The two men looked at each other, Nwosu making a slashing action across his throat. He leaned over the phone, “Just leave it to me.”
“Excellent.” Despite the sound deformation, they could discern that the man spoke with a recognisable English accent. The intonation was so perfect that the two listeners suspected he might not be English at all, but hiding a foreign accent which might betray him. Neither of them had met him, Nwosu’s original contact in April had been via a visit to his apartment by an intermediary, who arrived in a car with a Zimbabwean number plate. He came twice more then disappeared. He had been told to get Coetzee on side for a ‘large transaction’ and the promise of a lot of money had achieved just that. Further contacts were always made by emails, couched in innocuous, seemingly anodyne terms, or by telephone. The emails were sent from an ISP in Azerbaijan and the telephone calls came, usually at nine thirty in the morning, from an untraceable number. Nwosu had used his network of police contacts in several vain attempts to locate the source. In the absence of any other means of identification they called the man ‘The Voice’.
Coetzee tried to avoid the police departments at all cost and had never encountered the policeman previously. He had quickly discovered that Nwosu was a corrupt and venal example of officialdom. In addition he was totally uninterested in sport. The security chief had been chosen as Nwosu’s partner only because he had a security company and, vitally, the contract for the stadium security arrangements, including the World Cup Final. He had agreed because he was broke and losing money every month. His army pension pot had been almost eaten up over the last two years because he was an incompetent business man. Neither of them knew who the Voice was, what he looked like, where he came from, or where he was based. Funds, transferred from a bank in Panama City, appeared in their bank accounts without any sender’s information or reference of any kind.
Lambert had arrived at the hotel in May and they had been ordered to contact him at the hotel. Details of the ‘large transaction’ had then been divulged to them and preparations had been put in place for various abduction scenarios. Coetzee didn’t know who the target was until the day before the match and was shocked to discover it was a teenage boy. Now it was too late to regret his decision.
Relations between Coetzee and the policeman were not good. The security chief didn’t trust Nwosu and the sergeant obviously despised him. Both men knew they were navigating dangerous waters, but the rewards were impressive. As always, greed, or in Coetzee’s case, necessity, got the upper hand.
“Now,” the Voice continued. “The boy, Leo. How is he?”
“He’s in a safe place and he’s OK. I saw him this morning. He’s still sedated, but we’ve got very competent people monitoring his condition and there’s nothing to worry about there.”
“Please bear in mind that this young person is an exceptionally valuable commodity. To neglect to properly protect such an asset would bring deserved opprobrium upon your heads, followed by immediate and unpleasant consequences.”
“We understand.” Coetzee looked at Sergeant Nwosu and shrugged. Who uses words like ‘deserved opprobrium’ he asked himself. This guy is from a very strange place.
“And the Stewart woman. What’s the situation?”
“She was so upset last night we didn’t get anything much out of her. She went back to her hotel to cry herself to sleep. We have a man there and she hasn’t budged. She’s coming here at ten and we’ll get to work on her then.”
Coetzee interrupted the policeman. “What exactly do you want her to tell us? We need to know more about it, so we can ask the right questions, push her in the right direction.”
The Voice sounded annoyed again. “I’ve already covered this point in detail with you. You should interrogate her remorselessly about her son and about his father. Who was he, what did or does he do? Where and how did they meet? Where was the son born? Where is the father now? Was she married to him, or was it a brief romance? Is he still alive or what happened to him? I want a full and comprehensive report from you by this evening without fail. You’ll then receive further instructions as to the subsequent steps to be taken in connection with the boy.”
There was the faint sound of someone speaking quietly in the background, then the man continued, “Don’t hurt the woman. Her wellbeing is essential to the success of our programme. That will be all for now.” The phone went dead.
