He handed the envelope to the young man. ‘There’s no panic,’ he said, ‘but it needs to arrive today.’
‘I’ll take it at once,’ the caretaker said.
* * *
Sure enough, the plane parked a long way out on the airfield. First they had to wait for a bus to take them to the terminal, then another because the first was full, and then they spent fifteen minutes bouncing and rattling towards the airport building.
When they finally got inside Terminal 2B, Annika had tunnel-vision: she couldn’t see people or walls or the cafés, just the big departures board where their flight to Nairobi was flashing
Final Call
. Halenius set off at a sprint, his bag bouncing on his back, Annika racing after him. They flew along corridors and moving walkways, past departure halls with combinations of letters and numbers that lacked any apparent logic, and by the time they reached 2F it said
Gate Closed
for the Kenya Airways night flight to Nairobi. There was a very long queue for the security check, so they rushed past, their feet barely touching the ground. Security staff asked to check Annika’s bag and took her toothpaste. They arrived at the gate and caught a female ground crew member who unlocked the glass doors and let them board the plane, even though they were actually far too late.
‘It’s always like this,’ Halenius said as he sank into his seat, 36L. ‘It’s always like this at this fucking airport.’
Annika didn’t answer. Her knees were pressed against the seat in front. He was sitting very close to her and she thought she could smell his scent. On the screen before her a message read:
KARIBU!
Welcome onboard!
Beside it there were three lions, a male and two females, and the logo of Kenya Airways with the slogan ‘The pride of Africa’.
The image changed. Text filled the screen: UMBALI WA MWISHO WA SAFARI 4039 MAILI. A map of the world, with a plane the size of Western Europe, appeared. The plane’s projected journey was plotted in a gentle curve leading to a small square on one side of Africa. The flight would take eight hours and ten minutes.
Out of the window, she saw a man in ear-defenders and a padded jacket tugging at a pipe on the ground immediately below them.
The plane was full, the air in the cabin already thick.
The engines started and the plane taxied on to the runway. She felt the vibration of the metal transfer to her body.
His knee hit hers.
Twelve hours before she had been lying with him in her bed in Agnegatan, feeling that everything was too early or far too late.
She still didn’t know which.
She woke at irregular intervals, with a stiff neck and saliva in the corner of her mouth. Each time she looked at Halenius beside her. Sometimes he was asleep with his mouth half open; at others he was staring at the film on the little screen.
At twenty past four in the morning (Kenyan time) she set about exploring the plane’s entertainment system. She clicked until she found a film featuring a young Julia Roberts as a law student. Every fifteen seconds the picture flickered, the sound dropped out and the screen turned to static. Each time it happened she lost the plot: Julia came back as a new Julia, talking about things she didn’t understand. After ten minutes she gave up and tried a film starring an ageing Adam Sandler. Same thing. She switched it off.
Outside, space was large and black. There were no stars visible, just the flashing light at the far end of the plane’s wing. Inside the cabin the lighting was subdued; most people were asleep, a few were reading or doing sudokus in the light of the reading lamp set into the base of the overhead lockers.
She leaned down towards her bag and fished out the information she had printed out about Kenya from the Institute of International Affairs’ website. It was twenty-nine pages long, and covered everything from geography and climate to ancient history, foreign policy and tourism. Perhaps it had been written by Jimmy’s Tanya. Perhaps she’d helped analyse the content and provided expert advice about contemporary politics. She was bound to be well read and talented.
The cradle of humanity was in East Africa, Annika read. Several million years ago there were already human beings living around Lake Turkana in north-west Kenya. The 2010 census had found that the population was 39 million, an increase of a third in ten years. About half of the population lived in poverty, and that proportion was growing. Women were responsible for doing most of the work. In the year 2005, 1.3 million Kenyans were living with HIV; 140,000 died of Aids that year, and even more from malaria. At times a tenth of the population was dependent upon food aid from the United Nations.
After the presidential election in December 2007 violent disturbances had broken out in several parts of the country, including Nairobi’s slums, but also in cities like Eldoret and Kisumu; 1,100 people were killed, and up to 600,000 fled their homes. The killing was in part racially motivated. The worst afflicted were the Kikuyu, the tribe that had previously held political power.
