Killing Pilgrim (20 page)

He got the bag out and spread its contents under the two rear wheels. He waited for it to seep into the ice and then he tried again.

At first the wheels continued to spin, but then he felt them grip. The car jerked a little to one side. He rocked the steering wheel, alternately pumping the brake and accelerator.

And then he was moving, reversing down the track. He didn’t dare stop to turn the car around but kept reversing, using the pale red glow of the rear lights to guide him, as if he were backing into the mouth of hell. He drove that way for . . . how far was it? Two kilometres? Longer? His back and shoulder ached with the effort of sitting in the twisted position, until at long last he reached the gravel road that would take him back to the motorway.

It was only when he saw the ramp to the highway that he dared stop to relieve himself by the side of the road, making sure he was on the crest of a small rise so that he could coast out of any trouble. Then he sat in the parked car, breathing hard for a few minutes as the past hour caught up with him.

He turned the radio back on as he pulled away, the car swaying through the gravel and snowy ruts of the rough road. He’d not been able to listen while he concentrated on driving out of that endless forest. Still there was no news. Could they really not have made the announcement about Palme’s death? The lively disc jockeys had been replaced by one with a soporific voice who played odd, jangly music that grated on the Montenegrin’s nerves. He tuned in to another station that seemed to be just talk. But here too there was no excitement.

He shrugged, though a little, nagging uncertainty tugged at him. What if it hadn’t been his target? What if he’d killed someone other than Pilgrim, someone who’d looked like him? He pushed it all out of his mind — Pilgrim . . . Palme . . . the boy.

He drove. He was at least five hours from the Helsingborg ferry, assuming all went well. Assuming the Swedish police hadn’t set roadblocks this far from Stockholm. Assuming his luck held.

CROATIA, AUGUST 1991

They
stopped at a police roadblock on the northern part of the coast road, where it cut along the Velebit mountain range that divides inland Croatia from the Adriatic Sea.

Rebecca had called after their return from Strumbić’s weekend cottage, interrupting della Torre’s desultory unpacking at the office. He’d given up on the forms sent to him by Kakav, which had to be filled in triplicate and stamped by six separate departments before he could hope to get his military ID.

The call wasn’t so much a conversation as a series of nicely worded orders. Pack lightly for a trip that could last up to two weeks. Leave in two days’ time. And tell Strumbić he’s coming, but only for the first few days, just long enough for them to get settled into Šipan. Any fair bill he presented for use of the property would be paid in cash.

That was good enough for Strumbić. He took the news, churlishly delivered by della Torre, with a certain smug satisfaction. When della Torre said it would only be for the trip down and then a couple of days in Šipan, Strumbić shrugged and said, “We’ll see.”

Della Torre could tell the Zagreb cop’s enthusiasm wasn’t just down to his eagerness for a few days in the sun. He was straining to get away from Mrs. Strumbić, who wore away at her husband with her cheese-grater nagging. Della Torre, on the other hand, felt deeply uneasy about Irena leaving to go to Vukovar. He didn’t want her there. In fact, he’d rather she went back to London and her lover’s arms than waltz into a Danube tragedy. Because that’s where it was headed. He was sure of it. And he felt guilty about abandoning her for sunny safety.

He’d spent the whole drive from Zagreb ruminating on Irena, his irritation made worse by the fact that Rebecca wouldn’t let him or Strumbić smoke. It was going to be a long trip to Dubrovnik.

The Velebit police, proudly displaying the Croatian insignia, the red and white checkerboard shield that so incensed the Serbs, were waving traffic off the Zadar highway onto a smaller road to the coast. Della Torre asked Rebecca to pull over. The cops didn’t like it.

“Keep going,” the one nearest shouted. “Go down to Senj and take the old coast road.”

Della Torre got out of the car. The policeman raised his rifle a little, eyeing him warily. “If you need to take a piss you can take one somewhere else. There’s no stopping here.”

Della Torre showed his
UDBA
ID. “What’s going on?”

The cop looked carefully at the ID and then up at della Torre and then back down at the ID, which he showed to his colleague, who was sitting inside the police car they’d parked across both lanes of the highway. Della Torre followed him and leaned against the squad car.

“I thought they shut down the
UDBA
,” the cop said.

“They did.” The cop regarded him skeptically, so della Torre continued: “But all us former
UDBA
people still exist, and now we’re working for Croat intelligence. I’m military. You can call me Major.”

