A patrol of American KFOR troops found that cave and wrote it up. The report came up to Pristina and landed on my desk. One of life’s happy coincidences.’
‘You made the connection with Dragovic?’
‘I knew he was doolally for the Romans. I’d been trying to get close to his organisation for a while.’
‘Close?’
‘A sting. Infiltrate his circles and bring him down.’ He held his head still. She thought he was staring at her, though his eyes were invisible in the darkness.
‘You weren’t working for him?’
‘Is that what they told you?’ He reached forward and put his hand on her arm, but she jerked it away. She wasn’t ready for that. ‘Christ, Abby. Is that what you thought I was?’
‘I thought you were dead.’
On the stove the pan bubbled and spat.
‘You know all about Dragovic, I suppose. He’s the most evil man in the Balkans, and that takes some doing.’
He fiddled with the knob of the stove, adjusting the heat.
‘You remember Irina?’
Abby nodded. To her, Irina had been a black-and-white photograph on a bookshelf in Michael’s flat – glossy hair, pale skin, dark eyes watching the room, like the missing person pictures taped to the railings of the government building in Pristina. She’d only asked Michael about the picture once, thinking she must be family.
‘Irina was one of Dragovic’s victims during the ’99 war. I’m not going to tell you what he had done to her, but I’ve read the reports. You can probably use your imagination.’
And that did stall her anger. She knew all the stories. Whatever vile, cruel or inhuman torture men could devise, it had probably happened in Kosovo during the war. There’d even been rumours of prisoners herded across the border to Albania to have their organs harvested for sale to rich buyers in the West.
‘Dragovic is the reason I came back to the Balkans. When this find of Roman artefacts turned up, I thought I could use it to get to him. I baited the hook – and he bit.’
‘The Foreign Office thought you were corrupt.’
‘I had to go vigilante. You know how it is with MMA.’
MMA was
‘Half the Kosovo government report to Dragovic. MMA means they see everything. Anything that goes on paper or in an e-mail at headquarters, it’s on Dragovic’s desk before it’s reached the top floor. If I’d done this officially …’ He sighed. ‘I went off the reservation, Abby, and I took you with me, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that.’
‘Why did you get me involved?’
‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I knew EULEX were after me because they thought I was in bed with Dragovic. Fair enough. Dragovic’s people were sniffing around to see if I was on the level, so actually the internal investigation made it look better. But it was tough. I didn’t want EULEX bursting in on my meeting at the villa, just when I was starting to get somewhere. You know there’s nothing the EU people hate more than working a weekend. I thought if you came away with me, they’d decide it was nothing and leave us alone.’
He spooned the beans out on to the plate and handed it to her. ‘Only one plate. Sorry I’m not geared up for hosting.’
She pushed it away – she wasn’t hungry – but he held on. ‘When was the last time you ate?’
He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You need food. We don’t have much time.’
She took the plate. The moment the first spoonful went in, she realised she’d been ravenous.
‘Things went wrong.’ Michael sat back on a log, rocking back and forth. ‘It was never supposed to be dangerous. Dragovic was going to send his man – his name was Sloba – to pick up the artefacts, and that was it. You and I would have a nice weekend, and I’d be one step closer to Dragovic.’
‘It didn’t work out that way.’
‘Sloba was twitchy as hell from the start. He might have come with orders to kill me, I don’t know. When you came out on the pool terrace, he jumped to a conclusion.’
‘He threw you over the cliff,’ Abby reminded him.
‘Even Zoltan Dragovic needs to have his pool cleaned. There’s a small access gantry a few feet below the edge of the cliff. I landed on it.’
‘Lucky.’
‘By the time I’d got back up to the villa, Sloba had caught up with you. I …’ He broke off, staring deep into the darkness. ‘I killed him. It’s a hell of a thing. In the moment … Afterwards …’
A long silence. When he spoke again, some of the colour had returned to his voice.
‘I called an ambulance. Then I threw Sloba’s body over the cliff and made damn sure he missed the gantry. By then, I could see the ambulance coming down the drive. So I ran. Hardest thing I ever did, Abby, leaving you. Harder than killing a man.’
‘And the body? Jenny, your sister, she said it was you. Did she know?’