She lowered the printout. That sounded like the start of the Rwandan genocide, with machetes slashing and maiming, but with one vital difference: this time the international community had intervened. Kofi Annan had acted as mediator, and a total bloodbath was avoided.
She shut her eyes and tried to locate Thomas. Where was he in all this? His hands and face, his blond hair and broad shoulders … He was somewhere out there but the images kept slipping away as the plane forged its way through the air currents.
She must have fallen asleep again, because when she jerked awake the pilot was saying over the speakers that they were beginning their descent into Nairobi. The screen had come to life, and the map with the enormous plane was back. Outside it was still pitch-black. According to the map, they were passing over a place called Nouakchott.
She rubbed her eyes and looked out of the window. She couldn’t see any lights, but she knew there were people down there, in the city of Nouakchott, living in a moonless darkness.
‘You missed breakfast,’ Halenius said. ‘You were fast asleep and I didn’t want to wake you.’
She wiped the corners of her eyes. ‘Quails’ eggs and chilled champagne, I suppose?’ she said, getting up and stepping over Halenius’s knees.
‘They’ve just turned on the seatbelt sign.’
‘I don’t think they’d like it if I peed all over the seat,’ she said, and headed towards the toilet.
It smelt of disinfectant and urine. She sat there until the stewardess knocked on the door and asked her to go back to her seat and fasten her belt: they were about to land.
She stumbled back as the plane jolted and shook, feeling thirsty and sick.
‘Okay?’ Halenius asked, as she scrambled over him.
She didn’t answer.
‘How are you? Are you feeling sick?’
‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ she said, so quietly that he might not have heard her over the roar of the plane.
The terminal at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport consisted of a badly lit passageway with a very low ceiling. The air was thick with sweat and stale breath. The floor was covered with grey plastic tiles that became red, then yellow. The ceiling was pushing against the back of her head, the walls against her sides. She was swept forward in a sea of people. Thomas was with her, right behind or just in front of her. Halenius was walking beside her.
She completed the yellow and blue visa forms, but was told she should have filled in the white one.
She had her fingerprints taken as she went through Customs.
Outside the building the air was surprisingly clear and cool. A vague smell of burned spices hung over the road. It had rained overnight and water hissed under the vehicles’ tyres. Dawn was growing as a pink shimmer to the east.
‘Are we going to rent a car?’
Halenius shook his head. ‘We’ve been given very definite instructions about the sort of vehicle we have to use. I think Frida’s managed to get hold of one. Wait here with the bags.’
She was left standing on the pavement outside the terminal building. There were people everywhere and she lost sight of Halenius at once. She could make out low buildings on the other side of the road. There were cafés on both sides of the terminal entrance.
‘Taxi, madam, you want taxi?’
She shook her head and stared into the darkness, trying to see the buildings on the other side. White, yellow and blue cars swept past to her left, more people, faces with white eyes—
‘Okay,’ Halenius said beside her. ‘The silver car over there.’
In the chaos she caught sight of a woman with long hair and black clothes standing next to a large silver car. Annika picked up her bag and headed towards it.
As she got closer she could see that the woman’s hair was arranged in tiny plaits that stretched a long way down her back; about half of them were purple. In spite of the gloom she was wearing a pair of gold sunglasses, and the smart designer label sparkled on the glass. She wasn’t smiling. ‘I’m Frida. Nice to meet you.’
So this was Angela Sisulu’s roommate, the wealthy Nigerian Frida Arokodare, who worked for the UN. She was tall and very thin, taller than Halenius. She was wearing a studded belt, lots of bangles and a nose-stud. Annika held out her hand and remembered in passing that she hadn’t washed them after using the toilet on the plane. She felt short, pale and dirty. ‘I appreciate your help so much,’ she said, and was horribly aware of how clumsy and Swedish she sounded.
‘Glad to contribute,’ Frida said, then got in behind the wheel. She moved efficiently, with measured gestures. Annika opened the back door. The vehicle could seat eight, a bus-like shoebox: she had to sit bolt upright, as if she’d swallowed a poker.
Halenius jumped into the passenger seat.
