Heart of Danger

Seven.

"I saw her, when the Partizans came into the village…" The smells were close to Perm's childhood. Eight years old, twelve years old, at harvest time, when the men were in the fields taking in the barley, wheat, maize, and going to the hedgerow and squatting down and wiping between their cheeks with yesterday's newspaper, and the sun settling with the flies on their mess, and the smell. Six years old, ten years old, and the milking cattle in the parlour and the shit running out below their lifted tails, and splattering, and the shut-in heat trapped inside the walls and the low asbestos-sheeted roof. Penn, the boy brought up on the farm, was close to the smells of the Transit Centre. "It was only chance that I was in the village. You see, I am Bosnian. I am a Muslim of Bosnia. I was trying to take the bus from Banja Luka to Zagreb. I have the cataracts in my eyes. The doctor in Banja Luka said I should go to the hospital in Zagreb. I thought it was possible for a Muslim to travel through the lines of the Serbs and the Croats, stupid of me. The bus was stopped on the Glina to Vrginmost road. The Serbs were very hard on me. I went where I thought I was safe, to the village of Rosenovici. There was a madness around there, but I did not think the madness could last. I thought I would stay in safety in Rosenovici until the madness passed. When it became too dangerous to stay many of the village left, at night, to go through the woods and the hills. Because of my sight I could not go. No one was prepared to delay their flight to help a woman who could not see, it was necessary for me to stay. Men, women, lose charity when they are in flight for their lives. I was there through the fighting for the village, and I was there when it fell…" Penn thought he had started to understand the village where Dorrie Mowat had died. The village life and the farm life had gone away from him and he had taken the exams at the comprehensive school in Cirencester, and the exams had turned his back on his parents and on the farm and on the fields and hedgerows and woods, and on the smells. But he was learning, and the farm life and the village life seeped back to him. "It was on the third day after the attack had started that the village fell. I think it was the Thursday. It was the second week in December. The village had been preparing for Christmas, their festival. The people had no presents for their children but they had cut branches of green leaves from the holly trees. They had tried to make a joy of their festival…" Penn prompted gently. What had she seen, of Dorrie, when the village fell? Jovic translated. "I had been in the church. It was the first time I had been in the church of Catholics. They called the place the crypt, and the walls there were thick, of heavy-cut stone. The girl came on the night before the village fell. She came to ask the women who were in the church if they could tear up some of their clothes, their clothes that were most clean, for bandages. I could not see her well, because of the cataracts in my eyes, but there were other women afterwards who said that she was beautiful. She took the clothes that had been torn and cut into strips and she went back to where the wounded men were hidden. She had to cross the front of the church and then go across the lane and then she had to go through the garden of a farmhouse. It was all open, and when she went back there was much shooting, as if they had seen her, the Partizans, and tried to kill her. I know she had a great courage, and she was not afraid when she had the bandages and was about to go back into the open. I could not see her, but I heard her laugh. It was a sweet and happy laugh. You know why she laughed? Some of the women in the church, they had put on all the underpants they possessed and the cleanest were the third or fourth pair from their skin, and she was going to make dressings for the wounded from the third pairs or fourth pairs of the underpants, and some of the women were shy to take off their underpants. She laughed… I did not see her again until it was over…" Remembering Mary's story. The story told in the comfort of the kitchen with warm coffee. Mary speaking without hatred, but from the depths of pain. The dinner party in the Manor House, black tie. The celebration of the elevation of a neighbour to the lofty eminence of Master of Foxhounds, North Sussex Hunt. Banter, silly but cheerful, spilling round the room that was panelled with old oak. Dorrie coming into the dining room, bitter face and holed jeans and a T-shirt too dirty to have been used as a rag for cleaning a floor. "It was the irregulars, their militia, that came into the church. We knew that a white flag had been raised at the store, and we knew that most of the fighters, those who were not hurt, had already gone. We were taken out into the afternoon light. I remember that it was afternoon because the sun was low above the hills and it was into my eyes. We were made to form a line. "We were standing in front of the church and they took anything that