Screams in the Dark (28 page)

Rosie gazed across the sweeping countryside, struck by the absolute silence. She found herself remembering TV footage of these skies engulfed in smoke and gunfire, and of the endless streams of desperate Bosnians; she recalled the wailing at the mass graves, and the thousands of displaced people, their faces grey with shock and disbelief.

‘It’s awesome, isn’t it?’ Matt said, standing beside her. ‘When you think how it was during the war, and how quiet it is now … You could just disappear here, you know. Reinvent yourself, and nobody would ever find you.’

Rosie looked at him. ‘I guess that’s what a few of the Serb soldiers may have done while they were on the run for war crimes,’ she replied, half smiling. ‘Of course, if they were really smart, they pitched up in the UK and managed to pass themselves off as Bosnian Muslim refugees, then ended up in Scotland cutting up the bodies of real refugees for money.’ She shook her head at how unbelievable it sounded when you put it like that.

‘True,’ Matt said, ‘but I could really live here, you know. Just lose myself in this tranquillity.’

‘What? You? In the middle of nowhere, with no nightclubs or pubs? Jesus! It’s a bit early to be going native, Matt. We just got here.’ Rosie grinned at him. ‘You’ve not even had a drink yet.’

Adrian appeared with a tray of coffees and they sat down at the wooden picnic table.

Rosie put her spoon into the dark black coffee and she and Matt exchanged glances. Matt took a sip, then screwed up his face. ‘I don’t know whether to drink it or inject it,’ he said. ‘Christ, Adrian, what the hell is this!’

Adrian smiled, but not broadly. He didn’t do broadly.

‘It is Bosnian coffee,’ he said. ‘Very strong. Very good for you. By the time you leave, you will not be able to live without it.’

‘Exactly,’ Matt said. ‘Maybe I should be injecting it.’

‘So,’ Rosie said. ‘What’s the situation with Raznatovic, Adrian? We didn’t really get much of a chance to talk on the phone.’

‘I know, Rosie, but I can tell you now.’ He lit a cigarette and drew deeply. ‘As I told you, he is here. He came three days ago. Very sudden.’

‘Yes,’ Rosie said. ‘One minute the slaughterhouse was busy with cars and vans coming and going, and the next minute it was closed. They obviously got word they’d been rumbled.’

Adrian nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose. But he is in Belgrade. He was first in one apartment in Belgrade, but now he has been taken to somewhere else … some other apartment in the city. But my friends are finding out for me, and I will know tonight or tomorrow.’ He looked at Rosie.
‘But tell me, what is your plan when you know where he is, Rosie? What do you want to do with him?’

‘Well,’ Rosie said. ‘He’s clearly not going to give us an interview. What I’d ideally like to do is find out where he is and how he is hiding himself – who is looking after him, protecting him. We’d want to get some kind of opportunity to snatch a picture of him. That would be the greatest thing, you know, a picture of the monster who kept on killing. And as much of the background detail as you’ve been able to get about him and Boskovac. That would put some real colour on it.’ Rosie was imagining how the headline would look on a page. ‘Along with all the rest of the material we’ve got, this would be dynamite. I know it won’t be easy, but that’s what I would like to do.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then I’d like to tip off the authorities. You know – Interpol, the war crimes people – tell them exactly where he is and how they could find him, and hope they’ll move quickly and get him. But by that time we’ll be on our way out of here.’ She paused. ‘Oh, by the way, Adrian, I have to go back through Kosovo. Well, Macedonia actually. I made a promise to Emir when he was dying that I would go to speak with his grandmother. They were taken to a town in Macedonia after their Kosovan village was invaded by Serbs. So I have to find her.’

‘I will take you there. No problem.’

They sat in silence for a few moments, Rosie exchanging glances with Matt, sensing his discomfort when people weren’t talking. So much for him wanting to live in tranquility.

‘So it’s going to be pretty dangerous then, Adrian,’ Matt said. ‘I mean, for me to get anywhere near this bastard.’

Adrian looked at Matt for a few seconds, as though studying him for signs that he had enough bottle.

‘Is very dangerous. But once you decide to do it, you can only go forward. No going back. You must do everything I tell you when we are close to it. If you don’t, you may pay with your life.’

Matt swallowed, then his face broke into a smile.

‘Well, thanks for the heads-up on that, Adrian.’

Rosie laughed, and eventually, when Adrian got Matt’s humour, he sat back and almost smiled.