“It says captain here.”

“Well, it’s major now. In the military.”

“You have any proof —” The cop spat on the ground. “— Major?”

Only a few weeks before, the whole country had cowered before that bit of laminated card. But
UDBA
, it seemed, no longer spelled fear.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, officer?” della Torre asked.

“I figure I do . . . Major.” He stared with a practised emptiness at della Torre. “The Serbs cut off the road down towards Gospić, and my colleagues and I are here to tell folks to take the coast road down by Senj . . . Major.”

“I thought the Serbs were on the other side of Gospić.”

The cop tilted his head at della Torre as if he couldn’t believe somebody could be so stupid. “I don’t know where you’ve been, but this road’s been blocked more or less since the start of the year. Last year we could shift some of the logs they dropped across it, but nothing doing now. Nowadays you try that and they shoot at you. They’ve got the road cut off on both sides of Gospić. You’ve got to go down to Senj, along the coast road, and then up.”

“What about the small roads?”

“You mean get off the highway before where those Serb lumberjacks have set up camp?”

“Yes.”

“You sure are desperate to get to Gospić quick.”

“No. I just know that if we follow the coast road it’ll take us a week just to get to Zadar.”

“You’re not kidding. But go this way and the only place you’re going to get to is a funeral. Your own. And as much as I’d like that . . .”

Della Torre ignored him. “What about the locals?”

“What about the locals?”

“Well, do you let them take this road?” Della Torre asked, enunciating each word to show his irritation.

“Yes.”

“How far?”

“Most of the way to Gospić.”

“And you can turn off onto the little roads before then, can’t you?”

“Yes,” the cop said, giving della Torre a dull-eyed stare.

“And are those little roads blocked by Serbs?”

“Not that I know of.”

“There been a police patrol to Gospić today on the little roads?”

“This morning.”

“Any problems?”

“No.”

“What about past Gospić?”

“The Serbs have trees down there too.”

“On the main road or the little roads?”

“Main road.”

“So you’re telling me that if we take the main road and turn off just before the Gospić exit and follow the little roads through Gospić and then on past it, we should avoid the Serbs and avoid having to go down to Senj and the coast road, which to my understanding is a fifty-kilometre traffic jam,” della Torre said, using incremental lawyerly logic to make his point blindingly clear.

The cop shrugged. “Except I’m not letting you on the main road. You’re just going to have to follow everyone else down to Senj. Major.”

He dropped della Torre’s ID on the ground. Della Torre stared at it and then up at the cop, whose eyes were emotionless and, somewhere deep down in the blackness of the pupils, contemptuous. After the shock came the rage. With difficulty, della Torre contained himself. There was nothing he could do against this man. He bent over, picked up the ID, thinking revenge but knowing that searing hatred of the
UDBA
was everywhere. And with the fear gone, they could show it.

Perhaps the cop had good reason to loathe the
UDBA
. Many people did.

Della Torre walked back to the car. He leaned into the window. “The pricks aren’t letting us past. Serb roadblocks on the highway are pretty permanent now. Everything’s got to go through Senj and along the very slow coastal road. But it seems Julius was right when he said it was only the main highway that’s a problem.”

Rebecca had been keen to drive down as quickly as possible. None of them was looking forward to the single-lane road that wound its way along the coast. Even though foreign tourists were thin on the ground, refugee traffic had been growing; displaced people were being put up in otherwise empty seafront hotels. Add the military traffic and some domestic tourism — it would take more than the prospect of a civil war to keep Yugoslavs from their seaside cottages in August — and all it took was a broken-down bus or a tractor pulling along a family’s possessions, and traffic could be snarled for most of a day. A coastal ferry was a possibility, but Rebecca was reluctant to use it. The ones that took cars from Rijeka to Dubrovnik were exceptionally slow, slower even than the coast road, and worse still, were subject to snap inspections by the Yugoslav navy, looking for gun smugglers.

“If we could just get past the cops, we’d be able to turn off before the Serb roadblocks and onto small roads. They seem to be clear. Though I suppose if Serbs saw people using them they’d block those as well. We could do that, go through Gospić and along small roads on the other side until we can join the highway beyond the roadblocks again. Which would mean getting to Zadar in a couple of hours if all went well. As it is, we’re going to have to go down the coast road and be in Zadar in, oh —” Della Torre looked skyward as though he were doing a difficult sum. “— sometime tomorrow.”