was of value from the women, and from me. We had nothing that was special, only sentimental, but they took it. I heard her voice. She is only a small girl, but she had so big a voice and she was shouting from inside the farmhouse that was across the lane from the church. They had their guns, and she was shouting as if she had no fear of them…" Hearing the story, Mary's pain. Dorrie coming into the dining room and holding the jar of tomato puree. The quiet falling on the dining room and the cheerful joking killed. Dorrie marching to the Master of Foxhounds and shaking the jar and unfastening the lid. Dorrie pouring the rich red of the jar onto the head of the Master of Foxhounds. The tomato puree dripping from the bald scarred scalp and down to the white of his tuxedo jacket. "She was brought out of the farmhouse. All the time she was shouting at the Partizans. And she had her arm around the waist of one of the wounded fighters, and she had the arm of another of the fighters around her shoulder to give him support. It was near enough for me to see. Not easily, but I saw… I saw her hit. He was a big man, and he had a beard, long, dark. I saw that man hit her and she could not protect herself because she had the wounded fighters to help…" There was the noise of the Transit Centre around Penn. Crying voices and the clattering of metal pots, the beating of hammers, and the wail of radios. The name of the woman was Alija. Her eyes watered, but he had the feeling it was from medical drops and not tears. He thought she was a flotsam of war, that she would be far down any list of patients requiring a cataract operation. She held a ragged handkerchief in her hands and pulled and tugged at the edges. He heard the hoarseness of his voice, as if his throat was blocked. "What happened to her, what happened to Dorrie Mowat?" She shrugged. She looked away. She murmured. She shrugged again. Jovic said, "She has told you all she knows. The women who had been in the church, they were taken away. She does not know anything more." Penn stood. It was a reflex, done without thinking. He bent forward and he took the head of the woman in his hands and he kissed her forehead. The hands that had held the handkerchief were dug now into the material of his blazer. She was gabbling at him. There was the foulness of her breath close to his nose, and the smell of her clothes. He thought he might vomit and he dragged her fingers clear. "The women who were with me, they said she was so brave. The women said she was an angel… It was what they said…" He was away from his chair. He reeled, as if drunk, from the room with the damp peeled plaster. He was out in the corridor. He leaned against the wall of the corridor. There was the grin, sardonic, cold, from Jovic. It had been Jovic's style to hire a car and have him drive, without explanation, down the wide road from Zagreb to Karlovac, and to direct him to the Transit Centre where the Muslim refugees waited for onward passage to the safe havens and the new lives in 'civilized' Europe. Jovic, he thought, played him like a marionette. Jovic said, "Good stuff, yes? Good stuff for your report, yes?" Penn snarled, "Just shut your bloody mouth." Doubt crawled in Penn. He thought himself so insignificant. Once, two and a half years back, maybe three, he had been shuffled for a morning to a ministry to do a positive vetting on an architect who would be working on R.A. F station bunkers, and the architect had been in a wheelchair and so damned cheerful. The architect had said that the best thing about spending time in Stoke Mandeville spinal unit was getting to know that however bad his situation was there was always someone, in the next bed, who had it worse… Penn was the little bureaucrat, the little man whining about a job and a mortgage and a marriage. He thought of the scale where his problems stacked against those of the woman, Alija… Penn thought of what Dorrie had done, and how she had achieved love. The feeling of insignificance, it hurt. The German woman was in the doorway of the room. She smiled, friendly, at him. She was slightly built and her face was washed clean and there were sharp lines of tiredness at her eyes. The German woman had led him and Jovic to the room where they had found Alija. "Right, Mr. Penn, now I will show you around the Transit Centre He was like all the others who came from abroad. He was like the men from the national delegations of the Red Cross and like the television crews. She was sure the place frightened him, the place that was her kingdom. They were all the same, the ignorant, they wanted to be gone before it was decent to leave. There was a wedding ring on his finger. He would have a wife at home, probably a child. He would live in a home that was small, safe, protected, just as were the homes in Munich. She did not think it right to make it easy for them. '… Show you round the Transit Centre so that you can see our work here." "So sorry, but I don't think I've the time." "Always best to find time, Mr. Penn. Too easy to ignore if we don't find the time."

