by Thomas Ryan
From behind, unseen fingers coiled into his hair and tugged. A glint of metal curved through the air. A fountain sprayed from his neck. Incredulous hands grasped. Blood pulsed. Arben backed into the wall and slid to the floor, warm stickiness oozing through the fingers holding his throat. Desperate eyes searched above. Focused on the man standing in front of him.
An apologetic look on Bedri’s face? ‘I’m so sorry, Arben. I had a job to do.’
Arben watched Bedri step over his outstretched legs, kneel beside the unconscious Sabri and place the blade into his upturned hand.
Lights flashed in Arben’s peripheral vision. In his chest a sickening racing of his heart. In his ears buzzing. Loud banging. A voice calling for the guards.
Then the enveloping peace of the dark.
26.
On Sunday afternoon Morgan and Bethany had gone to the street markets and bought tracksuits, T-shirts and other bits and pieces that Mema said Arben might need. Jeff bought magazines and a newspaper from the hotel bookshop. He walked into Morgan’s office a few minutes after nine on Monday morning. Her green eyes sparkled a greeting.
He looked over her shoulder as she checked off the list of discussion points he’d jotted down. A whiff of her perfume wafted to his nose. What would it be like to hold her?
She wrote on the list Health examination.
‘You think that’s necessary?’
‘He’s over fifty, Jeff. I would think the stress from this ordeal has shot his blood pressure through the roof. We might need to organise a doctor.’
‘Right now my own blood pressure probably needs checking.’
Morgan’s head turned with eyebrows raised. She was treated to a sheepish grin.
‘Bit of comic relief. Sorry.’
Jeff could see she was hiding a smile as she addressed herself back to the list. He suspected Morgan quite liked it when he acted the hormonal adolescent. For him, it had been a long time since Rebecca. Not that there had ever been that many women in his life.
It reminded him that he’d not yet contacted Kimie Shala. He would phone her as soon as they were back from meeting with Arben.
When Jeff and Morgan entered Tomi Mema’s office he insisted they sit. ‘First off, good morning to both of you.’
Jeff’s instincts leaped to full alert. Something in Tomi Mema’s tone was warning him that things were not right. He appeared to be struggling with what he needed to say next.
‘What is it?’ Jeff asked, alarmed. ‘Don’t tell me we’ve been refused permission to visit?’ His anger surfaced. ‘This is just not good enough, Mema. If we don’t get in this morning, I’ll go straight to the British office and kick some arse.’
Mema shook his head. ‘No, Mr Bradley. It’s not that.’ Jeff made to stand but Mema’s hand went up. ‘Please. Just listen. The director of the prison phoned me a few minutes ago. There is no easy way to tell you this. Your friend Arben Shala is dead.’
Jeff opened his mouth to say something but it caught in is throat. He leaned forward. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he finally growled.
Morgan reached across and put her hand on Jeff’s arm. ‘Easy, Jeff. Easy.’
Mema gathered himself. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Bradley. So sorry. But your friend has died.’
Jeff sat back in his chair. ‘I don’t believe this. It’s not true,’ he whispered.
His eyes fixed on Mema. Morgan must have realised he was in shock. She turned to face Mema.
‘What happened? Did he have a heart attack?’
‘I don’t have all the information as yet, Ms Delaney. But it does seem Mr Shala was killed in a fight. With a fellow inmate. I will go across after we finish here and find out exactly what happened.’
Jeff stood. Both fists leaned on Mema’s desk. ‘Benny in a fight? Not likely. Somebody murdered him.’
‘You could be right, Mr Bradley. That could indeed be what has happened.’
Jeff shook his head.
‘Arben dead? What kind of alternative universe have I walked into?’ His eyes burned into Mema’s. ‘I want to see the prison director. Now. This morning.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Bradley, but that will not be possible. The prison is in lockdown. There will be an investigation. Only officials can enter. As I represent Arben, I can meet with the director, but that is it. I will make a full report to you when I get back.’
