The bone road, p.19
The Bone Road, page 19
The only comfort I can offer you is that Drakulić will still go to prison without my testimony. I know it won’t be for as long. But what would feel like justice, Dušica? What possible sentence could atone for his crimes? Such a man cannot feel guilt. He only feels injury and victimhood that he was caught. He is a monster without remorse or sympathy.
Ryan
Petra leaped to her feet. ‘Ryan is right. He is coward,’ she spat. ‘Drakulić killed my father. My father pulled the trigger, but it was Drakulić who put him in camp and had him tortured.’ Her eyes blazed with rage. ‘I sorry Ryan died in terrible pain, but he was too chicken shit to send that murdering bastard to prison forever. Séronja!’
They all stared at her, no one saying anything. Marina was the first to speak.
‘Many felt like you, Petra. I did too, for years.’
‘You weren’t coward though,’ said Petra.
‘No,’ said Marina simply, not bothering to deny it. ‘After the war, while the U.N. sat on their hands, criminals disappeared like smoke. I became one of those who hunted them down. It was my way to try and get justice for Alek. I was working every hour trying to nail criminals. While Ryan was following bike races round the world, getting a suntan.’
Heather thought of Ryan’s nightmares, the drinking and the decades of lies, and decided it wasn’t quite that simple – although she wasn’t ready to forgive him for the years of deception. Not yet. She kept silent.
Marina turned to Heather, taking a more conciliatory tone. ‘One of the things he loved about you was that you knew nothing about it. You were too young. You only knew him as the other Ryan, the one he wanted to be. With you, he could be a good man. His best self.’
‘Did you forgive him?’
‘Not for a long time. We didn’t speak for years. But, in time, I think maybe I understood.’
‘And why did he ask you to meet him at Café Bulozi?’ asked Simo, trying to bring it back to the investigation. ‘Did something happen? Did Ryan change his mind?’
Marina closed the lid of the laptop. ‘Ryan called and said he was here with his girlfriend. He’d been following some cycling tour. Asked to meet me in Zikoč. When I saw him, he seemed different. Something had definitely shifted.’
‘In what way?’ asked Simo.
Marina gestured vaguely, struggling to explain. ‘So much time had passed. He’d met Heather, said he was tired of pretending to be a good man. He wanted justice. So, I told him that I wanted to bring a new case for the murder of Alek. I asked him to testify.’
‘Did he give you an answer?’ asked Simo, leaning forward eagerly.
Marina was quiet for a moment. ‘He said we’d talk again. We went outside. He kissed me goodbye and said we must speak again. That I was brave and good and that he wished he could be like me.’
‘Which you took to mean that he was going to testify?’
‘Of course. What else could it mean?’
‘You see,’ said Heather, turning to Simo, her face flushed. ‘He was a good man.’
Simo said nothing for a moment. ‘It’s possible,’ he said at last, his voice heavy with uncertainty. ‘Then what did you do?’
‘I phoned Nik. I was excited. I thought at last we had a real chance of getting the bastard. Then, a couple of days later, I hear that Ryan’s disappeared.’
Heather felt dizzy at the thought of what had happened to Ryan. How he’d suffered.
Marina bowed her head. ‘We’ve been reaching out to witnesses. Very carefully. Drakulić has eyes everywhere. Seems to me that he must have found out Ryan was in the country and decided to take no chances and kill him. Drakulić’s running drugs again, so I heard. He doesn’t want to go back to prison.’
Heather turned to Simo. ‘What now? How will you get Drakulić for this?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Evidence. We don’t have it yet. We only have a possible motive.’
Heather gazed at him, frustration bubbling in the pit of her stomach. ‘Are you frightened, Inspektor?’
‘Of Drakulić? Of course,’ said Simo evenly. ‘Only fools have no fear. But it won’t stop me doing my job. To prosecute Dragan Drakulić for murder here in Višegrad, the case must be very strong. It’s not the same as trying a case in The Hague.’
Nikola laughed. ‘Drakulić could be holding a bloody knife in one hand and a signed confession in the other and you’d still never get a conviction.’
