Dear Beneficiary (25 page)

‘One is English, and limps. The other is Nigerian. I don't know their names, but they are part of a gang who kidnap people for money. They have camps around here with very many hostages, although they don't usually take women.'

‘Tits and bollocks,' said Tracey, jumping up and rubbing her face. ‘Are we never going to get away from those bastards?'

‘Don't worry, I have sent them away. Someone saw you coming in here but I said you wanted a taxi to the airport. They think you are on the way there now and have sent their men in that direction. If you go the other way, you'll be fine.'

We explained briefly what had happened, and how we'd been taken hostage but had managed to escape. We also told her we wanted to get to the university so we could get in touch with the authorities.

‘Ah, now I think I remember. Your story was in the papers. I recognise you now, although you look younger in the photos,' said the woman.

Well, we were,
I thought.

‘They don't like it when people get away, it upsets their egos. They said you escaped twice, so I'm in deep admiration of you both. However, the men have all their contacts on watch for two Englishwomen.'

I asked again about using the phone to call home and was told it wasn't advised.

‘We don't want these people to trace you or your family through your calls. We must get you away from them and into the hands of professionals. You must be very careful. You mean money to them and nothing else, so they'll stop at nothing if they think they can profit.'

Tracey and I looked at each other and my heart pounded. I'd used as much strength as I could getting away the last time, so didn't want to have to do it again. Thank goodness for British stoicism. It was going to come in very handy.

Tracey's bottom lip quivered and she looked like she was going to cry. Her hormones had been quite manageable in the last day or two, and I hoped they weren't going to let us down now. She'd also been buoyed by her feats at breaking into the padlock and car, not to mention her impressive rowing technique. I thought about nicknaming her Katherine Grainger, but wasn't sure Tracey would get the connection with the Olympic athlete – it didn't seem quite her thing. I hoped her unexpected displays of competence weren't going to desert her now.

‘I'm so pissed off with this. I just wanna get married and stop all this running about,' she said. It was a sentiment I agreed with, even though I might have expressed it differently, and without the marriage bit.

‘Please stay here,' the woman said. ‘I will sort something out for you. Don't go back to the car. You stole it from one of the men's brothers, and he is very cross.'

She swayed out of our room and we could hear the stairs creak as she made her way down to the bottom. I tried to work out in my mind's eye how someone with such wide hips could get down the narrow steps without getting stuck.

Tracey's head was in her hands and she was sniffing, wiping her hand across her nose as she did so.

‘Please don't cry,' I said, placing my hand on her shoulder, although I wanted to cry too.

‘I ain't crying,' she answered. ‘I'm allergic to animal fur, so reckon there's something lurking about. I haven't been like this since me neighbour's hamster escaped and got in under my floorboards.'

On cue, a large rat made its way from behind the sink, ran across the room and dropped down into a very small space between the door frame and the door.

When the woman came back into our room to tell us she'd managed to sort out transport to get us away in safety, she found Tracey and me with our arms wrapped round each other, standing on tiptoe on the bed.

If Tracey and I wanted to find any common denominator other than the fact we'd both been kidnapped, we'd found it in that room.

We both hated rats.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Once we'd recovered our composure, we picked up our bags and made our way down to the kitchen, where the woman told us to wait. She'd shut the premises while she made a number of phone calls, and I didn't feel so bad about the amount of money she'd taken from me when I saw how many customers she turned away.

‘I've found you a driver and he is reliable and trustworthy. Maybe you'd like to go to the airport or to the British embassy?'

‘I do really need to sort everything out,' I said. ‘My family will want to know I'm safe.'

Tracey wailed that she wanted to see Baz as soon as possible, and I had to admit to being keen on tracing Darius. He'd infiltrated my being, and since thinking I'd seen him I was convinced it was only a matter of time before he found me.

But I thought the embassy was the proper place to go first. I was imagining my children all pitching in to get the ransom money together, selling everything they owned to ensure my return; or at least I hoped they would be doing something along those lines rather than resorting to Bobbie's general apathy and unfounded belief that everything would always be all right.

Apart from that, our captors should be brought to justice. We needed to report what had happened and get them all punished. I pitied Gowon and Chiddy, though. They were only following orders so they could earn a living in a world that didn't provide one very easily. As for Chike, he was clearly a sandwich short of a picnic, and in our legal system would be treated for insanity rather than given any type of sentence. John struck me as the type of person who would be able to wipe his hands clean of any criminal involvement. I thought that was probably the case for a lot of white people in Africa.

‘Can't we just go to the university and do the embassy stuff when we're there?' said Tracey. ‘If Baz's mum is there we can get her to sort everything out.'

I thought that was a fairly good compromise, and that maybe the university would be a better place to find a man who worked in technology. We'd been missing for a while, so another hour or two wasn't going to make much difference, and maybe it would be better to have someone help us find our way around the Nigerian authorities as I hadn't a clue where to start.

‘OK, let's go to the university, but if Lady Osolase won't or can't help us then we must go to the authorities as the next priority. We need to make sure people know what has happened to us.'

The woman nodded her head and picked up her phone. After a number of conversations of varying degrees of loudness she managed to get things sorted for us.

‘My brother will take you. He is a professional driver and will chauffeur you for one hundred American dollars… if that amount is OK?' she said, her eyes twinkling as if to suggest it had to be, or we'd be stuck washing dishes until we gave in.

It occurred to me that if this woman hadn't gone through my case she wouldn't know I had any American dollars. Thankfully, Chike's stash was going to play a further part in our release. A fact I found most satisfying.

Her brother was well dressed, wearing a suit, white shirt and tie. His shoes were highly polished and he spoke with a refined accent, as if he'd spent his life in the colonies with a nanny and a butler.

