A Long Walk Home: One Woman's Story of Kidnap, Hostage, Loss - and Survival (27 page)

The car stopped in front of an impressive building hemmed by white walls. Gates opened inwards to admit us. I noticed guards stepping aside as we drove in. The truck of soldiers was already parked up, as was the car belonging to Linen-Suited Man, who beckoned me out of the car.

‘This way,’ he said. I followed him into the building, which was smartly appointed, clean, and impressively cool, and he showed me into what appeared to be a boardroom, dominated by a big long oval wooden table. I was joined by the three young men who had brought me, and a newcomer, a bespectacled fellow.

‘Hello, you must be really tired, please sit down,’ he said in beautiful English. I noticed, though, that he was holding an audio recorder and a microphone.

‘You’re a journalist, I assume?’

‘Yes, I am with the BBC World Service.’

I readily took that for bona fides. ‘Oh, the World Service really kept me going while I was there.’

I asked him if he had a press card and he indicated that he hadn’t got round to that. And then he expressed some
condolences
for David’s death and asked me for my feelings. I was thrown, to say the least. But I talked to him. I broke Ollie’s rule. As I began to speak of David I felt the emotions well, and knew there was no way to convey them adequately. Freedom felt close now, and yet undeniably David wasn’t there … For two weeks back in September I had fantasised about the fullest possible reunion. But I knew Ollie was waiting. When I spoke of Ollie’s loss and what he must have suffered, I felt pride rise in me at what he had achieved, and my anticipation of seeing him. And I felt that was sufficient. There were, to my mind, a few too many people in the room.

‘Do you think I could go somewhere to maybe freshen up?’

Ahmed led me down a long corridor and showed me into a room with two made-up single beds, and an en suite with a toilet and a shower, but, I discovered, no running water. I saw that someone, unbeknownst to me, had conveyed my box to this room. I was left for a little while, marvelling to be in a bright, clean room that smelled of detergent and polish. But I’d hardly collected my thoughts before my three car companions rejoined me. I asked for some water, hoping to wash, but they brought me a small bottle to drink.

Ahmed said, ‘The women of Adado are very sorry for what happened to your husband.’

‘How did the women of Adado know him?’

‘This is a small town, news gets around. You must be hungry. Can we get you something to eat?’

‘Pancakes?’ I said.

It was the first thing I thought of. To my surprise my order was taken. Then the bespectacled young man who had presented
himself as a correspondent for the World Service entered the room, holding a mobile phone.

‘I have a call for you,’ he said. ‘It’s your son.’

I was taken aback, but I took the phone gratefully. The voice at the end of the line was Ollie’s.

‘Hi, Mum. Is there a Mr Ahmed there with you?’

‘Yes, there is.’

‘Good. OK, soon you’re going to be taken to an airstrip, you’ll get on a plane to Nairobi, people will meet you there and they’ll bring you to me. We’ll see each other very soon, Mum.’

I said nothing, just listened to his voice intently, detecting a definite excitement there.

‘Do you understand what I said, Mum?’

‘Yeah, OK, honeybun …’ No sooner had that term of
endearment
from Ollie’s childhood escaped my lips than it sounded quite absurd to me. ‘Oh! I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right, Mum …’

We exchanged goodbyes, and then he was gone. After I returned the phone to the bespectacled man I was left alone for a while, in which time I relished the Western-style amenities of the bathroom. Then my pancakes were brought to me, and the room filled up with people once again. I ate keenly, though soon I was less thrilled to realise that I was being videoed in the act.

‘Is this really necessary?’ I asked, and Ahmed ushered
everybody
out. Alone again, my breakfast eaten, I took my ‘
going-away
outfit’ from my box and changed. Then I lay down on a single bed and rested. The Negotiator’s ‘Ten thirty’ was on my mind. I’d lost track of time again without Ali’s watch, but that appointed hour had been seared into my memory.

Linen-Suited Man appeared in the doorway and beckoned me again with a finger.
Strange
, I thought,
since he can speak
English
. A woman appeared and asked if I wanted to take my box with me; but I had decided already that this was where the box and I parted ways.

I followed Linen-Suited Man out to the driveway, passing three women who waved at me amiably. We got into his car with another man, and we rolled out through the gates and onto the road, again behind the truck of soldiers.

‘Are we going to the airport?’

‘Airport, yes.’

Still I had butterflies in my stomach. And then as we were going down the road I could see to my left a windsock, a small white light aircraft, a dusty landing strip … The truck of soldiers veered and with all my heart I urged,
Please turn left
… We parked, Linen-Suited Man got out, as did I – and then I just stood there, feeling the breeze, conscious of a small throng of people to my right snapping photos. I tried to shield my face.

