He saw the spreading astonishment crack the Director's face. 'You'd see him go to the wall, your man?'
The First Secretary had served one tour, two years, in Dublin as a junior Six person covered by diplomatic status. He thought he knew the southern Irish. He thought they reckoned that the British were always totally devious, quite ruthless. Well…
'He's not our man.'
Everything of note, everything sensitive to his work, Marty had locked away in the floor safe. He was checking his shopping list and beside him as he stood was the howl of the mains-powered electric drill. They were cheerful young guys, the two Swedish soldiers with the drill, perhaps carpenters or engine mechanics back home before their turn in the armed forces. When they had made the deep screw sockets in the floor they would fix down the metal ring that he had demanded. They did not ask him why he wanted a metal ring fastened to the floor of the converted freight container, and he would not have told them the reason for it. He checked his list, carefully typed out.
1 Bed (collapsible).
1 Sleeping bag, plus blanket.
Food: Bread, margarine, jam, sliced ham, sausage, milk
(3 lit res 1 Hotel room reservation (KD eyewitness).
1 Chain (4 metres).
2 Padlocks (2 keys each).
1 pair Handcuffs (2 keys).
He told the Swedish soldiers that they should close the door when they had finished fastening the ring in the floor. The ring would hold a padlock, the padlock would hold a chain, the chain would hold a second padlock, the second padlock would hold a pair of handcuffs, the pair of handcuffs would hold a war criminal. Marty Jones had told anyone who would listen since he had come to Zagreb that it was the means that were important, not the end. He reckoned himself entitled to change his mind. He said to the Swedes that he would be out for the rest of the afternoon, gone shopping.
The sun was lowering behind the trees, edging for the summit crest of the hillside. The woodland that blanketed the long valley steamed from the heat of the day, and now there was the first freshness from the coming of the evening.
They were past the skeletons, un cared for and untouched since he had last seen them, and he had watched the control settle on Ulrike's face as if the refugees shot down were not a part of her business. The way she had gone by the skeletons told him of her strength… So small, so fragile, so bloody strong… He had pointed down to the swaddled bodies of the babies and Ulrike had not flinched, and he had felt the tears welling in his eyes.
He no longer held her hand. He felt his trust for her. Down from the trees, below in the width of the valley, he could hear the drive of two tractor engines, but the tractors and the fields were still masked from them by the thickness of the trees' foliage.
When they came to the minefield, to the needle lengths of wire rising up through the leaf carpet, he broke the rule that he had made for himself. He spoke. He told her of the cat, and he swayed his hips to show the way that the cat had eased itself against the antennae of the mines, just for a moment of lightness, almost of clowning. Then he caught a grip on himself… This was no bloody place to go clowning. But if they didn't laugh they would cry, and if they cried they would be broken… They pushed on.
She went easily. She could have been on a forest ramble. Ulrike would know the reality because she took in the refugees. She would know they were moving into the eye of the storm.
The stream was silver and black between the trees.
They stopped still. They stood against a wide oak's trunk and they could see beyond the stream to the orchard blossoms and the smoke wreath above the chimneys of Salika. Gold light fell on the valley. They saw two old tractors moving in the fields across the stream. The one spread manure and the other ploughed. And across the stream they saw a man and a child walking away from the village and Penn shuddered. He did not need to tell her… Milan Stankovic held the child's hand and he carried on his shoulder two fishing rods and a landing net.
Milan and the child were coming away from the village and were walking on the far bank of the stream past the silver spate water towards a dark slow pool.
They had a plan.
The plan dictated that, first, they should find the eyewitness.
He estimated the village was a mile from the pool and the tractors were half a mile from Milan Stankovic and his boy.
Ulrike understood the dilemma. She said, 'You must have the eyewitness first. You must.'
'It is our opportunity.'
'The eyewitness is evidence. Evidence is necessary.
'We get the eyewitness…' As if she were speaking to a juvenile. 'They have not even begun… They will be there when we want them to be there… Penn, you have to be cruel.'
He was looking at the child who skipped along beside his father and he could faintly hear the excited squeals of the child who held his father's hand.
They went back into the depth of the trees, where the trunks were set closer. He looked twice into her face to see if the sight of the target man had changed her, if the sight of the child with the target man disturbed her, and he saw nothing but a chilled and steadfast determination. They pushed on. They moved now in short rushes. He would select a big tree ahead, and he would go fast to it and hug against it, and she would come to him, and they would wait, would listen, and he would choose the next tree. He recognized that he made more noise than she did, that his feet were heavier and his footfall clumsier. He could see the jagged rooftops of Rosenovici…
Back to Dome's place, back again into Dorrie's war… He could see through the trees the broken tower of the church, and he could see the lane that led to Katica Dubelj's hovel home. He caught at Ulrike's arm when she came light-stepped to him, and his hand was across his mouth to demand her silence and he pointed to the grey-black smear of the earth among the weeds in the corner of the field… and he seemed to hear again the horrid young woman, laughing at him, mocking him. It was a madness, and it was for her, and her laughter clamoured in his mind.
They came to the path that climbed the hill slope behind the village that had died. He could have turned then, when he came to the path. He saw the worn mess of the path, mud stamped by boots. He remembered how the path had been, covered in fallen and undisturbed leaves. At that point he could have gone back into the wood. He went at the side of the path. He came to the mouth of the cave where the grass was broken, where the boots had gathered. He took the small torch from the backpack side pouch. Ulrike's hand was on his arm, holding tight to him, as if to give him courage. He stood in the entrance of the cave. He shone the torch beam forward and from the dark recess twin lights, amber, blazed back at him. The beam found the cat, wide-eyed, crouched on the rag bundle, snarling at the light. He saw the parchment skin of the face of Katica Dubelj and he saw the darkened slashes of the knives' work. He saw the cat was across her stomach and past the cat's tail were the spindle-thin legs of Katica Dubelj and the long black material of her dress was forced up to her waist and he saw the white death of the skin of her thighs. He swung the light away, away from the cat who guarded her. He reeled out of the cave. Ulrike held him. 'It is what they always do. They violate old women. They rape old women. Perhaps you are responsible, Penn.' 'Don't…' 'Every time, for the rest of your life, that you take a woman to your bed… Perhaps it was you that led them to her, Penn.' 'Don't say that…' 'Every time you take a woman to your bed, for warmth and for love, you will remember her… It is what you have to live with here, Penn, your responsibility.' 'Don't let me hear you say that…' 'Because you are not man enough to hear it? It's not boys' games… It is about survival… It is about the code of living that you believe in… You do not have an eyewitness, so you have to take him and you have to make him convict himself. Are you strong enough to make him convict himself?
'I have to be…'
'And he has the child with him… Are you strong enough?'
She had walked the city all of the afternoon, not shopping and not window gazing, but a restless striding, as if walking the streets was an escape from the isolation of her hotel room.
Dog-tired, her feet killing, Mary Braddock found a cafe on the Trg Bana Jelacica, a table to herself. A cappuccino was brought to her.
It was, none of it, fair.
Not fair of Charles to shout down the telephone at her, 'God, Mary, do you understand what you've done…'
