‘Sorry, guv. You’ve lost me,’ Gaughran said with a frown.
‘Don’t you lot remember Georgi Markov? The poisoned pellet from an umbrella?’ Brooks said in disbelief.
‘Are you taking the piss, guv?’ Lucy asked.
Ruth now remembered the case from when she was a kid. It was in the papers.
Brooks smiled. ‘Bloody hell, you youngsters don’t know anything do you ... ? Georgi Markov was a Bulgarian dissident living up the road from here in Clapham. He wrote articles against the Bulgarian regime. One day, he was walking across London Bridge when someone bumped into him. He felt a little scratch on his leg. What he didn’t know was that a member of the Bulgarian Secret Service had fired a tiny pellet of ricin, which is a deadly poison, from the tip of an umbrella into his calf. By the time he got home he was feeling unwell. The next day he was dead. Now that really is James Bond stuff, Tim. So, although it’s rare, it does happen.’
Gaughran looked a little subdued as though he had been admonished. ‘Learn something new every day, guv.’
Brooks looked pensive for a second before asking, ‘Was Hamzar Mujic a politician back in Bosnia?’
‘No, guv,’ Ruth said.
‘Anything that gives us a clue as to why he was killed like this?’
‘Not yet. But we spoke to his daughter yesterday. She seems to think that Mujic had seen a Bosnian war criminal called Simo Petrovic in London, which doesn’t make sense,’ Ruth explained.
‘Why not?’ Brooks asked.
‘Because just over three years ago, Simo Petrovic killed himself and was buried in Bosnia,’ Lucy said.
Brooks looked directly at Lucy. ‘Have you checked this Petrovic out?’
‘Not yet, guv,’ she replied.
‘Mujic had some papers and articles, both on a desk and pinned to a corkboard. They disappeared around the time of his murder,’ Ruth said.
‘Fentanyl is a painkiller isn’t it?’ Hassan asked.
‘Yes,’ Lucy confirmed. ‘The pathologist reckons it’s fifty times stronger than morphine.’
‘Who was that then? Professor sexy pants?’ Gaughran asked with a grin. ‘I’d love her to give me a scrub down in the mortuary.’
Gaughran is such a dick!
Ruth rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you ever wonder why you’re single?’
‘And why your right hand has friction burns on it?’ Lucy quipped as the others in CID laughed.
‘I’m left-handed actually,’ Gaughran joked, trying to front it out.
Brooks looked at the scene board for a moment. ‘Can you infants shut up for a minute? If we think that a foreign national like Petrovic is involved and in the UK, I’ll have to let Scotland Yard know. It’s probably something we need to run past the Home Office.’
Ruth looked up to see a uniformed officer head her way with several sheets of a printout.
‘Thanks,’ Ruth said quietly as she took the sheets and had a quick look. It was a PNC check on Mersad Avdic, Hamzar Mujic’s best friend.
Something immediately caught her eye.
Ruth gestured to the printout. ‘Guv, I think I’ve got something.’
‘What’s that?’ Brooks asked.
‘PNC check on Mersad Avdic, who was Hamzar Mujic’s best friend. He was found dead in his flat in Earl’s Court two days ago. Cause of death was natural causes.’
A UNIFORMED OFFICER opened the door to Mersad Avdic’s basement flat in Earl’s Court and showed Lucy and Ruth inside. It smelled musty and damp.
‘No luck finding the next of kin?’ Lucy asked.
‘No, ma’am. We’re having to go through the Foreign Office to see if they can find anyone in Bosnia. Landlord wants the flat back at the end of the month, so all his possessions will have to go into storage,’ the officer explained.
Ruth stepped over the letters and leaflets that had dropped through the letterbox and made her way down the hallway. Further along was a small shoe rack with four pairs of shoes neatly arranged on the flimsy wooden shelves.
‘We found him in here,’ the officer said, indicating a door to the living room.
Ruth and Lucy went into the sparse and functional room. The dark orange curtains were still closed.
The officer pointed to a large red armchair. ‘Mr Avdic was sitting there when we came in.’
‘And no sign of a forced entry or a struggle?’ Ruth asked.
‘No, ma’am. Nothing. He was just sitting there.’
