Say A Little Prayer (A James Palatine Novel Book 2)

by Giles O'Bryen

  ‘You see a lot from behind this counter, I can tell you.’

  ‘None of it good, I guess.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ he says, though I’m sure he would have if it hadn’t entailed agreeing with me.

  ‘They grow up at different speeds, don’t they?’ The attempt at chattiness sounds ludicrous in my ears. ‘I mean, you see some twelve-year-olds who look sixteen or seventeen and others who are still little girls.’

  ‘And you know who’s the last to know when the little girl grows into a big girl and gets herself into trouble? Her mother.’

  Along with the tone of worldly admonishment, there’s a glint in his oystery eyes – he likes mention of big girls in trouble.

  ‘Last time I was here, the theory was she’d been abducted by her father. Today, she’s run off with a boyfriend. What will it be tomorrow, I wonder?’

  He gives a frown of warning and picks up his pen. I turn away and walk back to the bench with my evidence pack. I have brought with me a printout of a journal article I ought to read: Recent Excavations in Eastern Anatolia: Holy Days and Feasts, 830–890 AD. I open it and immediately want to feel Katya’s little body snuggle in my lap, though in truth it’s years since she last did so. When was the last time? I hunt for the memory, distraught that I may lose it forever and have nothing to replace it with. The report is dull and excessively cautious, and offers nothing I can usefully incorporate into my research. An hour later, I go back to the counter, hand the folder full of evidence to the sergeant, and leave.

  Next day Eleni and I collect the leaflets from the printer, then tour the sombre valleys of southern Kosovo in the Fiat Frightful, looking for a Toyota Invincible with Road Muscle Body Kit driven by a bald or shaven-headed man dressed in army gear with a tattoo of a snake on his neck. Eleni has stuck the ghostly printout to the dashboard with Blu-tack.

  ‘You think we might miss it?’

  ‘We know nothing about cars, Anna. Better safe than sorry.’

  The words make me clench my teeth. Safe, sorry – which shall we choose? I know, safe! I glance at the picture but it’s impossible to acknowledge that this bestial car could ever have anything to do with Katya. Then I’m imagining her inside it, scratching the snake tattoo that writhes beneath the bald man’s jaw and screaming for help. This is my whole life right now. Only the loss of Katya means anything, and it’s too terrible to think about.

  I’ve identified nine towns and villages in a twenty-kilometre radius of Talinic – excluding any which are not predominantly Serb or do not have police stations – and marked them on the map Eleni has spread over her lap. She’s not good at orienteering and has to keep rotating the map so it’s facing the same way as us. The road narrows where chunks of tarmac have broken off and tumbled down a gravel chute. That’s good. I can concentrate on driving.

  What will we do if we find the snake-man? I take a sidelong look at Eleni’s oddly dished profile, her flattish nose, soft, broad cheeks and prominent chin. If I asked her, would she help me kill him? We’re close, but I’ve only known her since she moved up from Tirana eighteen months ago. She’s not used to being a passenger and her feet are working the pedals in panicky counterpoint to mine. She turns to direct at me another of her exhaustingly anxious looks. Her pale brown hair has been cut in a girlish fringe and I’ve wondered several times whether to tell her that a woman of her majestic appearance should never indulge her hairdresser’s frivolous side.

  ‘Thanks for coming with me, Eleni. I know you think it’s a waste of time.’

  ‘Oh no, not at all.’

  This trivial lie brings a look of dejection to her face.

  ‘I need to do this, since the police won’t.’

  ‘Do watch the road, please—Anna!’

  We swerve round a pothole and the Fiat’s outer wheels flirt briefly with a stretch of friable verge.

  ‘Oh!’ says Eleni. She covers her terror by making several folds in the map. ‘We’ll find Katya, one way or another. I just know it.’

  I know it by instinct, she’s implying, for want of any logical reason. I’m grateful for her loyalty, but it doesn’t matter what Eleni thinks. The Fiat Frightful rattles and stinks as it trundles up the side of a not-very-steep valley. We are (or should be) just five minutes or so from the first town on our itinerary. It’s good to be out doing something, but we are nervous. Eleni and I are Kosovars, that is to say, Albanian Muslims or Muslim Albanians – it doesn’t matter which since we are not very committed on either score. Anyway, we are not going to be welcome.

