by Anna Smith
‘Help yourself.’ Matt opened his arms. He turned to Adrian and Risto. ‘You guys might want to look away. This could get really messy.’
Risto laughed, but Adrian was distracted by his mobile ringing. His eyes narrowed as he listened to the call, then he stood up and walked away from the table and disappeared up an alleyway.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Rosie said, looking at Risto. He shrugged and said nothing, and she watched anxiously for Adrian to reappear. She breathed a sigh of relief when he did, but he was grim-faced.
‘We have a problem,’ he said, sitting back down. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
The others looked at him in anxious silence. ‘They know we are here,’ he said. ‘Well …’ He looked at Rosie and Matt. ‘They know you are here.’
‘Shit!’ Rosie said, ‘How the hell can they?’
Adrian spread his palms and shrugged. ‘Because someone has told them, Rosie. Informed them. These people have many connections. Informants everywhere.’
‘Jesus! Cops maybe?’ Rosie gave Matt a bewildered look. ‘Nobody knew we were coming here. Not even Don, my best cop contact. I didn’t even tell him.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t understand it.’
‘Is none of my people, Rosie. I can promise you that.’
Rosie looked at him. ‘That goes without saying, Adrian.’
He shrugged. ‘In Yugoslavia, we have always been so used to secret police when our country was communist. Won’t be any different now. They will still be operating. I think maybe you have secret police in Scotland too? No?’
‘Yes, we have Special Branch. People like that. But I can’t imagine …’ Rosie paused, and shook her head. ‘No. Actually I can imagine how they would get involved, especially if Raznatovic is somebody they don’t want to see on the front page of any newspaper because of the potential embarrassment. Plus the political implications of PD Pharmaceuticals’ involvement.’ She paused. ‘It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to think they may collaborate to keep it quiet.’
Adrian looked at Rosie. ‘Then I think that is your answer, Rosie. Maybe they have been watching you.’
Rosie’s blood ran a little cold. The idea that everything she had been doing in the past few weeks that led to Raznatovic had been picked up, was terrifying. It could only have been Special Branch. Rosie’s mobile rang and she jumped.
‘Christ,’ she laughed nervously, glancing at Adrian who was watching her. She put the phone to her ear without looking at the screen.
‘Rosie. Mickey.’
It was Mickey Kavanagh.
‘Mickey,’ Rosie said. ‘You’re freaking me out, reading my mind. I was about to call you.’
‘Rosie, listen. You need to get out of there.’
The words sent another chill through her. Silence.
‘You there, Rosie? Listen, I know you’re in Belgrade. What the fuck are you doing there on your own?’
‘I’m not on my own, Mickey. I’m being looked after. I have contacts.’
‘Well, people know you’re there. And if I already know, then chances are that Raznatovic will know. You need to get the fuck out of there, pronto. What did you go there for anyway?’
‘I heard he was here, that he’d done a runner, and I wanted to get him in Belgrade so we could use it in the story. I want to be able to say we tracked him down.’ She glanced up at Matt. ‘You know the sketch, Mickey.’
‘Christ, Rosie, of course I do. I knew he was in Belgrade three days ago, but I didn’t tell you because I knew exactly what you would do. Listen, sweetheart: these people will kill you. Are you listening to me? They will want you dead. Now whatever you’re doing, put it down and get in your car and get out of there tonight. Just keep driving. Trust me, Rosie. You’re a dead woman if you stay there.’
‘Christ, Mickey! Now you’re really freaking me out.’ Rosie caught Adrian’s eye as he was paying the bill. He gestured to her to hurry.
‘Rosie … You know I don’t fuck about with stuff like this. Now get moving, and call me when you’re somewhere safe. Far enough away from Belgrade. Do you hear me?’
‘I hear you, Mickey.’
Rosie put the phone back in her pocket. She tried to swallow but her mouth was suddenly dry. She lifted her glass and noticed her hand was shaking. ‘We have to get out of here,’ she said. ‘That was my contact in London calling to say exactly what you’ve just told us, Adrian. They know we are here.’
‘Come.’ Adrian stood up. ‘Let’s go.’