"I should be away…" She thought that he looked a decent man. She said briskly, "Won't take all day, Mr. Penn. There are 2,400 people here, Mr. Penn, and they have nothing, not even hope. It is important that I take visitors around the Transit Centre so that they are seen. Every visitor who is seen tells the people here that someone from outside has bothered to make the journey to visit them. It is a very little thing for you, Mr. Penn, an hour of your time, but it shows these people that you have an interest in them. If you lived here, Mr. Penn, you would be pleased to know that people from abroad showed an interest."

"Thank you, yes, I'd like to."

She thought he was a decent man because she thought he was ashamed that he had tried to run away… It was her regular tour, the same as for the delegations and the television crews. She showed him what she was proud of, the kindergarten for the small children, the little hairdresser's room, the scrubbed clean kitchens. She told him what it had been when she had started up the Transit Centre. She could not be sure what his level of interest was. She told him that in the last winter, when they had no fuel, no glass in the windows, it had been body heat that had sustained them. She told him of the drinking and the smoking and the drug abuse, and of the women whose menstrual cycle was blocked by stress, and of the children who ran wild, and of the men who had lost the reason to live. She thought she held his interest when he asked her how it was possible for her to cope, and she answered, as she always answered, that she could cope with the aloneness, but that the loneliness still hurt her.

It was at the end of the hour. She opened the door. The American was playing back a tape on the video.

"Not finished, Mr. Jones?"

He flushed. Never could help himself when she spoke to him. It was the warmth and the boldness in her voice that brought the blood flush to his face.

"Just another two or three, someone's gone to find them," Marty said.

There was a man behind Ulrike. He saw the man in the blazer and the white shirt and the tie, and he saw the creases in the man's slacks. Never could know whether she laughed at him and there was always the tinkling brightness in her voice. He was told the name and the business of the man, and he grimaced as if he was indifferent. "What I'm dealing with here is mass crime. I'm not talking about little incidents. Anywhere you hit a golf ball round here it'll get to land on a clandestine grave. I'm talking about major league. If I got sidetracked into graves where there were a dozen people, I'd just be wasting everyone's time. No offence, Mr. Penn." It was instinctive, his dislike of the Englishman with Ulrike. He stood too close to her, and it was like he had her confidence. He had put down the Englishman and Marty thought he saw, just for the moment, impatience flash in her eyes, at her mouth. Just for the moment, and Ulrike was telling him that the Englishman had been interviewing a Muslim woman, and named her. He knew of the woman, hadn't bothered to get round to interviewing her, finding whether she had a 'snapshot' of an atrocity. "Was she raped?" The Englishman, Penn, seemed to frown. "I didn't ask her." "You always ask a woman here if she was raped. A statement on rape, sexual violation, a statement with audio or video, and the perpetrator's name, that can be evidence…" "I didn't ask her." The frown deepened. "Wouldn't have thought so, seemed old…" "Common mistake, mistake people make when they're not familiar with the ground here. They don't rape for sexual gratification, they rape to demean their enemy. Stick around and you'll get to know…" The Englishman said, "It's not relevant for me to know." He could have told him to go jerk himself. If Ulrike had not been there, he would have. His father, back in Anchorage and writing most months and working in the Brother Francis shelter for destitutes, didn't think Marty's work, far from home, relevant. And the grizzled old prospector, his friend Rudi, gold hunting seven hours' drive down the Pacific coast from Anchorage who wrote some months, he didn't understand what was relevant. And his tutor from the Law Faculty, University of California at Santa Barbara, in his last letter, hadn't connected as to how a favourite former student found it relevant to ferret for mass crime. Marty had told them all in his return letters that in a new world order it was critical for the international rule of law to be established. Had written them all in his return letters that ends didn't matter, catching and trying and hanging didn't matter, but means mattered, the process of law mattered. "Don't let me keep you," Marty said. "If you can turn your back, and you can feel good, then you're a lucky guy." He thought the Englishman soft shit and if Ulrike had not been there, in the doorway, he would have told him. "I've just a report to write, then I'm gone. Nice to have met you, Mr. Jones." He was late coming to his school because of the difficulty in shaving his bruised face. It was a slow walk to the school because the road from his house to the school was rutted, and the young men of Salika were too busy in their uniforms and with their guns to use their muscles to repair the road. A slow walk because he had no spectacles. His body hurt. Each place that he had been kicked and punched meant pain when he walked to the school. His wife had told him that he should not go. His wife had said their life in the village was finished. The village was his home, he had refused her. He had taken a new text that morning when he had started the walk from his home to his school. A Croat text, but that was not important to the Headmaster. The text, mouthed as he walked, was the command given, 326 years earlier, to Nikolica Bunic by the rulers of Dubrovnik when the man, the martyr, was sent to treat with the Pasha of Bosnia. He knew, by heart, the text. "To violence you will reply by renunciation and sacrifice. Promise nothing, offer nothing, suffer everything. There you will meet a glorious death, here the land will be free. In case of difficulty, delay. Be united, reply that we are free men, that this tyranny and God will judge them." Just to whisper the text to himself was hardship. The carpenter, Milo, watched him walk from the door of his home. The postman, Branko, watched him past the militia camp. The gravedigger, Stevo, leaned on his spade at the back of the church and could see him as he passed. Milan Stankovic went by him in his car, forced him to stumble to the side of the road where the weeds grew. The Headmaster went to his school.

