“That’s no problem, Carina. I understand this is an incredibly difficult time for you. Just take your time, relax and start again when you’re ready.” I think of his heavily pregnant wife back home and can’t fight the surge of guilt. Last thing he needs is to be stuck here dealing with a nutcase all evening.
“Okay. Erin.” Inhale, exhale. Think of Ilić’s wife. “She acted pretty normal on the way to the farm. It was only once we were sitting around having ‘breakfast—’ ” I act out the air quotes with my fingers “—that she started to get a little worried.”
“Can you define normal for me?”
I rack my brains. “Chatty, witty. Dirty humor. A sailor’s laugh. Fiery at times, ’specially when she gets worked up about something. Like the politics argument with Duncan. She always dresses pretty casually—not really a girlie-girl—but I was a little surprised she’d taken out her nose ring. I hadn’t seen her without it in months.” I wonder where it is now, whether the police found it in the hotel room. “Oh, and she has one of those smiles that just makes guys fall in love with her.” A beat. “Like Andrijo.”
Ilić doesn’t react to the name the way I want him to. “All right. So what changed when she got to the farm?”
“It happened when she realized there was no phone signal. Even though it was a Sunday, she was paranoid our editor wouldn’t be able to reach her if there was a problem with one of her pieces. Lowe often goes into the office and works on weekends, and will text or call us if she needs us. I don’t think she fully believes in time off. So, yeah, Erin was on edge. Kept pressing the home button on her phone. Went quiet, too. Didn’t really participate in the group banter.”
“Why would she be this worried over her boss not being able to reach her? What’s her attitude toward work like?”
I think about this for a moment. “She’s one of those people who acts really laid-back, but deep down is very driven. A fashion intern, but not content at the bottom of the ladder. She wants to move up quickly—she’s impatient like that.” I have to force myself to use the present tense. “I know she struggles financially, and picks up bar shifts on evenings and weekends to pay her rent.
“So I guess she didn’t want Lowe thinking she was irresponsible or didn’t care about her job. When we first pitched the feature idea, we were met with some resistance about jetting off to another country over deadline week. Erin was desperate to prove herself, to show it wouldn’t be a problem and that she’s capable of keeping all her plates in the air.”
“Plates in the air?” The expression is lost in translation.
“As in, she wants to prove she can juggle lots of work at once.”
“Ah, I see.” Ilić thinks for a minute. “How heavy was her workload generally? How was she coping at work?”
“I mean, we’re all superbusy. We produce a three-hundred-page magazine and two supplements every month, and there aren’t enough hands on deck most of the time. She seemed to deal with it better than the rest of us.” I remember a joke she once cracked on our third day of overtime in a row. “Although she did once say to me that she’s like a swan. It’s all elegant and graceful on the surface, but her legs are kicking like mad underwater, trying desperately to stay afloat. I thought she was kidding. Maybe I should’ve paid more attention.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” he says in English. Danijel looks at him, confused. “Often, the people who seem to be doing the best are fighting the hardest battle with themselves. Success isn’t easy.”
I smile. “That’s true. From the outside, I probably look like I’ve got my shit together. But, well, you’ve just witnessed firsthand that my shit is, in fact, fucking everywhere.”
He laughs, genuinely. Not his elderly-relative laugh, but one that comes from his belly. I’m grateful to have him onside.
Danijel coughs, and we both snap back to attention. Ilić clears his throat. “Okay. So how did her mood—”
“Wait,” I interrupt, suddenly remembering a small detail that could be important. “I just . . . I just realized I didn’t tell you something. About . . . well, not about her mood exactly, but . . . she had a bruise. On her arm. An old one, by the looks of it.”
A cocked eyebrow. “A bruise? Can you describe it to me?”
I swallow, close my eyes. Try to picture it. “Yellowish in color, which is how I know it was old. Just starting to fade. It was hard to make out the shape because of her tattoos. But . . . I think it was pretty small, and round like a coin. On the inside of her upper arm.”
“Were there any others?”
I shake my head slowly. “Not that I saw. I’m sorry.”
“And she never mentioned how she got this bruise?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Right. Thank you. Thanks for remembering that.” He nods, looking deep in thought, then continues. “So, how did her mood progress over the next few hours?”
My mind’s still reeling over the bruise, but I push on. “She perked up a bit. I gave her a pep talk, which seemed to help. And like I say, by the time we reached the beach island she was laughing and splashing Duncan in the shallow water. I didn’t think it was all an act, but maybe . . .” I shrug. “Maybe I don’t know. Maybe we never do.”
A warm nod. “Go on.”
“It changed drastically as soon as she met Andrijo. It was like she’d been sleeping all day, and was suddenly awake. A spark in her eye, like I’ve never seen before. Not even when she talks about her boyfriend,” I add, wanting to make them aware it’s unlike her to flirt with other guys.
Ilić purses his lips. “And . . . this was definitely the first time they’d met?”
Woah. I hadn’t even considered that they could have met before. “I thought so . . . I mean, they were introduced as if it were. But . . . I don’t know. She could’ve met him at JUMP on one of the other nights. I don’t remember seeing her talking to a guy, but . . .” I trail off. My skin’s getting prickly again, thinking about him.
