The Field of Blackbirds (A Jeff Bradley Thriller)

by Thomas Ryan

  He rummaged through the downstairs bathroom cupboard. A packet of aspirin fell into the basin. He snatched it up and removed two tablets from foil-sealed card. He threw them in his mouth and washed them down with a mouthful of water from the shower head. He shoved his head under the spray. A soaking had him feeling a little better. He stole up the stairs to his dressing room and found a fresh shirt. As he passed the main bedroom he glanced into the darkness and called a timid goodbye.

  No reply. He would make it up to her later.

  Rain made it impossible to find a taxi. He would have to walk. Hunched under his umbrella he began the twenty-minute trek to his office. Upon his arrival he noticed the cuffs of his suit trousers were damp and splattered with mud. His secretary approached with a cloth but Mema gestured her away. It was almost nine thirty. He had to keep moving.

  The Shala file came in for a double-check, followed by the other files he’d need during the day. Satisfied everything he needed was in place, he loaded the lot into his briefcase. If the clerks cooperated he could get the Shala title signed over by ten thirty, hand it to Bradley and still make the start of the new trial on his docket at eleven. After lunch, he’d ring his cousin in Slovenia. With any luck, he’d have his family packed and gone inside a week.

  His secretary accepted with good grace the instructions to go to his apartment and bring his other suit to the courthouse. Mema knew she liked his wife and would gossip with her over coffee for an hour. Maybe it would be enough to settle his wife’s mood before he made it home.

  The rain had eased to drizzle. Using the main road would take too long. He decided to duck down the lane that ran alongside the Thai massage building. It was not sealed, which meant trudging through more mud. But it would save time. Besides, his trousers were already in severe need of cleaning.

  A curse sprang to his lips when he spotted the security fence surrounding the supermarket parking lot. He had forgotten the UN had sequestered it. He would need to go the longer way after all.

  More mud. But once he was past two kiosks, only a flight of steps and the Statue of Skanderbeg stood between him and the road to the courthouse. In front of the kiosks, a wooden plank supported on two concrete blocks bridged a large puddle. Mema had taken two tentative steps across it when he heard a man calling his name.

  With a mutter of annoyance he turned in the direction.

  The man in a brown greatcoat and fur busby was not somebody he knew. He pointed to his watch and gestured he had no time. The man raised his arm. Pointed at him.

  A gasp left Mema’s throat.

  Such a blow in his chest. He staggered backwards, almost falling from the plank. Stabs of pain shot through his upper body and into his brain. Was this a heart attack? He thrust a hand inside his shirt and held it to his chest. Something warm and sticky trickled between his fingers. The hand came away with a start. With growing disbelief he found his eyes examining blood. He looked up. The man was coming closer.

  And when he saw the gun he understood.

  His mouth opened to scream, but no sound came. His briefcase slipped from his grasp and splashed into the water. He barely noticed. What fixated him was the pistol trained on him.

  A muzzle flash. Another wallop in the chest. He felt his legs buckling. But his arms wouldn’t move. The water parted in a wave as he collapsed into it then surged back, filling his eyes and mouth. He lay, head half submerged, mouth working soundlessly like a goldfish drowning in air. So cold. So very cold. Mema’s blurred vision struggled to see as the man bent down and thrust a sheet of paper into fingers that had lost all feeling.

  Then nothing.

  Jeff saw Jeremy Lyons from the British consulate talking to a group of people on the steps of the courthouse. The boyish Englishman waved an acknowledgement and came across to greet him.

  ‘Mr Bradley. Good morning. Nice to see you again.’ The smile was genuine.

  ‘Mr Lyons. Attending court one of your duties?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. But only as an observer.’

  ‘May I introduce Morgan Delaney? Morgan works with the Land Registry Office.’

  ‘I think we may have already met, Ms Delaney. What brings you to court? Are you in need of my assistance?’

  ‘Hopefully not. I’m here to settle a property dispute. We’re meeting with Arben Shala’s lawyer, Tomi Mema.’

