There was a little window of independence, while they were at war and being carved up, but now – as you'll find – a new foreign power sits on them. Just don't expect to be welcomed as a liberator.'
It was past ten o'clock. In Tooting Bec Jen would be waiting for him at the bed-sit, and his bag would need packing. He had been told by Gough that it was an instruction from the chief investigation officer, that he should ring the number and beg an appointment, whatever the hour. He had beaten a retreat from the first meeting of the new Sierra Quebec Golf team and had done as he was told. The meeting had been bizarre and hurtful. He'd felt himself regarded as an intruder, the only survivor from the old disbanded and disgraced unit. The team, assembled that afternoon, arriving with small bags off trains and in their cars, had been recruited from the north-west of England, the west, the Midlands, the north-east, from Scotland, and one was from Belfast. Gough had told them that incompetence, intimidation and corruption had combined to win Albert William Packer his freedom. They were all older than him, the nine men and one woman, and Gough had said that each had been selected for their skills, their lack of fear and their integrity; then the eyes had fixed on him, as if he were the least solid of the chain's links, to be treated with suspicion, tolerated because he was the archivist.
After the preamble, Gough had made him get up, talk through the cartwheel, and give a detailed biography of Mister. At the end the eyes fastened on him seemed to wonder if he was the weak link. When he'd finished his stumbling address, Gough had taken him out into the corridor and told him in clipped, sparse sentences where he was going that evening, and where he was travelling to in the morning… He listened and wondered what was the relevance of it.
'Take a map, look at it. The geography is of spines of mountains and valleys cut by impassable rivers.
The common phrase of today would be 'bandit country'. That's not something they've learned recently. Back in the reign of King Stephen Tvrtko they'd achieved a semblance of discipline, but after he'd died, 1391, and things slid, a French pilgrim wrote: 'They live purely on wild beasts, fish from the rivers, figs and honey, of which they have sufficient supply, and they go in gangs from forest to forest to rob people travelling through their country.'
'And right from those days, honour and sticking to one's word were seldom important. A Turkish janissary serving in Sultan Mehmet's invasion army, that's 1463, wrote of the flight of King Stephen Tomasevic to a fortress at Kljuc, in central Bosnia, where he did a deal and surrendered on the promise of safe passage: 'When the king's servants who were in the fortress saw that their lord had surrendered, they gave themselves up. The Sultan took possession of the fortress, and ordered that the king and all his companions should be beheaded. And he took the entire country into his possession.' Be wary of criminals, Cann, and be doubly wary of promises.
'Oh, and be most wary of the women. Two thousand years ago silver was mined by the Romans at Srebrenica. The Roman garrison's barracks have long disappeared, but you can still find there a medieval castle, in ruins, on a high hill south of the town. It was built by Jerina, a warlord's widow, with slave labour. When she'd occupied the castle it was her habit to have a slave brought up to her bedroom each night, and every following morning an exhausted slave was precipitated to his death from the castle walls. .. Summary: a history of oppression, violence, plague and thieving, ruthless cruelty and utter dishonesty.'
They were seated in a hot little room in a Gower Street second-floor flat. The only light shone on the desk where the lecturer sat. A baby was crying in another room and a woman's voice tried to soothe it.
The coffee he'd been given was too bitter for him and was now cold. The light shone on the map. The lecturer chain-smoked.
'So you're telling me that a major figure in organized crime in the UK is going to Bosnia, and you don't know why. Let's begin with a tasty quote. The present-day foreign occupying power, operating under various names that add up to United Nations, was headed a couple of years back by Elisabeth Rehn, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General.
She said: 'If we fail to do something, this country will become an Eldorado for criminals.' Normally, that wouldn't matter. Take a look at that map again. Look at Bosnia's position. It used to be called 'the Balkans route'. It is a crossroads, a junction. It is the natural melting point for the roads linking the Middle East, the mediteranean, Central Europe and the northern countries of the continent. People using that crossroads were rather inconvenienced by forty-five months of fighting, but that's over now and the lorries are rolling again. Whatever it is that you want to bring into Bosnia, once you have brought it there you have many options as to where you ship it to. Nothing was done, and it's now Eldorado… Do I need to say more?'
Joey assumed that the chief investigation officer -
God to him, a distant figure he had never met and only seen in a presentation speech – had activated a contact from his former home, the Secret Intelligence Service. He stirred.
'You don't need to say any more. You'll excuse me, I've got to pack, an early start.'
'Do you not have a feel, Mr Cann, for the worth of academic history?'
'I'm only an executive officer, five years' service with the Investigation crowd, and I'm going away – forty- eight hours or seventy-two hours – to watch a man, write reports and come home. They're sending me on sufferance… I'm grateful for your time.'
'I apologize for delaying you, Mr Cann. Forgive me, but having time to pack is the least of your problems. I've tried to give you three or four snapshots, postcards, from Bosnia. Violence and treachery, a hatred of foreigners and a culture of smuggling are as ingrained in that society as mineral iron in granite rock. Don't forget that. Bosnia is not Bognor, it is not Birmingham, not Brighton. Watch your back, Mr Cann.'
He felt the shiver in his body and ground his fingernails into his palms to halt it. He stood up and said weakly, 'It's nothing serious. If it were a big deal then it wouldn't be me they'd have sent.'
Chapter Five
'You call me each day – I need to hear from you every evening.'
Gough was awake, alert. Joey reckoned him the sort of man who didn't need sleep.
'I want a total log of where he goes and who he sees. They don't protect themselves away like they do at home. They get sloppy. I've a team put together that has to be fed, got to have something to bite on. I want everything and anything.'
Himself, he was dead to the world, and the last thing he needed was Gough nannying him at Heathrow, with the unlit pipe in his mouth and the smell of it on his breath.
'It's in the balance, Joey. If you find us material to work off I can hold the team together, can't if you don't. The Church is like any organization in these sad days – results, fast and furious, justify the balance sheet. If it's taking too long, if it's going to be too expensive, if there isn't a knock in sight and handcuffs, then we'll be wound up.'
Joey had come by mini-cab but Gough, the first thing he was told, had caught two buses to reach the airport. With his rank, Gough was entitled to a car and a driver. Joey realized it was Gough's way of telling him, fiercely, that the journey and the work were not holiday. Joey didn't know of another senior investigation officer who would have come out to Heathrow at ten to seven to see off a junior on a flight. His bag was checked in. He thought that soon, if not already, the new men and women of Sierra Quebec Golf would be drifting into the Custom House. They were a miserable crowd, not like the old team. What he'd seen of them, there was no wit among them. They looked puritanical in their serenity. Pulled in from around the country so there was no possibility that they were tainted by association, they were all hard and humourless, and suspicion of him had blazed in their eyes. They would be drifting into a room where the door's locks had been changed, and where new lockers would be installed later that morning with new keys, and there was already a spyhole set in the door and a voicebox for visitors to announce themselves. Within days, the room would stink because no cleaners were to be allowed inside during the night.
'But, and this is but and big, you do not put yourself at risk. At all times you are professional, and you are there to collect evidence. If what you do is illegal, can't be used, then you will get no praise from me. I don't want a bag full of material that a lawyer can pick holes in. You are legal at all times, and that is not negotiable.'
He had told Jen that it was just two or three days.
She'd been waiting for him and his clothes had been laid out on the bed. She'd washed all the shirts, put them through the dryer, then ironed them. She'd brought him, said sweetly, shyly, that he might want to take it
