The Unquiet Dead (7 page)

It hadn't been, but it was as good a lead as any. “Was it you who was eager to get married, then?”

Everything about the woman suggested haste. With her ex-husband no longer on a leash, maybe it had been a straightforward exchange of sex for security. The woman had a libido; the way she was eyeing Khattak was ample evidence of that.

Melanie swept her arm wide, knocking petals from several of the roses as she did.

“If you think this is about Audrina, let me assure you it isn't. I'm the only woman Chrissie cared about. The only one he wanted to marry, and he was in no danger of changing his mind.”

“Who's Audrina?”

Khattak was busy admiring the fruit of the Osmond brothers' labor, so Rachel kept at it. One conversational thread was often as good as another.

Melanie's pouting lips snapped tight, but the massive injections of collagen she had endured meant they couldn't look anything but sultry.

“Some tart he picked up somewhere. I never met her, she was never at the house. Sometimes when Chrissie couldn't sleep, I'd hear him talking about her, but if I asked him in the morning, he'd say it was nothing. Some silly crush from his past. There were no texts from her, no phone calls.”

Khattak turned back to them, his fingers absently handling the peach-colored petals of a rose known as Joseph's Coat.

“Your fiancé wasn't sleeping well?”

Melanie renewed her pout, this time attempting a sexier twist on it. “Not for my lack of trying, Inspector. A woman does what she can.” She brought a platinum lock of her hair to her lips and twirled it. Rachel smothered a laugh. This was the Scarborough version of Marilyn Monroe's
Niagara
. “I told Chrissie not to worry about it, but I guess he couldn't get those letters off his mind.”

“What letters, Ms. Blessant?”

“Melanie, please.” She pressed Khattak's outstretched hand, removing the rose from his grasp. “Oh, every now and again Chrissie would find these letters on his doorstep. Typed letters, stupid ones. They never made any sense to me.”

As Khattak's interest sharpened, Melanie blossomed before Rachel's eyes.

“Mr. Drayton showed them to you? How were they addressed?”

Her thick-coated eyelashes flickered. “The envelopes weren't addressed and Chrissie didn't exactly show me the letters. I'd find pieces of them in his desk drawer from time to time.”

The same things that Rachel and Khattak already knew.

“Once, I found them shoved into an atlas like he was trying to keep them from me. My Chrissie never liked me to worry.” Nor would any man, her tone implied. Her raison d'être in life was to be cosseted. “It was total nonsense, anyway. What does it even mean, ‘I think it would be better if none of us had survived'? Why would anyone say that?”

She didn't seem to care about the answer.

“Can you tell us anything else about the letters?” There was a stiffness in Khattak's voice that Rachel couldn't place.

“I wish I could, Inspector, but Chrissie agreed with me. He said they were nonsense and he should probably burn them.” She tilted her blond head to one side, her china blue eyes widening in sudden awareness. “But he always dreamt about Audrina on those nights when he got one. Maybe the little slut was sending them to him.”

Rachel made a note of the name. Could the candles have been for the purpose of burning the letters? If so, why had she found so many remnants in Drayton's file cabinet? The puddles of resin had consisted only of candle wax, not residues of ash.

She signaled Khattak. She was finding Melanie Blessant both vulgar and tedious. She wanted to get to the museum.

“I wonder, Melanie, would you have the combination to your fiancé's safe? Or access to any of his papers?”

Melanie shook her head, her platinum locks bouncing, displeased at this reminder of her limited prerogatives in Drayton's life. “I need to know about his will. Chrissie said he would take care of me. He
promised
he would. I know he wouldn't leave me all alone in the world.”

The subtraction of Hadley and Cassidy from her life didn't surprise Rachel at all, but Khattak's response was kind.

“For the time being, we'll have to ask you for your key and that you stay away from this house until we've completed our inquiries. You should know, however, that you are designated as the beneficiary in Mr. Drayton's life insurance policies. Regarding his will, if you know his lawyer's name, you should contact him. He'll be able to guide you further.”