I think Ilić notices me starting to get worked up. I rub my arms, blink quickly, try to get rid of it. He steers me away. “What happened once you left the hut?”
“He’s like a flame,” I say with such ferocity it’s like I’m suddenly remembering critical information. “I couldn’t look away. Neither could Erin. She was like a moth, when usually she’s a butterfly. She lost her flair, her sass, when he was around. She seemed to lose herself in him. That’s what creeped me out. It was like . . . it was like she would’ve followed him anywhere.”
Ilić doesn’t respond. I think he wants me to go back to the question he just asked, but I can’t. Because I just made sense of it. I just put my finger on the thing that’s been bothering me for days, and the moment is so equally relieving and terrifying it takes my breath away.
I lean forward on my seat, gripping the table with my hands. They’re shaking. “You have to talk to him. You have to. Have you talked to him?” I don’t wait for a response. “You have to talk to him again, again, again, until you get him. It’s him.” I’m out of breath. “Did you talk to him? Is he a suspect?”
I despise the pity in Ilić’s eyes. Like he really does think I’m insane. Slowly, he says, “We have spoken to him. We’ve spoken to everyone who saw Erin that day.”
“And?” I demand. Did you feel it? Did you feel him burning?
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Carina. We can’t discuss any specifics of the case with you. It’d be bad practice.”
I thump my palm on the table so hard I startle myself. “I don’t care about bad practice. It’s important! It’s him.” I know I sound like a whiny child, especially in the context of my breakdown earlier. But this seems so pressing, so urgent, so inexplicably crucial, that I can’t bear not knowing. “Please,” I whisper. A pathetic afterthought.
Ilić sighs, starts talking. I’m shaking as Danijel translates. �
��I appreciate it’s frustrating that I can’t tell you certain things, but our priority is to find Erin. This kind of investigation is very sensitive, and to have the best chance of finding Erin we need to make sure that investigative information is kept confidential from everyone. I know that’s difficult to hear, but sharing information can have unintended consequences that we can’t even think of yet, and that could make it harder to find Erin, which neither of us want.”
He rubs his eyes then. He looks tired. He’s not as clean shaven as he was a couple of days ago. “Plus, the reality of police investigations is that we follow many, many lines of inquiry, the vast majority of which lead absolutely nowhere. Getting your hopes up with every little thing that we do would not be constructive. So I know it’s hard, but you just have to trust we are exploring every avenue, making every inquiry and trying our hardest to find Erin. And we’re very grateful for all of the information you’ve given so far.”
My cheeks are burning, but still not as hot as the image of Andrijo made them.
Chapter Seven
July 20, Serbia
THE DANUBE PARK is all immaculate pathways and arching trees, huge patches of thick grass and unkempt bushes spilling onto the pavement. Hazelnut trees smell nutty and spicy, interspersed with bursts of red Japanese quince. The park is lush; it’s life.
Nature is unfazed by human tragedy. Is it weird to wish I was a tree right now?
Yeah, Corbett. It’s weird.
Tim and I sit on a memorial bench in front of a small pond. In the middle is Ðorðe Jovanović’s nymph statue, spouting streams of water from her hands and feet. The drunken clock bongs in the background, just across the river. We each have a gelato cone—mine pistachio, his dulce de leche. He takes big bites, not flinching as the freezing ice cream hits his teeth, whereas mine is slowly melting down the side of the cone and onto my hands.
“You’ve got sticky fingers.” Tim chuckles, gesturing toward my cone.
“That’s what your mum said last night,” I retort, but there’s no joy in the comeback. Normally I live for innuendo, but today I’m just trying to focus on not throwing up in the water nymph’s stony face. The nausea feels never-ending. I can’t even remember what genuine appetite is like.
It doesn’t help having to spend so much time with Tim—a near-stranger. The beauty of anxiety is that when you’re alone, you get trapped in your own head and started obsessing over things, but when you’re with other people, you get worked up over the complexities of social interaction.
Does he think I’m an idiot?
What if I say something stupid?
Will he laugh cruelly at me?
What if he says something and I don’t hear him the first time?
Will I just have to pretend I did and hope for the best?
Is this a heart attack? My arm is numb.
I can’t call an ambulance. They’ll judge me.
Is he judging me? Oh God. He’s judging me.
What if I have a panic attack in front of him?
How will I ever recover from the shame?
So you add that underlying fear to something like a missing-person investigation and it’s amplified a thousandfold. Because the fear is actually legitimate, for once. Something I say could irrevocably fuck things up. It is an actual matter of life and death, not just a hypothetical one.
Great times. I love being me.
Shit, he’s been talking for about twenty seconds and I haven’t listened to a word he’s said.
“ . . . think you’re handling this so well, considering. You must be a very strong person.”
Ha! Ha-ha! I want to laugh in his face. I fight back a scoff. “Yes. Thank you.”
Yes. Thank you? What are you doing! You sound like you think you are a strong person now. Quick, say something else. Anything else. Not a “your mum” joke or an inane reply that makes you sound more arrogant than Simon Cowell.