Ruth spotted that beside the armchair opposite was a teacup and saucer with a centimetre of tea inside.
Lucy went over to a desk that was tidy and clear of any clutter.
‘I’ll have a quick scoot round,’ Ruth said to them as she left the living room, headed down the hallway and into the kitchen. On the counter were two small bags of shopping.
Ruth peered inside and could see a bag of frozen peas and a tub of vanilla ice cream, both of which had now defrosted.
Why didn’t he put those away? she asked herself.
She then wandered into the bedroom. The walls were covered in a sky-blue and white patterned wallpaper that looked a little bit like the sky. The small double bed was made, and next to that was a deco lamp and pine bedside table. There were two books, but the titles were in a foreign language so Ruth couldn’t read what they were.
Returning to the living room, Ruth looked again at the shoe rack in the hallway. It had sparked a thought. As she entered, Lucy looked over from the desk.
‘Find anything?’ she asked.
‘He didn’t put his shopping in the freezer,’ Ruth said as she went to the armchair where the teacup and saucer were.
‘That’s because he was dead,’ Lucy quipped darkly.
‘Why didn’t he put it away when he came in?’ Ruth said as she crouched down for a second and looked at the carpet just in front of the armchair. There was a small piece of dried mud and fragments of gravel.
‘At it again, Sherlock?’ Lucy said with a frown.
Ruth looked up at the uniformed officer. ‘Was Mr Advic wearing slippers when you found him?’
The officer thought for a second and then nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am. Those old-fashioned tartan ones you get.’
‘Something up?’ Lucy asked.
‘Mr Avdic comes home from the shops. He takes off his shoes in the hallway and puts on his slippers as he always does. He takes the shopping to the kitchen. For some reason, he leaves it there and doesn’t unpack it. He comes in here. The kitchen is immaculate and so is most of the carpet in this room,’ Ruth said, trying to put together the inconsistencies as she spoke.
‘Where are we going with this?’ Lucy asked as she searched the drawers in the desk.
‘There’s mud on the carpet here, and a teacup and saucer next to this armchair. So, Mr Avdic comes in, puts the shopping down, doesn’t take off his shoes, makes a cup of tea and comes and sits here. Meanwhile his frozen food is defrosting. He then decides to go and put his slippers on. Comes back in here, sits on this other armchair, and dies.’
Lucy nodded. ‘You think someone else was in here with him?’
‘Maybe. I think we need to persuade the coroner to order a PM and to do a toxicology report on him and look for any signs of a needle.’
‘Good luck with that. It will come out of Kensington’s budget.’
Ruth looked thoughtfully around the living room. ‘None of this adds up.’
However, Lucy had stopped listening. She was staring at something that she had found.
‘What’s that?’ Ruth asked.
Lucy turned and showed her a photograph of a man in his 40s. He had black hair, a thick beard, and a camouflage jacket. Ruth thought he looked a little bit like Fidel Castro. Lucy then turned the photo over. There was some writing on the back.
Ruth peered closer. ‘What does that say?’
‘It says Simo Petrovic. And a London address. Where’s W14?’ Lucy asked.
‘Hammersmith.’
STUBBING OUT HER CIGARETTE, Ruth took a breath and continued
turning the pages of the London A-Z map book. It was the middle of the day and the offices of Peckham CID were relatively quiet. Most of the detectives were out and about.
She glanced down again at the postcode and the index. W14 3TJ. Moving her finger across the map, she found what she was looking for. The address on the back of the photo of the man that she presumed was Simo Petrovic.
Turning the photo over, Ruth gazed for a moment at the man’s face. He was handsome, in the old-fashioned sense of the word. His face looked like it was about to break into a smile. The skin around his eyes had started to wrinkle with age. His eyes looked up and past the camera. There was nothing in that photo to suggest that this man was The Butcher of Mount Strigavo. However, Ruth had been a copper long enough now to know that appearances meant nothing, despite the great British public’s theory that someone should look guilty. The first time she saw a photo of Ted Bundy, she couldn’t get over how good looking he was. The fact that he had murdered over thirty young women put a bit of a dampener on that though.