Melanie's impossible heels saw her sway into Khattak's chest.

“Thank you, Inspector, thank you! You don't know how worried I've been. Does the policy say—?”

“One hundred thousand dollars each. There are two of them. But they won't be settled until we've ascertained that Mr. Drayton's death was no more than an accident.”

Melanie stared at them shrewdly, her whole mood brightening.

“Chrissie didn't kill himself. He had no reason to. I'll swear that to anyone who asks.”

She had the confidence of a woman who knew that the objections of any rational male could be softened by a comprehensive glance at her cleavage.

She turned in her key without protest, a spring in her step as she let herself out of the garden.

 

6.

Do you still believe that we die

only the first death

and never receive any requital?

“I want to look for that atlas, Rachel.”

“I'd like to get to that museum before it closes, sir. And shouldn't we get something to eat?” The breakfast sandwich being a faded memory at this point, leaving her purse redolent of egg whites, cheese, and sausage.

“After this, I promise.”

Rachel screwed up her face in concentration. Only one section of Drayton's bookshelves held any atlases—the same one that contained the teen fiction she now ascribed to Hadley and Cassidy. They were heavy books. She took them out one at a time, shifting them to the surface of Drayton's desk. Khattak shook them out. No letters fell loose, none were concealed between the endpapers or slipped inside their covers.

“No luck, sir,” she concluded.

She was in the act of setting the final one back when she saw that Drayton had folded down the corner of a particular page. She opened the atlas to study the borders of the country mapped on its pages. It wasn't Russia or Albania.

In a quick flash of intuition she connected the name of the woman Melanie had called a little slut. Audrina. Shortened, it was a five letter word. A word dark-penciled on the map.

She left the atlas open on the desk to make her way to the safe, adrenaline juicing her veins. The glimmer of an idea was taking root in her mind.

“What is it?”

She pointed Khattak to the atlas.

“I think I might be able to figure out the combination.”

If it was as simple as a substitution code. Numbers for a name Drayton hadn't been able to get out of his mind, a name that kept him up at night. A preliminary attempt taught her that a straightforward substitution wouldn't fit the five-digit display. Using paper from Drayton's desk, she tried another tack. If she divided the alphabet in half and assigned the numbers one through thirteen, only one combination would spell the name she had found on the map. She punched in the numbers 45911 and the digital display lit up. As she pulled the small lever forward, she heard a click. The safe opened without resistance.

Drayton hadn't been mumbling the name of another woman in his sleep.

He'd said
Drina
, not Audrina. The name on the map was also the code.

Dozens of letters cascaded from the safe into her lap. She shifted through them, catching odd phrases here and there.

Yellow ants, your days are numbered.

Bend down, drink the water by the kerb like dogs.

Take the town. Comb the streets house by house.

Make them shoot each other. Then kill the rest.

They took my son. They shot him before my eyes.

I'm thirsty, so thirsty.

How sorry I am to die here so thirsty.

A terrible sense of dread pressed against Rachel's heart. Her stomach dropped, her palms went damp. She knew what she was looking at, but she wanted to hear it confirmed. She needed Khattak to admit what he long must have known.

The letters were never meant for Christopher Drayton.

They identified another man altogether.

Her voice raspy in her throat, she skewered Khattak with a look.

“Who the
hell
is Dra
ž
en Krstić?”

 

7.

Under a big pear tree there was a heap of between ten and twelve bodies. It was difficult to count them because they were covered over with earth, but heads and hands were sticking out of the little mound.

There's never any joy.

Khattak's phone rang, a temporary reprieve from questions he could no longer ignore. He didn't believe the truth would set him free. The truth in this case was a trap. One he had willingly entered, on the word of an old friend. Because friendship was more than a source of comfort, or a place of belonging. It was a responsibility. One that Nate had failed. He wouldn't fail Tom in turn.

