THE HEART OF DANGER (6 page)

room, into the drab little room that hadn't enough light, nor enough

comfortable chairs, nor any recent magazines. She was half an hour

early. It was because she was coming that he had hurried the Service

of Legal Process, blundered in, and caught the right fist to the lower

lip. She was a tall woman, almost beautiful, and she wore clothes

of a

cut that wasn't seen every day in the office of Alpha Security above

the launderette. She had her head down and there was a tissue in her

hands that she squashed, pulled, squashed, in a nervous rhythm. She

wore a good suede coat and a long black skirt, and there was a bright

outsize scarf looped over her shoulders. He thought it was the first

time for her, first time in the office of a private investigation

company. She had quality diamond stud earrings and he could see the

29

pearls at her throat. Penn accused, "Didn't you offer her a coffee?"

Deirdre bridled. "Stupid fart, Henry, didn't put the milk back in

the

fridge last night, milk's off. I can't just swan off and leave the

phones .. ." "I want some coffee and I want it now." "You're not much

of a sight, Mr. Penn, not for a new client." "Bugger the phones,"

he

said. "Coffee, now .. ." And that would go back to Basil, soon as he

trooped in, mid-morning. A sledging from dear Deirdre, that Mr.

Bill

Penn, quite aggressive, quite rude, and no call .. . but she was

collecting her handbag. He had a split lower lip and blood on his

shirt and he strode to the door of the waiting room. Never explain,

never apologize, a good creed. She must have heard him coming and

as

he opened the door she was looking up and for a moment there was the

startled rabbit stare, and then the forced composure. And what he

had

to do was remember, and hard, that Alpha Security now paid the

mortgage

and the gas bill and the electricity and the food, and put the clothes

on his back and on Jane's and the nappies on Tom's backside, and split

lips and kicks down tower-block steps and solo surveillance were part

of the game for a guy heaved out of Five and he had better remember

it

... She had a public face on. The composure was set as if the nerves

and the fear had never been. He closed the door behind him. She

was

looking at his mouth but she was too polite to remark on the split

lower lip and the blood on his shirt. "Mrs. Mary Braddock? I'm

Bill

Penn "I'm early, the traffic was less than I'd expected .. ." "It's not a problem," Penn said. "What can I do for you?" "I expect you're a busy man .. ." "Sometimes." '.. . So I won't waste your time.

My

daughter was in Yugoslavia. She was there when the fighting was in

Croatia. She disappeared at the end of 1991, she was listed as

missing. Last week I was informed that her body had been identified

from the exhumation of a mass grave, in that part of Croatia that

is

now under Serb control. She had been dead for fifteen months, buried

and hidden. I want to know what happened to her. I want to know

how

she died and why she died. She was my only daughter, Mr. Penn."

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He

interrupted, "Isn't this a job for ... ?" "You should let me finish, Mr. Penn .. . But since you raise it ... Shouldn't this be a job

for

the Foreign Office? Of course it should. Do you know anything about

government departments, Mr. Penn? They're useless. That's a

generalization and a true one. Good at cups of tea in a First

Secretary's office, good at booking a hotel room, good at platitudes,

and they don't give a damn, just some silly woman using up their day.

I

have been to Zagreb, Mr. Penn, I was there when Dorrie, my daughter,

was missing, and I was there to bring her body home. I thought it

was

their job to help people like me, and I was wrong. Arnold is a good

friend. Arnold gave me your name .. ." High excitement coursing,

yesterday, when he had been told by Deirdre that Arnold Browne had

left

the message for him to call, immediately. He had sat in the cubbyhole

area where Basil had given him the desk, and savoured the moments

before he had picked up the telephone. All some mistake, a mistake

to

have let him go, and of course they wanted him back ... or .. . pretty

bad cock-up, losing him, but the Service had plenty of scope for work

by outsiders who were trusted and proven, nice little one for him,

and

of course he was not forgotten. And what brutal disappointment

crushing him, yesterday, when he had dialled the direct-line number,

spoken to Arnold bloody Browne, been told that a neighbour had a

problem, needed a bit of uncomplicated ferreting, needed a good

plodder

was what the bloody man meant ... He ran his tongue over his lower

lip.

"What was it you wanted of me?"

She had her handbag open and she had taken the ointment tube out.

She

didn't ask his permission. She squeezed the ointment onto her

forefinger and reached forward and, casual, gentle, she smeared the

salve onto the split of his lower lip.

"I want you to go to Zagreb for me. I want to know how my Dorrie

died,

and why."

He thought her so bloody vulnerable, she shouldn't have been there.

31

She

shouldn't have been in the waiting room that doubled as clients'

interview room in a shabby, God-awful, dreary little office. He told

her that he would think on it overnight, that if he took it he would

come down in the morning, if ... She gave him an address. He would

think on it and consider it. He walked her out of the office and

they

passed Basil on the stairs, and the one-time CID man gave her the

look-over of a bloody farmer evaluating livestock. They stood on

the

pavement outside the launderette.

"Would you tell me .. . ?"

"What?" he rasped.

"Would you tell me what state he is in, the man who hit you this

morning?"

He saw the mischief dance in her eyes.

Penn said, "I would have been done for assault. No, if I'd hit him like I know, then I'd have been done for murder. What state is he

in?

Probably pretty good, probably he's looking forward to getting pissed

up in the pub this lunch time and telling the rest of the select lounge

how he put one on me. I served the Process, but that's a small-beer

victory .. ."