“Did you hear the other voice? Maybe this guy isn’t the big chief after all. We need to get to the bottom of this. This could be some kind of paternity thing. The boy’s been taken off by the mother and the father’s trying to get him back. He’s got African blood, so maybe there’s some kind of racial problem. There must be a lot of money involved and that’s what we need to find out about. I don’t like being in the dark and I don’t like being treated like an imbecile by some arrogant shit who talks like Shakespeare.” Coetzee lit up one of his cheroots and went to sit at the other side of the desk.
“Forget that for now.” Nwosu said. “Call the guard and tell him I want to see him here in…” he looked at his watch, it was nine fifteen, “three hours. I’m sending him on a little holiday as a bonus for his good work.”
Coetzee made the call, telling the guard that his sharp eyes had helped to locate the boy and he was to be rewarded with a bonus. The man was excited and relieved. After the woman’s attack on him he’d been afraid he’d be sacked and now he would get a reward. This was a good day.
“I’ve got to get back to check on the boy again.” Coetzee went to the door. “I’ll be here at ten thirty to talk to the Stewart woman. Keep her warm until I get here.”
Nwosu watched him walk along the corridor, a cynical smile on his lips. Idiot! He said to himself.
TEN
Diepkloof, Gauteng, South Africa
Sergeant Nwosu came to meet Emma in the little reception area. “Good morning Mrs Stewart. I hope you’re feeling much better today, after your awful night. I’m really sorry about what happened, but believe me, we’re on top of the situation and I’m confident we can get your son back very quickly.”
Emma followed him into the same room they’d been in the previous night. He sounds like a second hand car dealer, she thought. Aloud, she said, “Thank you, Sergeant. I’m sorry I got upset last night. It was all such a shock I lost control of my emotions.” She saw that the laptop and projector were still on the table. Good. She sat next to the computer. The laptop was open with the screen saver running. It was a photograph of Cape Town, with Table Mountain in the background. The icons were listed down the left side of the screen.
The policeman looked fresh and polished, as if he’d had ten hours sleep and been to a barber before coming to the station. “Never mind, Emma. May I call you Emma?” He gave her what he imagined was an irresistibly trustworthy smile.
Emma tried to supress a shiver. After her talk with her sister, she realised how dangerous these people could be. She needed to get him out of the room for a few minutes. “Do you think I could have a cup of coffee, please? I was so exhausted that I overslept and I haven’t had anything at all this morning. I suppose Mr. Coetzee is coming, so we have a few minutes to spare.”
“I’ll get it myself.” He went out into the corridor, leaving the door ajar.
Emma leaned over the laptop, moved the cursor to ‘Computer’ and left clicked. The screensaver disappeared and the Hard Disk Drive ‘C’ icon came up together with the icon for Removable Disk ‘G’. She breathed deeply with relief, no password was required and the CD must still be in the machine. As she moved the cursor over the ‘G’ icon she heard a step at the door. She turned in her chair with her back to the laptop and nodded to Coetzee, who came in ahead of Nwosu, carrying three plastic coffee cups. “Good morning and good timing Mr Coetzee. Just in time for coffee,” she said, cursing her bad luck.
The two men sat opposite her, out of sight of the screen. “How are you today, Emma?” Coetzee was more polite than last night. “It’s more than twe
lve hours now and we haven’t heard anything from the hospitals or the other precincts, so we’ll have to classify Leo’s disappearance as an emergency and that requires a lot of paper work. I hope you’re up to it.”
“Anything that’ll help to get my son back,” she replied, “that’s all that matters to me.”
Nwosu commenced the questioning, starting with her and Leo’s personal details. He filled the forms out by hand, with a black fountain pen, it looked to Emma like a Mont Blanc. Strange, she thought, there’s a laptop on the table and they must have a centralised computer system. Why is he writing everything down? Then it dawned on her. Leo’s abduction was not even in the system! They were keeping the case under wraps, so they could control it without any chance of interference from other officers. A disappearance would cause some questions in the station and they didn’t want to answer them. The hair prickled on the back of her neck. This is all just a pantomime, a show, but I can’t afford to make a fuss. My son is in their hands. Jenny’s right, I just have to play along.
