A smear of light, a softer grey in the east, and it came with stealth from the far side of the Danube. The little brightness travelling in the dawn highlighted no cloud. There would be no rain, no storms, lightning flashes or showers. It promised to be a good day, hot and dry.
A few people were on the move when the grey became tinged with pink. A man was at the marina, checking the ropes holding boats at the pontoon quays, and a woman was scrubbing the upper deck of a small launch. Beyond them – unnoticed – an angler crouched to study his rod’s tip. No surprise that an apparent obsessionalist had come in search of carp, catfish or pike at that early hour, that another sidled close to him and squatted beside him. Their conversation was, however, far removed from suitable bait, the breaking strength of lines, and whether it was best to fish close to the bank or out in the main current. A villager – who was on the register of the political and security police as a reliable source and had a handler – whispered in the angler’s ear the preparations for a killing, where it would be done, by whom and what should happen in the aftermath. He was answered, and the angler was left to the peace at the start of the day, but would soon tire of it, come up the bank and use his mobile phone where he could get a better signal. So, at first light, matters were already in hand.
Men and women emerged from two bell tents that had been erected near to the site of the Ovcara mass grave. They stretched, yawned, laughed, and already their chef was lighting charcoal under the barbecue grill and would be starting their breakfast. They were the team of volunteers and university rookies who hoped to win enrolment as fully fledged pathologists, and came from most of the countries of central Europe. Time in the Ovcara location would read well on their CVs. There were still some sixty corpses, all murdered – most by a gunshot to the head – to be found, and they had lain undiscovered for nineteen years. But that day an attraction was denied them: their leader, the charismatic American professor, would be leaving and much of the dynamic would go with him. The crop was round three sides of the tents and hid its secrets.
A handyman raked up the leaves that had been blown in the night breezes on to the grass and the walkways where the dead were now reburied, and at the heart of the garden there was a memorial of blue-tinted stones, between which a perpetual flame burned, bullied that morning by the gusts. He was always at work when it was light enough for him to see the blown debris, or a weed, but fewer came now to see the place where the war dead lay; mostly it was only relatives who visited the garden. For others it had happened too long ago.
The low sun caught on shell holes in the buildings of the town that had not yet been repaired, and the pockmarks made by machine-gun fire or scattered shrapnel. A street sweeper bypassed such buildings but tried to keep clean the pavements and gutters in front of renovated properties, offices and shops. He would have told anyone who asked that the money for further repairs was exhausted, that donors had dried up and the window of opportunity that had been open when Vukovar was on people’s lips was firmly closed. He could have said that the town was forgotten by those outsiders who had once cared, but time marched on, as surely as his brush removed litter from the drains.
That same light eased a path inland from the river, beyond the town, the gravesite and the memorial garden, and slid over the endless rows of ripened corn and soup-plate sunflowers that were ready for harvesting. Songbirds hovered over them and wild creatures scurried at the roots in the dry earth. Another day started.
The sun caught the roofs of the village, and nestled on one church tower that had been almost rebuilt and on another that had been almost destroyed. It threw a long shadow over the entrance to what had been a command bunker and was now a home for rats. It lay across the cafe tables, still loaded with dirty coffee cups, beer bottles and rakija glasses and rested on the ash and butts in the tinfoil trays. The storks clattered off their nests and flew in search of food.
The day began like any other.
She supposed she would have blinked first, then tried to keep her eyes closed, then opened them. The sun was shining through the window, off the river.
She was awake, but Megs Behan had no idea where she was. She was not at home in her bedsit, not in her office and sprawled over her desk, not in a room at her parents’ home, which was still supposed to be hers, teenage wallpaper still in place, or in an airport lounge. She was in a hotel room.
She looked around. There was much to take in, and complications to assimilate.
A crumpled bed, a sheet pulled out of place, two pillows dented. She pushed herself up and rested on her elbows. A decent enough hotel room, and there was a print of a watercolour showing a tugboat pulling a line of barges upriver. Good clue. The Danube, the town of Vukovar, a hotel of which she was a resident. Not her room. The sun would not have hit her windows and there would not have been two messed pillows. Her head hurt.
When she moved again, an empty miniature bottle slid on to the carpet. She sat up, her back against the headboard. The movement dislodged another bottle, also empty. She could smell the cigarette she’d rolled, stubbed out and abandoned on the bedside table. Her head ached, hot pins against the skull. It was a long time since Megs Behan had woken and not known where she was… more important, in whose bed she was.
She was fully dressed. A hand went under her top and another below her skirt, and she came to a definite conclusion: underwear in place. At the party for the Christmas holiday last year, Sophie from mid-Wales, a fervent campaigner on disarmament and a plain Jane, had been ‘detached’ from the main swing of the celebration and woken in some cleaner’s cupboard, with brooms, mops and buckets. She’d found herself short of her knickers. Some bastard had not only lowered them but taken them as a trophy. Hers were in place but needed changing. And she looked further.