Primal fury swept through Jeff, nearly choking him. ‘Report? Fucking report? Fuck the lot of you, Mema. I want inside that prison.’ Jeff leaned over Mema’s seated form and raised a fist to within an inch of his nose. ‘Tell me you understand me, Mema. Tell me.’
The lawyer shrank into his chair. ‘Yes. I do understand. But please. Calm down. I am not the responsible one. Please, Mr Bradley.’
The crash of Jeff’s chair hitting the floor reverberated within the steel walls of Mema’s container office. Three strides took Jeff to the door. He needed to calm down. Get away to think. Mema was right. He was only the lawyer. Harassing him would not bring Arben back. But what was he going to say to Kimie? He pulled the office door open and stared out.
‘I need to contact his family and tell them what’s happened.’
Morgan stood to go to him, but stopped halfway and turned to face Mema.
‘Can you please talk to the director and try to arrange a meeting?’
Her voice was so soft Jeff could barely hear it. When he glanced around he noticed a look on Mema’s face close to sadness. This affair was getting to him in a way Jeff wouldn’t have expected.
‘I will try,’ Mema said. ‘I will. Please phone me in an hour.’
Morgan joined Jeff at the door. Mema stood and took a pace in their direction.
‘There is one more detail we need to discuss. Mr Shala is a Muslim. It is the custom for the burial to take place before the next sunset. If you wish, I shall try to arrange for the release of his body for that.’
Jeff spun on him. ‘Before an autopsy? Mema. The man was murdered.’
‘This is Kosovo, Mr Bradley, not New Zealand. We do not have much of a morgue. And besides, the cause of death is clear. His cellmate killed him. The killer will already have been isolated and put under special guard. He will not escape a murder charge, this I can promise you. The other cellmates will testify. Don’t worry. This man will get what he deserves.’
‘No, Mr Mema. Unfortunately the arsehole will not get what he deserves.’ Jeff stopped and exhaled a deep sigh. ‘Look. I’ll have to discuss burial with his family. Where would it take place? They’ll want to know.’
‘I suggest the village he came from. There is a cemetery and it has a memorial stone to honour those massacred during the war. The bodies of his mother and father will be there. I can arrange for this, if his family would like.’
‘I’ll tell his wife.’
‘When you speak to the family, please pass on my condolences.’
Once outside with the bite of the brisk morning air on their faces, Morgan passed her arm through Jeff’s. ‘C’mon, Jeff. Let’s go back to my apartment.’
27.
Morgan’s two-level apartment sat atop a plumbing supplies shop on Rruga Lidhja e Prizrenit. The dirt lane that gave access from the main road, Luan Haradinaj, lay like a bog before them. Jeff ignored Morgan’s suggestion to go the long way round and ploughed into the mud. After a few paces he stopped, held out his hand and helped Morgan leap onto the drier spots. At the end of the lane, he pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, squatted and wiped off her shoes.
‘Sorry. Wasn’t thinking, Morgan.’
‘They’re just shoes. Really expensive Sergio Rossi shoes, sure. But hey. Italians make plenty of them. Next time I’m in Rome, I’ll buy a new pair.’
Jeff smiled an apology. Fleeting.
Inside the apartment he removed his boots and left them by the door then made his way up the stairs
to where Morgan waited for him on the landing. She took his hand and led him through to her sitting room. An arrangement of flowers in an emerald vase caught his eye. It sat at the centre of a six-seat dining table pushed up against the farthest wall. Next to the telephone on a writing desk, a laptop, lid up, hummed to itself. Beside it a pile of folders. A three-seater and two two-seater settees formed a U-shape around a sizeable carved Chinese box which looked to serve as a coffee table. Jeff’s gaze passed over paintings hanging on the walls. Pot plants placed in strategic positions lent the room a greenness that reminded him of home. The apartment was feminine and unpretentious.
A weariness filled Jeff’s body. He allowed it to slump onto the three-seater settee. Morgan walked around behind him and gave his shoulder a light squeeze.
‘I’ll make coffee.’
