The voice, tight with controlled anger, was in Benny's cab.
They were going to take a minor road over towards the Bosnia border. They were going for the scenic route… for the tourist run … going up towards Glina, then would work back through Vrginmost for the Turanj crossing way behind schedule.
He sat in the Seddy's cab, snuggled in the flak jacket and with the weight of the helmet squat on his head, and hit the gears. The convoy took the fork road east, drove off the main drag, and away from the kids with their 'frag' mines, and he smiled down at them like it was a pleasure for him to be going the scenic route. And the kids loosed off their AKs into the air, as if they'd won a war and not just diverted an unarmed aid convoy.
They were laid out neatly on the bed, her new files. She had drawn the new curtains back, because she came into the room each evening and closed them. Mary Braddock sat beside the new files on the new duvet and she had kicked off her shoes onto the new carpet. The new soft toys, bears and rabbits, were on the new pillow of the bed, and the shop assistant, when Mary had bought them, had prattled to her as if she were a grandmother, and she had not contradicted the shop assistant, nor told her of obsession, or the weight of guilt. Because of the new paint and the new wallpaper it was a pretty room, and a room that was correct for a child who would grow to be a climbing star, not a horrid young woman. It was after a spring shower that had beaten on the mullioned window, and the sun shone into the pretty room.
The size of the new file was a measure to Mary of the scale of the obsession. She had read about herself in the newspapers, different name and different address, but read about parents who shared with her the obsession to know. The newspapers printed sad photographs of fathers and mothers sitting close on settees, with the picture of the dead child, the lost loved one, in the frame behind them, those who demanded to know and who had failed. She could recall the sad photographs of the stunned parents of the 'friendly fire' boys in the Gulf, of the girl in the Kenya game park, of the young man murdered in Chile's capital, of the young woman who had died in Saudi, and the sad parents all had the same refrain of confused criticism for the help they had been given. All her friends said it was obsession. She shared the file with none of them, and she did not allow her secretary, two days a week, to type the letters of which the copies went into the file. There were the copies of fourteen letters written to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; her friends said she should close her mind to an episode better forgotten. There were four letters personally addressed to the ambassador in Zagreb; there were two letters written by hand to the President of Croatia. None of the replies were curt or brusque or rude the replies, aide-drafted, signed by the dignitaries, were bland and oozed sympathy, and were bloody useless. Her friends said that she should start again… The telephone stampeded her out of the newly decorated, newly furnished bedroom for a child. She ran for the stairs. God, please, make it the call… Penn's call… The dogs slithered with her down the stair carpet, cannoning against her legs. God, please, make it Penn's call. She snatched up the telephone in the hall. The dogs barked raucously, as if her run for the telephone was a fun game. 'Charles here. Where were you? Outside? A nice morning up here in this filthy city. Sorry, darling, but it's all negative. Did I tell you, can't remember if I did…? I pushed the problem of that odious detective to Frankfurt. They've a satellite office in Munich. Their people in Munich have called up Vienna. Vienna have links into Zagreb. I got a few faxes to fly… Someone from the associate office in Zagreb actually went to the hotel, this morning
… I don't know what it means, but the bastard hasn't been in the hotel for four nights. He hasn't checked out, his account's still ticking up, but he hasn't used the hotel for four nights… They don't know where he is… I'm sorry, darling, but I did tell you what I thought of Mr. Penn…'
Mary held the phone, swayed.
'Are you still there…?'
Small voice. 'Yes.'
'I'll burn his bloody arse when I get to meet him, when I get his bloody bill… Darling, dinner tomorrow, can we manage two more? Push the chairs up a bit, can we? A quite hideously boring couple of guys from Utrecht, but it's an EC contract, and fat. Don't know how they'll mix with our crowd, but it shows willing. 'Course you can cope, darling… Why don't you run out to Guildford, get something nice, new? See you this evening…'
She went back slowly up the stairs and tidied the file on Dome's bed.
They were a rather more cheerful crowd for him to be with than the day shift, and they did not seem to regard him as a hostile antibody inserted into Library.