‘I disagree,’ said Simo, politely. He got up and began to circle the office.
‘Ryan tried to do the right thing in the end, even though it cost him everything.’ Heather looked around at the others. ‘He deserves justice.’
‘The right thing twenty years too late,’ said Petra, her voice rank with acrimony.
‘No,’ said Marina. ‘I won’t have that. Drakulić has been in prison for many years. And I believe Ryan was trying to make things right.’
‘Thank you,’ said Heather. The room swam before her eyes; she was so tired. It was an unfamiliar exhaustion that seemed to spread from deep within her, different from the tired muscles after a race.
Marina seemed to notice her flag and asked Nikola to bring in some tea. She turned back to Heather. ‘The last few days have been a shock. It’s not good for you. You need to be careful.’
Simo had stopped next to a window overlooking the street. Arranged on the wall next to the window was a mixture of newspaper clippings and photographs. One featured a Silent Women march: a group holding placards, prominent amongst them a woman with cropped, dyed-red hair. Simo recalled the informant saying that a red-headed woman had been with Ryan when he had tried to buy a gun.
‘Who is this woman?’
Marina hesitated. Simo knew that her natural inclination was to refuse to answer questions from the police. However, she’d already told him plenty. He was betting that one more piece of information wouldn’t hurt.
‘Her name is Rubi Kurjak.’
The informant who sold Ryan the gun had heard him call the woman accompanying him by that name. Simo needed to speak to her, but he knew too that Marina would never pass on the details of another member of the Silent Women to a cop.
‘I’d like to speak to her.’
Marina pulled a face. ‘She lives in Sarajevo – out of your jurisdiction, Inspektor.’
It didn’t matter. He’d seen the posters in the streets and there was another in the office, publicising tomorrow’s protest here in Višegrad. The Silent Women would be there. And so too would Rubi Kurjak.
18
‘I’m going to the protest,’ said Heather.
The meeting with Marina had ended and Simo was driving her and Petra back to town. He knew she only wanted to go in order to question Rubi Kurjak. But he had a suspicion that Rubi would lead only to more unpleasant truths and, worse, to danger.
‘Absolutely not,’ he said. The Silent Women’s demonstration was intended to be peaceful, but in his experience such gatherings had a habit of turning ugly. Even without the added uncertainty of Rubi’s presence, it was no place for a civilian, especially not one like Heather.
‘You know what happened to Ryan now,’ said Simo. ‘He changed his mind about testifying, but Drakulić had him killed before he or Marina could move forward with the case. There is nothing more to know. I think it is time for you to go home.’
He expected her to object – in his experience Heather wasn’t good at taking his suggestions, even the well-intentioned ones – but to his surprise she just sat back in her seat and folded her arms in silence. Okay, good, for once she was listening to sense. He had only brought her to Višegrad in order to facilitate the interview with Marina. She’d done her job, and done it well, but now it was time for her to leave the police work to the professionals.
He dropped the two women back at Petra’s place. Heather stormed inside, ignoring him, presumably still irritated by his words in the car. He pulled his niece aside.
‘Get her on a flight out of here.’
‘What if she doesn’t want to leave?’
‘Use your famous charm.’
Petra wrinkled her nose at the suggestion. She was many things, but no one would call her charming, especially not her family.
Simo shrugged. ‘Fake it.’
He got back in the car and sat with the engine off, thinking back over the meeting in Višegrad. He hadn’t entirely bought Marina’s story. Had Ryan really seen the light after all this time and decided to turn prime witness to bring down Drakulić? Something felt off about that version of events. Something he had a feeling that Rubi Kurjak could throw light on.
Marina had let slip that Rubi lived in Bosnia, and since she was attending the protest tomorrow then she’d most likely be on her way to or in Višegrad already. However, it would be remiss of him not to check. He had good contacts in the Bosnian police force, forged after a number of cross-border cases earlier in his career. He put in a call. Pleased to assist, Inspektor Subotić. Yes, they would knock on her door. His name still carried some influence, he thought wryly, even if it wasn’t at home. He hung up and began to drive.