‘You are a funny guy, Matt. I remember from Morocco. But is not good if you are a funny dead guy.’ He stretched his hand out towards Matt and they shook hands warmly then, coffee finished, Adrian stood up.

‘Come on, not far now. We go to my house. You can see my sister. She is very different from the girl you saw a few months ago, frightened in the car in Spain that night. She is happy now. So is my mother. Then I take you to the small hotel in the town. We will have dinner tonight with my friend, and we can talk more of the plans.’

*

Outside the low timber cottage nestling at the foot of the hills, Adrian’s mother was in the garden setting plates and cutlery on a wooden table. She looked up and waved, with a big, beaming smile, when the car pulled into the yard.

‘My mother,’ Adrian said, his expression softening. ‘She
is very excited to meet you. She has been preparing lunch all morning. Always she is fussing,’ he added affectionately.

Rosie and Matt got out of the car, as the woman came walking swiftly towards them.

‘Welcome, welcome, my friends.’ Then she said something in Serbo-Croat, her arms outstretched.

Rosie and Matt looked at each other, then at Adrian.

‘She say she is happy to meet the people who helped to bring her daughter back to her.’

Rosie laughed. ‘Then tell her thank you, Adrian, but that it was her son who did all the work.’

Adrian shrugged and said something back to her.

‘Come,’ he walked towards the table. ‘Sit and we will have a drink before lunch.’

‘Not more coffee, Adrian, thanks all the same,’ Matt said, and this time even Adrian laughed.

‘Okay, we will have tea.’ He looked at Matt. ‘We save the beers for dinner tonight in Olovo.’

‘Sounds like a good plan, big man,’ Matt said.

As they sat at the table, Adrian’s mum disappeared into the house calling ‘Fiorina, Fiorina’ and shouting in Serbo-Croat. A few minutes later, she emerged from the house carrying a large teapot in both hands. Behind her, carrying some mugs and looking a little shy, was Fiorina. Rosie couldn’t believe this tall willowy creature in the tight jeans and T-shirt was the same girl they’d seen, terrified and whimpering, clinging to her brother the night he rescued her from the whorehouse on the Costa del Sol. Rosie stood up.

‘My sister, Fiorina,’ Adrian said, proudly, as the girl put the cups on the table and wiped her hands on her jeans.

‘Fiorina!’ Rosie stepped forward. ‘So delighted to meet you. You look wonderful. So different.’

‘Thank you,’ Fiorina replied. She pushed her blonde hair back from her face and looked at Rosie and Matt. ‘And thank you so much for helping my brother to save me.’ She threw her arms around Rosie. ‘I will never forget you.’

Rosie found herself choked with emotion as she hugged the teenager. A raft of images from the Spanish investigation that could so easily have cost all of them their lives suddenly flooded her mind.

‘Your brother did it all,’ Rosie said. She turned to Matt. ‘And this is Matt, you remember? The photographer who was working with us.’

Fiorina gave Matt a hug, and as she did, Rosie could see that Matt was bowled over by her beauty.

He made a face at Rosie over her shoulder.

‘See. I told you I could settle down here.’

Rosie laughed and they sat back around the table, while Fiorina and her mother went back into the house and returned with trays of food.

For two hours they sat talking in the sunshine, Rosie and Matt listening while Adrian translated his mother’s stories of her children growing up, of how their father died in an accident when they were young, and how much she had missed Adrian when he left. But she knew he had to go, because so many of the boys had not made it to their twenties once the Serbs came. She spoke of
communities who had once stood together becoming torn apart by bullets and bombs.

Much to Matt’s disappointment, Fiorina, they were told, had a boyfriend now and they were both working for the tourism area in Bosnia–Herzegovina; they’d decided that they would stay to help build the new country that was their future. Adrian, Rosie noted, was non-committal.

Rosie was fascinated to see how relaxed and almost normal he looked in the company of his own people. In all the years she’d known him, he’d always looked a little haunted, always on edge like the stranger he was in a land far from home, suspicious, ready to fight his corner at every turn. But here, he seemed more at ease, even though he wasn’t a barrel of laughs. She wondered why he too didn’t just stay here and make a life, like his sister was doing.