Memory returned, raw and uncensored. The vest was on the floor. Where she was and whom she had been with came back to her and she let her shoulders slacken. Two bottles on the floor and a tonic can. There might be others under a fallen sheet, and half of a bulletproof vest. Megs had not seen, close up, a vest such as that before – had seen them on policemen in the street, on soldiers on television and in photographs of VIP celebs who went to ‘guest’ in war zones. Had not seen one dumped on a floor like a pair of dirty socks. She could see the maker’s logo, the two holes and in one, skewed at an angle, the shell – the bullet. She gagged, thought she might throw up.
She looked further. A lightweight jacket was hooked on the back of the chair in front of the desk. Two holes. Neater, well punctured. She could have reached beside the telephone, taken the pencil and slipped it into either hole and the fit would have been exact. She had never been to war, and he had not. No bullshit and no bragging, but each had quietly admitted – her half-pissed and him sober – that they had never been to war. It had sounded like a bigger confession than admitting to virginity. Because she had never been to war, she would not have known what marks were left on a jacket when two shots were fired at it from close range, or the effect of the two shots on a bulletproof vest.
She saw the note. The slip of paper was against the rim of the dressing-table.
She came off the bed, stepped over the bulletproof vest, stood by the chair on which the jacket was slung, and read: Miss Behan, Perhaps we could meet for dinner tonight if mutually convenient. On me, or Dutch if you prefer. Don’t know what time or where so won’t have a table booked. Hope it’s possible! Regards, Harvey Gillot
She read it again.
Her head hurt. Was it supposed to be funny? Did he have an idiot’s optimism? Should she regard it as a cheap, sentimental effort at attracting sympathy? Was he hooked on a fantasy of not walking to his death? She swore. Too much to drink last night. Did she want him dead? Would it be fun to watch? Did she want the smile wiped off an arms dealer’s lips? Had to answer – no. A whole adult and working life at stake, hers. A bagful of principles, also hers, held over a rubbish chute. And she had not stood her corner well, had permitted arguments to end with her defending her position and him attacking with rubbish about freedom. She had not had the clarity of mind to chop him down at the knees. She swore because he had bested her. She snatched up the note, read it once more and studied the handwriting, as if it revealed elements of his personality. She did not tear it up but put it into the pocket of her skirt. Then she took out her room key and turned for the door.
The phone rang.
She checked her watch. On the hour. His wake-up call. He had slept beside her, and hadn’t touched her. He had risen, dressed and left her behind with the vest, the jacket, yesterday’s socks, had written his note and gone. She answered the call, was told the time, put the phone down.
Megs Behan went back to her room to shower, change and face the day. She didn’t know what it would bring and – under the deluge of hot water – she cursed the uncertainties that teased her.
The brush of whiskers against his hand woke Robbie Cairns and, as he opened his eyes, a tongue licked nervously, exploring, at his fingers. He jerked upright and the fox backed away. Perhaps it had watched him half the night and now had come close enough to learn about him. Any other time, any other place, Robbie would have shouted to frighten the animal, would next have scrabbled for a stone and flung it, and hoping for a yelp of pain. Not at any other time and not in any other place.
Robbie had been on his side, his body hunched, his head resting on an outstretched arm, his hand, almost, flung clear of him. That hand had been the one the fox had nuzzled before it licked him. He sat, straight-backed. Very slowly, he folded his legs tight together with the knees sticking out, and looked into the fox’s face. He could smell its breath: foul, like air from a sewer. He had nothing to give it as a bribe in the hope it would come closer to him. It breathed hard, almost panting, and he realised it was near famished – he could see its ribcage, the mange on the back legs and at the base of the tail. He thought the fox was as hungry as he was.
When he had fished in Kent, on the banks of the old military canal, any fox passing by would have skirted him, regarding him as an enemy. He thought this one was young, hungry and alone. He wanted it to come back, to feel again the whiskers and the tongue on his hand. He thought it had a face of beauty, would like to have touched it, feel the texture of the fur. He was hungry and thirsty, cold from the night and shivering. There was damp on his clothes from the dew. The fox might not have eaten for days, but it could drink.
It looked at him, deep brown eyes, and the mouth was slightly open. There were scars in the fur and old wound lines, as if creatures had hacked with their back legs to break the killing hold of the jaws. It was thin but the teeth were clean and polished – they would rip apart a prey when it had killed.
He needed a drink. He felt a surge of anger at the people who had treated him with such disrespect: he had been dumped in a bloody ploughed field, without food, water or a blanket… The anger was muted by the sight of the fox, which watched him. Past it was the wooden cross, and beyond it the grass and the trees. Beyond the trees was the water. It read him, the fox did. It stretched and coughed, then turned its mangy end towards him and went towards the trees and the river.
Robbie Cairns pushed himself up. He wouldn’t have known what ‘delirious’ meant, and wouldn’t have understood the story of the Pied Piper from Hamelin. He would have been outraged at the suggestion that his mind was blown by a fox. The fox had gone into the trees and he saw a slight trail, as if it had made a narrow track, and walked towards it.