  ‘We’ll just distribute the leaflets,’ I say. ‘We’re not accusing anyone of anything, but someone must know where Katya is.’

  ‘What if we see this hideous car?’ Eleni asks.

  ‘Then we’ll start knocking on doors. I wonder if I should offer a reward. How much, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, Anna, I don’t know. Didn’t you say Piotr thinks there’ll be a ransom demand? Maybe we should just wait for that.’

  We enter a dreary little town and I park the Fiat Frightful outside a house supported by an assemblage of rickety scaffolding poles. We each take a handful of leaflets and set off in opposite directions. It isn’t going to take long. The place looks pale and exhausted, as if it’s suffering from an incurable disease. The first letterbox I come to has been screwed shut and I have to fold the leaflet and jam it between the door and the frame. Katya’s face looks out at me and I feel like I’ve done something callous by sticking her there. I wish I’d chosen a different photo. The suggestion of a pout makes her look older than she is, and less innocent. Not everyone understands girls of this age. They experiment with being adults, and are interested in the effect they can have on those around them. I refold the leaflet so her face doesn’t show and walk back down the cracked concrete path to the street.

  It takes less than twenty minutes to deliver leaflets to my half of the town. I find the police station, but its windows are boarded up. Walking back to the car, I see Eleni arguing with a man wearing a dirty tracksuit with stripes down the arms and legs. He’s big and aggressive, but Eleni is standing her ground.

  ‘You’re not welcome here,’ the man shouts. ‘Shiptar cow.’

  ‘I’m not asking for your welcome,’ says Eleni fiercely. ‘I’m asking if you’ve seen this girl.’

  ‘No, but if you find her, bring her round and I’ll give her a good seeing to.’

  I’m right up close now, and I slap him with all my strength. He’s too astonished to duck the blow. He curses, draws back his fist. I’m so consumed by rage that I hit him again. Eleni gets her forearm against his throat and shoves. He staggers backwards and trips over the roots of a dusty old bush that’s pushed up at the edge of the road.

  We run for the car, climb in and lock the doors. The Fiat Frightful always takes at least three turns on the ignition to start and it isn’t going to make an exception this time. In the rear-view mirror, I see the man pull himself upright and lumber towards us, mouth hanging open, face red. By the second turn, he’s got both hands on the handle of Eleni’s door and the car is rocking from side to side. The third turn is long, and slows into spasms as the battery weakens. . . Then the engine cranks into life and I ram the gearstick forward and accelerate away down the road. The man trots along beside us for a few yards, then bends to cough as the Fiat Frightful envelops him in a pall of oily smoke.

  16

  This is how it is. I tell Piotr to find Franz. I write letters. I make phone calls. I lurk outside the police station to harass Inspector Jankovic whenever he enters or leaves the building. Eleni and I haunt the predominantly Serb villages in the vicinity of Talinic – two strange Albanian women in a smelly yellow car. Not just square-headed farm-labouring type Albanians, either, but godless, urban ones from Pristina. KLA sympathisers, probably, scouting the village for their terrorist menfolk. The leaflet with the pretty girl is just a front. Albanians are born liars.

  I stand on street corners in Pristina, tugging at the sl
eeves of passers-by. Have you seen this girl? No. Toyota Invincible with Road Muscle Body Kit? Yes, isn’t it distinctive. No, I haven’t seen it. Take a leaflet, anyway, take ten or twenty, because the printer has set aside his antipathy towards Albanians in the interests of his business and I can get new stocks run off in just a few hours. People are polite and tuck them into a pocket or a bag, but later I see them spilling from rubbish bins or stuck to the pavement. Katya’s face, clean, glossy hair coiled behind one ear, bearing the imprint of a wet boot-sole. It’s a hard thing for a mother to see.

  Days pass. A week passes. No ransom demand. Nothing from Istanbul or Ankara or Izmir or anywhere else Franz might have wandered to. Surely someone in his family keeps in touch with him, says Eleni, trying not to sound indignant. Inspector Jankovic finds a secret way to get in and out of his office. One by one the feelers I’ve put out come trudging back and shake their heads.