‘What sort of car is this?’ she asked.
‘Toyota Noah, normally sold only in Asia. Frida was lucky – she borrowed it from a colleague. I can see why the kidnappers picked it. It sticks out in a crowd and is easy to spot.’
He turned to Frida. ‘All sorted?’
‘My mechanic changed the brake-pads yesterday,’ she replied, ‘so it ought to be in perfect shape.’ She ran a hand nervously through her plaits. ‘I’ve done as you asked,’ she said, pointing towards the luggage compartment. ‘A full tank and two extra cans of petrol at the back.’ She gestured to a cool-box and two boxes on the seat behind Annika. ‘Food and water, a first-aid kit, toilet paper, two extra mobile phones and a satellite phone. I’ve had a vehicle tracking device fitted so the trip can be downloaded and studied by your police afterwards, but I haven’t had a chance to try it so I don’t know if it works. What do you want to do first?’
‘Have you withdrawn the money?’
Frida started the engine. ‘The bank opens at eight thirty,’ she said, pulling out into the traffic. ‘Have you had breakfast? My bank is on Moi Avenue, so we can wait at the Hilton until it opens.’
Halenius shifted position in his seat. Annika thought he seemed nervous.
They emerged on to a four-lane motorway, and a large sign announced that it had been built by the Chinese.
‘China’s busy buying up the whole of Africa,’ Frida said. ‘Land, forest, minerals, oil, all sorts of natural resources … So, tell me, are you still with that minister? How long are you going to slave away there?’
Halenius let out a short laugh.
‘Power corrupts,’ she said. ‘And the children are with Angie?’
‘They left on Sunday. Tanya took them. They’ve been having terrible weather in Cape Town, but it seems to have calmed down now.’
‘How is Tanya? Is she still at the Institute?’
‘Yep. But she’s applied for a new job with the UN in New York.’
Frida nodded enthusiastically. ‘Excellent! They could do with her there.’
Annika let the conversation in the important and highly educated front seat flow over her and took out the video-camera. She pointed it at the side window and experienced the city through the screen, a petrol station called Kenol, huge billboards advertising products she hadn’t known existed (
Buy Mouida pineapple cola! Mobile provider Airtel! Chandarana supermarket! Tusker beer!
), five-storey buildings under construction, surrounded by bamboo scaffolding, water trucks, a petrol station called Total, another called OiLibya, ‘Read the
Star
newspaper!’ (
Fresh! Independent! Different!
), low-slung Citi Hoppers rolling over the road, piles of earth, a smell of burned spices. The Chinese motorway had come to an end and been replaced by a narrow asphalt road, still dark from the night’s rain. No pavements, no hard shoulder, just long lines of people on foot heading somewhere or nowhere, in flip-flops, trainers, espadrilles, pumps and polished leather shoes. Women with brightly coloured hair in badly fitting outfits, with children on their backs, young men in T-shirts advertising exotic travel destinations and American liquor.
Daylight came quickly, but the sun hung back behind heavy clouds.
The amount of vegetation was immense, overwhelming.
The Hilton Hotel in Nairobi was a tall, round building in the heart of the city centre. Frida parked in the underground garage. There were security guards at the entrance, exit, and down in the car park itself.
The lobby was huge, with a crystal chandelier that looked like a spaceship, and they floated over a mirror-smooth marble floor towards its Traveller’s Restaurant. They sat in a corner and Halenius ordered a croissant and coffee for her. To her surprise, she found she was able to eat.
‘What happens now?’ Frida asked, idly fingering her coffee cup.
Halenius finished his mouthful before he replied. ‘The kidnapper is going to get in touch at nine o’clock,’ he said. ‘Presumably we’ll be given instructions about where the ransom money is to be delivered, and I’m going to have to tell him you’re driving the car. That could be a problem.’
Frida let go of the cup and leaned back in her chair. ‘Why?’
Halenius took a large sip of coffee. ‘Kidnappers always want the person delivering the ransom to be alone in the vehicle. If there are two people, they automatically assume that the second is a police officer. He knows both Annika and I are coming … It might be tricky to get him to accept you as our driver, but it has to work. We can’t do this without you.’