have had eyes on us two full-time as well. They’d probably been there when we came in.
We needed to get ourselves sorted out if we were going to be running around in the forest once we’d dropped Nuhanovic. We needed to get warm, dry and fed.
Jerry gasped. I couldn’t tell whether that meant the water was too hot, too cold, or he just didn’t like it hitting the bits I’d split open. I closed the door, went over to the shower and stood right next to him. Some of his hot water splashed over my face and soaked into my clothes. It felt great.
I murmured into his ear. ‘Even if there’s no electricity, the room could still be bugged, OK?’
He nodded.
I moved away to the fire as he cut the water before soaping himself down. I finished mixing my own as the water splashed in the shower once more with Jerry on rinse cycle, and got my kit off.
Less than twenty minutes later we were both dressed in baggy cotton trousers, white T-shirts, thin padded jackets and Turkish slippers. We finished off the brews as our kit steamed gently in front of the fire.
The smell now reminded me of the drying rooms in training camp. You’d come off exercise after days in the wet, and nine times out of ten the heaters didn’t work and you’d have to wear the same wet gear until it dried out on you. When they did, we’d all be like pigs in shit, but no amount of lavender oil could have shifted the stench our kit left behind.
As I sat there in front of the flames, the stubble on my cheek rasping against my hand, my eyes started to droop. The drying rooms made me think of the Regiment, then Danny Connor, and Rob. I jerked them open and checked Baby-G. It was just after ten. Baby-G made me think about Kelly, which also made me think about Zina.
I tried watching Jerry patting his scabby nose with a towel, but my eyelids had a will of their own. Maybe I dozed.
There was a knock on the door, I didn’t know how much later. Jerry jumped up and opened it. Nuhanovic remained outside this time, his lamp throwing shadows across the landing. Maybe he didn’t like the smell. ‘You will require your coats.’
I started to put on my kit, now just damp rather than completely soaking, over the clothes we’d been given. I’d decided to take everything except the sacks and my PVC special. Who knew how this eat-and-talk fest would end?
Nuhanovic said nothing as Jerry followed my example, just watched in mild amusement. We finished with our parkas, zipped up as tight as they would go. As we followed him back down the stairs, he explained the layout of the place as if we’d just arrived for a dinner party. ‘It was built by a very wealthy Turkish trader in your sixteenth century. It hasn’t changed that much.’
I couldn’t see anyone under the veranda as we headed across the visitors’ courtyard to a doorway where the two buildings met, but I knew they were out there somewhere in the darkness.
Inside, his oil lamp bathed the wide stone passageway with light, and his voice echoed as he carried on his pre-dinner-party waffle. ‘The story is that the trader’s wife was so beautiful he didn’t want anyone to see her, so he built this house in the middle of nowhere. He was a jealous man, you see. But it still wasn’t enough, so he also planted the forest to prevent even the house being seen.’
‘That why you live here?’
He looked at me with that strange half-smile. ‘I live for my work, Nick. I am not blessed with a beautiful wife . . .’
The door at the end of the passageway opened on to the family courtyard. The building facing us was flanked left and right by the exterior walls. Set in the centre of the one to the right were the coach doors. We followed him over the cobblestones, past another set of heavy doors. Ahead of us, a light glowed behind a window.
‘But I am a nomad, Nick. I do not live anywhere. I move from place to place. Concealment is my greatest weapon, just as it is for the aggressors who avoid justice for their war crimes. It seems I have something in common with my old enemy, no?’
My eyes were fixed on the glow from the window. We stepped up on to the wooden veranda and he opened the door; this time he motioned for us to leave our boots outside. The threshold was two feet high. ‘Mind your toes.’ He lowered the lamp a little. ‘These are designed to keep little children in the rooms, but they claim a lot of flesh from adult feet.’
We were in a large square room. Fragrant perfume wafted from a pair of oil lamps in each of the far corners. Here, too, low seating ran the entire length of two walls. A fire raged in the centre of the third.
Waiting for us in the centre of the rug-covered floor were three large cushions set round a big brass tray, on which were a coffee pot, glasses, and a medium-sized brown-paper bag.
93
We all took our coats off and hung them on the wall hooks to the left of the door. He was dressed in a simple black dishdash, black trousers and socks. My socks had dried like cardboard; it wouldn’t be long before they warmed up and started stinking the place out.
This room was also very plain, decorated only with some framed verses from the Qurran. The light from the two oil lamps was enough to show that although Nuhanovic’s skin wasn’t translucent like Benzil’s it was almost unnaturally clear and wrinkle-free.
The top panel of the door to our left was a decorative carved grille. We could hear the clanking of pans and the good-humoured murmur of people at work coming from the other side of it; even better, we could smell food.
Nuhanovic held out a bony hand to Jerry. ‘Welcome.’
Then he took another step forward and shook my hand too. His grip wasn’t firm, but it was quite obvious that, like Benzil, his strength was in his head; he didn’t need it anywhere else. In this light, and up close, his dark brown eyes were even more piercing. They didn’t roam, they looked where they wanted to look and stayed there until they’d seen enough.
‘Nick, Jerry, please . . .’ He gestured towards the cushions. ‘Welcome.’ He had his own teeth, but no teeth were that naturally white.
Jerry and I sat cross-legged with our backs to the door. He took the cushion opposite, the paper bag to his left, the coffee to his right, and started pouring the heavily perfumed brew, holding the spout right near the glass then lifting it away steeply. It was like watching some kind of ceremonial ritual.
I accepted a glass. His hands were still as perfectly manicured as they were in the ‘Chetnik Mama’ picture.
The coffee tasted just the way it smelt, so I added a couple more lumps of crystallized brown sugar.
Nuhanovic passed a glass to Jerry and once again glanced sympathetically at his damaged face. ‘This has been an eventful time for you both. My people will discover what has happened to Ramzi and Benzil. I’m sure Nasir has taken care of everything; he normally does.’
He fixed us each in turn with his steady gaze, his eyes giving nothing away. ‘But please explain to me again, in greater detail, the events that have beset you.’
For the next ten minutes his gaze only shifted once from my face, to pour more coffee for himself and Jerry. I gave him the edited version of why we’d gone to Baghdad, how we’d come to meet Benzil, seen Goatee, and what had subsequently led us here – Jerry for his picture, me because Nuhanovic found it interesting that I was at the cement factory.
He shook his head gently and listened while pouring again for Jerry. I left my glass a third full. Once you’ve emptied it, the host’s duty is to offer a refill, and I’d had enough. I’d managed to avoid the perfumed shit for the whole of this job, and I wasn’t about to get hit by it now.
I didn’t want to waste any more time talking about things that didn’t matter. I didn’t know how much of it we had. ‘Our passports, phone, money . . . Will we get them back?’ I smiled. ‘One of the curses of the West. We feel naked without them.’
