Diary of a War Crime

by Simon McCleave

  Ruth nodded. ‘We were told by them, and our DCI, to drop it as a line of enquiry. We assumed that it was something to do with the election.’

  ‘We guessed that news of a wanted Serbian war criminal living it up in London wouldn’t be good PR for the current government,’ Lucy added.

  ‘Yes, that does sound like a very credible theory. Hard to prove of course. But I actually believe that the motivation behind this isn’t just the coming election.’ Claire delved into her folder and pulled out a photograph. It showed a robust-looking man in his 60s with swept-back grey hair. ‘This man is Colonel Matija Tankovic. He was Simo Petrovic’s right-hand man in their division of the Serbian army. He is also on the Hague Tribunal’s wanted list for war crimes. Tankovic managed to escape to the UK, change his identity, and set himself up in the oil business. You’ve heard of Natell?’

  ‘The oil company?’ Ruth asked. It was one of the only oil companies she had ever heard of.

  ‘Yes. Tankovic brokered a deal between Natell and Yugopetrol to supply oil once sanctions from the west were lifted. Natell made millions from that contract and it made Tankovic a very wealthy man. He still acts as a consultant.’

  ‘Sorry, but how does this relate to our investigation?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘This is where it starts to get a little bit complicated, but bear with me.’ Claire took out another photograph. It was of a well-dressed man in his 70s. Ruth was certain she had seen him somewhere before. ‘Sir George McEwan. Gained a life peerage last year and now sits in the House of Lords.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Yeah, I recognise him.’

  ‘McEwan sits on the board of Natell Oil. Which means he has stock in the company. However, he was also made aware of how and when the sanctions on Bosnian oil would be lifted by the Foreign Office.’

  Lucy looked up and frowned. ‘Which is a major conflict of interest.’

  Claire pulled a face. ‘Actually, it’s a criminal act.’

  ‘Oh my God, that’s appalling,’ Ruth said. ‘He was a member of the government. Why did no one notice?’

  ‘By the time the deal was completed, McEwan had secured a peerage and was out of harm’s way,’ Claire explained. ‘Now comes the clincher. Under his new name of Nikolic, Tankovic made a donation of half a million pounds to the Conservative Party eighteen months ago.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Lucy said, her eyes widening.

  Ruth shook her head. ‘What? They took money from Tankovic?’

  ‘They thought he was Oliver Nikolic, and they didn’t do a huge amount of checking into his background. However, six months ago they did some proper digging around and discovered Nikolic’s true identity.’

  ‘Shit. Why didn’t they do anything about it?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘They couldn’t admit that they had taken party funds from a Serbian war criminal. It would mean that every investigative journalist worth their salt would look at everything that Tankovic had done, including the deal for Natell Oil.’

  ‘Bloody hell. There was us thinking that the Home Office was scared that we would find Petrovic because having an undetected Serbian war criminal would damage their election chances,’ Lucy growled. ‘The Home Office don’t want us to search for Petrovic because that would lead us to Tankovic as well.’

  ‘Possibly, yes,’ Claire said.

  ‘What’s stopping all this coming out?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘We need to find a newspaper with the balls to run the story. And the finances for the lawyers to make sure the government doesn’t wrap the whole thing up in litigation, red tape and political bullshit,’ Claire explained.

  ‘Have you found one?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What about Petrovic?’ she added.

  ‘Oh, he’s in London. And he’s doing Tankovic’s dirty work for him.’

  ‘Two innocent men were murdered but we can’t investigate it because no one wants Tankovic’s identity to be revealed. That’s disgusting!’ Ruth said, feeling the anger welling inside her.

  ‘If this story ever sees the light of day, it’s very damaging for everyone involved. And it could bring down the current leadership of the party, whether or not they win this election.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘I will let you know how things proceed,’ Claire said.

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ Ruth said getting up to go.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing. Watch your backs. The men you’re looking for are incredibly dangerous.’