Strumbić grinned at him.

Della Torre went back to the cop. “We’re going this way. But thanks for taking an interest in our safety.”

“You try that and we’ll shoot your car out from under you,” said the cop.

He stood there, making no move.

Della Torre rubbed his hand over his face. He should have stopped noticing he no longer had a moustache by now, but it still came as a surprise to him. He was wondering what sort of threat to launch at the recalcitrant cop. In the old days he could have had the man in an
UDBA
jail within the hour. Things were different now, and this cop knew it.

Strumbić appeared in the corner of his eye.

“What seems to be the problem?” Strumbić asked pleasantly.

He looked like an older version of the Velebit cop, his belly hanging slightly more over his belt, his jowls a little looser, his hairline slightly higher up the forehead. But they’d been stamped from the same mould.

“There’s a certain reluctance to let us through,” della Torre said.

Strumbić took the roadmap from della Torre and went over to the cop. They shook hands and the cop lowered his rifle to the ground stock first while Strumbić put an arm over the man’s shoulder. They walked away from della Torre over to the verge on the other side of the highway. Another cop had taken the first one’s place to wave traffic onto the smaller road, dealing with the almost inevitable complaints and questions but at the same time looking over his shoulder to see what was happening to his colleague. The cop in the car had got out and had his hand on the holster of the gun on his hip.

After a long five minutes, Strumbić and his younger doppelgänger came walking back, all smiles.

“What are you waiting for, Gringo? Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“Where do you think?” Strumbić said, pointing to the empty highway beyond the roadblock.

When they got to the car, Strumbić thumbed for della Torre to get into the back seat. “I have map. He show me where roadblock is. I sit front, show Rebecca.”

Della Torre did as he was told.

The cops waved them through. Rebecca steered around the policemen’s Zastava, driving over the grass verge. Another police car was parked at the side of the road a little farther along, but they were quickly past, driving along a highway cut through mountain forests. With an open road, Rebecca quickly worked her way up the gears, pushing the big Mercedes to autobahn speeds.

“What the hell happened there?” della Torre demanded.

“We have nice talk. I ask him how much, and he say fifty Deutschmarks. I give him one hundred and he happy to shut up.” Della Torre could see Rebecca grinning in the rear-view mirror. Strumbić turned around to look at him, as pleased with himself as a dog that had got the steak. “He show me road, best way to Gospić, and then after Gospić back to highway. No Serbs. No problem.”

“Looks like we were smart to take you along, Julius,” Rebecca said.

“Of course. You see. I help in Dubrovnik also. You see,” Strumbić said.

Della Torre sat deep into the leather of the rear seat. He watched the countryside pass, high, dark hills covered in a mixture of giant pines and oak that even the summer sun failed to penetrate. Somewhere to the left, thirty or forty kilometres, was Plitvice, a fairyland of turquoise lakes, each one tumbling into the next in a series of waterfalls made to be photographed for tourist calendars. A fairyland until six months ago, when the Serbs started shooting at Croat police and the Croat police fired back, a busload of Italians caught in the middle the whole while.

It was astonishing more people hadn’t been killed, della Torre thought.

• • •

The Merc’s smooth, quiet ride made him oblivious to the fact that it was eating distance like a glutton. There was a cooler box on the floor space in front of the empty seat. The hotel had organized drinks, snacks, and sandwiches for them. The seat itself held one of the black metal cases, the one with the sniper rifle, along with a heavy shoulder bag.

They were most of the way to their turning when Strumbić developed an unspoken gratitude for Rebecca’s insistence that he wear his seat belt. It was either a feral dog or a black fox. Whatever it was, it darted in front of the car from the shrubbery which, untended by maintenance crews, had grown wild at the side of the road. Rebecca braked hard, manoeuvring to avoid hitting the animal. The tires squealed, scorching across the hot road, threatening to fishtail the Merc, though Rebecca kept deft control.

“Close,” she said. The creature had disappeared just as quickly. “Guess they’re not used to cars around here anymore.”

She pulled over, though they hadn’t seen any traffic at all.

For a long moment they sat still.

“If me driving, I hit,” said Strumbić, though he didn’t make it clear whether he’d have done so intentionally or that he was admitting to not being as good a driver as Rebecca.

“Oh, I’d have hated to. I’m an animal person,” she said.