Deep Black

53

‘Sir?’

Crumply Shirt was back with the bowls of chips and bread rolls.

I showed Jerry the finer points of making a buttie with undercooked chips and butter so hot it had turned to oil. There was still no sign of Rob.

The place was filling up. One white guy stood out. He was sitting with another white guy and a couple of locals, all drinking tea from little glasses. His crewcut was just cropping out to show the grey on the sides. His face was peppered with small scars, as if he’d been blasted with fine shrapnel. Stubble only grew where the skin wasn’t marked. But what made him difficult to ignore was that he was missing the little and ring fingers of his right hand.

Jerry had spotted him too. He leaned forward, grabbing some more bread out of the bowl. ‘Bosnian Muslim? What you reckon?’

‘Dunno, can’t hear him properly.’

Jerry got up, still chewing a chip.

He skirted the two women, and went on past Three Fingers’ table. A couple of paces further on he stopped, turned back, smiled and started talking to the four men.

He certainly looked old enough to have been captured by Mladic’s mates. Cutting those two fingers off a prisoner really gave them a buzz because it left the hand in a Serb salute, sort of a Boy Scout thing.

The conversation lasted less than a minute. It didn’t look promising. Jerry moved on to Reception, maybe going for a piss. It had to look like he was passing for a purpose.

The guys finished their tea and left before Jerry came back and helped himself to the two remaining chips.

‘What you say?’

He sprinkled salt over the last one. ‘He didn’t speak English, but the other guy did a little. I just said I heard him talk, and wondered if he knew my old friend Hasan who I’d heard was in town. “I know it’s a long shot but I’d really like to catch up with him.” That kind of thing. But jack shit, man.’

I dipped a finger into a puddle of salt and chip grease on the table. ‘What you reckon? Girl power? We got Muslims at this place, Serbs at the Palestine. We could have a war inside a war soon over who runs the knocking shops.’

Four cans of Coke and another round of chips later, the sun was a lot higher and hotter, and we were about to be in the firing line. I stood up and raised the parasol. Most people had drifted away from the swimming-pool and gone indoors.

‘Midday.’ Jerry was looking at his watch.

‘Well, I guess I’m still an Englishman.’ I sat back down and moved my chair a little to get right under the canvas with Jerry. ‘So I guess that makes you the mad dog.’

I saw movement up by the doors. Rob stepped out on to the terrace, AK in hand. He squinted as he looked around for us.

‘Heads up, mate, here we go.’

I didn’t want him to come over to us. We’d be within earshot of the Australian, who was now standing in the shade of a big sheet of cardboard rigged up in the corner where the external wall met the building.

We got to him as he was coming down the steps. We shook hands. ‘I need a favour.’

‘Haven’t got that much time, mate. I’m off again soon.’ He paused. ‘But what’s all this about me having a big nose?’

He was wearing exactly the same clothes as yesterday, only now his shirt-tails were hanging out. They were probably covering a pistol in his jeans. His back and armpits were soaked. Sweat covered his face and chest.

Jerry shook his hand. ‘I saw you at the party last night.’

‘Yeah.’ Rob turned back to me. He didn’t know Jerry, so why talk to him? It’s just how it is.

‘Tell you what, let’s go up.’

‘Which floor?’

‘First.’

Of course. I bet the crumpled shirts came to him without being asked as well.

A news crew, laden with cameras, cables and body armour, was waiting by the lifts, so Rob turned right for the stairs. ‘I heard the Palestine got hit this morning.’

‘Yeah, RPGs. Danny Connor’s dead.’

‘That’s a shame.’ His tone was matter-of-fact. ‘At least his boy’s a bit older.’

‘Yeah. Nineteen, at university.’

‘I hope he sorted his pension.’

‘Connor? As if.’

And that was it, subject closed. There never was too much said about these things.

We got to the first floor and turned down a narrow corridor. The walls were covered with the same lumpy concrete finish as the Palestine, and painted white.

‘What are the Aussies doing here?’

‘Their consulate’s just behind the hotel. They’re here to make sure no one uses the terrace as a mortar baseplate. It’s good for us because there’s always a presence.’

We’d got to his door, and I followed Jerry into what was more like a small apartment than a hotel room. It didn’t have air-conditioning, but it had everything else. A seating area with two foam settees with flowery-patterned nylon covers. A coffee table. The obligatory plastic-veneer TV, some kitchen units, a sink, a little Belling cooker and a kettle.

We dumped our kit and headed over to the settees. Jerry and I shared one, sitting with our backs to the wall of what I guessed was the bedroom. I could see a bathroom through the other open door.

Rob came and dropped his keys and AK on the worktop, then pulled the pistol from his jeans and placed it alongside them. ‘Brew?’

We both asked for coffee and watched as he filled the kettle with bottled water. There was a little balcony, no more than a metre wide, the other side of french windows. Only one floor up, there wouldn’t be much to look at anyway.

Rob messed with mugs and spoons and stuff, waiting for me to get explaining.

‘Listen, mate, we need your help. We got ourselves lifted by the military this morning. They wanted to know why we’ve been asking about the Bosnians. They’re flapping in case it turns out to be a bad story for them.’

Rob leaned against the kitchen unit, watching us silently as he unscrewed a small jar of Nescafé.

‘They want us out of town – like, yesterday. I said we’d go north to Turkey. But we want to stay. Cards on the table, mate. We need a place to hide, maybe five days max, while we try to find this guy. It’s putting you at risk, but we can’t check in anywhere, and it’s not as if we can doss on a bench. Even if I put on a bit of boot polish I’m not going to last long out there, am I?’

Rob over-concentrated on spooning Nescafé into multi-patterned mugs. ‘Why are they pissed off? You mention Nuhanovic?’

‘Nah, Jerry reckons they think we’re trying to dig some dirt on reconstruction contracts.’

The kettle clicked and he poured boiling water into the mugs. ‘I’m just going to ditch this.’ He started unbuttoning his sweaty shirt as he headed for the bedroom.

Jerry wasn’t happy with my intro. ‘Why are you telling him all that? He might say no. Then what?’

I got closer, almost in his ear. ‘If he’s going to hide us he deserves to know what’s going on. He’s OK. Let me do the talking – I know him.’

Rob came back, pulling a faded blue T-shirt over his head. An armoured vehicle rumbled out on the main. A helicopter flew past, quite high. He said nothing as he tipped condensed milk into the coffees, gave them a stir, and brought the mugs over with a bowl of sugar. Then he sat down opposite us and took a deep breath. ‘Nuhanovic is quite an elusive fucker, isn’t he?’