The day had brought an ending for Heather, but it hadn’t for him. He wanted her and Petra as far away from him as possible, given what he intended to do next. He drove to David’s apartment in Goražde. His friend was waiting on the doorstep when he arrived.
Simo walked straight past him, heading inside. ‘I need a favour.’
David gave a weary sigh. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re about to do something stupid – and rope me in on it?’
Simo made no answer, knowing that his friend would take that as confirmation of his suspicion. And he’d be correct.
David followed him into the apartment. ‘So, first we set terms. What do I get in return?’
‘What do you need?’
‘A new tourist licence for my helicopter. Last time my application was rejected.’
‘No shit. It’s not a helicopter, it’s a wheelbarrow with a rotor-blade.’
‘I take that personally. She’s a bird of beauty. I’ll give you a ride—’
Simo snorted. ‘No thanks.’
During the season David did steady trade, taking tourists on helicopter sunset tours of the beauty spots in Bosnia and Republika Srpska. His ‘bird of beauty’ was a Russian-made Mi-34 that he’d painted in black and red. It had been built in the nineties and, as far as Simo could tell, was now only held together by sticking plaster and rust. David was typically vague on how it had come into his possession, but Simo suspected from the patched-up bullet-holes on the doors that it had seen action during the war as part of the Bosnian Air Force.
‘I don’t understand how you have a licence for that thing at all.’
‘I have friends in high places,’ said David.
‘Not me.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Every time I see you, you’ve sunk a little lower.’
Simo sighed. ‘Fine. I’ll do what I can from my lowly position.’ He pulled out his phone and showed David the photo of Rubi Kurjak. ‘I need some background.’
‘You have a perfectly good database at the police station.’
‘Yes, with perfectly good police operators I can’t trust.’ Under normal circumstances, Simo would have circulated the photo of Rubi to the squad. Apart from anything else, it would significantly up his chances of tracking her down in the crowd tomorrow. However, he couldn’t trust his own people. If, as he suspected, Rubi was involved in this business with Drakulić, Simo couldn’t risk a cop with sympathies towards the criminal picking her up. He tapped a series of keys and sent the photo to David.
David had resources that would put any police department to shame. Since the war he’d cultivated contacts in all sorts of interesting places, many of them unavailable to law-abiding policemen like Simo. Over the years Simo had learned not to ask too many questions about these denizens of the dark spaces, but he knew that if anyone could dig up information on Rubi, it was David.
‘Okay, fine,’ he said, studying the photo that had now popped up in his messages. He looked up. ‘But you’re not here just to find out about this Rubi Kurjak, are you?’
His friend’s instincts were spot on. Simo mentally braced himself, knowing how David would react to his next words. ‘I’m going to see Drakulić.’
David spread his arms wide and embraced Simo, pretending to be moved. ‘And you’d like me to read your eulogy. I’m touched. Any particular choice for hymns? Funeral flowers, or just donations to your favourite charity, “Pig-headed Policemen with a Death-Wish”?’
‘Jeb’o ti pas mater! He’s the prime suspect in the murder of Ryan Mackinnon. I need to talk to him face-to-face, see how he reacts.’
‘By shooting you in the head. That’s how he will react, idiot. Or, perhaps, the stomach. He likes to watch people die. Maybe he’ll eat popcorn while you bleed out.’
‘The Mackinnon case is connected to the Drina killings. I’m certain of it. And until Rubi Kurjak shows up, Drakulić is my best shot at working out how.’ His plan wasn’t as risky as David painted it. ‘There’s a vigilante killer taking out war criminals and Drakulić is shitting himself that he’s next on the list. He’s desperate for me to break the case. I’m his best chance of survival. He’s not to going to harm me – he needs me.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ David mused, doubtfully. ‘And you’re so confident he’s not going to try anything that you don’t want me to come along for the ride and hide out nearby with a Remington 7600? Just in case.’
Simo grinned. ‘Well, you don’t get out much. So, it’s really charity, having you come along. But if you’re busy . . .’