The yell was an order. ‘Stop! Stop right there.’
He did. He heard the thud of heavy shoes behind him and began to turn. The man had shouted at him in English, with only a light accent, as if he was educated. A big man, overweight, with a pallid face. Far behind him there was a car, with a door open, and now he could hear the quiet throb of the engine. The man carried a plastic bag.
Robbie said emptily – as if he needed to justify himself, ‘I was going for water.’
The man came close to him. ‘Do you like to gamble?’
‘What the fuck’s that got to do with anything? I don’t gamble. You left me without food or water.’
‘It would have been a gamble to go for water, high odds. If it’s roulette, the gamble begins when the wheel spins – and when you take a first step off the field into the undergrowth… Do you not have landmines, anti-personnel mines, where you come from?’
He understood he was laughed at. He bit his lip and hung his head. The man squatted and said his name, then opened the plastic bag, took out a Thermos, a beaker, sandwiches made with thick bread, and an apple. He gestured to Robbie that they were for him.
He wolfed the sandwiches, ham, salad and tomato, gulped the hot sweetened coffee, and was told why he had been about to gamble.
‘This corner of the field was mined. The Cetniks would have put down the mines after they’d killed four of our people and buried them here. The four were those who waited for the missiles Gillot had taken money and valuables for – that is why you were paid to kill Gillot. He took the money and did not deliver. Only very recently did this small village receive enough priority for a mine-clearance man to make this part of a field safe. It was done, we have the certificate, and the farmer – Petar – ploughed it for the first time in nineteen years. The bodies were found. Where you are now is clean.’
‘If I had gone down to the water…’ He spoke through a mouthful and crumbs dropped from his lips.
‘You would have gambled. The priority for the clearance was the field, not the banks. Perhaps there are mines there, perhaps not.’
He had trusted the fox. It would have led him down the bank and gone light-footed to the pool where the water – from where Robbie had seen it – seemed fresh and without pollution. The fox would have killed him and he had given it his friendship…
He was told that his target would be driven along the Cornfield Road to this place, would be herded here. The man spoke of the hunters going after wild boar and how they beat the beasts into the path of the guns. There would be no police in the fields or the village. He was told that here, by the cross, he would earn the money already paid to him.
‘And what happens if…’
‘You fail? If you fail? I believe you to be an intelligent man so you know very well what will happen if you fail. Don’t fail.’
He said he would be there and ready. The man walked away from him. Where else would he be? If the fox came back, Robbie would kill it: it would have led him down a riverbank where there were mines. When the target came, he would shoot him. He stamped his feet on the earth, made dust puffs and slapped his arms on his chest to get warmth into his body. He would shoot him, then start to live again.
He had run away before and could again. He turned once, near to his car, and saw that the man paid to kill had taken the firing posture and would not have realised he was watched. Josip no longer wanted to be a part of it. Before coming to the field, he had moved his car to the side of his house. The back door into the kitchen was not overlooked, and he had stripped his home of all that was important to him, had loaded the boot and the back seat, and his dog was in the front. He assumed that the corpse of Cairns would go into the same pit as would be dug for Harvey Gillot, and that the secret of that grave would remain inside the village. All those years before he had run from the fight, and could run again.
In the car, he ruffled the dog’s neck, eased the ignition key, bumped along the track that led to the metalled road and turned away from the village. He thought it a place of death, condemned, and wanted no part in its future. The dawn was coming quickly and it would be a fine day, warm.
There were defining days in Mark Roscoe’s life. Some he had recognised as the dawn had advanced, others had been flung without warning into his lap – not many – and they had shaped him. On the most recent – twice – he had been a voyeur, like a pavement gawper. A stake-out in west London, in Chiswick: the firearms had been in place and the bad guys on the pavement, about to go into the building society, but one must have had a decent enough ‘villain’s nose’ to sense the trap about to be sprung. He had grabbed a woman, held a handgun to her head and backed all the way to the van. She – and he – would have been in the marksmen’s telescopic sights so they hadn’t fired. The woman had been thrown aside as the gang had piled into the van and disappeared round a street corner in a scream of tyres. All had been taken into custody three hours later. A defining moment? When not to shoot, when to be patient, when to wait for a better opportunity. Another such moment was outside a high-street bank in a nothing little town in the northern suburbs of Southampton. Roscoe had been with the gun team in the public lavatories when the gang had hit. A cash-delivery guard was looking down the barrel of a handgun, and the team had thought it right to fire, had done so, had taken the life of a serial robber, Nunes, killing him outright, with an accomplice. A defining moment? When it was right to shoot, and extinguish a life at ruthless speed.
Big moments… but as big had been the session in the police-station interview room when he had faced Harvey Gillot across a table, and when, in Harvey Gillot’s lounge, he had seen the stubborn refusal to submit to a threat. It was the nature of Mark Roscoe’s work that he was an observer of defining moments, not a participant.