CHAPTER 32
The dimly lit hotel foyer was deserted but for a few people sitting on sofas or at tables just outside the depressing-looking bar. The scene reminded Rosie of so many cities in the Eastern bloc where she’d been on assignment, the dreary bars and hotel foyers seeming to match the gloomy, resigned expressions of the people.
‘I have a message for you,’ the young man in the crimson waistcoat behind the reception said, as he handed Rosie and Matt their room keys.
Rosie made a surprised face to Matt. Risto hovered close by. Adrian had insisted he go into the hotel with them for safety as they picked up their belongings while he waited outside with the car.
The receptionist fished out a padded white envelope from the wooden pigeon holes behind him and handed it to Rosie without looking at her.
‘Hope it’s not a bomb,’ Rosie joked to Matt, easing it open as the three of them walked towards the stairway to their rooms on the first floor.
‘Bit late for that,’ Risto smiled, as Rosie stuck her hand in the envelope.
She pulled out a photograph, and knew instantly who the package was from.
‘It’s from Gerhard.’ She paused on the stairs and looked at Matt and Risto. ‘You know, Gerhard? The German reporter.’ All three of them stood looking at the photograph in Rosie’s hands.
‘Christ,’ Matt said. ‘It’s some kind of shooting party. Look. It’s Hayman! And Boskovac! Fuck me!’
Rosie couldn’t believe her eyes. Hayman and Boskovac in overcoats and tweeds at the edge of a forest, posing with rifles over their shoulders, grinning triumphantly as they stood over a dead stag. The Serb had one arm around the cabinet minister.
Rosie flipped the photograph around and read the caption aloud: ‘Environment Secretary Tim Hayman and company director Goran Boskovac on a shooting party in the Scottish Highlands in 1994’. She gave a low whistle. ‘Christ! I don’t believe this!’ She stuck her hand inside the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper with a handwritten message scrawled on it:
‘This proves to you that powerful people were friends with evil long before they went to PD Pharmaceuticals. The picture is taken while the Serb was boss of the company I exposed. They were guests at an estate belonging to Lord Gennifer. Good luck.’ She pushed the photograph back into the envelope and put it safely in the pocket of her small rucksack, slinging it back over her shoulders.
‘It’s weird, though,’ Matt said. ‘Why leave it at the hotel if he was going to meet you?’
They both looked at Risto, and saw the muscle tighten in his lean jaw.
‘Maybe like you he has decided to get out of Belgrade quickly. Perhaps he was afraid there may be no time.’ He jerked his head towards the stairs. ‘Come. We must go quickly now I think.’
Rosie followed Risto upstairs, still puzzled at the development. For a split second it crossed her mind that Gerhard had been betraying them, but she quickly banished it. Maybe Risto was right, and Gerhard was in a hurry to get out of the city. He did say he had been there before and was still investigating his story. It didn’t feel right though, and she was glad they were getting the hell out of this place. She would call him and thank him for the picture as soon as she got to the car. But she wished she could have seen him.
Rosie watched as Matt went into his bedroom, leaving his door half open, then she walked the few doors down towards her room, Risto in tow.
‘I come with you,’ he said. ‘Then we all go down together.’
The shock nearly knocke
d Rosie off her feet as she opened the door and stepped into the room. Facing her was a man tied to a chair with rope. A polythene bag was pulled tight over his head. The terror as he’d suffocated screamed out from his eyes, bulging like stocks. It happened so quickly, but in the split-second glimpse, she could tell that the purple face set to burst was Gerhard Hoffman.
Automatically, she swivelled her body around to Risto, but it was too late. She caught the slump of his body brushing against her shoulder as he fell to the floor. Before she had time to see what had hit him, she was grabbed from behind by the hair and a gun was shoved in her neck. A large fleshy hand was slapped over her mouth and nose and she heard herself trying to speak, choking for breath as she was dragged backwards. As she was pulled out of the doorway, there was just enough time to see Risto flinch as the bullet made a popping sound, ripping into his thigh and sending a splatter of bloodspots up the bedroom wall. The hand that was over her mouth let go, then she felt a hard punch on the side of her eye and went dizzy. But she was conscious enough to be aware she was being hauled in the opposite direction of Matt’s room, towards the fire escape stairs. As her attacker pushed open the swing door into the darkness of the corridor, she prayed that Matt would come out of his room quickly enough to see Risto on the floor and would call Adrian. But as she was trailed downstairs and bundled into the back seat of a waiting car, she knew that this time she was on her own.