It was late afternoon by the time they rose to say their goodbyes, and Rosie meant it when she said she could easily have stayed on and enjoyed a few more hours in their company. It had been a glimpse at survival, and made her think of war-torn Kosovo she’d left a few months back, where the stricken refugees left homeless had been trying to pick up what was left of their lives. Here was a family who were testament to the fact that you could move on, rebuild and be strong and happy again.

‘Thank you for bringing us to meet your mother and sister, Adrian,’ Rosie said as they drove off. ‘They are lovely people. You are so lucky.’

Adrian nodded. ‘You can see how much it means to my mother to have Fiorina back. I cannot think how she
would be if I couldn’t find her in Spain. Now everything is much better for them.’

‘And you, Adrian?’

He shrugged and said nothing as he yanked the car into reverse and turned back onto the road.

CHAPTER 29

Rosie heard her mobile ringing as she came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. It was McGuire. She glanced at her watch on the bedside table. It wasn’t even 9.30 in Glasgow, so at this time of the morning it could only be trouble.

‘Mick! Howsit going?’ Rosie opened the wooden shutters on her window and sunlight flooded the drab bedroom.

‘You might well ask, Gilmour,’ Mick said. ‘Has Interpol tracked you down yet?’

McGuire sounded chipper. Rosie was confused.

‘Interpol? Why?’

McGuire chuckled. ‘You’re a wanted woman, Rosie. Cops are going nuts about today’s paper. I blasted your interview with Emir all over the front page and inside, plus we ran the list of missing refugees with a big “where are they?” headline. We also made it clear that Paton and Murphy were up to their necks in something. Belter of a paper! I had the head of the CID on the phone before
I even got my arse on my chair this morning. They’re more or less demanding to talk to you, said our story has compromised the investigation … demanding to know where we got the list … all that stuff.’

‘Shit,’ Rosie said, bracing herself to be summoned back to Glasgow.

‘I told him to piss off – in the nicest possible way of course – but they’re jumping on their hats, accusing us of withholding information. Especially you, Gilmour. You’re for the jail,’ he chortled. ‘But on the bright side, we’re number one on Sky News and we’ve twisted the nipples of every other paper chasing our story. As days go, it’s shaping up to be a good one.’

‘Sounds crazy, Mick.’ Rosie was glad she was far enough away from the flak – especially flak from angry cops.

‘Yeah, you’re well out of it. I told them you were out of town on an investigation. I said you were incommunicado and would be for a week at least.’

‘Oh, they’d love that.’

‘I think they’re gearing up to make a lot of trouble. I’ve got Hanlon coming in here this morning so we can circle the wagons. I hope I don’t end up in the pokey.’ McGuire was clearly relishing the moment.

‘So what happens now?’ Rosie asked. ‘I mean they don’t know where I am, so I just keep on going, right?’

‘Yep. Just carry on. Are you in Belgrade yet?’

‘No. Going up there today, but it could take a few days before we get anywhere close to this guy. It’s going to be a bit dodgy. But when we get what we want, it will be in and out. We won’t be hanging about.’

There was a pause, and Rosie knew what was coming next.

‘Rosie, listen. I want us to get this Raznatovic bastard. Get a live picture of him, and the other guy if possible – but not at any cost. Am I making myself crystal clear?’ McGuire’s tone changed.

‘Yes, I know, Mick. I won’t do anything daft. My friend Adrian and his people are looking after us. I’ll be safe enough.’

Another pause. ‘Fine. But any sign of big problems, I want you out of there pronto. Understood? Plus at some stage you need to sit down and write everything you have about this PD Pharmaceuticals, and that side of the story. I want to be ready to go with the pictures Matt took inside the slaughterhouse, linking them to the illegal tissue trade – just in case we have to run it before you get back.’

‘You mean in case you have to run it and I’m not there because I’ve been shot.’ Rosie joked.

‘Don’t even talk that way, Gilmour. No, listen. Even if we can’t say PD were part of it, we just have to say what we saw in the place and the stuff going to Manchester, then link back to the earlier stuff in Germany. We can be vague about it. That’s going to take a bit of legalling, but I want to do it. Especially now, because the cops are so raging they might take some legal action to try and stop us using anything. I want to be ready.’

‘Do you think there’s political pressure being put on the police because of that ex-Environment Secretary’s involvement – and they just want to close the investigation down?’

‘Oh, yeah, they’ll certainly want to close the investigation down, but that ain’t gonna happen any time soon. Trust me on that.’ He paused. ‘Now get to Belgrade and keep your head down.’