by Mark Burnell
Stephanie Schneider had mail.
> Steffi – it's ready for collection, Ali.
At nine she left the flat. After an hour of Pilates with a private instructor at a studio in Earls Court. She found Pilates useful for maintaining core strength and flexibility. Her instructor, an Australian from Adelaide who was also called Stephanie, had become a close friend and they often had lunch together after class.
On her return there was a message waiting.
> I've heard such exciting stories about you. You must tell me everything. Shall we meet at the usual place? I'll be there for three hours, starting now.
Stern. More than Rosie ever could, Stern belonged to the Ether Division. Or should have. Because that was where he – or she – existed: in the ether. A virtual being, Stern had provided Petra with more concrete information than Magenta House ever had. The 'usual place' was a virtual café in the stratosphere. Stephanie checked the time of transmission: two hours and thirty-five minutes ago.
> Hello, Oscar.
Stephanie had always used the name Oscar. It personalized Stern, and he'd never objected.
> Well, well, all that blood in Marrakech and Mostovoi is still alive. I think I can guess why we're talking.
> I doubt it. What does the name Milan Savic mean to you?
> The Serbian paramilitary warlord?
> Yes.
> I think you'll find he's dead.
> That's a popular assumption. What if he wasn't?
> What basis do you have for suspecting otherwise?
> Humour me. Call it rumour and conjecture.
> Ah, the names of my two most valuable employees. Give me an hour.
It was still raining. Stephanie took a carton of Tropicana from the fridge, then put on a CD, the third, untitled album by Icelandic band Sigur Ros. None of the eight tracks had titles either but she fast-forwarded to the fourth, her favourite. From her wet window she gazed at the rear gates of the Olympia exhibition centre.
She looked at a photocopy of the names on the list that David Pearson had recovered. Goran Simic, Milorad Barkic, Robert Pancevic, Fabrice Blanc, Vojislav Brankovic, Dejan Zivokvic, Milutin Nikolic, Ante Pasic, Lance Singleton. There had been a tenth, but the tear in the paper had rendered the name illegible. And if there was a tenth, why not an eleventh? Why not a hundred? Who could say how many there were?
Alexander had given her his word but she still didn't trust him. Rather than break his word, which he considered his bond, Alexander was the type of man who redefined the terms of the deal so that he didn't have to. Which was why Stephanie had maintained Stern. She needed independence. She needed insurance.
Forty-five minutes later Stern was back.
> Quid pro quo, Petra.
> What do you suggest?
> No need for cash, a name for a name. And you go first.
Stephanie offered a name provided by Magenta House, an alias that Savic was rumoured to use.
> Martin Dassler.
> Hong Kong?
> Correct.
> Carleen Attwater.
> Never heard of her. Also Hong Kong?
> No. London.
Six thirty in the evening. The persistent rain had rinsed away most of the people who usually dogged Leicester Square. The pub was packed, after-work drinkers unwinding with tourists and the pre-cinema crowd. It had less atmosphere than deep space: bright overhead lights, Linkin Park on the sound system competing with a chorus of cheesy mobile ring-tones and a football match on the screen at the far end.
Ali Metin was at the bar, nursing a pint of lager. 'Steffi … looking foxy, as usual.'
'Ali … looking shiny, as usual.'
Metin was proud to be bald by design and ran a hand over his mercury-smooth scalp. Beneath a long leather coat he wore a shimmering silk shirt and pleated trousers with a suspiciously high waist-band, both black. From his coat pocket he produced a silver mobile phone and handed it to her. It was a Siemens.
'Talk me through it.'
'It's a beauty. Two things you got to remember. None of the calls you make can be traced. There are no records in the phone or on the SIM card. Anybody tries to return your call, they get blocked. If they got the facility to bypass, they won't get the real number. They get a different number. You can use the memory but it won't show right. The first time you put in the number you want to save, the phone will show you another number. It's up to you to remember that. There's no other way of knowing without ringing.'