He had had a shower, which had cleared the tiredness from his head, and now dressed fast. He didn’t catch bullets in his teeth: the Bible as taught to protection officers on the courses stated that he could do precious little protecting when he had no firearm, no back-up, no co-operation and no liaison. He had only a package.
When he was ready – suit, buttoned-up shirt collar, tie, clean, reasonably robust shoes – he swilled his teeth again and drank some tap water. Then he put his thumb into the package and dragged it open. He found inside a canvas pouch with a belt strap. He unzipped it. There was a list at the top, with a mass of items stowed beneath it: analgesic – pain relief; Immodium – intestinal sedative; penicillin – antibiotics; potassium permanganate – steriliser; surgical blades – various; butterfly sutures – general plasters; mini-tampons – blood-loss suppression; condom – can carry a litre of water.
In the Flying Squad, they had regular updates on what to do in a medical emergency before the professionals arrived. He’d never taken it seriously because he’d always believed there would be an ambulance team just round the corner, or someone on the team who had specialised in gunshot and stabbing injuries. The previous evening, there had been a doctor in the bar who had talked politics and psychology. Roscoe undid his trouser belt, slipped on the pouch and refastened his buckle. He thought of what he had said the previous evening – or earlier that morning – on ‘duty of care’; he would have given much to be wearing a holster with a weapon inside it. The kit was a poor substitute.
He made a call, explained how the situation seemed to pan out. There was an expletive and he wondered if his guv’nor had nicked his chin while shaving. He was told at what time the Gold Group would meet. And, like an afterthought, he was wished luck.
He shoved his night clothes, soiled socks and washbag into his duffel and hitched it on to his shoulder. What did duty of care mean? Easy enough to trot out at the Gold Group, harder when the kit was a condom, mini-tampons, little blades, sutures and a canister of antiseptic. The medical teams on the scene when Nunes and his associate were dropped in Hampshire had brought vast cases of gear with them and had set up half a field dressing station on the pavement in front of the bank. He had agreed, in the small hours, that Gillot was a ‘sinner’ and a ‘reptile’. Now, checking that he had everything, those words seemed cheapening and duty of care a crap commitment. Big breath. Best foot forward.
He took the stairs down.
He saw Penny Laing. She avoided his eyes, showed him her back. He thought her a snapped reed, and couldn’t get his head round what had happened to her at this place. In London, she would have been resourceful and conscientious, probably pushy with it or she wouldn’t have made it to the airport. A snapped reed had nothing to contribute. Anders, the professor who cut up decomposed corpses, was paying his bill at Reception. The voice boomed at him: ‘Good to see you looking so chipper, Mr Roscoe.’
There was a little bit, Roscoe reckoned, of the music hall about Benjamin Arbuthnot: he wore green corduroy slacks, a lightweight jacket from which a polka-dotted red handkerchief ballooned, an impeccable white shirt, a tie that looked ancient and military, heavy brogues, well buffed, and a frayed straw hat askew on his head. Almost a costume from the good old days of the Hackney Empire or the Collins’ Music Hall on Islington Green. A clatter down the staircase and Megs Behan reached them. She was still damp from the shower and wore last night’s clothes as she mumbled apologies that were ignored. She was carrying a crumpled jacket that was holed in the back with a bulletproof vest that had twin indents. He hadn’t expected to see Harvey Gillot in the hall, but looked anyway.
‘I think it’s time, Mr Roscoe, for coffee before the Vulture Club’s charabanc departs. Follow me, please.’
He wondered why Megs Behan had the jacket and the vest, but it was too early in the morning to come up with the solutions. ‘What about Mr Gillot?’ he asked.
‘Long gone, but we’ll catch up with him.’
At the desk he stood beside Megs Behan as she shovelled cash towards the girl. When it was his turn Roscoe scrawled his name on his account and followed them into the dining area where coffee steamed on a table and there were plates of rolls. He thought that the old spy had successfully tied his loose ends and now ran the show.
He was unsure what duty of care meant – what obligation it required.
They gathered at the cafe. It was not a parade – they had never stood in lines in the mornings or evenings before taking up shifts in the trenches. They wore the uniforms again, but did not salute now and had not then. Old Zoran, of course, had been respected by the village’s younger men when he commanded them but not for his self-appointed military rank; it was from his history as the village schoolteacher. Mladen had commanded them after Zoran’s death, and led them now. They were a cussed crowd but accepted the need for a spokesman. Mladen had said they should find something close to a uniform: then, they had not worn the uniform as an indication that they were part of the 204 Vukovarske Brigade that defended the town to the west, but because the camouflage pattern made it harder for the enemy’s snipers to kill them.