  TANKOVIC BUZZED DOWN the window at the back of his Jaguar. It was a mild spring day and the air was warm against his face. Normally he would have been happy on such a day. However, his inability to halt, or at least hamper, the police investigation into Advic and Mujic’s deaths was becoming more than an irritation. His whole way of life, and that of his closest friend, was being seriously jeopardised. And what a life it was. He had an enormous house in Holland Park that his beautiful Russian wife, Annika, had transformed into a luxurious palace. He called her his kroshka. The literal English translation was ‘a crumb’, but it essentially meant ‘little one.’ He wasn’t about to give all that up, and live out his days in prison, without a fight.

  He watched as the unmarked police Astra pulled into the car park at Peckham police station.

  ‘Pull forward a little please,’ a voice next to him said. It was Simo Petrovic.

  The driver moved the car forward slowly so that they could look through the fence and see the car park properly.

  There was silence in the car. Tankovic watched the Astra pull into a parking space and stop. Then the two female police officers got out and, deep in conversation, headed into the police station.

  ‘And that is them?’ Petrovic asked.

  ‘Yes. Fucking gabors ...’ Tankovic said as he looked down at a surveillance photograph he had of the two officers. Gabors was Serbian slang for ugly women. ‘DC Ruth Hunter and DC Lucy Henry.’

  ‘You have their addresses yet?’ Petrovic asked, sitting forward to look closely at the photograph.

  ‘Yes. And we have already started to apply a little pressure.’

  ‘Clearly not enough though?’ Petrovic said sharply as he took a cigarette and lit it. ‘And the woman they spoke to this morning?’

  ‘Claire Gold. She is an American human rights lawyer,’ Tankovic said. ‘She used to work for Amnesty International.’

  ‘Amnesty? That’s all we need. Why would they go to her?’

  Tankovic shrugged. ‘I suspect their superiors do not believe them and think they are wasting their time. I had hoped they would have been dissuaded from continuing by now.’

  ‘I thought you spoke to your sources at Whitehall and they were going to make all this go away.’

  ‘They said they had made themselves very clear.’

  Petrovic shook his head. ‘Not clear enough. And the Embassy?’

  ‘There is no one left from the old days. I am a stranger there now. It’s all changed,’ Tankovic said.

  He watched as Petrovic sat back in the plush leather seat, took a lungful of smoke, and blew it in a stream out of the window. ‘The visits to Safet Dudic and Katerina Selimovic are a worrying development.’

  ‘It can be dealt with.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s going to be enough now. It’s gone too far. These bloody kurvas!’ Petrovic snapped as he spat out of the window. Kurvas was slang for whores.

  ‘Don’t worry. By this time tomorrow, these officers won’t dare give us any more trouble. I promise you.’

  CHAPTER 20

  By the time Lucy got home, the daylight was beginning to fade. Her head was still reeling from the ramifications of their meeting with Claire Gold. She couldn’t believe where the investigation into Hamzar Mujic’s murder had led them. She had worked in CID in south London for over fifteen years and had never encountered anything like it. War criminals, assassinations, and political corruption. It was the stuff of films.

  Taking her handbag from the car, she remembered
that Brooks was swinging by in about an hour for a chat before she went to stay at her sister’s flat. The thought of going to bed with him gave her a little tingle. She would have a shower as soon as she got inside, tidy up the flat, and make it look vaguely romantic.

  As she neared the door of the flat, she reached inside her handbag for her keys. Suddenly, she sensed that someone was approaching. She glanced up and saw a tall, shaven-headed man wearing a bomber jacket coming her way.

  I don’t like the look of him.

  She froze for a moment, making no eye contact. It was dangerous to run and open the door, only to be shoved inside by a would-be attacker. She had heard about that MO too many times before from female victims of sexual attack and rape.

  Why has he stopped? This doesn’t feel right.

