Robyn Hofmeyr Jeremy’s friend and neighbour
Sunday, a typical highveld winter evening. Temperature inversion, the smell of thousands of coal-smoke fires. It’s early evening, not a great time if you’re the parents of young children.
My youngest kid is fractious, he wants his bottle and clings to my trouser leg while my older kid whines for popcorn and a story. I’m trying to make sandwiches for school the next day. In 10 minutes our child-minder arrives and we have to leave for a dinner arrangement. Mild end-of-day stress but I’m coping.
Mark is the first to hear the telltale scream. He presses the panic button, I grab the baby and shove him in his cot. Our dog is barking as we peer through our front gate. The neighbours across the road are gesticulating. Someone’s been hijacked and they’ve driven off with him in the boot of his car.
Mark manages to ascertain that it’s our colleague, Jeremy, although the description doesn’t quite match – blond hair and an old beaten up grey Toyota. We hear he was locking his gate and three men jumped out of a blue Caravelle, shoved a gun in his face, threw him in the boot of his car and drove off with him. What now?
n 7pm: I run and dial 10111. With hysteria in my voice I manage to convey some of the facts. Please come now, I utter helplessly. As an afterthought I dial the Yeoville police. The information is repeated, they promise to send a car immediately. I feel dizzy with helplessness. My sonshouts: “What’s wrong with your voice mama? Why are you talking like that?”
n 7.01pm: Brakes squealing outside. Our armed response company has arrived. They hear the story and screech off, driving around the block. That’s as far as they can look. No sign of the flying squad or the police.
n 7.05pm: We phone all Jeremy’s friends who we think might be able to help. Keith, who works for the council as their press liaison officer, Lisa and Dugen. We also try to track down Marcus, Jeremy’s housemate. We need the registration number of Jeremy’s car. No sign of any police presence.
n 7.15pm: Keith arrives, armed with cellphone. Operation Find Jeremy is under way. Keith is bellowing at a policeman who has asked for the spelling of Jeremy’s name. Lisa arrives armed with cellphone. Keith is screaming at another man from the flying squad who is insisting that he speak to Jeremy personally. “But he’s in the boot of his car,” bellows Keith. Lisa is convinced the incident is a conspiracy. “Someone has it in for Jeremy. Why would they want to steal his car?” I’m on the phone trying to track down Marcus for Jeremy’s registration number. My phone detective work has gone as far as Cape Town. I’m breathlessly explaining the story to a brother of a colleague of Jeremy’s. And so it goes – a macabre comedy in which much whisky is consumed and many cigarettes smoked and the phone and doorbell never stop ringing. Half-an-hour later the flying squad arrives, then drives off to Hillbrow to look for the car. They don’t have the registration number.
n 7.30pm: An insistent doorbell. It’s Marcus, so shocked that he can’t remember Jeremy’s registration number. We storm across the road to the house and tear through Jeremy’s possessions. Here it is. We tear back to the Operation Find Jeremy control room (our kitchen). All cellphones are blazing. Keith is phoning all the radio stations. Dugen has contacted the MEC for safety and security and some other contact has even spoken to Tokyo Sexwale. Mark feels so helpless, he drives off into the night to look for Jeremy. Marcus is instructed to wait by the phone in case Jeremy rings. Keith and his daughter drive off to Hillbrow to look.
n 9pm: Lisa and I are in charge of the control room. A nice policewoman from Norwood police station arrives to take statements. Half-an-hour later the macho heavies arrive – an inspector and a sergeant from the hijacking unit, a captain from Yeoville. We even get a call from a superintendent from provincial head office. Same story, same sense of hopelessness and despair. An hour-and-a-half have elapsed and no sign of Jeremy. The heavies offer these words of comfort: “Ja, 90% of the time if they put you in the boot they will dump you somewhere.”
n 10pm: Our street is filled with cars, Jeremy’s friends arriving. Some heard the story on the radio. They pile into his house.
n 10.30pm: There is whooping in the street, Jeremy is safe, the neighbours are dancing for joy, beers are taken out. Lisa and I phone Mark and Keith. He was found in Pimville and is being taken to Yeoville. The heavies leave. “We’ll need a statement from him.”
n 11pm: We all stay up to welcome Jeremy back. Lisa sums it up: “I must just see Jeremy before I can sleep.” Needless to say none of us sleep a wink that night, so many questions spinning round in our heads. What would have happened if it had been me? What do we do to protect ourselves? Should we semi-grate or immigrate? Did Operation Find Jeremy have any impact? It seems that Jeremy saved himself.