The door of the plane opened and a set of steps came down. Out came a big guy in a bush hat.
Crocodile Dundee
, I thought.
It’s got to be ‘Jack’
. Almost by instinct my feet started moving me towards him. He was certainly making a beeline for me. At the last he detoured and made a hasty handshake with Linen-Suited Man, who was right at my back. Then he turned to me and took my arm, firmly.

‘I’m Jack. C’mon, we’re going home.’

He started to pull me along with him swiftly. The urgency put me in mind of the night I was snatched from the
banda
on Kiwayu – a curious full circle. And then I was inside the plane, the door was wrenched shut, Jack called out, ‘Go, go, go …!’

And I felt myself very suddenly inside a cocoon – safe, shielded, among faces smiling at me. The plane shuddered
down the strip at speed and lifted off into the air. I felt utterly drained – and at the same time, stunningly light, relieved of an onerous weight. I saw a digital clock reading 12.03 p.m. I was free.

My cabin stewards – my saviours – on this unscheduled service were Jack and two colleagues, one who looked to be Somali but spoke with an American accent.

‘I come from Somalia, and I’m so sorry for what happened to you. We’re not all like they are.’

‘Of course you’re not’, I said.

The other, who introduced himself as James, brought me a cup of tea, and I smiled to recognise its distinctive fragrance.

‘I believe you like green tea?’ Jack asked.

‘How did you know?’

‘Your wonderful son told me. Speaking of which …’

He passed me a letter, folded, and I opened it to see Ollie’s unmistakable handwriting: ‘Dear Mum, if you are reading this I know you are safe …’

And safe was how I felt – safe and comforted, understood, and free at last from threat. It was as if I had entered a womb,
liberated
from the world of menace into which I’d been plunged.

I was quiet awhile. Jack spoke up. ‘I’ve rescued a lot of people, and I know, sometimes they feel like talking, sometimes not. It’s entirely up to you, you can tell me anything.’

I began to talk, and found I couldn’t stop.

I told Jack about how I had concealed my wedding rings from the pirates, how I had smuggled out my descriptions and diagrams.

It was a way of reasserting myself.

Suddenly the pilot shouted from the cockpit.

‘We’ve done it, Jack!’

Jack leaned forward to me and said, ‘We have now left Somalia airspace.’

I felt unalloyed euphoria. I think I cried, ‘Yay!’

For his part Jack told me they had all felt some nerves while sitting waiting on the airstrip behind a locked door for 45 minutes: it seemed that there had been a need for some eleventh-hour discussion with the Mayor of Adado – Linen-Suited Man – before I could board the plane and get away. That was the
meaning
of the handshake I observed between him and Jack.

Jack told me they were carrying a change of clothes for me, which came as another tremendous blessing. Having made the escape from Somalia I was desperate to strip off my prison uniform, the forced and denuded hostage identity. I was given a bag and I went to change. Inside the bag were cargo pants and a top. I drowned in them, had to hold the trousers up by the band – not because the sizes were so wrong but rather because of my emaciated state. But these clothes were an important step back to normality. Most precious of all to me was the act of taking my wedding rings out of hiding in the packet of tissues and reinstating them on my fingers – a moment charged with
significance
for me, a vital gesture in the direction of reasserting my selfhood.

The flight to Nairobi seemed short, perhaps because relief and exhilaration were coursing through me. Jack had time to explain exactly what would happen ‘on the ground’: we would be landing ‘military side’, where officials would meet me and take me to Ollie. My need to see him was all-consuming. I couldn’t begin to imagine anything beyond that – other than seizing the first opportunity to take a long soak in a hot bath.

We touched down at Nairobi. Jack opened the door and said, ‘This is where you and I part. I go back to rescuing people. You go live your life.’ He helped me down the steps, and with a smile and a squeeze of my arm he disappeared back into the plane.

I was met by a two smart, smiling people: a woman
introducing
herself as Kelly from the UK High Commission; and Matt, the Foreign Office’s man in Nairobi with responsibility for Somalia (who reminded me strongly of a psychiatrist I used to work with). ‘We’re going to take you to Ollie,’ said Matt. ‘He’s waiting for you at the residency.’