  Two weeks. . . I get a call from an aide to Ibrahim Rugova, president of the devolved (but still Serbian) Republic of Kosovo. My heart leaps into my throat, my mouth dries so fast I can barely confirm my name. But it’s not about Katya. He’s called to remind me that I’ve agreed to translate for them if the peace conference ever gets off the ground, which finally it has. The conference will open on 6 February at the Château de Rambouillet, near Paris.

  ‘I apologise for the short notice,’ he says excitedly. ‘The arrangements have only just been confirmed.’

  ‘Did President Rugova get my letter? About my daughter?’

  He doesn’t know. I explain why I cannot go and the aide seems puzzled: the abduction of my only child is a matter to be set aside, surely, in the interests of this historic opportunity to settle the future of an independent Kosovo? He stresses the word independent, as if this must clinch it.

  ‘My daughter has been abducted,’ I repeat. ‘I’m not about to run off to Paris.’

  ‘This is just the sort of criminal type activity we can stamp out once the Serbs are off our backs.’

  ‘This particular instance of criminal type activity can’t be stamped out,’ I say furiously. ‘It’s already happened. The answer is no.’

  When I report this conversation to Eleni, she takes a different view.

  ‘Go, Anna. You’ll be surrounded by the most powerful men in Kosovo. If you can get even one of them to make a fuss about Katarina, that could be the break we need.’

  ‘I’ll be surrounded by powerful Albanians, Eleni. Katarina was taken by a Serb gang.’

  ‘We don’t know that for sure—’

  ‘I’ve already written to Rugova and what have I got? An invitation to a fucking peace conference.’

  My anger crushes poor Eleni into silence. We are sitting in front of the little TV in my sitting room to watch the seven o’clock news. A bouncy young government minister has been dispatched to the PTC TV studio in Belgrade to trumpet Milošević’s latest pronouncement on the future of Kosovo. His voice has a tone of bright desperation – as if he personally has been ordered to hold the forces of disintegration at bay. Behind the smooth blue studio backdrop, Serbia is barging and banging its way into a corner. We know well how cornered rats behave. The shadow of Bosnia darkens our lives. Only Milosh cannot see it: his old woman’s face and stupid, piggy eyes are a picture of misplaced patriotic defiance. He really does believe that Russia will start World War Three rather than let its old ally be humiliated.

  The next item opens with a glamorous lady standing in a clearing surrounded by scorched trees.

  I’m here at the scene of one of the worst atrocities yet committed by the terrorists of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army on the forces of law and order in this troubled region. The small town of Kric lies not far from the border with Macedonia. This is a peaceful place, where people make an honest living from their smallholdings or work in the forestry business. The night before last, it was torn apart by a savage attack. Such is the level of destruction you see here that it is hard to piece together what happened, but it appears that the local captain of police was lured to this place along with a number of his friends. They were set upon and murdered by a KLA gang, and their bodies and vehicles burned. What you see here now is all that remains – the destruction so complete that forensics experts say it will be at least four weeks before we can confirm the identities of everyone who died here in such horrific circumstances two nights ago.

  ‘Kric is east of Pristina,’ says Eleni, an unexpected hint of martial pride in her voice. ‘New ground for the KLA. No wonder the Serbs are alarmed.’

  The item closes with footage of a tow-truck slithering down the track and out onto the road, dragging a burnt-out pickup behind.

  ‘Eleni, look!’

  ‘What?’

  I’m standing up, gesticulating at the screen.

  ‘Toyota Invincible, with Road Muscle Body Kit!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ says Eleni as the footage ends.

  ‘Those arches over the back wheels. And it was black.’

  ‘It was burnt.’

  ‘I’ve been staring at a photo of that thing for weeks. I think I’d recognise it.’

  ‘We’ll watch again at ten.’

  I’m a fervent, passionate, desperate believer that this was the vehicle in which my Katya was driven away, but I daren’t try to convince Eleni in case she says something tactless. For the next three hours, my heart teeters over a chasm of disappointment. The image of the listing chassis with its charred paintwork and warped roof is stamped in my mind. I can neither connect it with Katya nor think of anything other than its connection with Katya. Eleni calls a friend who does PR work for the Kosovar leadership. The dead men were members of a militia gang called Bura. Tempest.