She took an envelope out of her bag. Metin opened it and fanned through the dirty twenties inside. 'Fancy a drink? I reckon I could stand it.'
Three days later Carleen Attwater says, 'So, you're one of Stern's …'
'Yes.'
'I've never met one before.'
'Is that why you agreed to see me? Out of curiosity?'
'Aren't journalists supposed to be curious? Or even ex-journalists …'
'You're retired?'
Her smile is as enigmatic as her reply. 'At the moment.'
'How come?'
'Burn-out. Too much jet-lag, too much alcohol, too much CNN.'
'I thought those were part of the deal for war correspondents.'
'Then too much Balkans.'
'The straw that broke the camel's back?'
'Exactly. Besides, I was never a war correspondent. I was a journalist who just ended up in a lot of wars. Take Croatia. I went to cover a human interest story about murals in a monastery and I stayed until the end of Kosovo. The best part of a decade. Or, should I say, the worst part?'
We're standing on the roof terrace of Attwater's top-floor flat in Poplar Place, off Bayswater Road. She's watering her plants, which occupy two thirds of the available space.
She's in pastel blue three-quarter-length linen trousers, a large buttercup T-shirt that falls to the thighs and a wide brimmed hat. Not quite the flak-jacket she used to wear in Beirut or Baghdad. Or the Balkans. Now in her fifties, her career is etched into her skin but she still exudes an earthy sex-appeal. According to Stern, that was an asset she used to use freely.
'Who were you working for?'
'Nominally, I was freelance. But the New Yorker was good to me. So was Vanity Fair, when they could find it in their hearts to squeeze some serious stuff between puff pieces for Hollywood's latest airheads. Drink?'
'Thanks, yes.'
'I hate London when it's hot. Amman, fine. Damascus, fine. Here it's horrible. Jim used to feel the same.'
'Your husband?'
'Like my career, my ex …'
'Sorry.'
'Lord, don't be. We aren't. We get on much better now we're divorced. Of course, it helps that he's back in New York.'
Her laugh is a sultry smoker's laugh. Her ex-husband is James Barrie, a foreign correspondent for Time for more than twenty years. They surfed the world's troubles together.
We go down the iron fire-escape and enter Attwater's kitchen. She pours me fresh lemonade from a glass jug that has chilled in the fridge.
'You met Savic?' I ask her.
'Many times. Especially during Bosnia.'
'He trusted you?'
'I think so.'
'Why?'
Attwater sighs. 'Because I don't think he saw me as an American. In fact, I don't think he saw me as a journalist. I don't believe he felt I'd taken a side.'
'And had you?'
'By the end, no. With most of the others who were there, I think it was the other way round. They tried to be impartial, then crumbled.'
'Why was it different for you?'
'I don't know. After a while you begin to lose your sense of perspective. Sides don't seem to matter that much. Who's right? Who's wrong? Who cares? You just go from day to day, village to village, carcass to carcass.'
'Surrendering responsibility?'
'Give me a break. Nobody takes responsibility for their actions any more. It's outdated, like good manners, or the slide-rule.'
'That's a rather cynical view.'
'Talking about responsibility in relation to what occurred in the Balkans is the worst sort of window-dressing.'
'Are you excusing what Savic did?'
'Not at all. I'm just saying that to judge it against the standards you and I take for granted is absurd. War is a different form of existence. It's heightened living. Survive or die, hour to hour. I apologize if I'm making it sound glamorous in some way. It isn't. It's dirty and disgusting. But every time I tried to leave, something held me back. By the end of Croatia I was already dead. And still I stayed, through Bosnia, through Kosovo. I hated being there. But when I wasn't there I hated wherever I was even more. It was a kind of addictive madness. Heroin for the soul …'
Heroin for the soul. There's a phrase that has resonance for me.
'What about the ones he was supposed to have helped?'
She nods vigorously. 'The project was called Gemini. It was well organized. Milan was impressed by the Homeland Calling fund run by the KLA. Gemini was financed along similar lines. It had a proper command structure, too.'
