‘Not good enough for me.’
‘Has to be, Sergeant.’
‘I have no jurisdiction here, no police liaison, no back-up and no weapon.’
‘Correct on all counts.’
‘But I do have a duty of care.’
‘Jargon, Sergeant, from a bit after my time.’
‘What I’m saying, Mr Arbuthnot, is that I’m obliged – and wouldn’t have it otherwise – to show as much care, because this is a duty, towards a reptile character as I would towards an upright citizen. We don’t differentiate between saints and sinners.’
‘He’s a sinner, a reptile?’
‘Arms dealer – could be, for all I care, a crystal-meth dealer involved in a territory fight. If the silly bastard had done as he was told and –’
‘And bolted, dug a pit and squatted in it.’
‘– and had listened to advice, taken the help offered him … instead I’m in this godforsaken hole – and I have a duty of care when he walks. Why is he going to do it?’
‘I suppose he has something in his mind about “facing up” or “confronting” his problems. It’ll sit well with duty of care, Sergeant.’
The packet must have been wedged down in Benjie’s chair. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and slightly larger than a paperback book. He gave it to Roscoe, and for the first time the detective felt almost shy. He had his fingers under the Sellotape and was about to rip it open.
‘I wouldn’t. Do it later – tomorrow. Don’t forget it. Bring it. I’ll be leaving at about six forty-five, if you’d like a lift. Courtesy of the Vulture Club, a membership perk.’
Roscoe watched as Arbuthnot stood up and walked straight, might have been on a parade-ground, heading for the stairs. What did he know about the morning? Not enough. What did he know about the man to whom he owed a duty of care? Too little.
He crawled off the bed, silent.
Gillot didn’t use the bathroom but dressed. He wrote a note and propped it on the dressing-table. He opened the door and eased it shut behind him. The dawn came slowly and made a mist over the river. The town was buried in silence.
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 café 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.