The Pale House (29 page)

“You saw outside? The Partisan?”

“I saw her, Bunda.”

“Fuckers. Using women. No shame. And look what they did to my men. Go on, look. No secrets, Reinhardt. Look at 'em, I said! What do you see?”

“Bodies.”

“You see provocation,” said
. “Look a little closer.”

“Look at 'im.” Bunda's flashlight stabbed at a body. “His eyes have been gouged out. That one. Eviscerated. That's the stench. It's 'is bowels. That one, engaged in
buggery
? On this one, and 'e's been . . .” The giant stuttered to a stop.

“Emasculated.”

“That's a fancy fucking word for 'aving your balls chopped off.”

“You wanted me to see this, so give me a moment, Bunda.”

Bunda subsided back, his huge arms folded across the boulder of his chest.
stood quietly to one side, one of his meaty fists closed around something small, something that moved with a gentle clack of hard surfaces. Reinhardt shone the light into the faces of the dead, his stomach turning at the one who had been blinded, at the empty, bloodied sockets. Each of the heads he turned to the right, until he came to the one he wanted, running a soft fingertip down the ridge of scar that ran from the man's ear down his jaw, and under his collar. Squatting there, he ran the flashlight over the room, and saw the blood spatters leap out at him. Two of them. On the wall. At a height consistent with men being made to kneel and then shot in the back of the head.

“What do you make of that, then?” he asked the UstaÅ¡e, the light shining on the bloodied walls.

Bunda leaned in, then growled. “Least they didn't suffer, did they.”

At least two of them did not suffer
, Reinhardt thought as he stood, wincing at the pain in his knee. “Is this it?”

“You're taking this a bit lightly, aren't you?” rumbled
, and Reinhardt realized his position, all but alone up here, and his tongue shot into the gap in his teeth.

“Bet you weren't so fucking flippant when it was your boys lying in the dirt.” Bunda seemed to swell even bigger, fairly suffused with his anger.

No apologies. Not for these men, even if he was alone up here. “What do you want from me?”

“It's important you see this, Reinhardt,” said
. “It's important you know we have the same enemies. Now, let's go somewhere a little more comfortable, shall we?”

They went back outside. The street was very quiet, only the murmur of the Ustaše and police, a sentry's feet crunching softly in the dark. Reinhardt stood a moment, listening to what was not there, then climbed back into the car with Bunda. Ahead of them,
angled his bulk into another car, and then it was the same journey but in reverse, and the Pale House loomed out of the murk, edged by the forlorn huddles of people who waited against its walls, coalescing out of the gloom, then falling behind as the car passed them. Then they were slowing past guards with shouldered rifles, skeins of barbed wire wound around wooden trestles, and stopping in front of the doorway set back under an arch bracketed by a pair of heavy, wrought-iron lamps. Up on the roof, a crow cocked its head down at the street and cawed raucously.

Bunda shifted around in the front and smiled at Reinhardt.

The crowd fell silent as
stepped out of his car. The big Ustaše ran lazy eyes across the penitent crowd, and he lifted his fist to his mouth, brushing it with his knuckles as his fingers curled around whatever he held. He seemed to play with the crowd, no words exchanged, none needed, only a predatorial sense of ownership, as if
knew exactly the terms of the power he wielded, and whatever sufferance he allowed the crowd to have. He left them there, eventually, and Reinhardt followed Bunda back inside and up that flight of steps, the desk in front of it empty now.

The building pressed back in around him, different now, a dog with its teeth bared wet and white, as if no pretenses were needed with the darkness outside. Someone was screaming in the building. It was far off, dimmed by distance and walls and doors, but it pierced the rank air of the entrance, a shrill thread of agony. Behind a door came the meaty thud of something being struck.
and Bunda hauled themselves up the stairs, the giant breathing heavily, then prodded Reinhardt to the right, following
, past a man chained to a huge, metal radiator. Reinhardt could feel the heat sloughing off it as he went by, and the man writhed desperately against the cast-iron pipes, whimpering, his face scarlet as he shifted one way, then the other.

Reinhardt and Bunda followed
into another room, some kind of office with a huge wooden desk surrounded by mismatched chairs. Heavy brown drapes hung at the windows, and
moved to each of them, drawing them closed. There was a smell in the air, like something had been burned.
turned and looked at Reinhardt, Bunda moving over to stand next to him.
eyes were very dark and flat, no sign of what he was thinking visible in them or on his face. The fingers of one hand moved rhythmically, a faint clatter as something shifted around between them.