I point out that most people dismissed the rumour as a conspiracy theory. She counters by pointing out that none of them were there.
We move into the coolness of her sitting room; heavy plum curtains, dark green damask wallpaper, photographs in silver frames on a piano.
'How did Savic rise so quickly? One minute he's a street-thug in Belgrade, the next he's in with the SDB and Frenki and Badza.'
'A street-thug? Who told you that?'
'I thought it was common knowledge.'
Attwater shrugs. 'He started on the street, but he outgrew it. Quickly, too. Milan was a rich man by the time Croatia started. He had a good business brain.'
'What was he into? Drugs? Guns? Girls?'
'Televisions.'
As she has clearly anticipated, that stops me in my tracks. 'Televisions …'
'Cheap ones, Chinese made, imported from Hong Kong.'
'Hong Kong?'
'In the early eighties he made a contact out there. I don't know who. But they started with TVs, then moved into other electronic goods: stereos, computers, cell phones. Some legitimate, some fake, all of them cheap enough to find a market in Yugoslavia. That was how Milan made his first fortune. But it wasn't just financial. It was political, too.'
'How?'
She pauses for a moment to take a sip from her glass. 'Okay. I'll give you an example. On May 29th 1992 a shell killed sixteen people in a bread queue in Vase Miskina Street in Sarajevo. The next day, through resolution 757, the UN Security Council imposed a total economic blockade on Serbia and Montenegro. Total meant total, too. It covered all exports with the exception of medical supplies. Crucially, it included oil. Which Serbia needed desperately. In the end Serbia got round the problem by striking a deal with China, buying Chinese-bound imports at a premium, some of it paid for by barter. It was Milan who put that deal together, acting directly on behalf of Slobodan Milosevic.'
Next I ask her if she thinks Savic is still alive.
'I know he's alive,' she says. 'I saw him last November.'
'Where?'
'Zurich. At the airport.'
'Did you speak to him?'
She laughs. 'God no! I made damn sure he didn't see me. I mean, I guess he could've died since then. But then you wouldn't be here, would you?'
When I phoned Carleen Attwater, I told her I was a journalist. She hasn't said anything to challenge that since I've been here. She doesn't need to. I can see she doesn't believe me. Which means she has her own reasons for being so forthright.
'Do you know where he is now?'
She shakes her head. 'I don't know and I don't care.'
'One last thing. Why didn't you do something on Gemini?'
'What do you mean?'
'You're a journalist. What a scoop Gemini could have been.'
'Come on. More like a death warrant.'
It was worth a try. 'I suppose so.'
'Although that isn't the reason I didn't do it.'
'Oh?'
'I refrained out of courtesy. Milan knew that I knew about Gemini. The safest thing for him would have been to kill me. And that wouldn't have bothered him at all, believe me. But he didn't. He took that risk because he thought he understood me. That we understood each other.'
'And did you?'
'Absolutely.'
Barefoot, dressed in scarlet Bermuda shorts and a primrose T-shirt, Karen Cunningham poured two glasses of chilled Pinot Grigio. Stephanie carried the glasses and Karen carried Fergus, her seven-month-old son. The garden was an oval of grass cushioned by well-tended flowerbeds contained within a fence. There was a mature cherry tree at the far end. They sat at a bleached wooden table in the shade of a large red and blue umbrella.
Fergus, on Karen's knee, gurgled then let out a high-pitched squeal of glee before grabbing a handful of her T-shirt and stuffing it into his mouth.
'How's it all going?' Stephanie asked.
'It's wonderful. Knackering but wonderful. We've been very lucky, though. He's been such a good boy. Do you want to hold him?'
'I'm not sure.'
The sentence slipped out before she could vet it. Karen had already picked Fergus up. Now she settled him back on her thigh. The baby smiled at Stephanie, then turned coy, dribble coming off a fleshy lower lip.
Flushed, Stephanie said, 'God, I'm sorry, Karen. That sounded awful.'
'It's okay.'
Stephanie could see that it wasn't. 'I don't know why I said that.'
