A Long Walk Home: One Woman's Story of Kidnap, Hostage, Loss - and Survival (18 page)

I was nonplussed. ‘Do you mean, how much are you
paid
?’

‘No,’ he replied, pointing at me quite sharply. ‘For you, how much we get?’

‘Oh, the ransom?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he nodded. ‘Gerwaine tell me 2 million.’

‘Not a chance,’ I told him. ‘If it’s that, then we’re all going to be stuck here for an awful lot longer.’

He looked a little dejected. I couldn’t help but notice, too, that he had used ‘we’ rather than ‘they’ as a pronoun for the pirates.

‘Ask the Negotiator. He’ll know,’ I volunteered, seemingly helpful. But I saw clearly that he could no more enquire along those lines than I could.

The shutter on the window in my room was grey metal, with a new bolt, but it didn’t sit snugly in the frame and so I was able to glimpse outside through the resultant chink. I could see the outskirts of a village over a shallow sand dune. One morning a man in a skirt and vest came with a bucket and spade, and skimmed the top of the sand off a dune, put it in a bucket, then disappeared. Another morning two men dug a hole so deep they
vanished from view. The next morning a truck came along and tipped huge boulders onto the ground with a great thud. Then the men manoeuvred these into the pit. I had no idea what they were doing.

To the extreme left I made out a large-leafed tree affording some shade to a patch of fenced-off desert tended by a woman using a hoe to dig furrows. She would do this with one child tied on to her and three or four others watching. Some way behind the tree was the village, with an obvious track. I saw villagers, some very smartly dressed, pregnant women and young children, even the smallest girls in
hijab
.

In the background on the left-hand side were low
corrugated-roofed
houses with thatched fences around them. In front of the houses were two thatched-roof corrals for goats. To the right was a large bright-painted building that I suspected was a school. As early as 6.30 a.m. there would be a young woman washing stacks and stacks of stainless-steel bowls and saucepans, using sand as an abrasive, while babies and children played in the sand with sticks. This building was clearly a focal point for all the goats in the area as they would congregate in front and the women would shoo them away, although they would sometimes seize a goat by its back leg and milk it before dismissing it.

The radio remained my friend. I never changed the band from the World Service, and perhaps the one boon of the Horrible House was that I could get reception around 7 p.m.

I would listen to
The Strand
media programme, note their recommendations for books and exhibitions, and write them down for future reference: things to do when I got out.
Witness
was also a fascinating show, in which people offered their first-hand
remembrance of notable events from the recent past. I was especially struck by one report of the struggles of coalminers and their wives during the strike of 1984–85: the camaraderie in adversity, as well as the bitter feelings towards scabs.

I began to listen to a slot called
Heart and Soul,
a series of interviews with people of religious faith, some of whom had experienced political struggle and huge adversity. These were amazing, inspiring stories of human determination and strength, of people in troubled places around the world fighting for basic rights, sometimes suffering in that fight. The humanity of these stories was very comforting. Listening to them I felt:
If they could get through that strife, then I can too.

I listened to the story of a Filipino, a former Catholic priest and Christian Aid worker with an English wife, who had taken up a challenge to combat violence and political corruption in a small town where he stood for election as mayor, despite death threats and an enforced separation from his family. Another man with a powerful story was a human-rights activist in Zimbabwe, who fought for recognition of a massacre of civilians by soldiers and paramilitary police, only to see his home raided, his family abused, and himself thrown into prison.

Incarceration was a common theme, and a meaningful one for me, as I sat, hungry and dispirited, listening to the tremulous reception on a filthy mattress on the floor of my insect-ridden cell. One piece of testimony hit me hard. A man who had been imprisoned unjustly was asked how he had got through his days knowing the odds were so stacked against him.

‘When you’re incarcerated,’ he said, ‘if you can be sure that there is someone still out there who is shining a light for you, standing up for you, fighting your corner – if you’re sure of that then you can get through anything.’

This, I knew, was what my son was doing for me. Ollie was my light. Calm came with that thought:
I know he’ll do it, whatever it takes, so long as I keep my side of the bargain.
That gave me inner peace. That feeling got me through another night. Then morning came; it was another day; food arrived … And I thought,
This is a day closer to going home.