  With her pulse starting to quicken and tension in her stomach, Lucy turned, looked at the man and asked, with her best police officer smile, ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for Mrs Lucy Henry,’ he said in an accent that sounded distinctly Eastern European to her.

  ‘Okay. That’s me. What do you want?’ she asked, feeling vulnerable and nervous. She glanced over his shoulder but could see that there was no one else around.

  ‘We have a couple of mutual friends.’

  ‘Do we?’

  What the hell is he talking about?

  ‘Yes. And they have asked me to have a chat with you about something you are working on at the moment.’

  ‘I can’t discuss any ongoing investigation that I’m working on with anyone,’ Lucy said, trying to work out exactly what she was going to do should the man try to attack her.

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe we should go inside your flat for a chat. It is not very discreet out here.’

  Are you fucking kidding me?

  Lucy raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m an experienced police officer. And it would be very stupid of me to go into my flat with a strange man whom I have never met before, don’t you agree?’

  She glanced down the street again, and then back over her shoulder. Still no one.

  ‘You seem a little nervous?’

  ‘Do I? I’m not used to being accosted outside my home by strange men,’ she snapped.

  He smiled. ‘There’s that word again. ‘Strange’. I assure you, I am not strange.’

  ‘You think this is funny? Is this how you get your kicks, intimidating women?’ Lucy growled at him.

  I wish I had some kind of weapon so I could knock him out.

  ‘If I have frightened you, then I am sorry. I just have a message that I have been asked to deliver to you. That is all,’ he said with a shrug.

  Her heart was racing. ‘Well could you get on with it?’

  The man took two steps closer.

  Lucy put the house keys in between her fingers to form a weapon.

  If he comes for me then I’m going to stick the key in his eye.

  The man spoke in a hushed voice. ‘My friends understand that you are looking for someone. This person has no desire to be found. He has many friends, and they want you to understand how dangerous it is to keep up this search. They want to make that very, very clear to you.’

  At that moment, the front door to the next-door house opened. A young man came out carrying a mountain bike. It was Mikey. He had moved in about six months ago, but she knew him to say hello to.

  ‘Hi Lucy,’ Mikey said as he struggled to manoeuvre the mountain bike out of the door. ‘You okay?’

  Lucy gestured to the man in the bomber jacket. ‘This gentleman was looking for someone. He’s got the wrong address.’

  She walked rapidly to the front door with her keys, turning to look first at the man and then at Mikey.

  The man nodded. ‘Thanks for your help.’ He turned and sauntered away down the road.

  Lucy watched him go for a few seconds and then glanced over at Mikey. ‘Have a nice bike ride.’

  ‘Cheers, I will. Love it when the evenings start to draw out, don’t you?’ he asked as he swung his leg over the saddle.

  ‘Yeah,’ she replied as she pushed the key into the lock, but she didn’t register what he had said. Her hand was still trembling.

  As soon as she was inside, she pushed the door shut quickly. She locked it, put on the chain, and then marched around the flat closing all the curtains.

  AS RUTH WHEELED ELLA in her pushchair across the final section of Clapham Common, she glanced over at a couple of football games that were being played. She thought of her dad, who everyone said had been a decent footballer in his day. He claimed to have been on the books at Chelsea as a schoolboy, although no one else in the family could remember that. But that was her dad. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

  They had just spent an hour at the swings and playground. As Ruth passed the entrance to Clapham Common underground station, she felt the gust of warm air that swept out through the ticket office every time a train pulled into the platforms below. Someone told her the evocative smell was the particular grease they used on the rails.

  Turning right at the top of Balham Hill, she could hear Ella singing to herself while kicking her legs up and down.

  Oh my God. Could she be any cuter?

  As she approached her flat, Ruth reached into her pocket for the front door keys. All she wanted to do now was have a shower, a big glass of wine, and flop in front of the television.

  As she moved the pushchair out of the way to get to the door, she noticed that it was already open. It was resting against the doorframe – but it was definitely open.