And the memories seeped again over the pages, typed and handwritten, and the photographs and the worn maps. Shaken the hand of that lovely young man, Johnny Donoghue, and watched him go tired away to the entrance tunnel of the Underground train at the end of the arrivals concourse, and gone to look for the car that would run the old desk warrior back to Century House. Walked down his corridor on the eleventh floor. 'Hello, Henry, have a good trip?' 'Well, I wouldn't say…' Carrying the duty free towards his corner of the office. 'Just one of those things, I hope you're not thinking it'll be your head on the block?' 'Well, we did all we could…' Settling down into his chair. 'Always a problem when you use an amateur, don't you think?' 'Well, you win some and you lose some…' Brought a beaker of coffee, and sipped it, and opened his briefcase, and started out on the damned report for the file of a young man's journey through the lines, a used young man.
It was long after he would normally have cleared the desk and trudged away to the station, but the night shift's supervisor had wandered, friendly, to his desk with a mug of coffee for him. A good young fellow, and chatty, and they talked desultorily about the new world that was dangerous, and nostalgically about the old world that was comfortable. The usual son of garbage… He waited his moment, then asked.
Henry Carter requested the trawl. Didn't know what they would find if they trawled for him, didn't know if they would find anything.
He had the clearance.
He wouldn't have called the supervisor a chum, but there had been times back in the old Century House that he had shared a lunch table with him in the canteen.
The trawl had left in the net what he regarded as a prize catch.
A short memorandum at the top of a light pile of flimsies, and worthwhile him staying late because it was a catch that the day shift supervisor would never have searched for…
From: George Simpson, Security Service (Liaison), Rm C/3/47. To: Desk Head Yugoslavia (former), Rm E/2/12. Ref: GS/1/PENN.
Following regular weekly liaison meeting, I took lunch with Arnold Browne, Sec Serv, ranked senior executive officer. In confidence AB spoke of Sec Serv involvement in former Yug, using a reject freelancer. Involvement follows death in Dec 91 of Dorothy Mowat, Brit citizen, in Croatian village overrun by Serb irregulars in area now designated by UNPROFOR as Sector North. Following recovery of Mowat's body (April 93), AB recommended to deceased's family that PENN (William), formerly with Sec Serv and now private detective (exclaimer), should travel to Croatia to investigate circumstances of death. AB drops that PENN, 'dogged' and 'end of road man', will hopefully produce war crimes evidence for use in pressuring Belgrade towards peace talks negotiation which Sec Serv can on pass to FCO… Sounds like empire building, sounds like interference outside Sec Serv remit. Are we happy query.
Signed: Simpson, George.
He knew Simpson, old Georgie. Simpson, old Georgie, was the sort of man that he used to meet in the corridor, never seemed to be in a hurry, never seemed to have anything pressing, could always give him the latest cricket score. He could see Simpson, old Georgie, under-achieving and passed over and frightened witless of redundancy, wrestling not too hard on a matter told in confidence. Carter thought that so much now fell into place… A trust betrayed?… Well, Simpson's, old Georgie's, dilemma about betraying a trust hadn't gone the distance, hadn't stopped him snitching.
It was an old maxim, but true, that confidences didn't count for too much in the trade…
The Intelligence Officer fronting as Liaison had known that the opportunity would not come until the end of the meeting. At the break-up there would be coffee provided, and biscuits and juice, and the opportunity.
There was a working relationship now that civilized the meetings. Stiff, formal, but a relationship… The meetings were always in the police station at Tusilovic that was twelve kilometres into the occupied territory from the crossing point at Turanj. The relationship had prospered sufficiently for there to be a hot line from his office in Karlovac to the police station at Tusilovic, and a monthly meeting across a table. They never came to Karlovac… And it was usual, also, for the Intelligence Officer to meet Milan Stankovic at Tusilovic…
The Intelligence Officer, before permanent secondment to the military, had been chief salesman (export) for the timber factory at Karlovac. He was trained to read body language. The Serb was sullen, there had to be room