  ‘They give themselves these names because they have the all-round maturity of fourteen-year-old boys,’ she says. ‘Anna, you mustn’t get your hopes up—’

  ‘Don’t, Eleni, I can see what you’re thinking. Let’s say that was the pickup they were driving when they took Katya. Then she may be somewhere in Kric, right? Waiting for us to come for her. After this attack, they may feel she’s too much trouble and let her go. How far is Kric?’

  ‘About fifteen kilometres. But it’s at least an hour from Talinic – I don’t understand what these Bura were doing there.’

  ‘Why does it matter?’ I say crossly.

  Eleni lowers her eyes. Her shoulders are quivering. I go over to console her, pressing my cheek to hers.

  ‘I don’t know how we’ll get through this!’ she bursts out. ‘If that car isn’t. . . I won’t say it, Anna, it only annoys you. I wish I could do more. You’re so strong and I’m no kind of a friend.’

  ‘Eleni, you’re the best possible friend!’ I get up and sit beside her on the sofa, taking her hands in mine. ‘You couldn’t have done more. You’ve been my rock, right from the start.’

  ‘More like a pillow, I’m afraid.’ She smiles at me and dabs her eyes with a handkerchief.

  ‘That’s right, my pillow. Much better than a hard old rock. Though it’s true that you are a bit bossy sometimes.’

  She laughs and we comfort each other with kind words and tea and snacks until ten o’clock. We sit close to the screen and stare at the tow-truck with its grotesque cargo, but it’s no more conclusive this time.

  ‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘we’ll go there tomorrow and find out for ourselves.’

  We drive out of Pristina early next morning and reach the crest of a high ridge. A break in the trees reveals the contours of the valley beyond, the forested slopes torn by machinery tracks, the mangy squares of scraped earth where the trees have been felled, the dirt-flecked mounds of crusted snow left over from the last fall. At the foot of the valley, a small town lies hunched beneath dark swathes of conifers.

  ‘I think that may be Kric,’ says Eleni, rotating the map through a hundred and eighty degrees. ‘But. . . Oh dear, I’m not exactly sure where we are.’

  The Fiat Frightful backfires as we decelerate down the far side – it dislikes
slopes, up and down alike. A little way along the road is a windowless police van, parked at the entrance to a track. A quantity of red-and-white-striped plastic tape (the kind they don’t bother to use for crime scenes involving twelve-year-old Kosovar girls) extends from its bumpers into the undergrowth on either side. A uniformed policeman is leaning against the van and watching us.

  ‘The place where the Bura were attacked, do you think?’ says Eleni.

  I do. We drive slowly past the policeman without daring to look at him, then come to a sign announcing our arrival in the town of Kric. The first big house we see has a pale patch in the shape of a shield above the door, outlined with grime.

  ‘The police station,’ I say. ‘Hiding itself from the KLA. We’ll start there.’

  ‘Let’s not accuse anyone of anything just yet, Anna,’ Eleni warns.

  We park in a square with an Orthodox church and two huge sycamore trees, then walk back to the police station. I am filled with euphoria because Katarina may be inside, waiting for me. We will drive back to Pristina together, chatting about her adventure – for that is what it is, now that it is over. I watch her clear brown eyes and beautiful, earnest face in the rear-view mirror as she answers Eleni’s silly questions. What she really wants is to get me alone and wheedle a new pair of trainers out of me – to replace the ones that got ruined when I put them on the radiator to dry and the leather cracked, which she’d told me would happen because she’d read the instructions that came with them from cover to cover and under the Care of your new trainers section it said that you should always let them dry out at room temperature. She wants a hug, too, she wants to be wrapped tight in her mother’s arms, but quick because she is twelve now and girls of twelve don’t hug for ages and ages. A mother knows things about her child that her child may not wish to know herself. It’s knowledge to act upon, while pretending ignorance. Children vacillate constantly between aspiration and regression, every day’s a wild ride full of swooping highs and shuddering lows. I’m telling myself this as we hurry down the main street of Kric. Children have to negotiate the gap between who they are and who they would like to be, I lecture myself compulsively. It’s exhausting for them, and the least a mother can do is to try and keep up. I’m feeling conspicuous because there’s no one else about and Eleni’s boiled-wool coat, though practical, is a curiosity. In Salzburg, where she bought it, they are popular. In southern Kosovo, less so.