'It really doesn't matter. Actually, it's rather presumptuous of mothers to expect …'
'The thing is, I've never held a baby before.'
Karen's laugh was dismissive. 'Come on …'
'I'm serious.'
'Never?'
She supposed she might have held her younger brother or sister, but she didn't know. Besides, they belonged to a different Stephanie. The one that Karen knew had no brothers or sisters.
'Not that I can remember.'
There was an awkward pause before Karen said, 'Do you want to? I mean, if you'd like to … you don't have to …'
Stephanie thought of all the reasons she'd never held a baby and felt disgust more than regret. When the moment passed, Karen was offering him to her. Stephanie took Fergus and sat him on her lap. He squirmed a little, looked up at her and broke into another toothless smile. Warm and fat with wisps of gold hair, he clutched Stephanie's wrist with podgy hands.
'Did you tell Mark about the test?'
'I couldn't see the point.'
'You must have thought about the possibility before that.'
'Of course.'
Stephanie had only ever allowed herself to consider the issue in the most conceptual fashion. Of all women, how could she bring a child into the world? More practically, she wasn't sure she was maternally inclined. Considering the life she'd led, nobody could accuse her of an overdeveloped instinct to nurture.
Mark was lighting a barbeque on the roof terrace – the last of the year, he said – the first oily flames dancing over the charcoal. Stephanie carried a tray of glasses across the decking to the table in the far corner. She put the tray on the table, picked up her glass of wine and plucked a bottle of beer for Mark from the turquoise cool-box.
'What time did you ask them?'
'Eight, eight-thirty.'
There were six coming. True friends of his, friends-by-proxy of hers. But they felt real enough most of the time. With a warm evening sun on his shoulders, dressed in a loose navy T-shirt and a pair of faded knee-length cotton shorts, with his hair suitably dishevelled after an active hour in bed, he couldn't have looked more relaxed.
'You know who called today?'
'Who?'
'Cameron Diaz's people.'
Said as though this was a common occurrence. Although it wasn't that unusual. The practice in Cadogan Gardens did attract a number of high-profile clients. In her darker moments Stephanie sometimes wondered whether they were drawn by the quali
ty of the treatment or by Mark himself.
'Cameron Diaz?'
'Apparently she's in town to promote a new movie. Or to start filming one. I can't remember …'
Right.
His back was turned to her. Quite deliberately, Stephanie knew, though he'd maintain he was tending the charcoal.
'What's wrong with her?'
'I think it's her hip flexor.'
'I see. And you'll be treating that yourself, will you?'
'It's my practice. I think I should, don't you?'
'Naturally.'
'It'll probably require some subtle manipulation followed by some deep, penetrative massage.'
Stephanie picked up a piece of French bread from the wooden bowl on the table and threw it at him. It hit him between the shoulders. He turned round, feigning angelic innocence.
'Her hip flexor?'
He shrugged. 'Who knows? If I'm lucky …'
'I hope you'll charge her the full rate.'
'I'll probably charge her double.'
'Then it better be a successful movie.'
'That's a bit harsh.'
Julian Cunningham, Karen's husband, had once told Stephanie that chiropractors were like lawyers and bookies: you never saw a poor one. She reminded Mark of that.
He put up his hands in mock defence. 'All I'm doing is charging the going rate. Same as you.'
'True.'
Which was why, in a numbered dollar account at Guderian Maier bank in Zurich, Petra had just over three million eight hundred thousand dollars. Not a cent of which had found its way into the life she shared with Mark.
'I'm going to Hong Kong.'
He took it in his stride. 'It's agreed?'
'Pretty much.'
'For how long?'
'I'm not sure.'
'What for?'
'Organized crime in the Far East.'
That was the cover Gavin Taylor at Frontier News had decided upon. It was a little conventional for his taste, but Stephanie had decided to tell Mark she was going to Hong Kong. Normally she would have lied about her destination, as an added precaution. This time, with the contract open-ended, she was worried about complications. Taylor had agreed; keep it simple and keep it as close to the truth as possible.