  ‘It’s a small world, isn’t it? Tomi Mema is the reason I’m here. He’s representing a prominent Serbian accused of trying to burn down a mosque. Trial starts at eleven. My colleague from the OSCE and I are to report back on whether or not the Serb receives an enthusiastic defence. She’s the one in the red coat over there.’

  ‘And will he, do you think?’

  Lyons shrugged. ‘We’ll have to see. Ah, I see the defendant in question is arriving.’

  An unruly crowd had built up in front of the court entrance. Two court officers stood on the steps and kept ordering them to stay back. Murmurings grew louder. A few in the rear hurled abuse and waved fists. A police car cruised up, dropping two wheels through a pothole as it did. Muddy water sloshed over the people in front. This triggered a wave of fury and set the crowd surging towards the car. Two police escorts stood beside the rear door. Uncertain. They looked to Jeff to be assessing whether or not they could safely get their prisoner from the car into the building.

  A dozen police armed with batons burst down the courthouse steps. An over-zealous protester pummelling his fists on the passenger window received a blow to the side of his head. With a howl he reeled away, clutching a wound spouting considerable quantities of blood. The sight of an injured comrade managed to dampen the flames of protest a little. The mob backed away. A rock thrown from the rear landed near Jeff. He kept an eye out for more but none came. The escorts pulled the prisoner from the car and rushed him into the building.

  ‘Always fun and games in Kosovo,’ Lyons commented.

  The OSCE observer and their translator joined Lyons. After the usual introductions, the conversation petered out as they waited for Tomi Mema to show. Morgan tried ringing Mema’s cell number. After three attempts and no response, she gave up. At ten thirty Lyons took his leave of Jeff and asked his translator to accompany him into the courthouse.

  He returned almost immediately. ‘We seem to have a problem. The judge wants to see me. You too, Mr Bradley.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I mentioned you were waiting to see Tomi Mema as well.’

  Jeff and Morgan followed Lyons and the OSCE representative inside. Four others were in the courtroom. Lyons pointed out the judge, the court recorder and official translator. He did not know the other man.

  The translator said, ‘There is no need to sit. This will only take a few minutes.’ She nodded to the judge, who proceeded to speak in Albanian. ‘I have just received information from the Kosovon police,’ the translator interpreted, but not matching the tone of the judge’s voice which was as bland as a robot’s. ‘It is with great regret that I must inform you that Mr Tomi Mema has been shot and killed. The court is closed until further notice. This is a great tragedy for the whole of Kosovo. That is all.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Jeff whispered.

  ‘Tomi Mema has been murdered. Shot,’ Jeff said.

  He made the announcement the minute he joined Barry and Sulla who had been waiting at the cafe on the corner of the court street.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Barry blurted. ‘Why would someone kill Mema?’

  Sulla gripped Jeff’s arm. ‘Maybe they are sending you a message, Jeff.’

  ‘If that’s what it is, then it’s a very mixed message. I thought we’d agreed that releasing the property was a none-too-subtle message for me to go home. Why go to all that trouble to arrange a deal and then kill the lawyer before he had a chance to deliver?’

  ‘Good question,’ Morgan said. ‘First Arben. Now the lawyer. I feel sick to my stomach.’<
br />
  ‘What now?’ Barry asked.

  ‘The judge gave us the news, then closed the courts. But I assure you it’s not over yet. Dammed if I’m leaving Kosovo without something to take back to Arben’s family.’

  ‘We will talk to my lawyer, Feime Berisha,’ said Sulla. ‘She is not as famous as Tomi Mema, but she is very good.’

  ‘She got you out of prison Sulla, which is more than Mema did for Arben,’ Jeff said.

  ‘For now we need to keep off the streets,’ Sulla warned. ‘There will be trouble. Tomi Mema was a popular man. Very famous. After the war he protected KLA soldiers and kept them out of prison for war crimes. Kosovons are proud of him. Now he is murdered. People will blame the Serbs. Maybe the UN as well.’

  ‘Why would they blame the UN?’ Barry asked.

  ‘Why not?’ Sulla replied. ‘People need someone to blame. Kosovo may have a parliament and elections, but the UN is the real government of Kosovo and everyone knows it. People blame governments.’