‘I’ve got the first part of Hamzar Mujic’s diary translated,’ Lucy said, waving a folder as she entered CID.
‘Have we heard back about that CCTV from Waterloo station?’ Ruth asked.
‘No. Nothing. What about the coroner in Kensington?’
‘Apparently they’re backed up, but they will do a PM when they have time. And getting a blood sample and a toxicology report could take over a week,’ Ruth explained.
The door to the CID office opened and Brooks appeared.
‘Ladies, I need to borrow you both,’ he said, and beckoned them to follow him by curling his finger.
‘Sounds ominous,’ Lucy muttered under her breath as she pulled a face at Ruth.
Brooks led them out of CID and down the corridor to a meeting room. At the far end of the oval table sat two middle-aged men wearing grey suits.
They don’t look like coppers, Ruth thought.
‘These gentlemen are from the Home Office. They would like to talk to us about Hamzar Mujic’s murder,’ Brooks explained as he sat down and indicated that Ruth and Lucy should do the same.
Ruth shot Lucy a look and widened her eyes.
That all sounds very serious.
The older man, who was bald and wearing glasses, gestured to a folder that he had in front of him. ‘DCI Brooks has been good enough to update us on your investigation into Hamzar Mujic and his untimely death. We understand that Mr Mujic believed that he had seen a Serbian national called Simo Petrovic in London a few weeks ago?’
Lucy nodded. ‘His daughter said he had spotted and followed Simo Petrovic at Waterloo station. We don’t have the exact date.’
‘Apparently, he was adamant it was him though,’ Ruth said.
The younger man gave them both a rather supercilious smile. ‘That’s quite impossible, I’m afraid.’
‘I know that he was meant to have committed suicide and was then buried in Bosnia. But isn’t it possible that was just some smokescreen that allowed him to escape justice?’ Lucy asked.
The younger man reached into his file and pulled out some documents. ‘The UN Security Council investigated this when they set up the ICT at The Hague.’
This man is irritatingly pompous.
‘Sorry? ICT?’ Ruth asked.
‘International Criminal Tribunal. For war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia,’ the older man said, chipping in.
The younger man turned to show them an A4 photograph of a grave. ‘This is where Simo Petrovic was buried.’
‘That’s what you were told,’ Lucy said a little pointedly.
She’s being even more feisty than usual.
Brooks shifted awkwardly in his seat.
The younger man ignored Lucy and showed another photograph to them. ‘And this is a photo of Simo Petrovic’s death certificate.’
‘Yeah, well I can go to a bloke five minutes from here and get a fake copy of my own death certificate for about fifty quid,’ Lucy said derisively.
‘These documents came from the Bosnian government in 1995. We are not here to justify or debate their authenticity,’ the younger man said coldly.
‘Then why are you here?’ Ruth asked.
Brooks shot both Ruth and Lucy a look to rein it in.
The younger man put the photographs back into the folder. ‘Simo Petrovic is dead. I have shown you the evidence of that. The Home Secretary is keen that your investigation into Mr Mujic’s murder doesn’t instead become an investigation into whether Simo Petrovic is alive and hiding in London. Should anything leak to the press or the media, it could spark a rather unpleasant diplomatic incident.’
Lucy shrugged. ‘I guess that having a Bosnian war criminal wandering around the streets of London would be embarrassing.’
‘And I’m guessing if that happened a few days before a general election it might be damaging for the current government?’ Ruth added.
The younger man ignored them and got up from the table, unmoved by what Lucy and Ruth had said. He looked over at Brooks.
‘I’m sure that DCI Brooks will explain to you that looking for Simo Petrovic is a waste of valuable police resources. And that it is a line of enquiry that the Home Secretary would like you to close.’
Brooks got up, went to the door, and showed the men out. He closed the door once they had gone and glared at Lucy and Ruth.
‘What the bloody hell was that?’ he snarled.
‘You want us to turn a blind eye to the fact that there might be a war criminal killing Bosnians in London in an attempt to keep his identity hidden?’ Lucy asked.
‘Where’s your bloody evidence, Lucy!’ Brooks said brusquely. ‘We’ve got one murdered old man who thinks he might have seen someone from his past that is buried in Bosnia. It’s not much to go on.’