David slapped him on the back with an enormous hand. ‘Govno jedno. Like I’d let you go without back-up.’
The meeting with Marina and her revelation about Ryan’s past had taken more out of Heather than she’d anticipated, and soon after she stumbled through Petra’s front door, she’d flopped out on the couch and fallen asleep.
A sense of heaviness remained with her on waking, coating her in a shroud of dust. She had pursued Ryan through her dreams, chasing him bloodied and barefoot through the woods in the snow, following the red footprints as she called for him, but he was always just out of sight, hidden beyond the huddle of blackened trees. She shouted for him in rage and grief. Yet he seemed oblivious to her torment. He was there, could see her but wouldn’t turn around, would not comfort her. When she woke, it was with relief and a fresh sense of resolve.
Ryan might not have cheated on her with Marina, but he had betrayed her. He had lied to her every day that they had been together. During their entire relationship, Heather had felt inferior. Before him she had been an athlete, a freak of nature, a mortal god, able to endure and achieve, but with him she was no one, a prematurely aged twenty-something stumbling with a walking frame, falling asleep halfway through a newspaper. Slowly she had put herself back together, piece by piece, and he had helped where he could, but how much easier it would have been if he could have confided his own frailty. The hurt hit Heather like a physical pain and she doubled over, a fierce ache deep in her belly. But in the twisting pain she understood, at last, that she had recovered in order to deserve him, this imperfect, flawed man who lied and lied and whom she loved. She would have loved him all the same. She still did.
‘There’s a flight leaving for Heathrow tomorrow, two p.m.’ Petra stood over her, finger poised over the airline booking website on her phone.
Heather ignored her. ‘The Silent Women protest tomorrow – is it a march? What happens?’
Petra lowered the phone. ‘They’re going to throw flowers off the bridge in Višegrad – red lilies – remembering all who were murdered.’
‘On the orders of Drakulić,’ said Heather, quietly.
‘Some of them. Yes.’
‘I want to throw a lily, for Ryan.’
Petra put a hand on her hip and cocked her head on one side, studying Heather critically. ‘No, you don’t. You want to find Rubi Kurjak and question her until she tells everything she knows about lying boyfriend.’
A familiar well of nausea rose from Heather’s belly to her throat and she raced to the toilet and vomited. Afterwards she sat in her underwear on the tile floor and splashed cold water from the bath over her face. She was never usually sick. Occasionally, during training or a race when she’d eaten too close to the start and pushed herself beyond endurance, or when she had a fever. Yet it occurred to her that during the last week or so she had frequently felt dizzy and nauseous. She’d assumed it was due to the absurd amount of stress and anxiety loaded upon her, so much that sometimes she felt she couldn’t even breathe. It had been stupid to come off her medication quite so suddenly. There was nothing she could do now; she’d flushed it all away. She felt sweaty with anxiety. Colours swirled. Automatically, her hands fluttered to her throat, and as they did so brushed her breasts, which she realised were incredibly sore. Heather sat upright on the bathroom floor, touched her breasts again and winced. That was not a side effect of withdrawal.
‘Think useless lying boyfriend has knocked you up.’
Petra stood watching her from the bathroom doorway. Stunned, Heather said nothing. Pregnant – was it possible? She tried to remember when her last period had been and found she could not. They had stopped altogether when she was competing, and even afterwards, when her cycle returned, they had been irregular. A nagging voice told her that her erratic menstrual cycle meant that she was sometimes lackadaisical with contraception.
Dizziness gripped her again. Petra stepped into the bathroom and caught her under the neck, gently laying her down on the floor. Heather felt the relief of the cold tile against her cheek; she had no idea whether she wanted to be pregnant or not. ‘Test,’ she managed to stutter. ‘I need a pregnancy test.’
‘No shit,’ said Petra, helping her to her feet.
Leaning on Petra for support, Heather walked to the living room and resumed her spot on the couch.
‘Store in Zikoč will be open,’ said Petra. ‘I be back soon. You be okay for ten minutes?’