  ‘Do you think there’ll be rioting?’ Morgan asked.

  Sulla nodded. ‘Of course. The nation will mourn in the Albanian way. Something will be destroyed. And then it will be over.’

  At seven that evening, Jeff, Morgan, Barry, Bethany and Sulla sat in front of the television set in Morgan’s sitting room. Sulla translated as a pretty young blonde reporter standing in the street spoke with pace and much energy into her microphone.

  ‘She is saying crowds have gathered on the streets of all the major Kosovon cities and they are very angry. I think riots will start soon.’

  ‘What surprises me is how quick the reaction has been,’ Jeff said. ‘The radio and television only just started broadcasting the news of Mema’s death.’

  ‘Those people who were near the shooting and saw Mema’s body would have had cell phones,’ Sulla said. Jeff frowned at him. ‘Believe me. It’s a small country. Kosovo has ninety per cent unemployment. People are in the cafes with nothing to do but talk. News would have spread across the plains of Kosovo as quickly as fire through a field of sugar cane.’

  The television coverage switched to footage from earlier in the day. Cameras zoomed in on Mema’s body lying in the mud then panned to the bronze Skanderbeg statue overlooking the scene.

  ‘Now she is saying it is fitting Tomi Mema died beneath the Statue of Skanderbeg. Skanderbeg is an Albanian hero. He fought against the Ottomans. Now she is comparing Mema’s fight for the rights of his fellow citizens to Skanderbeg’s heroic deeds.’

  Barry’s head jerked in Sulla’s direction. ‘You have got to be shitting me. Tomi Mema? This can’t be the same back-stabbing, lying toad we’ve come to know and dislike so much, can it?’

  Sulla shrugged. ‘Tomi Mema was a celebrity. He was always on television. We Kosovons are very gullible.’ He laughed. ‘We believe everything we see on the television is the truth. Even that Cola is good for you.’

  ‘With wisecracks like that, Sulla, you might just have some Aussie blood in you.’

  Sulla grinned and attended to the next bit of commentary. ‘This is very bad. She is suggesting it is an assassination by an organised crime group on the orders of corrupt government officials Tomi Mema was threatening to expose.’

  A laugh from Jeff. ‘Seriously? ‘

  Sulla turned aside for the screen. ‘Tomi would never have exposed a corrupt politician.’

  ‘Not with them paying him so handsomely,’ Morgan added.

  ‘But now she is asking why the criminals were not stopped? What was the UN doing in its fight against organised crime? The UN must ultimately accept responsibility for Mema’s death.’

  The journalist stopped speaking and covered her microphone. She scanned a piece of paper just thrust in front of her and said something to someone off camera. A man stepped into the shot pointing to the paper in her hand and nodding with some agitation. Jeff did not need to understand Albanian to know she had questioned if what was on the paper was for real. The man stepped back out of shot. The blonde journalist brandished the paper before the camera.

  ‘Now she is holding up a photocopy of a document just released to the press. She says it came from the crime scene. Taken directly from Mema’s hand. The note claims that his death was because he had recently secured the release of some Kosovon men who murdered Serbs in the war. She is saying his death was Serbian vengeance for the victims’ families.’

  ‘Is this true?’ Barry asked.

  ‘Better to blame the Serbs than believe us Kosovons could have murdered Tomi Mema.’

  ‘You don’t really think the Serbs did this, do you?’ Morgan asked.

  ‘Of course not. If Serbs had done such a thing, they would not leave a note.’

  Over the next half-hour, Jeff sat beside Morgan as the group watched as the broadcast showed feed snippets on the news from other cities. Mostly the live feed concentrated on central Prishtina. The UN and KFOR commands had moved quickly and established a one-kilometre no-go vehicle zone around the UN headquarters. Roadblocks were set up on all main roads and in all city centres. KFOR-NATO troops in four-wheeled armoured vehicles manned the roadblocks with orders to stop cars, but not to stop the people assembling. Sulla commented that a curfew would have been impossible and useless anyway. With most of its citizens living in central city apartments, the majority of Kosovons were already out of doors inside the cordoned-off no-go zones.