His own tunic was the one he had worn when he had broken out through the cornfields, large enough for him to put the baby boy under it and still draw up the zipper. It fitted him well. Andrija’s was too tight and the front was stretched grotesquely. Tomislav’s hung loose. Petar’s still had mud on it from having been buried before the break-out, then dug up on his return seven years later. It had not been washed in the last twelve years. Mladen carried his assault rifle as he walked among them in front of the cafe.
Andrija had his prized sniper weapon, the Dragunov SVD with 7.62mm calibre and a maximum range of 1300 metres with a telescopic sight. Its butt rested against his crutch. Tomislav held upright an RPG-7, with a loaded grenade, and Petar had brought a heavy leather shoulder holster that carried a Zastava M57 pistol taken from the body of a Serb officer. All their weapons had been buried in the hours before the break-out.
Simun had no firearm. One could have been found but that would not have been correct. He thought the boy sulked. Many were there, and all were armed. Only one man from the village had not come to the cafe. He felt a small breeze of irritation that Josip was not there. He had delayed his address until the Widow was with them and now he saw her in the low sunlight, hobbling towards them on a stick. Maria was with her, would have helped her dress. All the women already at the cafe wore black. Maria had on a black anorak, a black knee-length skirt and black stockings, and the Widow had chosen a long black dress and a black overcoat that would have been right for a winter funeral – today the temperature would climb to the high eighties.
But it would not last long in the cornfields. It would be over by the time the sun was high and the heat had built.
He drove carefully. It seemed right to Daniel Steyn that there should be no alarms for his passenger. The car had been past the command bunker from which the town’s defence had been organised. Steyn talked quietly, thought it necessary, but his passenger fiddled with his mobile and the doctor realised that the phone was being checked for the first time in hours, perhaps days. A low surrounding wall of concrete shielded the padlocked trapdoor to the hidden steps.
Steyn said, ‘Then, around here, it would have seemed like Stalingrad. Now it is merely a sunken stairway in a pretty garden. What was done here and in the villages on the Cornfield Road was heroic.’
Just want you to know that what you did was disgraceful, pathetic and criminal. You stole those papers, and what was in the safe, like a common thief. Whatever happens to you, it’ll be too good for you – and Fee thinks that. We’ve scrubbed you out, right out, and you’re a bastard we’re well rid of.
He’d pointed to the Irish pub, made a weak sort of crack about the Liffey’s water being cleaner than the Danube’s, and passed the hospital. Steyn said, ‘The wounded from the fighting were brought here. It must have been Dante’s Inferno. Too dangerous to bury the dead, so they were wrapped in soiled sheets and dumped outside the entrance to the bomb-shelter basements the staff and patients had retreated into. There was a fantastic woman who ran the place through unimaginable times, and it was her good fortune that she was too high-profile to be butchered. The wounded men and a few staff were taken out of a back door while peace envoys were at the front, and they were massacred. That is the war crime, the atrocity of Vukovar, and it leads to the accusation of betrayal. The name of this town, today, is the same as that of treason. Nothing is forgotten and nothing is forgiven. They see you, Mr Gillot, as part of the treason and part of the betrayal.’
To confirm, Harvey, that the shipment is on course and everything in the world is good. Warmest greetings from Burgas.
The road had opened out and they were clear of the buildings. A concrete bridge crossed a river and they were close to the quays where lines of barges were moored. There was quiet and peace. Steyn said, ‘The bridge was a key point in the defence of Vukovar. It’s open ground, except for the docks and the grain silos, until you reach the shoe factory, then Borovo. It was a weak point to defend and was exploited. The enemy came across the river and cut the defences into two. Then resistance was impossible. The men who were here had the best chance in the break-out, those in the centre the least. Why am I telling you this? Mr Gillot, there was phenomenal bravery here but those imposters – treason and betrayal – gnaw at the pride of the survivors. They wallow in hatred. You are a target for the hatred.’
This is Aleksandre, in the ministry – from Tbilisi – and I confirm that cargo is delivered to us tomorrow and we are satisfied with all arrangements you have made. A pleasure to do business with you, as always. All good wishes.
Steyn changed gear. The lights were red in front of him, a bus alongside, a petrol tanker behind, and the first kids were out on the streets with footballs. Women were hoisting washing lines and old men sat by their front doors, smoking. Many of these homes were pocked with bullet marks and the pavement was dented. Steyn said, ‘We’re nearly there, Mr Gillot, nearly at the start of the Cornfield Road. That is what you want?’
Charles here, sunshine. What we talked about over lunch and on the phone, Harvey, yes, can do that, and at a better price than I quoted you. It’ll have come back from the Province but should still be serviceable. I suppose you’re on holiday – fine for the leisured classes while the rest of us are labouring for the public good and to keep the old country afloat. Call me when you’re back.
Steyn said, ‘Not for me to intrude, Mr Gillot, but my advice is well-meant. These folk won’t be impressed by a grand gesture. There was real suffering here and on a level that people from the so-called civilised corners would find hard to appreciate. Worth considering – they have the same nerve ends, same ability to suffer as you or me. I don’t gild it. You want to go further. We’re nearly there, near the beginning.’