  I know I locked it this morning. Didn’t I?

  Ruth wondered if Dan had let himself in to collect his final boxes of records and had left it open by mistake. She wouldn’t put it past him.

  Then she had a darker thought.

  The rattling of the lock the night before and the missing screw.

  She moved the pushchair to one side and looked down at Ella. ‘Mummy’s just going to go inside for a second. Just stay there.’

  Pushing the door open very slowly, she listened carefully.

  Nothing.

  She took a step inside. And then another.

  From where she stood now, she could see down through the flat to the kitchen area at the back.

  Oh my God!

  Everything had been turned upside down.

  We’ve been burgled.

  Moving slowly through the flat, while glancing back at Ella in the pushchair, she saw that the flat had been totally ransacked.

  I can’t believe it! Bastards!

  She stopped again. Was anyone still in there?

  ‘Hello? I’m a police officer. Is there anyone there? Hello?’ she called out.

  Nothing.

  She glanced back to check that Ella was still by the front door.

  Creeping slowly forward, she went into the kitchen area. The place looked like a bomb had gone off.

  Then she realised that someone was lying on the floor.

  She flinched and jumped back in shock.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she shouted.

  As her eyes moved up the body, she could see it was Dan. He was unconscious – or worse.

  She crouched over him quickly and checked that he was still breathing. He was.

  Thank God!

  There was a large, nasty gash on his temple.

  He must have disturbed whoever wrecked the flat and they attacked him.

  Moving his sleeve up, she felt for his pulse and found it.

  She got up, ran to the door, and pulled Ella inside. Grabbing the phone, she dialled 999.

  ‘Yeah, I need an ambulance as quickly as possible.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Lucy was on her third glass of wine by the time Brooks knocked on the door. At least the booze had stopped her feeling jittery.

  Going to the door, she took a deep breath. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Who do you think it is? Jack the Ripper?’ came a voice.

  It’s Harry. Thank God.

  She t
ook the chain off, unlocked the Chubb lock and then opened the door.

  ‘Bloody hell, Luce. What’s going on?’ Brooks asked.

  ‘Just come in, will you?’ Lucy said as she hastily ushered him inside before closing and locking the door behind him.

  ‘Am I missing something here?’

  Lucy took another deep breath. ‘As I got home tonight, a man approached me and made a threat.’ She had been in many dangerous situations as a copper in London, but a threat on her own doorstep felt very personal and had really rattled her.

  ‘What? Are you bloody kidding me?’ Brooks said, getting angry.

  ‘It was all very polite. He sounded Eastern European. He said that continuing to try and find the person I’m looking for was going to be very dangerous.’

  ‘Right, I’m taking you to your sister’s immediately.’

  Lucy nodded. ‘I’ll get my stuff.’

  ‘At some point, I’ll have to go and talk to the Chief Super. That time might be now,’ he said as he followed her through the flat.

  ‘Do you trust him?’ Lucy asked.

  Brooks thought for a moment and scratched his nose. She could tell he was on edge. ‘He’s very belt and braces, and I want to protect you and Ruth as much as I can.’

  ‘Give me another twenty-four hours to find this bastard, Harry. Please.’

  ‘No. It’s not safe anymore.’

  Lucy went to him and put her arms around his waist.

  He looked directly at her. ‘This case has really got to you, hasn’t it?’

  She squeezed her arms around him and pulled him closer. ‘Yeah. Twenty-four hours.’

  ‘What’s going to be different this time tomorrow?’

  ‘Petrovic knows we’re closing in. If he’s desperate enough to have someone threaten me on my doorstep, then he’s going to do something stupid. He’s going to make a mistake. And then we’ve got him.’

  ‘You sound very confident about that.’

  Lucy frowned. ‘I thought you said I was a bloody good copper.’

  ‘You are, but I don’t want you or Ruth to get hurt before we sort this out.’