  Now the TV cameras returned to the angry crowds gathering in the streets. It also showed shop owners all over town closing up and covering their store fronts with sheets of plywood. One of them was the Kukri bar.

  In Prishtina, three hundred Kosovon police officers stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the UN headquarters building. The international police contingent could be seen taking refuge inside the fenced-off compound.

  Jeff’s head shook, not for the first time that evening. ‘You were right, Sulla. It looks like it’s going to get nasty.’

  ‘If they’ve closed the bloody Kukri bar, it must be bad,’ Barry said. ‘Morgan, I hope you’ve got plenty of beer in the fridge. It could be a long night.’

  Closing on eight thirty the chanting started.

  Mee-ma. Mee-ma. Mee-ma.

  The juddering picture from some cameraman on foot showed a twenty thousand strong crowd advancing on three hundred police officers at the UN building. The chanting from the street could be heard from Morgan’s apartment and when echoed a few seconds later on the live broadcast gave the TV coverage a surreal stereo effect.

  Jeff walked to the window and looked down into the street. A few people were drifting by. But they appeared to be the few hardened strollers not prepared to be seduced by the general excitement abroad. Jeff could only hope Morgan’s apartment was far enough from the centre of the turmoil to be safe.

  He turned back to the group huddled around the small screen.

  The chanting appeared to be growing more frenzied as the crowd drew nearer to the UN HQ. The international police could be seen opening the gates and summoning the hopelessly outnumbered Kosovon police force inside the compound with them. Jeff knew what their standing orders would be. The UN troops were not to interfere. They would arrest any rioters scrambling over the walls, but otherwise the upholders of law and order would simply stand back and allow the city to do what cities in chaos are prone to do.

  No longer able to vent their anger on the police, the frustrated mob turned their attention to the UN vehicles lining both sides of the main boulevard. The cameras followed young thugs with baseball bats as they went from vehicle to vehicle, smashing windows and battering door panels. Petrol bombs sailed through the broken windows. The crowd cheered as vehicle after vehicle burst into flame.

  Impromptu groups of musicians materialised, strumming lahuta and çifteli, beating on lodra drums and davul, and blowing riffs on a zumarë. Young students, mostly drunk, cavorted around rubbish
-bin fires, danced in the streets and sang traditional heroic and epic songs.

  By midnight, their frustrations spent, the people began returning to their homes. Tomi Mema’s epitaph had been enshrined into folklore. He died in the shadow of Skanderbeg as Prishtina burned.

  40.

  Not much damage to the apartment buildings, Sulla.’

  ‘A Kosovon would not destroy another Kosovon’s home. We have little enough as it is. The UN has a lot of money. They can always buy new vehicles. In a few days this will be as if nothing has happened.’

  Jeff and Sulla carefully picked a path through the burnt-out vehicles and debris strewn across the pavement. Glass crunched beneath their shoes. It was amazing to Jeff how the energetic fervour that had driven the previous evening’s violence could so completely dissipate – like it had been nothing more than an early morning mist. He had fully expected to still see groups of protesters. There were none. The acrid stink of rubber and oil from smouldering UN vehicles remained, but that was all.

  Citizens were making their way back onto the streets. The cafes were filling.

  The city’s hawkers were back doing business.

  As had been the case with Tomi Mema, Sulla’s lawyer also worked out of a converted shipping container, although not quite as austere. The walls were lined with white-painted plasterboard. An oil painting of a field of flowers hung above a bookcase. A simple office desk faced them with several filing cabinets to one side. It looked to Jeff that the three chairs around a glass-topped coffee table at one end were set up for serious conferences.

  The woman with greying blonde hair in a ponytail who sat at the desk would have been in her fifties, Jeff guessed. Although apparently engrossed in the contents of a file opened before her, she raised a hand to acknowledge she was aware she had visitors standing in the doorway. She continued to read for another five minutes. With a satisfied pursing of the lips she scrawled a comment on the last page and closed the folder.

  The lady’s face lifted. It broke into a wide smile as she encountered Sulla. ‘Come in,’ she said, speaking to Sulla in Albanian.