He was late for the start of the day at his school. The children were gathered in the hall. He heard the singing, he knew the song. The children sang of the decision of Prince Lazar to commit the Serb army against the Turk, and fight at Kosovo…

There flew a falcon a grey bird, From the holy city, from Jerusalem And carried in its beak a swallow. 28 June 1389, and the lie of Serbian nobility. The anthem would not have been sung at school assembly if he had been present. The day, 28 June 1389, was captured by the extremists, the barbarians of the new order, by the killers and the murderers. The day, the nobility of defeat, was taken by the new order in Belgrade as an excuse for cruelty, for violence. There was glass in the upper part of the swing doors into the hall of his school. He could see her. She stood where he should have stood. He felt the betrayal…

But that was not a grey falcon, That was the holy man, Elijah: And he does not carry a swallow, He saw that Evica Stankovic stood in his place. Her arms were raised, swung to lead the heaven of his children's voices.

But a letter from the Mother of God…

"Stop."

The Headmaster stood in the open doorway, sticking plaster across his face. "Stop."

The children turned to him. He saw her defiance. She dared him to step forward. He saw his children despised him. He saw the children of the carpenter and the gravedigger and the postman. He saw the grandchildren of the Priest. He saw the child of Milan Stankovic. He saw the freshness of the faces and their contempt. He turned in the doorway. He heard the shout behind him, forty children's voices, unbroken, in unison. "It is better to die honest than to live in disgrace." The Headmaster began the slow walk home. He had only his secret to sustain him, the knowledge of Katica Dubelj existing as an animal in the ruins of Rosenovici… He knew no longer how to use it. It had been done easily and smoothly, and Penn had recognized it. "So, what are your future plans, Mr. Penn?" Jovic had introduced the officer as liaison. Jovic had said that he was a captain and liaised between the Croatian army, 2nd Bn, 110 (Karlovac) Brigade, and the UNPROFOR troops across in Sector North. Jovic claimed him as a friend. "Just to pick up what help I can, captain, and to write a report," Penn said. Jovic had said that the captain was his friend and had been with him at Sisak, when he had lost his arm. Only a report into the death of Miss Dorothy Mowat? "Only her death, yes." Not the specific situation in that part of Sector North where she died? "How it happened, when it happened, pretty bland." Why was the death of Miss Dorothy Mowat, when so many had died, so important? "Rich mother, reckons she can buy anything." A sensitive area, a sensitive situation, did he not know that? "Just a report, just to let her mother sleep the better at night." And who else would read his report? "Shouldn't think anyone will, just her mother." It was the gentle probing of an intelligence officer. Penn recognized it. He hoped his answers were ignorant, facile. He reckoned the Intelligence Officer was poorly trained. He would have done it differently himself, bored harder. He knew about digging into the recesses of a man's life because he had worked in the positive vetting team that cleared personnel for work at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston. Trust no one, believe in no one, that was any intelligence officer's maxim, and he guessed that Jovic would have telephoned ahead and engineered the meeting so that Penn, enigma, would be checked over.

