arms, and kissed the small, almost hairless head, then hugged his wife.
‘You’ll be all right? You’ll be careful?’
Always, at these times, she asked the same questions when he went to work and always he gave the same answers.
‘I’ll be all right, and I’ll be careful.’
Better than her, he knew of the bombs, the shootings and the beatings that had targeted the Zagreb media, who didn’t write about the breast implants of wannabe movie stars, the girlfriends of TV game-show presenters or the Croatian footballers playing abroad but specialised in investigative reporting. He knew of the danger associated with exposing corruption in the political elite and the scale of organised crime in the capital city. Twice he had received a single bullet through the post at his magazine’s offices. The police, the special unit the prime minister had created, had assured him that discreet undercover protection would watch over him. He knew of no other life.
He said at what time he’d be home. They would eat together because he couldn’t afford restaurant meals – he couldn’t resign, go elsewhere, because no openings existed to a writer familiar only with corruption and criminality. A last kiss and a last hug at the door. Ivo went to work, a busy day because that evening the weekly magazine went to print. Twice he looked behind him and neither time did he see anything that threatened or evidence of ‘discreet’ police protection.
It was a good landing and they were quickly off. Mark Roscoe presumed that the speed of disembarkation was due to lack of traffic. No other plane just in or about to get up and go. He paused at the top of the steps. The sun came up off the apron and reflected into his face and he blinked, almost blinded. He groped for the dark glasses in his shoulder bag and squinted around him. A new airport, no passengers to speak of and no visible trade. He assumed some government from old Europe – or the IMF, the OECD or the World Bank – had dumped down a packet of cash, regarding an airport at Osijek as a valid investment. It was shiny new, like a shoe that had yet to be scuffed. There had been a map on the plane, in the pouch in front of him, and without it he would have had trouble in working out where he was.
He walked into the arrivals hall. His ignorance was like a blister on his heel, and he cursed quietly that he hadn’t made time to learn about the region, and Vukovar, which was down the road from here, the river and… Megs Behan was close behind him. He had told her Harvey Gillot’s travel plans but the breaking of an official confidence had seemed a small matter on an overnight vigil outside a high gate on the Dorset coast. Fun being with her there. Here, it was different. He turned. She was shuffling towards him – shuffling because her footwear was lightweight holiday gear. A floral print skirt flowed from her hips, the cheesecloth blouse was thick enough to hide what lay beneath. The hair was a mess. He thought her a great-looking woman and about as different from his Chrissie as chalk was from… The older man was behind her and came slowly, as if his feet, knees or hips gave him trouble – he had no idea why two minuscule nips of whisky had been planted on him, just enough to savour and enjoy a taste. Right, ‘there’ was not ‘here’, and he had not expected that Megs Behan would buy the ticket. Her presence undercut his professionalism a little. He let her reach him.
‘I just wanted you to know, Miss Behan, that this is a serious investigation. We’re at a difficult stage in the inquiry. Any degree of interference would be regarded with…’ She had that gaze, mirth and a degree of – like him being pompous was a let-down. He ploughed on: ‘What happened in England – completely different picture to now. I want to stress, most important, that I won’t tolerate any stunts you may be considering. Try anything and I’ll get the locals to throw the book at you. A Croat cell is rather less friendly than one in West End Central. As I go about my business, I don’t want to see or hear you.’
He cringed at his tone. Chrissie would have yawned. The woman, Megs Behan, looked at him and winked – bloody winked – so that half of one side of her face was crinkled, then stepped aside to permit him to go before her to the immigration check.
He showed his passport. No smile. He assumed that the tanks had advanced this close to the city of Osijek. He had never seen one on the move, only in newspaper photographs, on television or in a cinema. He had been thirteen when the tanks might have come this close and he remembered nothing of it. His father hadn’t talked about it and there had been no mention of it at school. It would have been worse in Vukovar of which, then, he had known nothing. That ignorance, Roscoe reckoned, had made him pompous. He was given his passport and waved through.
A man advanced on him, balding, in a short-sleeved shirt with a tie, drill khaki slacks and burnished shoes – had to be embassy.
Could place him, but not the old beggar who had given him the whisky. Turned once, fast, and raked the queue of passengers behind. He saw Megs Behan and the old guy, their desultory conversation, and couldn’t make the links.
A hand was held out. Another man stood a dozen paces behind the embassy guy. ‘Mark Roscoe?’
‘Yes.’
He was given a name, didn’t catch it, then a card was offered, but his attention was on the one who had held back and watched.
An envelope was produced from a briefcase and handed to him. It had come through, he was told, on secure communications. He should open it. He saw a face, plate or portrait size, of a teenager photographed in a police station, then the same face but in marginally different levels of artificial light. The back of the second picture carried the stamp of Feltham Young Offenders. There was an email printout. He read: Hi Mark. We believe contract for our Tango given to Robert (Robbie) Cairns of Rotherhithe. He is also wanted for questioning re murder of woman, believed mistress, found strangled in Cairns’s property. Talk soon. Cheers, Guv’nor.
Life had a kick-back: no more crap about where tanks might have been or about him being the complete new-age prig. Real stuff, real talk.
He shook the hand. ‘Thanks very much for coming this far, appreciated… The local police – when do I get to liaise?’
A slow, tired grin. ‘Welcome, Mr Roscoe, to eastern Slavonia.’
Confused: ‘I’m sorry, I came to liaise with local forces and to…’
‘Let’s go and have a cup of coffee, Mr Roscoe.’
It was explained. The coffee was passable. He, Mark Roscoe, was coming into the territory of the famous few. ‘It’s where the defence in 1991 was epic. It’s where untrained and inexperienced men and women of the war, which enabled a free state to be born, fought and died. At any level of public life in Croatia it is political suicide to take on the veterans of Vukovar. They are sacred. A man, as I understand from my brief, cheated a village of just about its entire wealth, and for nearly twenty years remained anonymous to the living. He has now been identified, has a contract on his life. For reasons beyond my comprehension that individual is now travelling here. God knows what his intentions are. The police locally will not protect him, or co-operate with you. Are you following me, Mr Roscoe? If he intended to make a somewhat melodramatic gesture behind a cordon of policemen and be safe in their protection, he has made a total error of judgement. He is on his own, should he be daft enough to come here, and there will be no shield to hide behind. I would also remind you, Mr Roscoe, that you have no jurisdiction on this territory. To believe otherwise would be to invite comprehensive embarrassment to yourself, me, my colleagues and our government. Well, as you understand, I’m sure, it’s a long drive back to Zagreb and I’d like to get on. Good luck to you, Mr Roscoe. A final thing – if this man Gillot should show up, I wouldn’t stand too close to him. Life still comes quite cheap here.’
The diplomat grimaced and shrugged, as if imparting disappointing news was a necessary role of his life, then backed away. He stopped beside the other man who had shadowed them when they met, and Roscoe realised that the whisky dispenser from the aircraft was with them and seemed to share a joke, and that Megs Behan was close to them.
*
‘He was on the job, going at it hammer and tongs, and the Hereford Gun Club charged in through the front door and up the stairs, and the joker went out from under her, over the windowsill and straight into the air. He landed in the garden, and she was left there, gagging for it, and a dwarf Glaswegian corporal who’d reached the bedroom said in his best vernacular Serbo-Croat, “Madam, would you like the benefit of any help I can give in finishing off what that shit-face started?” She chucked a chamber pot at him and knocked him stone cold. Wonderful days.’
‘Hard place, Fo a, Mr Arbuthnot. Still is.’