‘What about the photograph in Avdic’s flat?’ Ruth asked. Petrovic being involved in the murder did explain a lot of the more unusual aspects of Mujic’s murder.
‘I don’t want to hear any more about Simo Petrovic,’ Brooks said.
‘Never had you down as someone who would bend over and drop their trousers so easily, guv,’ Lucy snapped.
‘Lucy!’ Ruth exclaimed. She had seriously crossed the line now!
Brooks looked at her for a moment. ‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that Lucy ... Petrovic is a line of enquiry that isn’t open to you. And that’s an order.’ Brooks then looked directly at them both. ‘Is that understood?’
They nodded.
Brooks went out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
Ruth looked at Lucy.
‘What?’ Lucy asked.
CHAPTER 11
Ruth came back into her living room with a pizza. Lucy was sitting on the sofa drinking a beer and looking through the English translation of Mujic’s diary.
Lucy had wanted to continue digging around the case. Dan was out and Ella needed picking up, so they had decided to continue working into the evening at Ruth’s flat.
Ruth plonked the pizza down on the low table by the sofa. ‘What is pepperoni anyway?’
Lucy was lost in what she was reading. ‘What?’
‘Pepperoni. It’s pork isn’t it? Cured?’ Ruth said munching away, but realised that her words were lost on Lucy.
‘I cannot believe this happened only five years ago,’ Lucy said quietly. Ruth could see that she had tears in her eyes as she blinked. ‘That poor man had been through so much. Too much. And for him to die like that ...’
It wasn’t like Lucy to get so emotionally involved in a case. In fact, it was usually the other way around, with Lucy telling Ruth that she was too close to a case for her own good. However, it was clear that something about Hamzar Mujic and his diary had struck a chord with her.
Ruth watched Lucy wipe a tear from her face with the back of her hand. ‘I guess it makes for pretty grim reading?’
Lucy nodded, and looked back down at the diary. ‘I’ll just read you this entry ... March 1992. I, a
long with all the Muslim men from my town, had been transferred to a concentration camp at Ravnik. As we spent our days in hard labour, we could see the British troops in their reconnaissance vehicles in the distance, working as part of the UN and driving towards Kuzla. This was the first time I had come across Simo Petrovic. I had heard his name before, and it seemed to strike terror into everyone who heard it. People called him The Butcher. Petrovic hated the British and would take delight in ordering the road to Kuzla to be shelled. Once, I saw one of the British vehicles swerve a shell and get stuck in the mud. Petrovic grabbed a high-powered rifle and began to shoot at the stationary vehicle. He must have fired around twenty rounds. Later, it was reported on the radio that a British soldier had been killed in that vehicle. Petrovic spent the next few days bragging about what a great marksman he was and how he had murdered a British dog.
The next week, I was moved from this camp over to Dretelj. The Bosnian Croat army had turned the old Stolac hospital buildings into an interrogation centre. Petrovic was in charge of all the camps in the area. He wanted us to tell them where the Muslim fighters were hiding out. He was particularly interested in where the foreign Mujahideen fighters, who had come to help us from Afghanistan, had their training camp.
We were kept in a pitch-black room for days with no food or water. There were about seventy men from our town. There were no toilets, so we had no choice but to go where we sat. The smell was unbearable.
Petrovic and his men tortured us one by one. I will never forget the screaming of my friends from the rooms next to us. Every time the door opened, I felt sick as I knew it would be my turn soon. When the time came, I was dragged to a large room and tied to a chair. I couldn’t see because my eyes had grown accustomed to being in the darkness. They beat me with sticks and used barbed wire to rip my skin. When I passed out, they threw urine on me until I was conscious. Then I saw a neighbour of mine, Dizdar, lying dead against the wall. He had been there for three days. His eyes were wide open, but his skull had been crushed. His face was such a strange colour. They laughed and said he was an observer from the Red Cross. Petrovic kicked his head backwards and forwards like a football while I watched. At one point, Dizdar’s teeth flew out of his mouth and skidded across the floor. I was sick but I’d had no food so I retched until I couldn’t breathe. I can still see Dizdar’s face in the nightmares that I have nearly every night.’
Diary of a War Crime Page 6