Jeff found the movements he could hear in the upstairs kitchen soothing. From where he sat he had a view of the street. A small queue had formed in front of the bakery next to the VW auto shop. Pedestrians dodged motorists as they trudged their way through mud to what appeared to be an unmarked bus stop. A child tugged on her mother’s coat and pointed to a red gumboot on the road behind them. The boot had been sucked off her foot in the mire. Three cars ran over it before the mother managed to snatch it up.
Thick beige carpet muffled Morgan’s return. A mug of coffee appeared on the Chinese box.
‘Here you go. I’ll be upstairs if you need me.’
Jeff was grateful Morgan understood his need to be alone.
He picked at a loose thread on the seam of his jeans. His earlier fury having dissipated, he was left feeling devoid of emotion. He held two fingers against an artery in his neck. His attention dropped to the second hand of his watch. Eleven beats in ten seconds. Sixty-six a minute. Normal. How could everything be going as it always had? Continuing as if Benny hadn’t passed?
He recalled with a grimace the apprehension he’d felt when he’d promised Kimie he would bring her husband home. That had now transformed into guilt as painful as a white-hot knife plunged through his heart. Who did he think he was to have given such a guarantee? Kimie would hate him forever, and she had every right. She had warned him of the dangers and he’d ignored her. Benny had died in miserable conditions far from home because of some failed harvest on the opposite side of the godforsaken planet. It was unforgivable.
He picked up his coffee. He wanted to hurl the cup against the wall. Maybe his head to follow. Instead the brown liquid laced with cognac came to his lips.
‘Benny, Benny, Benny. I’m so sorry.’
Jeff’s voice was but a whisper into tiny wraiths of steam.
‘Jesus. What a shit of a thing.’ Barry paced like a caged lion. ‘That arsehole Yank at the justice ministry needs a rocket up his arse for letting this happen. And those cop mates of mine are gonna get some shit chucked at them. That much I promise.’
Bethany reached out and took his hand. ‘Sit down, darling. At least they caught the murderer.’
‘There is that, I suppose.’ Barry dropped onto the seat alongside Bethany and fixed a look on Jeff. ‘So, Jeff. What happens now, mate?’
Jeff shook his head. ‘First, I guess the lawyer’s organising for me to visit with the prison director. They’re making arrangements for a burial sometime tomorrow.’
‘Bloody hell, that’s a bit quick isn’t it? What about his family? They might want the body taken back to New Zealand?’
Jeff raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s an option? I hadn’t thought of it.’
‘Well, you should’ve mate. It’s what I’d want done. Not buried in this poxy shithole.’
‘Can we do that from here? Send him home?’
‘Only one way to find out. Let’s go talk to the British office. We should report Arben’s death anyway. They’ll want to follow up on it.’
Jeff rose to his feet. Purposeful action of any kind would at least take him out of himself.
‘Where do we go?’
‘Follow me.’
Dragadon Hill was only a short walk from Morgan’s apartment. But the road was steep and neither Jeff nor Barry were in the mood for mountain climbing. Forced to go down a series of one-way streets, Barry ended up looping the block before driving his UN vehicle across a disused railway line and beginning the ascent.
‘Dragadon Hill. Prishtina’s exclusive housing area,’ Barry intoned like a tour operator.
Jeff took in the identical two- and three-storey brick homes. Whatever was supposed to have made this particular group of houses exclusive escaped him.
‘Not many of the NGOs and consulates have signs outside. And worse, there are no street signs. Makes it bloody impossible to find anyone. But don’t worry, mate,’ Barry patted Jeff on the knee. ‘We’ll get there. Dinkum.’
He pulled over to ask a pedestrian for directions. The stocky middle-aged fellow looked thoughtful for a second, then brightened. ‘Go to the German office, sir. The British office is one hundred metres past.’
‘And the German office is where?’
‘Oh. That I do not know. What I hear is the German office is one hundred metres this way of the British office. Good?’
‘Fucking wonderful, you useless drongo.’ Barry swung back onto the road.
‘I thought you knew where we were going?’
Barry grinned. ‘Sort of. It’s up the hill.’
‘So’s space, Barry. You’ve never been there, have you?’
‘No, mate. But don’t worry, I’ll find it.’