And his report would not be used as a start point for a war crime investigation? "Good God, no…"

The gentle probing of the Intelligence Officer, Liaison, was done during the tour of the cease-fire line. The village of Turanj was across the Korana river near to where it joined with the Kupa river east of Karlovac. Not a house undamaged, every building hit by multiple machine-gun bullets and by tank fire, and artillery shells. The officer said, for the benefit of his visitor, that it was where the Serbs had been held, where their advance had been stopped. He was told of the battle, close-quarters fighting. He listened and looked around him. An old woman was picking at burned roof timbers in the yard behind what had been her home. They were past the defensive machine-gun nests. They walked in the village of Turanj as if it were a museum, but the old woman searching in her yard told him of present reality. The front wall was off the food shop. The roof was off the scorched interior of the repair garage. Flowers grew in overgrown front gardens, and the blossom was on the magnolia and the apple trees. He was shown the co-operative building, and he was told not to go past it because he would then be in the field of vision of the snipers, and the cease-fire was variable. A cold place and quiet.

The officer said, "In war itself there is an excitement, in combat there is an elation. Most men, you ask them, and if they give their secret answer, tell you that war, combat, should not be missed… But the war goes by. I know nothing more degrading than a former battlefield where there are no bodies, where there is no noise. The war passes by and the excitement is quickly forgotten. Only the vandalism of the war is left. It is the worst place you can be, Mr. Penn, an old fighting ground, with just the ghosts."

A cat saw him, was bent low and scurrying, but took the time to turn and spit at him. The poles that had carried the telephone wires were down. "Would it be the same in Rosenovici?" "Why do you ask?" "Just trying to get the picture…" "It would not be the same," the officer said. "Here the buildings are destroyed by war. In Rosenovici a few buildings would have been destroyed by war, the rest would have been destroyed by placed explosives. Here there is a chance to rebuild, one day. In Rosenovici there would be no chance to rebuild because nothing is left. In Rosenovici, villages like it, they went as far as bulldozing the graveyard. Here, there is still feeble life. In Rosenovici there is only the memory of death…" Penn thought he was being tested. He looked away. He stared up and beyond the jagged and broken roofs of Turanj and he could see the first line of trees. The officer anticipated him. '… It is where their guns are. They will be following you, through telescopic sights, maybe if they are bored they will shoot at you." "I am just here to make a report." He played ignorant. Penn walked back down the road, like getting his head shot off was no part of making a report. They drove away in the officer's car. They went back past the machine-gun positions and the soldiers waved to them, they went across the bridge over the Korana river and Penn saw, moored at the bank, two grey-coloured inflatables. He didn't like to look hard because frequently the officer slung a fast glance at him to see whether it was a trained eye or a rubber necker eye that examined the front line. There were tank obstacle teeth beside the road into Karlovac, and more defence positions, and there was the emptiness. They drove on, past the officer's headquarters in a new building where all the windows were taped against artillery blast. They climbed a winding road. They were above the town. On the summit of the hill was a fortress tower. They left the car. They walked along a path and in the grass beside the path were teenagers, cuddling and messing about and smoking. They looked out. The town was in front of them.

Beyond the town were the rivers, winding to their meeting point.

Beyond the meeting point of the Korana and the Kupa rivers was the green carpet of the forest.

Beyond the forest was the blue haze line of the high ground.

The officer said, "The high ground is the Petrova Gora, dense woodland, rock cliffs, sheer valleys. It is special to the Serb people because it was in the Petrova Gora that Tito had a field hospital for his Partizans, in the war with the Germans. The German army made many incursions into the Petrova Gora but they were never able to find the hospital. The failure was a source of frustration, that is why the Germans killed many of the people in the villages at the edge of the Petrova Gora. If you were to be there, Mr. Penn, which is impossible, then they would lie and tell you that it was Croatian people, fascists fighting alongside the Germans, who were responsible for the killings. Through the lies they justify what they have done, now, to villages such as Rosenovici…"

Penn had his hand across his forehead. He shaded his eyes. He thought he could see twenty miles, maybe more. Such peace. It was where Dorrie had been, Dome's place. It was like the place of his childhood, where he had been before the exams and the application forms, and work in London. Peace and beauty. He strained to see better.