I was shown to a big blacked-out saloon car, and I got in the back with Kelly, Matt opposite me. I began to shiver, and wondered about nerves or shock, until I appreciated that the
air-conditioning
was on full and the car as chilly as a fridge. Matt took his jacket off and draped it round my shoulders. We
chitchatted
for the short duration of the drive, Kelly reading my mind when she told me that there was a care package of ‘nice girly toiletries’ awaiting me at the residency. I shared a few tales from captivity. It was all a shade unreal. I hadn’t had a real
conversation
for six months. Now I was drawn just to stare out of the window, watching people going about their daily business, walking the streets, some with goats, women with baskets on their heads. I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t another dream.

I turned to Kelly and had to blurt out exactly what was on my mind: ‘Are you real?’

She smiled warmly. ‘Yes, I’m real. All of this is real.’

I was reassured, and glad she understood. I was only beginning to ‘warm up’, to feel human again, to believe I was among people concerned for my well-being, who intended to look after me.

The car turned and drove up a wide street of rather grand residences, replete with CCTV cameras. ‘This is posh,’ I said,
still giving my thoughts free expression. Cameramen were milling about in front of double metal gates, but Kelly said, ‘Don’t worry, they can’t see you.’ Security men opened doors, and we drove up to a beautiful colonial building – and for an instant I felt as if I had returned to Zambia – hibiscus and frangipani, thick-leafed grass on the lawns, that air of well-tended opulence.

I was looking for Ollie, but he wasn’t among the welcoming party, which comprised the ambassador, the affable Jim Collins and Catherine Bray from the Foreign Office, and Rob Jeffrey of the Metropolitan Police. Then I was brought inside this palatial house, all light and fragrance, beautiful fresh flowers arranged on polished walnut tables, staff in stiff-starched white jackets. I was so glad of these surroundings. But really there was only one thing I wanted done on my behalf.

And then Jim Collins beamed at me, gesturing at the grand central stairway, lush-carpeted, to the upper floor. ‘I’ve got
someone
waiting for you upstairs.’

For six months I had been walking home, telling myself it was only a matter of time. In my heart this now felt like the final leg of the odyssey. The staircase seemed to stretch out for ever. I had to take one step at a time, because I was so weak, and yet I wanted to leap up them in twos and threes. With Jim at my side I made it to the top and he led me to a doorway into a bedroom.

‘This is where you’ll be staying. Just take your time now. We’ll be downstairs whenever you’re ready.’

I stepped inside. My son was standing, arms folded, leaning against a wardrobe. Our eyes met. And tears welled in my eyes.

He came towards me: without rushing, he opened his arms and we embraced, for a long time.

He kept touching my head. ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’

‘I didn’t mean to cry,’ I said, wiping my wet cheeks. ‘I meant to be strong.’

But Ollie was being strong for both of us. He held me very tightly, and I knew it was going to be OK. We stood there for as long as I could stand, but finally I needed to sit. He led me into an adjacent sitting room, pulled two chairs together so we could sit facing one another, then we sat and he held my hand. For a while neither of us spoke. There was so much I wanted to ask him. But the emotions between us, the commingled joy, relief and sadness I knew were eloquent on each other’s faces. Words could wait.

Finally I said what I wanted to tell him. ‘You did it. I don’t know how you managed, but I knew you would, always. And I’m so proud of you. Thank god I’m here, because of you.’

‘No,’ he said softly.
‘You
did it.’

His modesty made me smile. ‘Well, then, we both did it. You did your bit and I did mine.’

He shook his head gently. ‘I don’t know how you got through it. It’s me who’s proud of you – you were amazing.’

‘Ollie, as far as I’m concerned, all I had to do was just get through each day. That’s all I concentrated on. But you gave me the strength – your phone calls, they inspired me, so I knew it would happen. But even then … you still had all the hard work to do.’

‘It wasn’t just me, Mum. I had a whole army of amazing people helping me. I couldn’t have done it without them.’

There was a gentle knock on the adjoining door and a maid entered. She came up to me and laid her hand on my head. ‘He’s at peace now,’ she said. ‘God will look after him.’

For all that neither David nor I ever set any store by religion, the fact that she wished to tell me this felt like a sincere and
compassionate gesture. I looked in her eyes and I saw genuine warmth and sympathy there, nothing pious, only one woman reaching out to console another. And I was moved.

She then asked me if I would like anything to eat. I was taken aback by this act of kindness and courtesy, virtues of which I had seen scant sign for more than six months. I couldn’t think what to reply but Ollie suggested fruit – something else I’d hardly seen for the term of my captivity. The maid slipped out quietly, and returned shortly after with an amazing and colourful array of fruit plus tea and cakes.