Monty here, my friend. The BPV arrived? I just wanted to bounce at you that I can do a hundred and there would be a 40 per cent discount on what you’re paying for one. I can assure you, Harvey, that the makers give very solid guarantees on their product. Let me know if you want a century, but don’t hang about. Bestest.
There was another bridge and Steyn eased on to the side of the road a little short of the span. Behind, there were ribbon-development bungalows and detached houses, with flowers in the gardens. Steyn said, ‘This is pretty much where the Cornfield Road started. Don’t harbour an impression of busy traffic going up and down it every night – it didn’t. Very little ammunition could be brought in because of the artillery and mortar fire. A bit along the track, the trees were close to it and Serb snipers in them. Wounded couldn’t be evacuated along it. Of course, a few weren’t cut out for hero status – they’d money put aside and paid heavily for guides to bring them through, but that’s not much talked of. Mr Gillot, this was a place of extraordinary courage, which is why the survivors have little tolerance for betrayal and treason.’
Calling from Marbella, my precious old mucker. We’re making progress and I don’t doubt it’ll all turn up rosy. Where are you? Rang home and had the phone slammed down on me. Trouble with the secretarial staff? Get a grip – sun’s shining here and I’m about to pop the day’s first cork. Wherever you are, enjoy it.
Steyn climbed out of his car – damn near clapped-out, but the supporting charity could run to nothing better. There would be no tears shed when it failed and he finally took the train out. Not his tears and not theirs.
Damn you – we’re missing you. The dog is, Fee is and I am… and we’re frightened for you. Too much said and done, probably, for it to be easy to put a plaster on it. Don’t get the top of your head shot off – don’t. We bloody miss you, whatever damn fool idea’s in your head and wherever you are. Make it through, and we’ll try something. The dog can’t and Fee can’t and I can’t live without the wretched old rogue who is owner and father and husband. Don’t touch anyone there because you’ll destroy them if you do. Look after yourself. Do, please
… I’m not interested in this house or the knick-knacks, but I want you, and Fee does, and the damn dog does. Don’t break anyone else like you’re breaking us. God, why did I marry you? Would have been for your bloody smile. Love you…
The phone was switched off. Steyn saw a man who had learned where his life stood, had listened to others, and was now prepared to walk on and away. Steyn thought he knew where it would end, and how, and that a wife’s mayday call would help him not at all. What to do? Nothing to do… There was a vineyard beside where the car was parked and a man, stripped to the waist, drove a tractor along the lines of almost ripe grapes. Peaceful – a damn fraud. Gillot came out of his seat, arced his back, and a most captivating smile split his face. To himself Steyn admitted that he would have bought anything off this guy, might even have bid for the Eiffel Tower, if the guy had offered it, cut price and discounted. The plastic bag was in his hand, there was a murmur of gratitude, and Gillot was gone.
He could still see, as the distance grew and a firm stride took him further, the holes in the shirt where the bullets had punctured it. Steyn crossed himself – he didn’t make a habit of it. The plastic bag, not much in it, seemed to bounce against Gillot’s thigh. The heat of the day came on and the road had started to shimmer and distort.
‘Is there anything we should be doing?’ Phoebe Bermingham asked.
‘Don’t think so, Ma’am,’ from Steve, Covert Surveillance, SCD10.
‘Maybe not “out of mind” but certainly “out of sight” from where I’m looking at it,’ from Harry, Intelligence, SCD11.
‘Mark Roscoe’s a big boy, and I’d bank on him being sensible enough to look after himself – do what he’s paid to do and not stand too adjacent,’ from Donny, Firearms, CO19.
The inspector from SCD7, Roscoe’s boss, reported the early-morning call, the state of play, the assessment and reprise on the expected course of the morning. And repeated something about ‘a fucking club of vultures’ that had gathered in the town and now headed for the cornfields. Dermot, ill at ease when exposed and isolated among the police, reported that his Penny Laing had found no evidence of criminality that would stand up in a court of law from the alleged events of nineteen years earlier, and had told them she was booked on a flight out in the early afternoon.
Phoebe did the summary. ‘I cannot see that we could have achieved more. We were faced with an obstructive and obstinate Tango who refused the advice of experienced personnel and safe accommodation. I don’t go so far as to say that Gillot made his bed and therefore can lie on it, but I believe we’ve acted honourably and adequately in this matter – and the fact that he has transferred the threat to himself to a foreign location is, quite simply, to be regarded as a blessing. In view of the extraordinary refusal of the Croatian authorities to grant liaison facilities, I would suggest that Sergeant Roscoe returns to the UK on the first available… I think our hands are clean. Comments?’
None.