Then the mischief was gone and she was serious. "I like winning,

Mr.

Penn, I expect to win ... I want to know how my daughter died, I want

to know who killed her, I want to know why she was killed. I want

to

know."

They had been at the roadblock an hour. They had sat in the jeep

and

smoked and talked together for an hour before they heard the coughing

approach of the truck. The engine would go on the truck if it went

on

burning the bad diesel that the sanction busters brought in. No

point

in trying to reach Rosenovici from the Vrginmost road, because there

was always a block by the Territorial Defence Force on that route.

The

32

last week, when they had been there and digging, they had used the

turning to Bovic off the Glina road, then taken the plank bridge short

of the village of Salika to get themselves to Rosenovici. The

roadblock was at the bridge. There were four TM-46 mines laid out

on

the bridge. Nasty little bastards, and the Canadian knew that each

held

a bit over five kilos of explosive. It was the first time that he

had

tried, in the company of his Kenyan colleague, to get to Rosenovici

since the digging, the taking away of the bodies. He had hoped to

get

back to the village and leave a little food for the old woman, and

a

little love, to have been discreet. Now there would be no food

dropped

off, and no love, because they were held at the roadblock ... It was

what the Kenyan called 'another peace-advancing day in Sector North'.

They would not get the food to the old woman, but that was not good

enough reason to back off. Push, smile, probe, smile, negotiate,

smile, step by fucking step and half of them backwards, and smile

.. .

always goddamn smile. The Canadian police sergeant had been

stationed

at the Petrinja base for 209 days and could tell anyone who asked

that

his posting had 156 days to run. When he made it back to Toronto,

when

his colleague made it back to Mombasa, then both of them, bet your

life, would never forget how to smile. They were kids, they weren't

out of their teens, but the TDF shit at the roadblock had shiny

Kalashnikovs, and they had four TM-46 mines to play with, and they

were

drunk. The Canadian police sergeant reckoned that drunk teenagers

with

automatic rifles and mines should be smiled at... It would have been

easy to have given up and reversed the jeep away from the bridge,

away

from the scarred village of Rosenovici, and driven back to Petrinja

easy, but the abandonment of the old woman would have come hard. It

was worth smiling, to keep the road open to the village that was

wrecked .. . Rule 1 of Sector North, and Rule 10 and Rule 100, don't

argue, don't, at kids with high-velocity hardware and mines and booze

in their guts. It was a full hour since he had smiled and asked the

first time for the responsible official, please, to be allowed to

contact that senior and responsible official, and he would appreciate

33

their courtesy if that senior and responsible and important official

had the time to spare, just shit .. . They could barely walk upright,

the TDF kids, and every few minutes they'd go move the mines, shove

them or kick them, and every few minutes they'd go drink some more.

The truck came.

The Kenyan grinned. "You happy now, man?"

The truck stopped behind their jeep.

"As a hog in dung .. ."

The Canadian smiled. He looked out through the front windscreen of

the

jeep. He knew the man. He had met Milan Stankovic on the third day of

his posting to Sector North; he had known Milan Stankovic for 206

days.

And Milan Stankovic had only himself to blame. The big mouth of

Salika, the big boasting militia boss. It was the big mouth and the

big boast that accounted, the Canadian thought, for the shit-sour

face

of Milan Stankovic. The kids were trying to stand tall, and the kids

were telling it to the shit-sour face of Milan Stankovic that they

had

obeyed the orders and stopped the UNCIVPOL jeep from reaching

Rosenovici. The Canadian smiled big, and he knew they would not be

going over the bridge, and there would be no food for the old woman,

and he held the smile.

The shit-sour face was at the window of the jeep.

"You cannot go over."

The Kenyan said, pleasantly, "It is part of our patrol area, sir."

"It is forbidden for you to go."

The Canadian said, friendly, "We have never had a problem in the past, sir."

"If you do not leave, immediately, you will be shot."

"We are only doing our job, a neutral job, sir."

34

"One minute, and it will be me that shoots you."

"Perhaps another day, perhaps we can go over another day, sir."

"Get the fuck out."

The Canadian was still smiling as he reversed the jeep away from the

bridge, away from the track that led to the ruin of Rosenovici, away

from where they had dug the previous week. He smiled all the time

that

they were watched by the drunk kids and Milan Stankovic. The jeep

lurched back onto the Bovic road, and he lost the smile and cursed

quietly to himself. He had never seen the old woman, but he had heard

she was there, in the woods above the village, and he had three times

left food for her and the food had been taken. Perhaps it was just

a

story, that the old woman was there, perhaps it was the stray and

abandoned dogs that took the food. The Kenyan said, "Maybe he has

a

problem with his bowel movement. Our good friend did not seem happy

..

." "Not as happy as a hog in dung." The Canadian knew. It was the big

mouth. The big mouth had said, "There have been no atrocities here.

We

Serbs have always treated our Croat enemies correctly and with care."

It was the big boast that said, "There are no hidden graves here.

We

have nothing to be ashamed of." The big mouth and the big boast in the

grimy dining hall of the administration building at the TDF camp in

Salika, and all the guys around him to hear it. The Canadian had

put

in his report, and he had heard that Milan Stankovic was called to

the

summit chat in Belgrade, and the village was a headless chicken, and

the Professor had been dragged off the Ovcara dig for the day .. .

The