Left alone again Ollie and I poured our tea. And then even Ollie’s stunning composure gave way, and his tears flowed. He sobbed, in a way I hadn’t seen since he was a child. His emotions had the effect of drying my own eyes – because I knew it was now my turn to be here for him. I went over and knelt down by him.

‘I haven’t cried until now,’ he said. ‘I didn’t cry for Dad, didn’t cry for you – just because getting you out of there was my only focus.’

‘Ollie, it’s good, it’s natural, look what you’ve been through.’

‘Saz has been there for me, she’s helped.’

We were lost in our thoughts awhile.

‘What do we do now?’ he said.

‘Actually the thing you’ve got to do’, I murmured, ‘is give me a hand, because I don’t think I can get up …’

He laughed, and I laughed too. It was good to share laughter, however ruefully it came, because there had been no laughter for six months, and everything we could share now was precious. On both of our minds, though, was the sorrow that David wasn’t sharing it with us.

Ollie wanted to give me some private time to clean myself up and so he headed to his own room only a couple of doors down. I went in the bathroom, and for some time I simply stood there, in the quiet and the light, surrounded by comfort and
immaculate
hygiene, as if I were a trespasser in some extraordinary realm of luxury. I ran an admiring hand round the marble-topped sink before I thought to turn on the tap. I stroked a thick white towel on a rail.

My hair, uncovered, was wild, a mess, like the sweaty entangled head of a child, just one massive knot of sparse hair. But then I spotted a wealth of pricey toiletries in a huge bag. Kelly was as good as her word. Soon I was uncapping and sniffing and
spraying
the air with fragrance.

I undressed, stepped into the shower stall, turned the knob – and immediately it was as if needles were being dropped from a height onto my bare skin. I managed to stand my ground long enough to lather and rinse my hair, but the pain brought tears to my eyes. I got out and reached for a towel to dry myself, only to find it so heavy that, absurdly, I couldn’t hold it long enough to dry myself properly.

The bathroom had a full-length mirror. And in the glass I saw a person I didn’t recognise. I had to look really hard, because everything in my head was saying, ‘Who is that?’

She looked emaciated, beyond question. There was no flesh on her arms. You could count her ribs. Her hip bones protruded, her kneecaps seemed huge. I thought:
If that’s me, then if I move my arm the reflection will move the same way
… I did so, and this woman moved her arm in concert. It was me, with my feet planted on a cool marble floor, staring at this weeping emaciated figure. It was another moment where I was grateful David wasn’t there to see me. This frightening reflection would have upset him
so much, this tiny, birdlike creature, fragile enough to break. The evidence that I had been starved for six months could not have been more stark.

And even as I recovered from the unnerving failure to
recognise
myself, I had to tell myself, in all honesty, that I really wasn’t sure who the woman in the mirror was. Who she
used
to be, yes, I was highly familiar with that. But not this apparition before me. Too much had happened, and it was still much too soon to process the changes.

I felt like half the person I had been. Physically, I had shrunk. It was clear to me I had lost as much as 50 pounds in weight. (Later I would discover that I weighed a mere five stone.) But mentally, too, I felt I had used up a lot of capacity in captivity, never switched off, never sleeping properly. That too had taken a toll.

I was accustomed to that traveller’s feeling of wonder:
Just think where you woke up this morning, and where you are now.
But I’d never known a more shocking disparity than this: from a dark, dirty hole of a cell to this place of privilege and luxury. And though my physical circumstances had changed, the effects of my ordeal were inscribed all over my body. My mind was going to need some careful shepherding even to begin to come to terms with the aftermath.

The air of unreality persisted, and carried on through dinner that evening. The ambassador’s table was huge, circular, beautifully laid with the best silver and crystal glasses. The menu was
presented
on a crest-embossed card, describing a gourmet
interpretation
of fish and chips. Ollie and I sat with the ambassador and his wife, Jim and Catherine, Matt and Kelly. The company was
altogether pleasant, but it couldn’t be intimate or cosy. There was an air of formality, and small talk, almost inevitably, strained to be about everything except what had happened to bring us all here.

My hosts could not have been kinder: it was hospitality of a rare order that I wouldn’t and couldn’t refuse. None the less, I knew in my heart that my ideal way to spend the evening would have been with my son. For six months I had been under the pirates’ orders. They had decreed what I could do, what (little) I could eat, and at what hour. Now I was free and in luxury, but it was a diplomatic version of a decompression chamber, where I was still allotted times – to see my son, to sit for dinner – and my presence was required.