The officer said, "I am correct, you see nothing that threatens? The front line between here and Sisak is the Kupa river. It is seventy kilometres in length. Across there, on their side, where you see nothing, are minefields and strong points and defended villages. Across there, they have 300 guns that can flatten Karlo-vac and Sisak in a day. Across there, aimed at Zagreb are medium-range missile launchers. One day, I hope, we can take our territory back, but not today and not tomorrow. You see, Mr. Penn, it is important to us that, today and tomorrow, we do not anger them, across there. It is of strategic importance for the future of Croatia, military and economic, that the bastards, across there, are not antagonized…"

"Who did it?"

"Did what?"

"Who killed Dorrie Mowat?"

"It is important?"

"For my report, yes."

The officer smiled. Jovic was behind them, silent. Penn and the officer stood together and stared out across the Kupa river and the forest and towards the high ground. The sun beat at Penn.

"They do not scatter evidence, they do not leave eyewitnesses. I do not know."

"Who would have given the order?"

"Probably the commander of the militia. Perhaps the commander of the militia in the village close to Rosenovici…"

"What is his name?"

"I used to know him, not as a friend, but I knew him. My wife is a teacher and knew his wife. Why do you need the name?"

"For my report?"

"You can make up a name, take a telephone directory. Just for a report, for a mother who lost a daughter, you can invent a name. Why not?"

He had been led, subtly, to the trap. He had underestimated the quality of the Intelligence Officer. Perhaps a graduate would not have sprung the trap, not one of the young bloody graduates of the General Intelligence Group. He stumbled.

"Pick a name out of the air, why not?"

A light murmur of laughter from the officer. "He is Milan Stankovic. I see him at my liaison meetings, I used to play basketball against him. The militia in the attack on Rosenovici was commanded by Milan Stankovic."

"What will happen to him?"

"I saw him last month, at the liaison meeting. We talked about the electricity supply. They have our territory but they do not have power. We have lost our territory but we have power. Last month, he did not seem like a man afraid, but then the liaison meeting is always behind their lines. Today, tomorrow, nothing will happen to Milan Stankovic."

Penn said, "I will put that in my report."

On that night of the week it would have been usual for the Priest to have gone to the Headmaster's house and, by candlelight, played chess.

He had not made apologies, he had not given notice of his absence to the Headmaster, he had gone instead to the home of Milan Stankovic.

He was a quiet man and through the adult part of his seventy-four years he had seldom offered an opinion that he had not first known would fall on approving ears. Capable of intrigue but incapable of confrontation, he lived out the last years of his life in the intellectual backwater that was the village of Salika. He knew every man and every woman and every child in the village of Salika, but his only friend was the Headmaster with whom on that night he should have played chess and taken a glass of brandy weakened with water that would have lasted him through the game… and he had gone instead to the home of Milan Stankovic.

He could justify his abandoning of the game of chess.

They were coming in the village to the day when the population of Salika travelled to the church at Glina where so many had died. It was an important anniversary, the fiftieth. All of the village would travel to the site where the people had been herded by the Ustase fascists, where the fire had been lit, where a thousand had died. If the Priest had not been young, not been fit enough to survive, emaciated, in the Petrova Gora, if he had been inside the cordon, then he could believe that he would have been taken to the church and burned alive. But, to go to the church at Glina, it was necessary for the people of Salika to take two buses. The buses were in a barn near to the school. To take the buses there must be diesel fuel. To get diesel fuel he must have the help of Milan Stankovic. The gaining of diesel fuel was his justification for abandoning his appointment with his friend.

He had known Milan's grandparents, Zoran and Milica, and both had died in the fire at the church in Glina.

He had known Evica's grandparents, Dragon and Gospava, and both had been burned alive at the church in Glina.

He understood what he called, when he talked with his friend as they pondered the board, 'the curse of history'. There was not, in the village of Salika, a man, woman or child, who had not been fed, since the dawn of understanding, the story of what had been done by the Ustase fascists.

They sat in the kitchen, and he understood.

They were around the table and he had been given bitter coffee and juice, and he understood.

