sold before the war and the sanctions, past the shop where food could be bought before the war and the sanctions. She ran through the silence of the village, her feet clattering the quiet.
She ran until she no longer had the strength to carry her son, and then she dragged him, his stumbling feet slipping in the potholes of the lane. She came to the building, used now by the Territorial Defence Force of Salika village, that had been filled with agricultural stores before the war and the sanctions. She went across the yard and past the barns where the big agricultural plant was kept, idle because it was impossible to obtain spare machinery parts and tyres and fuel. She burst into the office area. She saw the guns of the killers, and the playing cards, and the bottles heaped on the table of the office area. She was the acting headmistress of the school, and she was the woman who had been to university in Belgrade, and she saw the dislike of her in the faces of the killers.
They stared up at her from the chairs around the table that was heaped with their guns and their playing cards and their bottles.
Evica said in not more than a whisper, 'Milan… Milan has been taken… Milan is captured…'
She looked into each of their faces, Branko's, Stevo's, Milo's, and she had never hidden that she despised each of them equally.
Evica did not plead. 'You have to search for him… you have to find him… you have to bring him back to me…'
There was the stink of their bodies, and the smoke of their cigarettes, and the stench of the alcohol. She held Marko tight against her. And there had been first their amusement at the superior bitch fighting for breath, then the fuddled confusion of the drink, then they were listening.
Evica would not beg. 'Search, because he had gone fishing… find him, gone fishing with Marko… taken across the river…'
From the postman, 'By whom…?'
'I can't know.'
From the gravedigger, 'Who took him…?'
'I was not there.'
From the carpenter, 'Why…?'
'I do not know… you have to find him… Marko was there.. .'
The hand of the chief of the irregulars snaked out. A rough and calloused and large hand. The hand snatched at the shoulder of her son's anorak, and the boy was pulled from her. For a moment, she tried to hold the boy. She saw fear in the face of her son, and she could not protect him. The boy was dragged to the table, her grip on him was broken. And the time was rushing, and the darkness was closing.
Rough and guttural questions, small and frightened answers… They had gone fishing. They were fishing the big pool up the valley. There was no one near to them while they were fishing… She watched, and she realized the patience of the chief of the irregulars, that he let her son regain his confidence through the story of their fishing
… The big fish, the good trout, had taken the worm, stripped it from the hook. They had bent to put another worm on the hook. They had cast again into the pool.
The fish had taken the worm, taken the hook. A big fish, pulling at the rod, and his father helping him to hold the rod up… But the time was running and the darkness was gathering.
'Hurry, Marko, what you saw…'
And she was cut to silence by the slashed wave of the chief of the irregulars.
He stood amongst them, her son, and he told his story… The man had come from behind them as they held the rod together to fight the fish. His father had loosed the rod. He had looked round. His father was on the ground, on the grass of the field. The man was without trousers. The man knelt on his father and was binding his arms. The man had pulled his father up and hit him. He fought the man, he tried to kick the man's legs. A woman had come. He tried to stop them from taking his father. The woman had thrown him down, the woman had hurt him…
'What was he like, the man?'
Some of them already knew. She trembled. She remembered. She heard the voice that she had translated: 'I have the evidence for my report that Dorrie Mowat was killed by, was murdered by, Milan Stankovic.' She saw the face of the man, beaten and scarred and cut. They shared the guilt.
Pandemonium breaking out of the office area of the TDF headquarters. Shouts, cries in the night, and the gathering up of weapons, and the howling of awakened dogs. And who was the leader now
…? The one from the irregulars, but he did not know the terrain of the valley? The postman? The grave- digger? The carpenter? And was there a working telephone line out of the village? And where was the man to link the radio to Glina military? And where should the search begin, in the woodland across the stream, in darkness? At the deep pool where her Milan had been captured? She heard the babble of argument, and time was running.
She shouted above their voices, 'Cowards… you all share the guilt. It was not just him that did it… Idiots, if Milan is taken, your leader, it is all of you who are threatened. Murderers…'
In confusion, in disordered chaos, the village was armed, the link was made and interrupted and made again and interrupted again with Glina military, and the search party moved out into the lane in front of the old agricultural store, and the debate of tactics began.
They had no leader.
She remembered the man, what he had said and what he had seemed to be. '… Tell Dorrie's mother the name of the man who killed her daughter…' Dignified, brave, remote from the law of the bastard village that was her home, not intimidated by the violence threatening him. If that man had her Milan… Evica reckoned that the man and the woman who had taken her husband had a start on them of near to an hour.
At the first halt, an hour gone since they had moved into the haven of the tree line on the west side of the valley, he had given Milan Stankovic's pistol to Ulrike and he had shone the torch full into the face of Milan Stankovic and he had held the small-bladed knife against the bearded throat of the man.
She knew their language, she interpreted.
Into the wide grey-blue eyes he had said that, if they were trapped, if they were intercepted, if they could go no further, he would slit that throat. And at the rest stop, two minutes on his watch, he and Ulrike had taken their turn in watching him close and they had slipped on again their dry trousers. He had whisper growled the threat to slit Milan Stankovic's throat, and he did not think he was then believed.
He attempted to be cruel because it was what Ulrike had ordered of him.
And as the second hand of his watch was slipping for the end of the two minutes, he had summoned what he hoped was ferocity and he had told Milan Stankovic that if he shouted, screamed, howled, he would cut his throat.
Penn dragged him forward. Ulrike led with the torch cupped in the palm of her hand so that it made a short cone of light ahead of her feet. Penn had the knife close to Milan Stankovic's neck so that when they pitched or stumbled then the tip of the blade would waver against the fullness of the man's beard. It was not important to him that the man had spat contempt at him.
The man did not shout, but instead talked softly. He was not gagged because Penn had thought that if he were gagged with the torn strip off the tail of his shirt then his breathing would be impaired and he would not be able to go as fast as was required of him. A low and calm voice. He could hear the murmur of the voice and the staccato bursts of Ulrike's side-of-mouth interpretation. '… You think you can succeed, then you are a lunatic… The whole village will be coming, man and boy, guns… You are the stranger here, don't know the ways in the forest, they know them… You only took me because I had the boy with me, because I was distracted with the boy, if I had not had the boy you would not have taken me… You are shit, shit when you came the first time, shit now… They will be coming after you, coming close to you… It is our forest, not yours, why you have no possibility… You say you will kill me, you would not dare…' There was a change in Ulrike's voice. There was no longer an automaton translation, but something said softly in the man's language, and the man's words dried. Penn asked, 'What did you tell him?' Ulrike said, not looking back, 'You might not kill him, but I would. That's what I told him, that I would kill him. He may not believe you, he should believe me… and I asked him if he felt guilt.' She was so strong
… He wondered if she had ever felt weakness. And everything of her was denied him. He wondered where she had been five years before, when he had waited on the railway station for the delayed train and chatted to the stranger, Jane, and taken the taxi down to Raynes Park where Jane lived. He wondered if Ulrike Schmidt, who allowed no sentiment, would have looked at him then, admired him or wanted to share with him. His best friend, Dougal Gray, would have understood. Penn had heard that Dougal Gray, in Belfast, now lived with the separated
