north of the border, must they corrupt even our musicians with that tuneless nonsense?’

  ‘But Tío,’ hazarded Emilio, ‘there are many Mexican rap artists and—’

  ‘Ay, no! They’re not real Mexicans, those ones.’

  Emilio shrugged, and exchanged a wry glance with his cousins.

  ‘Chente, I’m sure Alda does not want to listen to your theories,’ cut in Tía Isabel sharply. ‘And I for one hope you kept your mouth shut in front of your amigos in that cantina, songs or no songs.’

  ‘What are you saying, woman? That I cannot be trusted to keep a secret? Do you think I have lived all the years of my life without knowing how to keep my mouth shut?’ His voice rose. ‘But is there any reason for it to be kept shut now, at my very own table in my very own house?’

  ‘Papá,’ said Juanita pleadingly.

  He glanced at her, and the anger in his eyes vanished, to be replaced by a sheepish look. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘This business – it’s made me jumpy. Made me forget my manners. Forgive me, everyone. You especially, Milo,’ he went on, patting his nephew’s hand.

  ‘It’s all right, Tío,’ said Emilio, even more awkwardly. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Ah, you’re a good boy. Gloria brought up a good boy, didn’t she, Chavela?’ said his uncle fondly.

  ‘Yes. She did,’ said his aunt quietly, the impatience wiped from her face. ‘And I know she is very proud of him.’

  I wish they wouldn’t talk about me as though I’m not here, thought Emilio. And I wish they wouldn’t praise me like that. It makes me feel even more that things aren’t normal, that they think there’s no hope, no clue to go on. His eyes prickled, and to stop himself from crying he made himself stare at a bracelet Alda had on, made up of different little cameo images of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with her sweet face and her starry blue veil and her—

  ‘Oh my God,’ he said, jumping up from his place so suddenly that he knocked over his chair with a crash. ‘I’ve got it, I’ve got it!’

  Five startled faces turned to him. He hurried on, ‘I mean, it was Luzita’s idea really, and I didn’t think much of it then, but what if it was right, if it wasn’t them who ripped it off but Mamá who pulled it off herself when they didn’t notice?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Milo?’ said his aunt.

  ‘The medal,’ said Juanita sharply, ‘that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emilio. ‘Luz thought that Mamá might have meant it as a clue, and—’

  ‘It was just an idea,’ began Luz, ‘because of the fingerprints . . . ’

  Alda held up a hand to quieten her. ‘Go on, Emilio,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I remembered that Señor Castro had said the kidnappers possibly wore gloves and also cover-up clothes – long sleeves, hats, things like that, and I wondered how no one had noticed someone dressed like that, and then I was thinking of what Luz said, and I saw Alda’s bracelet, and I thought – well, what if the clue was about that?’

  ‘I mean,’ he hastened on as he saw their utterly baffled expressions, ‘what if they were covered up in a way that you wouldn’t notice, because it would look completely normal? But that might remind you of the picture on the medal?’

  Everyone stared at him. Tío Vicente said, his voice quite sober now, ‘You surely don’t mean that whoever took your mother was dressed like Our Lady? Everyone would notice if—’ ‘No,’ said Alda. Her eyes were very bright. ‘No, that’s not what he means. Is it, Emilio? You mean your mother was desperately trying to leave something behind, something that might give us at least a little to go on. The kidnappers weren’t dressed exactly like Our Lady. That is, not in the same colours. But they wore veils. And long robes.’

  ‘Nuns!’ Juanita exclaimed, staring at Emilio. ‘You think Tía Gloria might have been trying to tell us the kidnappers were dressed as nuns.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Alda, ‘I must make a call at once.’ And she picked up her phone and dialled, putting it on speakerphone so they could all hear. ‘Raúl? Something’s come up.’ Rapidly, she told him Emilio’s idea.

  When she’d finished, Castro said, ‘We’ll check with the attendant right away if he saw any nuns yesterday. Check other witness statements, too. And the vehicle exit and entrance footage, just in case we can spot a car with nuns in it.’ He paused, then said, ‘Emilio?’

  ‘Yes, Señor?’ said Emilio, a little unsteadily.

  ‘It’s a clever idea. But don’t pin your hopes on it, will you? Just in case.’

  ‘No, Señor.’

  ‘When will you – when might you know if it’s a possibility?’ said Tía Isabel.

  ‘I can’t give you a definite time on that. But I’ll be as quick as I can.’ He hung up.

  Tía Isabel turned to Alda. ‘Now let’s go and check that wretched laptop again.’

  They did, and there was still nothing. But the stubbornly unchanged screen didn’t make Emilio feel quite as helpless as it had before. At least in a small way he and Luz had contributed to the hunt for his mother. For the first time in two days, he was almost pleased with himself. And that felt good.

  Chapter 10

  Raúl Castro called back a couple of hours later. ‘We might be onto something. I went back to the attendant and asked him if he’d seen any nuns in the carpark at any stage. He said that he did remember some, driving out in a van some time that day. He only remembered because the three of them were all sitting in the front. He didn’t remember much about their appearance – of course you don’t tend to look too much at nuns, they’re not like other women. But he thought one of them was small, while the others were larger. They all wore full habits and veils, and sunglasses. And that’s it.’

  ‘Were they actually women?’ said Alda.


  ‘With that sort of description and in those sorts of clothes, they could be either. They didn’t have moustaches or beards, anyway. He’d have certainly remembered that! But he only vaguely recalled their van – couldn’t tell us the make, only that it was light-coloured, dusty and not new. We’re checking the carpark footage right now for it. Wait a moment – they’ve found something.’

  Everyone held their breath. Emilio’s heart pounded. Don’t pin your hopes on this, he told himself. Don’t. Don’t. But he couldn’t help the excitement rushing through his veins. He met Luz’s glance. She crossed her fingers.

  ‘We have an old-style, beige-coloured Ford van answering that general description, exiting the carpark about twenty minutes before the attendant found the car,’ said Castro, coming back on line. ‘Unfortunately we can’t see the driver or passenger’s faces, because the windows are tinted. We can see the driver’s arm as they lean out to pay the attendant, and the back of a veiled head, so it looks as though there were nuns in it or at least someone dressed as a nun. But the numberplate’s half-obscured by dust. We’ll enhance both images and see what we can come up with by morning. We’re checking now for when the van entered the carpark and how that fits in with when Señora Lopez came in. My instinct is that they would already have been there when she arrived, and that they snatched her as soon as she opened the car door. We’ll be able to put an exact timing on that very soon.’ He paused. ‘However, I must stress to you that even once we know the numberplate, it is a strong possibility that we will find out that these were perfectly innocent nuns who had nothing whatever to do with what happened. And so my original advice still stands: don’t pin your hopes on this.’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ said Tío Vicente gruffly, as the call ended.

  Exactly, thought Emilio. How could you not hope this was the lead they needed?

  ‘Besides,’ said Juanita thoughtfully, ‘it’s got to be them. Or what were three nuns doing in the carpark of the Paradiso hotel?’