Time, then, for Phoebe Bermingham, with a smile on thin lips, to let the detective inspector, Roscoe’s man, and the one from Revenue and Customs, Penny Laing’s, collect their papers, finish their coffee, make their farewells and get the hell out. Not sorry to see them go. The Gold Group, in relation to Harvey Gillot, had been an unsatisfactory frustration. Three new men and women took their places. Another Gold Group was in session, better stuff and straightforward: an Albanian brothel owner from Kilburn had ‘kidnapped’ a star girl who worked for a Kosovan pimp. If the Kosovan and his chums found their Albanian ‘cousin’, he was dead wherever they could reach him with a knife or an Uzi sub-machine gun. The man was refreshingly grateful for the protection offered.
She did not expect that, as a Gold Commander, the name of Harvey Gillot would again cross her table. A difficult man and without gratitude.
Benjie Arbuthnot marshalled them with the same skill as a Cumbrian collie would have employed on a flock of Herdwicks. He had his own bag behind his heels and the soles of the brogues crushed the matchbox, now empty, given him at the airport along with the medical materials.
Mark Roscoe was waved into the front passenger seat, and William Anders – his grumble ignored – was told to dump his bags in the boot, then get into the back with the women. Last into the boot, flung there without ceremony, were the jacket and vest. Then the hatch was slammed down so that the vehicle shook on its chassis – it was only a hire car. At that stage of developments, he didn’t believe he could have done more. It was Arbuthnot who had arranged for Steyn, the doctor, to be in the hotel’s forecourt from five thirty a.m., wait for the emergence of Gillot and offer the man a lift to where he needed to be dropped. A small thing, but it had seemed important. Best, also, for young Roscoe to have the more comfortable place alongside him: he liked the detective sergeant and thought he might be the only one among them who had a code of ethics that would stand up to any rigorous examination. He had assessed him as a decent man, dedicated, and rare because he seemed to make no judgements on his fellows. He was about the only one Benjie was interested in.
Not interested in Anders. He would greet the Californian with apparent affection, enthusiasm, but thought him egocentric. He believed the trade of digging up putrefied corpses merely kept alive vendettas and stultified reconciliation. At five thirty, on the forecourt, Steyn had told him that the villagers knew Gillot intended to cross the cornfields, and that the hired gun would be waiting where the bodies had been excavated. That would have come through the woman, Laing. He could see from her thrust-out chin, lowered eyes, defiance and back-to-the-wall defensiveness that she’d been humped rotten by a man who was both unsuitable and outside her supposed loop.
He wasn’t interested in the woman Behan. She would have gone to his room with the intention of hectoring, lecturing and gloating, and the salesman’s smile would have flashed at her, maybe a little of the salesman’s pitch given her, and she had ended up destabilised, certainties wrecked, carrying a jacket that was not needed and an inappropriate bulletproof vest. Only Roscoe interested him – and he had seen that the pack was stowed on the detective’s trouser belt.
He wouldn’t tell Roscoe where the hired gun would be placed. To do so would be intervention and would break the law of the safari.
He turned the ignition and was about to murmur a further inanity about the departure of the Vulture Club, but stayed silent, reached inside his jacket and touched the pen that was clipped to the inside pocket. At that moment, he felt old, sad, exhausted, and the past – with skeletal hands – seemed to claw at him. It had been a damn long time ago that he had stood on the dockside at Rijeka… It would be over by lunchtime and then they could, guaranteed, get the first flight of the afternoon out of this damn place.
He said, sprightly, ‘Right, ladies and gentlemen, the weather seems to be top hole for the day, so let’s get the club’s excursion on the road.’
Mladen was efficient. It was expected of a leader. He had the sheet of paper in his hand and, for the last time, he repeated where each man and woman should be. One exception had been made – he could not have prevented it. The Widow had decided where she should be and had gone earlier, Maria with her because the heat rose and it was a long walk for an old woman.
From the rest, he demanded discipline. He walked at the front when they left the cafe, turned at the near-completed church, headed for the cemetery and was on the track that would bring them to the Kukuruzni Put. Behind him were many rifles, the sniper’s Dragunov and the RPG-7. Some of the men had only shotguns, and women who were without grenades carried kitchen knives.
Far ahead, they heard a single shot, perhaps fired from a pistol. None could identify it, or think of a reason for it, but they pressed on, hurrying.
One shot fired – he had needed only one. He had fired and killed as cleanly as he had in Zagreb when they had tested him.
The man in Zagreb had slumped to his knees and gone prone. The fox had been bowled over by the impact of the bullet, which would have gone into the heart because there was barely a spasm. It lay now on its back, its legs erect and stuck out. He made the pistol safe and pocketed it, then bent to pick up the cartridge case. He threw it, bright and flashing in the sun’s low light, towards the tree-line and saw it fall where the grass was long, beyond ploughed ground. It had looped high over the cross. There was blood at the fox’s mouth, rich, dark. It came slowly in a dribble from in front of the incisors. A little flowed over the whiskers and some went into the nostrils. He looked at it for a long time.
The preparation for killing the fox had taken more than an hour.
