‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to you anyway. We’ll go under the trees.’
They walked out into a second perfect sunset.
‘It’s been interesting to hear about Bosnia,’ she said conversationally. ‘I’d forgotten about the brutality of it all.’
‘People do,’ he said.
‘Of course, both sides did terrible things. People forget that too.’ She was on more certain ground now.
‘No, just one side.’
‘There were Muslim war criminals too.’
‘We were the defenders of Sarajevo,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘People were being killed every day by the snipers and artillery.’
‘Even so, atrocities were also committed by the Bosniaks. Raiding parties on the Serb lines. Men were butchered and tortured.’
He continued to shake his head. ‘You’re mistaken.’
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘The War Crimes Tribunal has the names.’
‘Yes, but there were no indictments of Muslims. The only Muslims who appear at the tribunal are victims – women from the rape camps; men who saw their friends and family murdered.’
‘But it did happen,’ she said. ‘We should always remember that Muslims are as capable of crime as Christians.’
‘Not then,’ he rounded on her, a startled look growing in his face. ‘The market square bomb – what about that? What about those people?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t recall…’
‘These things are in the news for a few days and then forgotten, but for anyone who was there… One shell aimed into the central market place at midday. Seventy people killed. The carnage…’
‘Yes of course, I remember. You mean, you saw that?’
‘This is what I am saying.’ The veins in his neck and in his forehead were bulging.
‘That must have been terrible.’ She knew the exact details of the massacre. The round had killed sixty-nine people and injured two hundred when it impacted on a plastic canopy just above the heads of hundreds of shoppers in the central market. More important to her was the date – Saturday February 5, 1994 – at least two months after Sammi Loz said he had been injured in another mortar attack and airlifted out of Bosnia to Germany and then London. How could he have made such an elementary mistake?
She nodded as though it was all coming back to her. ‘There was some suggestion that mortar came from the Muslim side to gain sympathy from the world.’
‘No, no. I was there! I was standing just a few streets away. The Serbs fired it from the hills above.’
‘But you can’t tell where a mortar comes from,’ she said. ‘It’s lobbed up in the air with very little noise.’
‘Listen! What Muslim would do this to his own people? Tell me that.’ He was shaking. ‘I was there. I saw it. Men and women blown to pieces – decapitated. Arms, legs everywhere. ’
‘I’m sorry… but that was the rumour at the time. I think our people in Sarajevo even investigated it.’ She wasn’t going to pursue the point because she’d got exactly the information she wanted: Loz was still in Sarajevo in 1994. And that meant his entire account of the last decade had to be called into question.
She wrote an email to Teckman at Vauxhall Cross with a series of terse requests, pretty certain it would end up with Andy Dolph. There was no need to outline her theory to him – he would get it straight away from the drift of her questions – she just prayed that he’d have the resources to follow up the idea. She stayed on line but nothing came, so she hung up and put the phone away, realising as she unplugged the leads that she had failed to send the latest recording of her interview with Khan. She’d left the damned recorder in with Khan and Loz.
She went again to the room and sat down beside Khan. Loz’s composure had returned, but he was evidently worried about Khan, whom he was attempting to feed with small pieces of bread and goat’s cheese. There were plates of tahini and sliced fruit on the bed, untouched. Khan’s head moved from side to side, avoiding the food as a child would do. He wasn’t hungry, he said, and there were pains in his chest and stomach. Loz explained this was indigestion and that he must eat if he was to build up his strength. The tussle went on until at length Loz set down the plate and turned to a bottle of vitamins. As he did so, Herrick’s hand slipped down to the leg of the chair where the recorder was. She glanced down and noticed the flashing light that indicated that the memory was full.
‘Look,’ she said with a certain amount of irritation. ‘I think we’re probably done for the day. We need to have a good session tomorrow though. I’m going to eat now.’
‘Thank you for being so understanding,’ said Loz softly, without looking up.
Khan nodded goodnight.
She found Foyzi by the oven with the old man. A pile of flat breads was fast accumulating in a palm-leaf basket balanced on top of the oven.
‘I’ll be eating with my men,’ said Foyzi, gesturing into the dark. ‘There’s food for you on the table. I won’t be far away.’ He adjusted the strap of a machine pistol over his shoulder, picked up a box of provisions, put the bread on top, then padded off into the dark, followed by the old man who was wheeling a container of water on a little carriage.
Isis set a lamp on the table and remembered the whisky, still lodged behind a stone on the ground. There were also some cigarettes there. She bent down, took one from the pack, lit up and tipped the chair so that she could rest her head against the wall and look at the necklace of stars strung across the tops of the trees.
A few moments later Loz appeared. ‘Can I join you? Karim’s asleep.’ His tone was ingratiating.
‘Yes, do. He didn’t seem too good to me.’
‘It’s to be expected. He has got a slight intestinal reaction to the antibiotics. We have to remember what he’s been through. It’s not just the torture, but months of not eating or sleeping properly. But he will recover.’
‘Thanks to you.’
‘No,’ he said, sitting down opposite her and placing his hands on the table. ‘This is all due to you, Isis. You saved him and we are indebted to you.’
‘Where will you go after this?’
‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ he said, surveying the food on the table. ‘I have contacts and some money in Switzerland. I shall probably take Karim there, and after that… well, we will have to see.’
Did he really believe they would let him slip away like that? ‘I thought you would be tempted to disappear into South America for a year or two,’ she said.
‘I’ve never been, but I’m certain it wouldn’t suit Khan.’ He paused. ‘And you?’
She pushed herself from the wall and stubbed out the cigarette on the ground. ‘I’ll go back to work in London.’
He massaged his neck and looked up at the sky. ‘You know, in an odd way the time spent here has done me good. I may change my life after this.’
‘You may be forced to,’ she said sharply. ‘The FBI want you in New York and they expect you to explain about the money you sent to Lebanon.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said simply.
‘Will you continue with your practice?’
‘Who knows what happens. Did you have any idea a week ago that you would be on an island in the middle of the Nile with us?’ He paused for an answer but got none. ‘I read an article in the newspaper a few weeks back about a man who was driving along a road near his home in Connecticut. He had been to the local stores; the weather was fine; there was no traffic on the roads. As he reached the driveway of his home, a tree that had stood for hundreds of years suddenly fell down on his car and set it alight. His family and neighbours were unable to rescue him, and watched as he burned to death. In the newspaper, there were expressions of puzzlement from his family. Why should this good man – a loved and loving man – be taken in the prime of his life? Why? Who was behind it?’
‘Do you believe in God, Dr Loz?’
‘Yes, naturally.’
‘How do you explain the wisdom of dropping a tree on an innocent man?’
‘I don’t need to. That’s not for me to understand.’
‘But you must try to fit it into your system of belief?’