It was 26 November: my brother’s birthday. The Fat Controller entered my room, carrying the plastic chair, Ali beside him. I sat on the mattress staring up at him. The Fat Controller said some gruff words to Ali, who turned to me.

‘Big Man say you get phone call today from Ollie.’

My heart leapt. I had waited so long.

‘You must tell Ollie, he must come up with money, or you be taken to the forest.’

‘I don’t understand. What is the forest?’

The Fat Controller looked yet more irate and frustrated even as Ali translated. They stepped outside, and I heard raised voices. The Fat Controller was screaming.

Ali re-entered the room and sat down on the bed next to me – which was unusual, and I found I didn’t care hugely for the proximity. But he seemed to want to impart something very important to me.

‘You must tell Ollie to get money. Or you go in forest. Big Man take you there this afternoon. And I don’t want you to go to forest.’

‘You have to tell me what that means.’

‘In forest, you have to drink water from the rain, in puddles? You eat beans, not good for you. In forest, you can’t walk, you won’t have things, you have nothing.’ Ali said this in tones of
solemn distress. He appeared genuinely bothered. ‘I don’t like this, I don’t like this, I don’t want you to go forest …’

Mulling this over hastily, I found it hard to believe things could get so very much worse for me. But I had to consider the possibility. At the same time the idea of another move, to a place exposed to the elements, struck me as poor judgement on the pirates’ part.

‘If I’m going to a forest I’ll need different clothes, won’t I? And won’t it be harder for you to guard me?’

I wanted to sow the seed of what a logistical problem this forest might pose for them. But Ali didn’t seem too interested in my arguing back. Later that afternoon he returned and showed me a video on his phone. ‘See? This forest …’

What I saw was indeed a wooded area, and the face of a balding man, very round and clean-shaven, in a white T-shirt. He couldn’t have been long into captivity. He sounded Italian, and very scared. ‘Please help me, please …’ he moaned.

Whoever was operating the camera panned right, where higher up on a rock stood a man with an Arab headdress around his lower face, showing nothing but his eyes, pointing a rifle at this poor man. That angle allowed a better view of the surrounding trees and foliage: I thought I glimpsed the mouth of a cave behind this gunman. The camera panned further right, allowing sight of a second hostage, a man with a full head of dark hair and thick beard. His face as he looked into the lens was a picture of terror.

Ali looked at me. ‘These men are in forest. In forest there will be just two pirates, they guard you.’

I questioned Ali on this and established which two pirates these would be: Chair Man and Mouse. This felt to me like an additional and considered cruelty on the part of the Fat
Controller: he had chosen two men I didn’t much like and had not the slightest ‘connection’ with.

It was frightening to consider the prospect of ‘the forest’. I tried to use logic to come up with some positives. How long could they really keep me there? At least there were trees. If I ended up in a cave, it would be dark, but also cool. Perhaps I could go for a walk. Such were my mental habits in the face of a threat, but it seemed real, and I was scared.

Finally Ali came in with the phone. ‘Big Man outside. After you speak to Ollie, if money not ready, you go to forest …’

And so I took my call from Ollie sitting on a stinking and stained mattress on the floor, watching a red caterpillar wriggle slowly out of the wall.

I told Ollie I was going into the forest, and that I was frightened. Even as the words came out of my mouth I felt disloyal, somehow, and annoyed with myself. The last thing I wanted to do was pile emotional pressure on him. I didn’t lay it on as thick as they were demanding. But Ollie sounded calm and reassuring.

‘Mum, listen, you are a valuable commodity to them. They are going to look after you, you can be sure of that.’

It was the best thing I could have heard in the circumstances: I knew he was right.

‘It’s hard for me to understand, Ollie, how much money they actually want, I try to talk to them about it …’

‘Mum, do not talk to them about money. You must not enter into negotiations. I’m doing that, and it’s going well, we’re moving forward.’

Still I found it hard to control my emotions, after the hardness of the weeks in this squalid place. I found myself pleading with Ollie, knowing how difficult it would be for him to hear.