The gorilla in the back seat dragged her roughly around like a rag doll, and she looked up, trying to focus on his face.
‘Wh … What are you doing? Where you taking me?’ Rosie saw him rip a piece of gaffer tape with his teeth. He cackled as he stuck the tape over her mouth, then got out of the car and into the driver’s seat.
‘You are going for a drive. Then I will give you the interview you want.’ A voice from the passenger seat.
Rosie froze.
The passenger turned his body around and leaned across so she came face to face with him. Boris Raznatovic, his lips curled in a sardonic smile.
‘You are surprised to see me.’ Cold, dead eyes fixed her. ‘But I am not surprised to see you. They said you would come. They said you are a brave reporter when you are chasing a story.’ He wagged a finger. ‘But you are also very stupid. And for that you will pay.’
Rosie lay still, desperately trying to contain the panic rising in her chest. She had to control her breathing, she told herself, as she struggled to pull in air through her nostrils. If she started hyperventilating, she would pass out. She could do this. She had to. She closed her eyes and prayed, inhaling gently, forcing every fibre of her body to stay calm.
The car pulled away slowly and Raznatovic turned back to face the front. She heard him sigh heavily.
‘You people. You think it’s clever to tell the world of our business in Glasgow and England, and of our business here. What are you trying to achieve? Are you so stupid you think you will stop us? You think anybody really cares about asylum seekers, refugees? You are very wrong. Nobody cares. You think anybody really cares about Bosnians or Kosovo Albanians, or someone from Africa? Everything is money, same as always. Politicians are not in charge in the new Serbia. We are. They were all criminals in the old days, just like us. Nothing has changed, only now we run the show.’
Rosie felt the sweat on the back of her neck as he turned around to face her again.
‘I am going to prove something to you,’ he said. ‘Prove to you that nobody cares about you either. You think what you are doing is important, but it is not. We are going to a place and you will make a phone call to your editor, and tell him there is a price for your release. You see, everyone has a price. Refugees are worth more to us dead than alive, believe me. And you?’ He half smiled. ‘We will find out soon what you are worth, but I know it will be nothing. You can tell your story, but it will be the last one you will tell.’ He turned away from her.
Rosie could smell cigarette smoke and listened hard as Raznatovic spoke to the driver in Serbian. A mobile phone rang and she heard Raznatovic talking animatedly. Very gently, she reached into her pocket and smuggled out her own phone, memorising the layout of the screen and how many taps of the keypad it took so she could send a message without looking. She knew Adrian’s was the first name on her contacts, and she concentrated as she carefully picked out the the words, ‘In car. Two men. Raznat …’ Then she pressed what she prayed was the button to send the message to Adrian. She slipped the phone back into her pocket and strained her eyes to look up and peer out of the window. They hadn’t gone far, so they must still be in the centre of the city. She could see the light of street lamps and hear the din of traffic. She thought of Tanya, and how she had escaped when Al Howie’s men grabbed her in Glasgow. She raised her head a little and could see that the lock buttons on the door were up. Rosie could feel the adrenalin pumping through the veins in her neck.
Suddenly there was a deafening bang and she felt herself being shunted hard as her face banged against the back of the front seats. They’d hit something. A horn honked continuously and Raznatovic was shouting furiously at the driver. Rosie felt blood on the side of her eye from the thud, and eased herself up on one elbow. Outside, she could just see a man was striding towards the car shouting abuse at the driver, who was still being barked at by his boss. Rosie steadied herself as the man approached and hammered on the driver’s window. She heard the click of a gun from the passenger seat. This was it. She had to be quick. She slipped her hand so it was on the door handle. In one, seamless movement, she pushed open the door, leapt out of the car and started running. A car swerved to avoid her as she raced across the busy road. She didn’t look back to see if they were following her or shooting at her.