The Priest had baptized Milan Stankovic, just as he had baptized Evica Adamovic, and he had baptized little Marko who slept now above them. The bayonet was on the wall. Against the leg of the table, on Milan's side, was the automatic rifle. All of their lives, Milan and Evica and Marko, would have been battered by the curse of history. He thought himself a pragmatist, thought himself a realist. It was impossible that the curse of history should not fall upon the big shoulders, upon the wide face, upon the big heart of Milan Stankovic. The Priest thought it was the curse of history that had made inevitable the attack on Rosenovici, the fall of Rosenovici, the butchering at Rosenov-ici. The Priest did not apportion blame… But he had not gone across the stream, when many had gone, to watch the digging up of the grave and the recovery of the bodies. Perhaps, he had not wished to take the gaze of the old American, near his own age, who had come and directed the digging… Milan agreed with no dispute to allocate the diesel for the buses.

He considered Milan the best of the younger men in the village. The best basketball player, but he no longer had time for sport. The best organizer, such as the time he had led the other men in the village in the flattening of a football pitch, but he no longer had time for triviality. The best husband, but Evica walked around him as though a wall rose between them. Milan sat morose opposite him, his back to the window and the last light. The Priest thought that the curse of history made a treadmill for the best of men, and the drive of the treadmill was faster. Milan sat subdued opposite him, and never turned to look out across the stream to the corner of the field in the dusk distance. Walking briskly on the treadmill, elected by acclamation to head the village militia. Jogging, and the visit to the village of the barbarian Arkan who was a criminal from Belgrade and who had raised his own force of gaol filth and who had posed in front of the War Memorial with Milan. Running, when the attack, supported by the tanks and artillery, had been directed on the Croat neighbours of Rosenovici. Sprinting, when the wounded were taken from the cellar of Fran jo and Ivana, and he had played chess with Franjo, when the wounded were taken out and the girl. Pounding, when they had come with their spades and zipped bags and dug. Careering, when the Ustase spies had been captured… The Priest did not know how Milan could go faster, and he did not know what would happen to him if he fell from the speeding treadmill. The Priest offered his thanks for Milan's time, for the promise of the diesel and Evica let him out. He walked up the lane from Milan Stankovic's house, going slowly, but he speeded his frail stride where a wax lamp threw light across his path. He did not wish to see the opened window, to see if his friend sat alone in front of the board. It was like a bad pick-up in a bad bar. He had written up his notes of the day, good material. He had walked up into the old city and bought a good meal. He had come back to the hotel, striding and wondering what Jovic would pull on him the next day. He had taken his key at the reception, been handed the telephone message would he, please, please, call Mrs. Mary Braddock crumpled it and handed it back to reception to dispose of. Earlier, he had made his own telephone call, international, and no answer. He had gone into the bar for a last drink. He had ordered a beer, local, good, and cheap. He hadn't seen the man at first. His eye caught the clutch of journalists whose table was covered with filled ashtrays and emptied bottles. He was eavesdropping on them, they were back from Sarajevo and noisy. He was halfway down his beer when the man came off his stool and the movement caught Penn's attention. He saw the van driver from the camp for officer cadets, he saw the shadow shape from when he had stepped off the pavement to give the arguing hooker better space for her negotiation. A round full face, darting sharp eyes, close-cut fair hair, old acne scars on the cheeks and the chin, a bulging neck above an open white shirt and on the neck was the tattoo. A rolling swagger walk, a small man's walk, coming from his stool with his glass in his hand.

"Evening, squire bit far from the old smoke…"

"Evening." Penn offered him nothing.

"Don't see a lot of English here mind if I join you…?"

"Please yourself," Penn said coldly.

"Nice to talk English better than all this foreign jabber…"

Like a bad pick-up in a bad bar. He thought of when he had been in Curzon Street, early days in the Service, close to Shepherds Market where the girls were, when he had gone out for a sandwich at lunch time, and he didn't think there would have been a hooker who would not have been ashamed at such a bad pick-up. The tattoo, close to him, was of the Parachute Regiment's wings. Penn didn't feel curious, only tired. He finished his beer, but the man was in fast.

"You'll have another? "Course you will…" The man was leaning across the bar and flicking his fingers at the barman. "Two more local piss. Move it, my boy… Dozy buggers, right?… I'm Sidney Hamilton. I get called "Ham" So, what brings you to this shit hole, squire?"

"Just a bit of work," Penn said.

"Out from UK, are we, squire? I packed it in there, no future. It's all niggers there, and slit eyes, and fucking Irish…"

"Why were you following me?" Penn said, quietly.

"Beg pardon…"

"Why were you following me? Why were you listening yesterday to my conversation?"