She gave them the basic information they asked for, full names, nationality, address, dates of birth, mobile numbers for her and Leo and her email address. She’d also brought photocopies of their passports, but not the original documents. She thought they looked a little annoyed about this, but no comment was made.
Nwosu examined the passport copies. “So Leo is short for Leopold. That’s an unusual name. Any special reason for that choice?”
Emma thought quickly. “He was one of my favourite uncles. I love the name.”
“I see. And his place of birth was in London?”
Emma moved uncomfortably on her chair, “That’s right. He was born at the University College Hospital. We’ve always lived in England.”
“When did you plan to go back to the UK? I assume you’ve got return tickets.” Nwosu took a diary from his shirt pocket. “Today’s Monday the twelfth.” He looked quizzically at her.
“Our tickets are for Wednesday evening, the fourteenth. We must find Leo before that, or I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She took out her handkerchief and wiped the genuine tears from her eyes. “I checked and there aren’t any seats available anyway, everything’s booked up. This whole thing‘s a nightmare.”
“I’m sure we’ll find Leo by Wednesday. We’ve got all of the police stations on alert, the hospitals and clinics advised, and we’re planning a TV appeal for information if there’s no news by tomorrow.” At this, Nwosu’s eyebrows raised, but he said nothing. Coetzee continued, “We’re already working on several possible leads, but we need more information from you to point us in the right direction, confirm our suspicions. It’s vital you tell us everything you can about Leo and his father.”
“That’s right,” Nwosu added, “we need the details of Leo’s birth, his father’s name, nationality, date of birth, etc.”
Emma had been worrying about how to get around these questions. She had to steer around the subject without revealing anything she didn’t want to. “Let me tell you about my background,” she said. “It will make everything much clearer to you.”
Nwosu and Coetzee exchanged a look. Now they were getting somewhere.
“I joined the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1992, when I was twenty three. Well, it was actually the British Red Cross, because I was in London. Before that I worked for two years with a charity organisation in India to get some experience for the job. I started in 1990 in an orphanage in Mumbai, looking after children from one to twelve years of age and then in 1991 …… ”
Ten minutes later, she was still talking about her work in India and she knew she could continue for several more hours.
Finally, Coetzee interrupted her. “We’re getting off the subject here, Emma. When and where did you meet Leo’s father?”
Emma was working out how to get around this question when the phone rang. “Yes?” Nwosu listened for a moment then swore softly under his breath. He looked at Coetzee then said, “We’ll be there directly.”
He stood up and beckoned to Coetzee. “We’ve got a problem we need to check on, Emma. It’ll take only a few minutes, OK?”
She nodded, “I’ll get myself another coffee, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll bring you one,” he went to fetch the coffee and placed it on the table beside her. He glanced at the laptop but it was on screen saver. “We’ll be back in no time.” He left the room and closed the door.
Emma stood over the laptop and hit Enter. The ‘C’ and ‘G’ icons came up again. She opened up the ‘G’ drive. There was only one item on it, labelled Leo Stewart. She was wearing a safari jacket with several pockets. Pulling out a USB memory stick she inserted it into the slot on the machine. The icon for ‘Remote Device D’ came up and she opened it up. It was the stick she always carried with a copy of the latest draft of her book, for editing when she was travelling. It had six gigabytes of capacity, with less than a gigabyte used. She was sure it would be enough.
She put the cursor over the Leo Stewart file and dragged it into the memory stick. It took just over a minute to copy, but it seemed like an hour, glancing over her shoulder to ensure that the men didn’t return. Putting the stick back in her pocket, she closed the two windows and waited nervously until Table Mountain reappeared on the screen. She drained the coffee in one gulp feelingly quite elated. Now, I’m doing something useful, she thought. Thanks, Jenny.
As they walked along the corridor to the reception area, Nwosu whispered angrily to Coetzee, “That fucking guard, Masuku, is here to claim his bonus. I told the half-wit to come in two hours. We’ll have to get rid of him. You’ll have to do it. I’ll stay with the woman. Shit! Why can’t people just do what they’re told?”