Some miracle or other led them to a brick wall that surrounded the three-storey consulate building. A one-man security box sat out the front. The guard, a Kosovon Albanian, glanced up from his newspaper as Jeff and Barry approached. After a cursory glance at their passports he pushed two plastic-covered Visitor ID cards through a gap in the security window. He pressed a button and the adjacent iron gate sprang into life and ground its way sideways.
Jeff and Barry crossed a small courtyard lined with pot plants and wooden benches and stopped in front of a double set of glass doors. The doors allowed passage to only one person at a time. As Jeff stepped through, he noted the thickness of the plate windows. Undoubtedly bulletproof, but they could probably also withstand a small blast. A hand grenade came to mind.
Jeff stood back to let Barry talk to the receptionist. The elderly woman scrutinised the two passports and jotted their names into a book.
‘Please take a seat, Mr Briggs, Mr Bradley. The consul, Mr Lyons, will be with you shortly.’
Barry sat. Jeff stood. He looked back through the glass doors into the courtyard. His hands ached from having been bunched into fists so much since the news of Benny’s death. He wanted to break somebody’s bones. A few minutes alone with the man who murdered Benny would do very well.
A young woman in a dark trouser suit appeared through a side door. ‘Mr Bradley, Mr Briggs?’
Barry jumped to his feet. ‘That’s us.’
‘Mr Lyons will see you now. Please follow me.’
Steel filing cabinets, shelves of books and piles of documents filled every square inch of Lyons’s office. Papers, files and trays were stacked in an untidy mess on the desk. But Jeff, being a messy administrator himself, had little doubt the man sitting in the wing-backed burgundy leather chair could put his hand on any specific document on the instant if asked.
The fresh-faced Jeremy Lyons looked to Jeff as if he should still be in school – university, at a push. But Barry had told Jeff that Lyons was well into his thirties.
‘Take a seat, gentleman.’ Jeff thought the British public school accent made Lyons seem even younger. The diplomat remained standing until Jeff and Barry settled. Then he too sat down. ‘Now, how I can help?’
Jeff outlined the circumstances surrounding Arben’s death. The Consul jotted notes on a yellow pad. At the conclusion of Jeff’s narrative, Ly
ons’s brow lowered above baby-blue eyes.
‘This is the first I’ve heard of it. I’ll have one of my people contact the prison as soon as you leave. Of course, Mr Shala should have informed us of his arrival, just as you should have of your own, Mr Bradley. We represent all Commonwealth member countries, not just the four Home Nations. Sadly, this is an example of what can happen when rules aren’t followed.’
Jeff sat back and glared at the man. ‘I don’t need a diplomacy lecture, Mr Lyons. Why the hell didn’t anyone inform the consulate that Arben was in prison? The bloody UN runs the prison, for Christ’s sake. Didn’t the prison authorities have a duty to get in touch with someone who could have helped him?’
It was Lyons’s turn to look taken aback. ‘You’re right, of course. Absolutely. I assure you there’ll be a full inquiry into why it wasn’t done. But for the moment let’s put recriminations to one side, shall we? As for the unfortunate Mr Shala, I’m sorry but it’s not possible to have the body flown back to New Zealand if this is what you’re hoping for.’
‘Why the hell not? I’ll cover the costs.’
‘It’s not about costs, Mr Bradley. There are no protocols for the transference of a body out of Kosovo. And there are certainly none to allow trans-shipment through other countries. If Mr Shala had been working for the UN it would be different. But he wasn’t, so our hands are tied.’
Barry extended his palms. ‘You must be able to do something?’
‘In a good amount of time we could. The Home Office could contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in New Zealand. They would speak directly to the UN head office then approach the various airlines and transit-countries that would be required to ensure Mr Shala’s body made it back to New Zealand. But . . . time.’ He grimaced. ‘You may or may not be aware that there’s a critical lack of morgue facilities here. There just isn’t any provision for long-term cold storage.’
Jeff’s fist looked about to thump the desk between them. He stalled the move and executed a gentle landing instead. ‘Is there any way you could issue a document to at least get the body cleared from Kosovo?’
