the jacket, the shirt or the face, and was loosened at the neck. Gillot hadn’t slept badly, had been on the other side of the bed from his wife, but the sergeant might have slept on the floor or not slept at all. They went into an interview room.
Did he want tea or coffee? He shook his head. Water? Declined.
The chair offered him had metal tubing and a canvas seat. Between them was a table and on it a folder and a couple of biros. The window was barred and the ceiling light had mesh over it.
Gillot smiled gently. ‘So that there are no misunderstandings, the timing of this meeting is at your convenience, not mine.’
‘And I’m grateful, Mr Gillot, for your co-operation. I hope the inconvenience is not too great – but there are things best not said on the phone. Just some things to get straight first…’ A sheet of paper was taken from the file. It looked, upside-down to Gillot, like a form of the type filled in for membership of a golf club or an insurance policy. ‘You are Harvey Gillot, of Lulworth View, Portland?’ He nodded. He entered the information in a scrawl of biro. And, yes, his wife was Josie and Fiona was his daughter. His date of birth was written in, and its place.
The young man looked up. ‘Your blood group? Do you know it, Mr Gillot?’
The biro was poised. He thought the question was designed to shock him. He didn’t gulp, hid it.
It was a cheap old trick, but it usually gained the target’s attention. Roscoe reckoned it was class of Gillot not to react: no wet tongue slid over dry lips, and the eyes didn’t drop.
‘My blood group is AB positive.’
‘Thank you.’ He tried a smile, didn’t do it well. ‘You’re an arms trader by occupation, Mr Gillot?’
‘I do buy and sell. Is there a problem with that?’
‘Not as far as I’m concerned. As long as everything’s legal. Right, getting to the point. Have you worked in Croatia?’
He was a good detective. Superiors told Mark Roscoe he was quality. If he hadn’t been, he would never have made it to the Flying Squad and then to the covert crowd he was with. He recognised that the question he posed had set the mind of Harvey Gillot spinning, flywheel speed. A flicker of eyelids, a short intake of breath, a little tightening of the shoulders. If he had taken to boxing he would have called it a good left jab – not a hook but a jab that had landed. ‘I’ve never sold weapons, munitions, to a Croatian client. May I ask the relevance of that question?’
‘Not done business there, correct? But been there?’
Another pause, fractional. ‘I was there briefly, but it was a long time ago. Nineteen years. Don’t ask me details. Tell you what, Mr Roscoe, can you say where you were in November 1991 and be exact?’ The charm flashed. The sort of smile that would have sold a mobile phone that wasn’t needed, a new carpet or car – maybe an artillery howitzer.
‘No way. I have a memory like a sieve. I was thirteen and worrying, no doubt, about blackheads.’ He chuckled. ‘So, we have this right. You were in Croatia around November 1991, but didn’t do business there. You were not an arms dealer trading with the Croats when the existence of the new state was under threat. Is that a fair summary?’
‘May I ask again, Mr Roscoe, what is the relevance?’
Not arrogant, not bullshitting him. Roscoe read the caution in the question. ‘With your answers, and of course I accept them, I have a confusion.’
‘A “confusion”?’
Roscoe took a deep breath, but when he spoke it was without theatre. ‘You’re an arms dealer, Mr Gillot, but you haven’t worked in Croatia and haven’t done business there. We get information from many sources. What I’m currently holding is information from the Security Service, but they are – in this case – merely the messenger. We assume the information, I suppose I should call it intelligence, originated from Vauxhall Bridge Cross. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d expect you to know all about them.’
A tightening of the jaw muscles, a narrowing of the eyes, and the tongue was on the lips, going right to left, but composure didn’t slip. Roscoe assumed that an arms dealer would be to VBX what a chis was to him: a packet of fags – use them, finish them, throw away the packet.
And he did it as a high-street bank manager might have explained that a customer was a little overdrawn – not a repossession matter, not going to bring in the bailiffs. ‘It’s quite hard to put it together, Mr Gillot, because you have no business connection with Croatia… Sources available to Vauxhall Bridge Cross have come through with information that a contract has been taken out on your life. Can’t sugar that one. A hitman – vulgar phrase but the one we use – is, if the reports are to be believed, under contract or will be imminently.’
No answer, but Roscoe thought a sweat bead was forming on the forehead just below the hairline, and there might be another. He’d give it to the guy: eleven out of ten for control. Impressive.
‘We’re not flush with information. Well, scraps from the table. The contract has been taken out by what is described to us as a “community”. It is also indicated that the carrying out of the contract is still probably in the planning stage. What “community” means, I really don’t know but…’ He let his voice tail away. What had he expected from the man whose trade Penny Laing had described as ‘loathsome’? He’d probably thought there would be shock, some bluster, and a patter about ‘there must be some mistake’. There was not. Tell a man that a gang of people on the other side of Europe had hired a hitman and imply that he’s going to come up close with a Luger, a Walther, a Mauser or a Baikal, and it was fair to expect panic and hyper-ventilation but there was silence across the table. Gillot seemed to tilt his head back as if that would help him think better and recall his memory.
With a flick of a smile Gillot said quietly, almost a whisper, ‘You call it a “community” but it’s a village. The contract will have been taken by a village.’
‘Where?’
Roscoe thought Gillot talked like a sleep-walker.
‘I never went there, but I was told it was close to a town called Vukovar. There is, I suppose, between the people there and me, what might be called an issue.’
They had paused for a few moments on the open square, with marble slabs that ran on the west side by the Vuka river, close to where it flowed into the Danube. There was a statue near to them of the dead President Franjo Tudjman – some said he was the founder of the new, free, independent Croatia, and others claimed he was the traitor who had sacrificed Vukovar, its defenders, and the people of the villages on the Cornfield Road. They huddled around Mladen. Josip insinuated himself into the huddle and told them what they should say and how much they should ask for. The group broke apart.
Andrija, with Maria beside him, went to the Banco Popolare on Strossmeyer.
Tomislav, holding his dog on its string, walked inside the Slavonska Banka next to the ruin of the Grand Hotel.
Petar, accompanied by his deaf wife, went past the armed security guard and into the Croatia Banka.
Mladen had Simun at his shoulder as they pushed through the swing doors of the Privredna Banka Zagreb.
And flitting between them, the broker of the deals, Josip, was advising, prompting and reassuring. They were all veterans and could show their disability allowance cards. All had the security of their pensions for heroism and service in the struggle to liberate their country. The pensions were collateral against a loan they might want to take out. In each bank, a manager asked to what purpose the loan would be put. Andrija wished to purchase a ticket to Australia to visit cousins. Tomislav wanted to buy a motor car with an automatic gearbox. Petar wished to hire builders who would construct for him and his handicapped wife a new kitchen. Mladen and his son had the chance to invest in a picture gallery in Osijek where his own work could be sold and that of other veterans of the war of independence. For such men, in Vukovar, there would be little bureaucratic delay. Papers were produced, the numbers from pension books and disability forms noted, signatures recorded. Each was loaned the kuna equivalent of five thousand euros. A total of twenty thousand euros was guaranteed. It had been done as Josip said it should be.
Mladen led them back towards the car park beside the bus station for their journey home as the light failed and the gaunt corners of buildings still unrepaired from shellfire cut the evening sky.
He left through the same door. Roscoe had shaken his hand, a strong grip. He walked quickly to his car, back erect. He thought they would be watching him from vantage-points and might even have changed windows to see him go to the far side of the car park. Who loved an arms dealer? Nobody. Nobody Loves Us and We Don’t Care: an anthem of the backers of a Polish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, the chant of an east London football team’s