“How do you know Andrijo and Borko?” I ask Tim, before I can talk myself out of it again.
He doesn’t flinch or otherwise visibly react. He probably expected me to ask that at some point. “I’ve known Borko for years. We met in 2005, I think, the first year I did the JUMP press trip. He was working for the Serbian tourism board at the time, and we became good friends. Bonded over rakia and women.” He flashes a seedy grin I try to ignore.
“And Andrijo?”
He shrugs. “I met him for the first time last year. Seems nice enough.”
“Erm . . . did you . . . have you spoken to Andrijo recently?” I stammer, forcing myself to lick my gelato before it forms a puddle on the pavement. “Or Borko. Either of them, really.”
“A little. How come?”
I shrug. I try for nonchalant but it comes off as erratic mental patient jerking against her restraints. “Just wondering. Have the police spoken to them?”
He looks like he’s measuring his words. Probably because it looks like someone’s put a cruciatus curse on me, and he doesn’t want to make things worse. “Yeah. They’ve both been interviewed.”
Calm. Down. For crying out loud. My heart’s thumping like a jackhammer against my rib cage. “What happened?”
“Think they were initially quite suspicious of them actually. Especially Andrijo, probably cause he and Erin were getting on so well that day.” He takes a huge bite of his cone. It sprays everywhere from his lips as he continues. “But they checked his phone records, and there was nothing between him and her. And he can account for his whereabouts from just after we left the hut to well after the time she went missing. Was at work with his boss. Kasun. He’s a respected figure in the area.” He shrugs. “They’ve told him they’ll be in touch if they need to ask anything else, but thankfully it doesn’t sound like they’re really concerned about him. Or Borko, for that matter.”
Thankfully? I’m shaking. No. This can’t be happening. It . . . it has to be him.
I was so convinced.
But he has an alibi. And no real motive, in the eyes of the police.
Maybe I latched on to him because it was easier to hate an evil with a face.
From Boom to Blood and Back Again:
How One Music Festival Plans to Resurrect Serbia
from the Ashes of Its War-torn Past
By Carina Corbett
My cursor has been blinking at the end of my byline for nearly an hour. I’m alone in my hotel room, air-con whirring on full blast. It’s midnight, and I can’t sleep. So I’m trying to write through the rising wave of anxiety I have no way of suppressing.
Laid out in front of me are my interview transcripts from last week. After the gelato with Tim—blood pumping and throat tightening—I went to a local internet café, armed with my trusty dictaphone, and transcribed the interviews I’d managed to squeeze in before Erin went missing. The festival founder, a couple of local business owners, a disgruntled taxi driver, a spokesperson from the Serbian Embassy in Belgrade, where they’re running a multi-billion-dollar redevelopment scheme to revamp the country’s beat-down capital. I have some great quotes and fascinating insights, but when I try to think about how to arrange them in my piece, my brain swims.
My angle is solid. I know it is. Because of its geography, the country has been fought over for many millennia, and as a result the Petrovaradin Fortress has been occupied by the Celts, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgarians and Turks. I want to explore the beautiful poignancy in the way that fortress is now used as the setting for a music festival, a way of bringing people together. Where travelers from around the globe gather to celebrate one shared passion. And celebrate is what they do.
I want to do a brief history of Serbia, from its glory years while the Serbian Empire flourished, to the way its people suffered as serfs of the Ottoman Empire. A summary of the last hundred years, and the myriad ways in which the century has been a dis
aster for them. The Balkan Wars. World War I. The Yugoslav Wars. War, war, war. Endless bloodshed.
And now: a party.
But how can I do such a huge feature justice when I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast? When I can’t remember what it’s like not to be plugged into an endless surge of adrenaline?
I’m angry. I’m angry and I’m frustrated at this stupid fucking illness. If I had a visible ailment—a broken bone or a chemo-bald head—people would understand. They’d understand why everything seems so much harder than it used to. But not even an X-ray would show the shitstorm that is my brain, the clusterfuck of thoughts and fears determined to bring me to my knees.
I’m ambitious, dammit. And I’m smart. I’m capable.
I can do it, except I can’t.
The relaxing album I was listening to on Spotify ends. A siren wails outside on the street. My curtains are open, and the fire truck’s blue and red and white lights illuminate my desk. I feel it, the familiar pressing on my chest. The air-con is too cold and not cold enough. I’m burning and I’m freezing and I don’t know which hurts worse.
Spiral spiral spiral it’s starting. No. Please no.
I sob, a gasping, racking sob that takes my self-pitying breath away. Drop to the floor, grab my satchel.
Fumble, fumble, fumble, find it.
The empty Xanax packet is a death sentence.
I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.
Erin.
Erin.
My trembling hand grabs the bangle, our bangle, like it’s a buoy in the ocean. Maybe she’s touching hers now, wishing she could get a message to me, a message that she’s okay.
But no no no she’s not okay nothing is okay nothing will ever be okay.
I’m howling now, animalesque wails punctuated with gasps for air, air that will never come.
This is bad this is bad this is a bad one.
I can’t call an ambulance. They’ll judge me.
Perfect Prey Page 6