‘I'm very pleased to meet you, ladies,' he said when he arrived, nodding slightly with deference. ‘My name is Luter.'

I went to shake his hand but he turned away. After all our recent adventures I wasn't sure we could trust him, but I felt we had no choice. I just hoped he wasn't taking us straight back to the camp and the oh-so-familiar shack.

‘My car is waiting for you,' he said, indicating our way out of the building through the back door. ‘Please, come with me. We can't be too careful.'

‘Good luck with everything,' said the woman. ‘Watch everyone and stay safe.'

She rubbed her fingers together, suggesting I needed to make a payment. I found one hundred dollars of Chike's cash and went to pass it to our driver, but the woman grabbed it and shoved it in her jacket pocket.

‘That is fine, now go,' she said, being friendly but firm about the transaction. She could give Alan Sugar a good run for his money, that's for sure.

Tracey and I clambered into the Volvo estate. I'd gone to sit in the front seat but Luter shook his head and opened the door behind his.

‘Thank you, kind sir,' I said, hoping the friendly recognition of his helpfulness would keep us in good stead.

We explained where we wanted to go and he nodded, claiming he knew exactly where the university was and that it would only take twenty or thirty minutes to get there.

A very expensive taxi ride
, I thought.

Tracey asked him if he had a girlfriend and he said he didn't. I asked him if he lived round here and he said he did. He wasn't overly talkative. I also noticed he was changing gear with the wrong hand. I screwed my nose up and conveyed my thoughts to Tracey, not wishing to alert him to any concerns.

‘Bleedin' hell, Cynth. He's only got one arm. Look!' she whispered.

I looked over to the driving seat on the pretext of addressing a clothing issue and she was right. A plastic arm stayed inanimate on his knee while his other did the work of two. Apart from the occasional judder, it would have been difficult to tell his driving was compromised in any way.

‘Have you been driving for long?' I asked, nervous about the answer.

Luter looked straight ahead, checking the rear-view occasionally and with concentration.

‘Ten years, on and off. I took a break for a while, after the accident.'

I was about to ask him about his accident and if it had been responsible for the loss of his limb, but he became distracted, checking the mirror more frequently and driving erratically – not because of any disability, but through a deliberate effort.

He drove along the road at a speed I considered to be far too high given his missing limb, although he coped with every bend and turn well.

‘We're being followed. Don't panic, I will get rid of him,' said Luter.

We'd only been on the road for five minutes, so I couldn't understand why he thought someone was following us.

‘Are you sure it isn't just someone going the same way?' I asked, as the ride got bumpier. Tracey was trying to put on some mascara and was poking most of it in her eye.

‘He's been on my tail since we left. It doesn't smell right,' he added.

Someone's been watching too many American films
, I thought, as he looked again in his mirror before accelerating hard around a bend and then taking an off-road route across sandy, deserted terrain that led to a road running below the one we had been on. Tracey's mascara wand had left a trail of black across her cheek and into her hair. As she tried to rub it off it spread over her face, making her look like an extra in the
Black and White Minstrel Show
.

I looked behind me and saw a silver Ford Mondeo driving parallel to us on the road we'd just left. It kept with us as we travelled along, slowing down when we did and speeding up to match our pace.

‘We'll need to change cars,' Luter said, picking up his phone with the only hand he had, thereby letting go of the steering wheel temporarily. Tracey screamed and made him jump. ‘Don't worry, ladies. I will get you where you need to be in complete safety.'

He spoke to someone in a dialect I couldn't understand and then called another number, using his knees to balance the steering wheel as he did so. It didn't fill Tracey or me with confidence, although he seemed adept at dealing with his disability.

‘Bill, it's Marcia's brother. She told you the problem?'

There was a brief pause, followed by Luter's response, and then he threw the phone across into the passenger seat, taking hold of the wheel again with his hand. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The car above disappeared from view. Luter looked at the road we'd been travelling a few times before speeding up, telling us to hold tight. As we got to a junction, we could see the other vehicle coming towards us from the left. Our car was reaching a queue of traffic, which he overtook before spinning round in a U-turn to come back on ourselves, much to the annoyance of other drivers, who took to hooting, swearing and spitting.

‘Dirty bastard,' said Tracey, as she spat back at an older man who'd managed to aim his spittle directly through the gap in her window, hitting her on her forehead.

It was like a scene from
The Italian Job
as Luter took us through overgrown paths, down hills, up rocks and across fields containing a variety of livestock including disgruntled chickens and hundreds of nonchalant goats, all of which continued to slide their jaws about in the business of chewing whatever they could get into their mouths.

‘Jesus wept,' said Tracey. She'd been clinging to the strap above the back door, until a particularly bouncy bit of the ride made it come away in her hand. ‘This is some bloody joy ride.'

I thought all my bones were going to break, then Luter screeched to a halt in front of a small, makeshift office building. Checking all around before he let us out, he ushered us around the side and up some steps into a reception area with a desk.

‘Stay here. Don't move,' he said, as he tried to get into an office at the back, but it was locked. Another door opened into a small room piled with filing boxes.

‘Come in here. My friend isn't here yet, but is on his way and will give us another car.'

I asked him if he still thought we were being followed and, if so, why?

‘You've escaped from a big gang. They think you're worth a lot of money to them so will put word out to get you. Dead or alive.'

Tracey wailed.

‘Not dead! Why dead? We've done nothing wrong, and I'm getting married!'

We heard a noise. It sounded like someone running up a metal staircase. Luter got hold of Tracey's arm and guided her into the storeroom, pushing her down under a table, gesturing that I should follow them. He was about to leave us so he could investigate when we heard a man's voice.