“What do you mean, ‘get rid of him’? That’s not my line of business. I’m a facilitator, not a fucking executioner.”
“This is a police station, Coetzee. I can’t let you interview Stewart alone. What if someone comes in? Nobody even knows she’s in the building except us. One of us has to look after Masuku and it can’t be me, so it has to be you.”
Coetzee said nothing further until they found the little guard, sitting in reception. He jumped up, looking happily at them both, like a dog whose masters have just come back.
“Jacob Masuku, this is Sergeant Nwosu,” announced Coetzee. The guard put out his hand, which was ignored by Nwosu. “He has some news for you. Some very good news. I have to get back to the stadium, so I’ll leave you with him and see you later. Thanks for your help, I’ll see you.”
Nwosu looked at him with fury. “You can’t ……”, as Coetzee walked out of the station and got into his car without looking back.
Masuku hadn’t noticed the altercation, he was too busy imagining what his bonus might be. Nwosu grabbed him by the arm and walked him outside. The guard was babbling. “Boss, what you got for Jacob? You got somethin’ nice for me, eh? That kid was drugged, eh? I seen lots of kids like that before. Eyes up in their head. But I don’t say nothin’ to nobody, ‘cos I know you got somethin’ nice for me.”
The policeman was swiftly weighing up the alternatives. He needed more information from Emma, but she wasn’t going anywhere, at least not until Wednesday, if then. This guard was now becoming a dangerous nuisance and needed to be silenced. “Wait out here for me, Jacob,” he said. “Sit on that bench over there and I’ll be back in just a minute and we’ll go collect your bonus.”
Emma was sitting sobbing into her handkerchief, her head on the table, when he came back into the room. He sat beside her and took her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mrs Stewart. Everything is going to turn out alright. Things are never as bad as they seem. Just trust us and we’ll get Leo back for you.”
Nwosu could project a very tender image which women found comforting. He switched on his most charming expression. She turned to look at him. His breath was surprisingly sweet and his gaze was so intensely steady she almost believed what he said. Almost, but not quite. “Thank you, Sergeant Nwosu
. I have every confidence,” she replied.
“I can see you’re very upset again. Maybe it would be better if we wait until this afternoon to talk. Why don’t you go back to the Packard and come here at four o’clock. You can catch up on your sleep and I’m sure you’ll feel better for it.”
She mumbled her thanks and walked with Nwosu back to the reception. A taxi was just pulling up in front of the door. “I’ll get him to take you to your hotel then bring you back at four o’clock,” he said. “I’ll charge it to the station account.”
As the taxi pulled away, Emma switched off her phone’s recorder then turned to look out the back window. She saw Nwosu walk across the driveway with a small, wiry black man. She knew the man. It was the guard, Jacob Masuku. She quickly took a snap of the two men with the phone as they were getting into a white Opel Astra with red and blue markings. Her taxi turned the corner and she settled into her seat.
It was fourteen hours since Leo had been taken.
ELEVEN
Gauteng, South Africa
Jacob Masuku didn’t own a car. He had a clapped-out Triumph motor bike that he spent more time trying to fix than riding. He had seldom travelled in a modern car and never in a smart police vehicle. He was fascinated by the gadgets inside the car and giggled like a child when the radio crackled with a message. After multiple requests, Nwosu switched on the siren and the little guard leaned back, his eyes closed, imagining he was following a dangerous criminal in his souped-up getaway vehicle. This suited Sergeant Nwosu very well as he drove west from Diepkloof along the Moroka Bypass. Makusu was preoccupied with the car and his imaginings and he paid no attention to the journey.
After they’d driven for about fifteen minutes, he emerged from his reverie and looked around the outside surroundings. “Where we goin’ boss?” He asked. “Where you takin’ Jacob? Someplace nice, where I get my bonus? Where we goin’?”
The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set Page 66