The darting bright eyes had narrowed, focused. The new beers were in front of them.

"Smartarse, eh?"

"Straight question, shouldn't be too difficult to manufacture a straight answer," Penn said.

But a diverted answer. "Just heard a word, the word triggered. You know how it is, squire? You hear a word said and you get to listen. It's not a crime…"

"What was the word?"

"Rosenovici, the Croat village in Sector North, you were talking to that hag about Rosenovici…" "You know Rosenovici?" Penn tried to stay casual, didn't know whether he succeeded. The confidence was flowing again. "I know Rosenovici, hell of a battle there, big fight. Warrior of Principle, squire, that's me. Bad fire fight there…" "You were in Rosenovici?" "The village was cut off. They'd brought tanks up, T-54s, wicked bloody things. They'd got the old Stalin's organ, that's the multiple rocket launcher…" "Were you in the village?" "They had artillery up there, howitzers. There was right shit going in there…" "You were there?" "Well, I wasn't actually

…" "Where were you?" The eyes darted away. "I wasn't actually there, would have been minced if I was there. We were close up. We'd been sent in to make contact with our guys who'd legged it into the woods. We had a corridor open for them to get out through. We had it on the radio. We had it on the radio when they signed off, put the flag up. I was near there…" "Not actually there?" "Near there, last week…" "Walked into Sector North?" "Didn't take the bloody Central line. "Course I bloody walked. Recce job. It's bad shit in there. We lost two guys… These fuckers, they've no bottle. We had two guys wounded but the other fuckers wouldn't stop for them, bottled out. No lie, I saw them killed. Their throats were slit. They used knives on them. I couldn't do anything because the other fuckers had bottled out…" "You can walk into Sector North?" The man was drinking faster, and flicking his fingers for the barman, and shovelling the banknotes onto the bar. "If you know what you're at, which I do. Know where to cross the Kupa river, know where the mines are, which I do, and the strong points… He's a bad bastard in there, he's the commander of the militia. He's at the village across the stream from Rosenovici. He's Milan Stankovic. He did it himself, used the knife. I could have dropped him, if the other fuckers hadn't bottled out…" Penn felt the pinch in his stomach. He swayed, slightly, on his stool. He held tight to his glass. '… Say, squire, you know where Nagorno Karabakh is? Where the hell is that fucking place?" Penn said, "It's a bit left of here. You know those little globes that kiddies have, where you put a pencil in the top to sharpen it, well on one of those it's about a half-inch to the left." "You pissing on me, squire…?" "It's the other side of Turkey." "I heard there was a good little war there. I heard they wanted good men. Could be South Africa, security, but there's all those niggers. This is just fucked up here…" "Why did you follow me, Ham?" "Who said I bloody Penn cut him. "An answer to my question, Ham why did you follow me?" Like a ball being punctured. The bombast of the man went flat. He was standing, off the stool, and he was pulling a thin wallet from his hip. The photograph in the pouch of the wallet was of a skinny little woman, brunette, and the woman was holding a child in a party frock. "It's Karen, and that's Dawn, my little one." "Why me?" "You're a bloody gumshoe, you're a dick. That's what you are, a private detective." Then the story rolled. An old photograph, yes. She'd done a runner, yes. She'd taken the kiddie, yes. No contact and letters sent back "Not Known at this Address', yes. And he was far from home and when the bullshit was turned off then he wanted the love of his woman and his kiddie, yes. A lonely boring little man, yes. He wanted them found, his Karen and his Dawn, yes… Penn would not have known the answers before he had gone to work at Alpha Security. He had had his share already, bombastic men coming up the stairs to the office above the launderette, showing a photograph of a woman and a kiddie, and wanting them found… Basil had told him that looking for a woman who had quit with a child was a "Go Careful Area'. Basil had said it was necessary to go carefully or the woman might end up in the casualty section… He looked into the woman's face, knotted, and the child's face, strained. He took an address, a police station in Karlovac, he wrote down a telephone number. He was told to ask for 2nd Bn, 110 (Karlovac) Brigade, then for "Ham', everybody would know Ham. He looked a last time at the photograph, then gave it back. "You didn't tell me your name, squire…" Penn eased off his stool. "I'll be in touch, maybe."