He had laid out the last of the sandwiches – some crusts and a quarter-slice of ham, with the core of the apple – on the ground near enough to the undergrowth at the tree-line to tempt it. Hunger had won. The animal had come out by the little track that led down to the water. He had seen the fur at the mouth that had brushed against his hand, the tongue that had licked his skin. Obvious to Robbie Cairns why he would kill the fox. It would have taken him down the riverbank to the pool. He would have walked and scrambled over the grass and weeds of the incline. The fox had small light padded feet and would not set off a landmine. It would have tricked him. The fox had nuzzled and licked him to deceive. He was pleased to have shot it and had done it well. No one deceived Robbie Cairns and walked away from it.
He had forgotten his yearning to be loved by the fox. He stood, then walked to the animal and took hold of its tail, above where the mange infected it. He threw it hard and high, heard the body break through the branches and then the splash.
It had tried to lead him into the mines.
The sun was higher and beat on him. Far down a track that ran off through the corn he could see the movement of men and women, but they were hazed and indistinct. Sweat ran on him, and was in his eyes. It was the path, where the movement was, that his target would take.
He came off the road and ahead of him was the small, squat pillbox. In front of the pillbox was the shrine with the painted statuette of the Virgin and behind it the pole. The flag fluttered dismally in the heat.
Harvey Gillot crested a small hill, dirt and dust skidding out from under his feet, and realised there had been no rain for many weeks: the ground was baked dry. He passed the flag, then the shrine, and assumed it to have been built as a memorial to those who had died using the Cornfield Road. On the pillbox he could see the marks of war and the exposed lengths of steel wire on to which the concrete had been poured long ago. The ground in front of the shrine was covered with white chippings and weeds grew freely among them. He wondered why – if the past lived so strong – a man or a woman did not come here with a hoe and tidy it. Then the flag, the pillbox and the shrine were behind him.
From the top of the slope, he looked forward. To his left, distant, was the water tower, which peeped above the corn crop. To his right, nearer, was a farmhouse among mature fruit trees. There was scaffolding on one of the walls as if an attempt was made to move on from the past. Ahead was an expanse of fields, corn and sunflowers, and above the corn, chimneys that were difficult to focus on in the bright sunlight. In places, between the corn stems, he glimpsed red-tiled roofs. It was the village that had paid him.
It was why he was there.
No reason to mess around. Time to step out and confront it. ‘It’ was a gun, a balaclava, a hammer blow on his spine, then repeated. Could have hidden and flinched at his own shadow. Harvey Gillot started his walk.
The plastic bag, in his right hand, had little weight. The slight wind that blew on the open plain and was sucked down the path riffled it, making it flap against his leg. He wore a pair of creased lightweight trousers, should have been washed and pressed, and the shirt had been on his back since he had left the island. He was unshaven, which didn’t bother him. He had soft trainers on – he would have chosen them for a quiet day on the patio with his mobile for company. He hadn’t tidied his hair. He had dressed fast, moving on tiptoe around the hotel room, hadn’t showered or washed or swilled his teeth, and had looked often at her, fully dressed, sleeping well, her face calm. He hadn’t woken her. He had written the note, had done the smile – the rueful one – then gone out of the door and closed it with care.
He murmured, ‘Well, Mr Lieberman, they say that if you’re stuck in a pit it’s best to stop digging, so I’ve dumped the shovel. I’m walking because your good chum, Mr Arbuthnot, offered that piece of advice. Would be grateful, Mr Lieberman, if you’d watch my back…’ Could have done with his dark glasses. It looked a long walk and he thought it would take him near to the red-tiled roofs, the jutting chimneys and maybe skirt a tree-line, but everything was indistinct: the light reflected up from the path and seemed to gouge at his eyes. He hadn’t gone far yet, and the path stretched ahead, the corn grew high, and a car door slammed, behind him, faint.
It would have slammed on the road near to the flag, the pillbox and the shrine.
The sound of the slam carried well and there was no noise on the path, other than that of leaves moving and songbirds. Up higher a buzzard soared – should have had his dog with him. If it had been a choice between the dark glasses to protect his eyes or the dog, head beside his knee, he would have chosen the dog. Had the dog noticed he’d gone? Always made a fuss when he came back, but he wouldn’t have bet good money on the dog’s loyalty if it were just a walk that was on offer. The dog would follow the food. She gave it food and it might turn down the chance of a walk in a cornfield that led to a village, a grave and… He heard the stamp of feet, running behind him. He quickened his step, thought of the gun, the balaclava. He didn’t know whether he should walk faster, trot, jog or sprint. The tread closed on him. Gillot didn’t want to turn. He could picture the slight, spare-shouldered shape of the man and thought, with that build, the man would be close enough to him to have the right range for a handgun. Twenty feet, a difficult shot; ten feet, a reasonable shot; five feet, certainty. Couldn’t stop or turn, and the sweat ran on his back. The wind eddied in the bullet holes of his shirt and cooled the wet on his skin.
‘For God’s sake, Mr Gillot, can you just slow down?’