That's not the only reason, Esa, you know that. You're not detached, pretend as you must. This is about identity. Yours. And his.

The phone call corroborated his fears. He'd told Rachel not to use up resources, not to widen the circle, but he'd sent a picture of the gun to Gaffney. And now Gaff had told him what some still resistant part of himself didn't want to know.

“Bring those with you. You said you were hungry,” he said to Rachel.

“Sir—”

It wasn't an evasion. He had never meant to keep her in the dark this long.

“I'll answer your questions while we eat.”

And Rachel, ever loyal when she should have been screaming at him, bagged the evidence without a word and followed him to the car.

Evidence? What evidence? A man fell to his death.

If he kept repeating it to himself, it might prove true.

He chose a restaurant near the marina, familiar to him through colleagues at 43 Division. And through Nate. He and Nate had eaten here all the time. The food was good, the views abundant.

His salad arrived swiftly along with Rachel's grilled chicken sandwich.

She tossed the bag of letters beside his plate.

“Talk,” she said.

Glad of the excuse not to meet her eyes, he turned his attention to the bag. A disjointed phrase slipped toward his salad.

Not one of our leaders remain. No one returned from Omarska.

Rachel was already putting pieces together.

“Who called you from Justice, sir? Who asked you to find out if Christopher Drayton really fell from the Bluffs?”

His salad tasted dry in his mouth. This was Rachel. This was going to be a nightmare for every branch of government involved, but Rachel he trusted. She had more than proven her loyalty in Waverley, but it wasn't loyalty alone that had shown him her real worth. Rachel had a dogged commitment to the truth that outstripped her pride and ambition alike.

“Tom Paley,” he said at last. “He's a friend.” There was no point delaying the truth further. “He's also the Chief War Crimes Historian at Justice.”

Rachel's mouth fell open, disclosing an impressive amount of chewed-up chicken.

She was bound to know Paley's name. Every now and again, his Nazi-hunting endeavors surfaced in the press.

She swallowed with difficulty, setting down her sandwich so she could count off her fingers. “The map Drayton marked. It was of Yugoslavia. The code to the safe—it was Drina, like the river on the eastern border.”

“Like the Drina Corps,” Khattak amended. “Like the gun. It's a Tokarev variant, the M70 model. Standard issue for the Yugoslav National Army—or the JNA, as it was known.”

“What are you saying, sir? That Drayton owned a Yugoslav army weapon? Where would he have gotten it?”

“Not Drayton.” Khattak looked at her steadily. “Dra
ž
en Krstić.”

She stared back unblinking.

“Lieutenant Colonel Dra
ž
en Krstić was the Chief of Security of the Drina Corps of the VRS in 1995. He was General Radislav Krstić's direct subordinate. He was a superior officer to the security organs of the Drina Corps brigades. He also had a unique relationship with the Military Police and the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the Main Staff.”

“Hold up,” Rachel said. “I'm lost. Main staff of what?”

“The VRS.” He folded his hands to cover the letters. “The Bosnian Serb Army.”

There was a deadly little pause. It had never bothered Rachel that Khattak was a decade older than she, but she could see now that it had its disadvantages. He spoke of a war he had witnessed, whereas she had been a child during the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

Memories of news coverage began to filter through. The secession of a republic known as Bosnia Herzegovina. A UN force on the ground. Shrill politicians. Hand-wringing. Yes, there had been plenty of hand-wringing.

“Did you say 1995?” she whispered. He nodded, his expression not quite impassive.

“And the Drina Corps's area of responsibility?”

“It was Srebrenica.”

Srebrenica.

Now the dread had meaning.

So too the letters.

“And Drayton?”

“Tom thinks Drayton may have been Dra
ž
en Krstić.”

The notorious war criminal at large. One of the chief perpetrators of the executions at Srebrenica, where eight thousand Muslim boys and men had been murdered near the endpoint of a war that had seen Yugoslavia dissolve into flames. Eight thousand dead in less than a week.