‘Ollie, please, can you give me a date when you think the money will come through? I have to get out of here …’

‘Mum, I can’t give you a date – I want to, but I can’t. It’s just not going to be as easy as I hoped it was going to be.’

I knew he was telling me a tough truth, and that it could be no easy thing for him. But I understood.

‘You must trust me. I am doing everything I can, everything, to get you out. Everyone sends their love. We all want you home as soon as possible and we’ll do it …’

I was fully aware of what a low ebb I had reached. I told myself I wouldn’t let it show again. Next time I would be controlled. I owed it to Ollie. He was in a situation where a son or a daughter or a spouse could easily have cracked under pressure. But he was being hugely mature, and in that way he brought me back on track. He asked me about my routine, I told him about my Pilates, my books and my lists, and of course, my walks.

‘Keep walking, Mum. It’s only a matter of time …’

After the call I saw the Leader wandering around outside. Ali was there, Gerwaine, the Fat Controller: it was another of their conferences. Ali came in with Gerwaine, looking troubled.

‘Big Man not happy. You have everything taken away. No radio, no books, no pen, no walk, no bed, no mosquito net, all go. And you drink water from the well. No bottled water, and food, once a day.’

So the threat had been recast: no forest, but new deprivation. I thought:
My god, I am fed up with this.

I said to them, ‘Keep your bloody radio, keep the books, the pen, you can have the lot. But I have to have bottled water. I want you to tell Big Man that if I don’t get bottled water I am going to get sick and you’ll have to take me to hospital. Is that what he wants?’

They met my outburst with silence and then left the room, pulling the door closed behind them so that I was enveloped in gloom. I sat down on the bed. I was shaking, sweating profusely, my heart beating hard, adrenalin coursing through me, turning already to anxiety and fear. They had driven me to distraction. But had I gone too far in pushing back?
You stupid woman
, I cursed myself,
why did you say all of that? You’ve cut your nose off to spite your face. You do need your radio. How will you manage without that?

I was on my feet again when Vain Man appeared at the door, a discernible smirk on his face; and he seemed to puff himself up to his fullest and broadest so as to fill the space. He pointed out at the well in the yard from which the pirates drew their water. ‘Good, good!’ he laughed, not kindly. Then he flexed his right biceps and squeezed it.

‘Somali women big, strong!’ he cried. He jabbed a finger at my bony shoulder. ‘You, pah! Small …’

His pokes at me were sharp and profoundly annoying but I stood my ground, steadfastly as I could. ‘I’m not drinking that,’ I insisted, quietly.

Time crawled between these angry confabs. I was left to stew, though I was aware of the Fat Controller outside, evidently seething and fuming and stomping about. Finally Ali came back in the room flanked by Gerwaine and Jamal.

‘OK. Nothing change. You keep books, you keep radio, you can walk.’

I was relieved, and yet also wearied. What had the charade been for? Ali, in fact, wasn’t quite finished.

‘Also we go tonight.’

‘Go where?’

‘Back to Big House.’

I could barely believe it. So the outcome of all the threats was a small but important improvement. I packed up my things and waited. Later that evening, after I’d eaten, Ali came back. He said, ‘Big Man not happy because pirates wouldn’t take your radio, your things. They like you, so you keep.’

Whether this was true or not – whether the pirates had developed a sudden sense of gallantry, or I was being treated to a not terribly sophisticated good cop/bad cop routine – I was certainly happy with the result.

When the pirates came for me that night I was ready, and took my part in the hushed, busy activity of packing up my room. I filled my binbag and threaded my way out of the compound past sleeping pirates. This time I didn’t recognise my driver, a young man. But I was unreservedly glad to see the gate close on the Horrible House.

As we neared the Big House I was struck anew by the height of the compound walls. It was an imposing building for sure, but preferable to where I’d come from, without question. I was brought back into the compound not through the metal gates at the front but through double doors that gave out onto the side street. Then I was ushered through what I realised was Room 4 of the terrace. There was nothing in it except a huge flat-screen TV, evidently rigged up to the generator outside, and a mattress propped against the wall. All this time I had imagined it was a crackling nerve centre of pirate operations. In fact, it was more likely a place for them to lounge around and watch football on telly.