Rosie tore the tape off her mouth and ran for her life, crossing the street and running through the precinct and up a sidestreet. Her lungs were bursting and her heart pounding in her chest, but her legs were pumping like pistons as she kept pushing herself on.
The further she ran the more deserted the streets became, and she found herself up a quiet alleyway that looked like a residential area. She had no idea where she was. There were no bars, no shops, just the basic signs of life in the windows of the dark-grey stone buildings on either side. She stopped and leaned against a wall, bending over to catch her breath. From the corner of her eye she saw a long shadow coming towards her, and she jumped inside an open doorway, into the cold dark entrance to a block of flats and closed the door. Close by, a door opened on the ground floor and an old woman came out eyeing her suspiciously. She said something in Serbian and waved Rosie away. She thought she heard the word police. Her stomach turned over. She took a step towards the old woman, wiping the blood from her eye and mouth.
‘Please,’ she said, her lip trembling. ‘Please. Help me.’ Rosie looked at the door to the entrance, terrified it was going to burst open. ‘Please let me stay for a moment.’ She shook her head. ‘No police.’
The old woman’s eyes studied her.
‘Please,’ she joined her hands in pleading, tears coming to her eyes.
They stood in silence for a moment, then the woman spoke. ‘You are English?’ She stepped back in the doorway. ‘You are in trouble? You are running away?’
‘Please. Someone is trying to kill me. I am not a bad person. Please help me.’ Rosie felt sick as she tasted blood in her mouth.
The woman looked as though she was going to close the door. Then she raised her hand and beckoned Rosie to follow her. ‘Come.’
Relief flooded through Rosie as she walked behind her along the gloomy hallway. Through the living-room door, she could hear opera music. An image of her mother listening to an LP of Maria Callas on their old radiogram even as she was in a drunken stupor, flashed into her mind. She followed the woman inside and for a moment they both stood there in silence, with just the strains of the music from an old radio in the corner. Rosie swallowed and stood looking around her at the cosiness of the room, the crochet table covers and chairbacks, and dark wo
od shelves littered with ornaments. Old family photographs lined the mantelpiece – pictures of a safe normal life. And suddenly she couldn’t stop the tears. She stood wiping them with the palms of her hands as they ran down her cheeks.
The old woman’s expression softened.
‘Sit.’ She motioned her to the small sofa. ‘I make some tea.’
Rosie sat down. Her mobile rang and she took it out of her pocket, struggling to hold it in her trembling hands. It was Adrian. She bit her lip and wiped her nose.
‘Adrian,’ she managed to say.
‘Rosie, where are you? Are you okay?’ He sounded breathless.
‘I’m okay, Adrian.’ She sniffed. ‘I … I don’t know where I am … I’m … In a house … Hold on.’ Rosie turned to the old woman in the kitchen a few feet away, pouring boiling water into a teapot. ‘Excuse me. Please. Can you tell me where I am?’
The old woman put down the kettle and turned towards her.
‘You are bringing trouble to my house?’
‘No. No, please. No trouble. My friend is coming for me. I will tell you what happened. Please. Just tell me the address.’ Rosie went back to the mobile. ‘Hold on, Adrian. Stay on the line.’
A few moments later, the old woman came in carrying a tray with tea, and a bowl of steaming water that smelled of disinfectant. She put it down on the coffee table in front of Rosie and reeled off the address.
‘Tell your friend, go to the Kneza Mihaila and turn right at the top and left for two hundred metres, then after two right turns is my street. I am number twenty-seven. He must ring the bell twice.’
‘Thank you.’ Rosie sniffed, and relayed the information to Adrian.
‘I will be there as soon as I can. Not long. You are okay, Rosie. Don’t worry.’
Rosie felt the tears again and blinked them away while the old woman poured tea into cups. She spooned sugar into one and handed it to Rosie.
‘For the shock,’ she said. ‘You have had a shock and the sugar will help you.’ She smiled and Rosie saw the laughter lines around her eyes and high cheekbones on what had once been a lovely face. ‘So. You can tell me what has happened to you. I see you are very frightened.’
