The bone road, p.7
The Bone Road, page 7
After he’d said goodbye, Simo went back to the station and pulled out another much thicker file, fanning the contents across his desk. Several dozen older pictures of the missing, pictures of people he’d promised to find. People the state would prefer remained lost forever. They stared at him and he felt their reproach. He wanted to reach for a drink, but didn’t. It would anaesthetise the anguish, the self-recrimination, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to feel it all. It was a fraction of the agony that their families felt, and he deserved to feel it until he’d found them. Every last one.
6
Heather woke up early. She hadn’t meant to close her eyes, but sleep had pulled her under. A grey dawn poked nicotine fingers in beneath the curtains, staining the windowsill with yellowish light. She reached out automatically for Ryan. The bed was cold. Empty.
And she remembered. For a brief, honeyed moment between sleep and waking, she’d allowed herself to forget. She sat up with a start and felt her shoulder crack. There was a stiffness in her muscles and joints that she hadn’t felt for years and a bright ache throbbed above her eye, whether the result of the local brandy or the altitude of yesterday’s ride, she wasn’t sure. Anxiety lay on her skin like cooling sweat, and the damaged nerves in her neck hurt.
She fumbled for the bottle of pills, took one, and then thought sod it and took two, swallowing them without water. Ryan wasn’t here to quiz her, after all. She reached out for her phone. Nothing. She tried Ryan one more time. It went straight to answerphone. Either he had turned it off or run out of battery. She left yet another message.
She checked the time. Not yet seven. She couldn’t go to the police until one. In a couple of hours she ought to start calling some of his friends and colleagues back in England, on the off-chance one of them had heard from him. There was no point ringing his family. He hardly ever spoke to them. His father was dead (a mutual grief they had bonded over in the early days) and his mother lived in sheltered accommodation in California, disabled after a stroke.
After some time making several fruitless calls to England, Heather left her room. Half an hour later she sat in a cab, peering out at the sharp cliff edge. It was uncannily beautiful. Tightly wooded pines and wild streams edged with the ghostly trunks of silver birch. The car bounced along the steep mountain road. She’d asked the driver to take the same route she and Ryan had taken yesterday, but the rain had turned the road into a muddy paste. The car skidded and the driver cursed loudly. They passed the treeline and she gazed out of the window down towards the barren moonscape, the weird craters covered in wavering brown grass. She longed for a glimpse of a bike, a flash of a yellow helmet stripe. There was nothing, only the misshapen boulders strewn at the side of the road and the spiky grey grass. They reached the peak and she yelled at the driver to stop and wait. She climbed out of the cab and stood in the battering rain. The cloud hovered low and thick as woodsmoke, burying the valley below.
‘Ryan!’ she yelled into the void. ‘Ryan!’ And then, in a whisper, ‘Where are you?’
There was only the furious pounding of the rain beating against her anorak, mingling with the sound of her own heart. The rain washed her face clean. She clambered back in the cab and slammed the door, realising she was now sitting in a puddle.
The taxi began the descent. Swathes of cloud engulfing them at every turn, the driver hurtled down at speed, rushing round each bend until Heather felt sick and had to wind down the window. She called for him to slow down, but he pretended not to understand. They reached the treeline again. The rain swayed the pines and bedraggled mountain sheep with crusted tails surveyed them miserably from under a haunch of rock. The trees were so close together that the light between them had a greenish cast, and for the first time Heather noticed narrow tracks veering off into the thick of the forest. She pointed to a track.
‘What is that?’
‘Army tracks in war. Bosniak soldiers hide here. Now for hunting. Good boar. You like?’
He made the motion of firing a rifle, taking both hands off the steering wheel, and then had to put them back as the car hit a large pothole and swerved. Heather scrutinised the too green primordial wood, unsure if she expected to see the faces of Bosniak soldiers, half-feral and full of fury, or the curling tusks of a great wild boar. Or Ryan . . . tempted down one of the untravelled paths, lured into the woods and lost.
They arrived in Višegrad a little after eleven. The town lay in the fertile valley between two hills, nestling in the fold. The wide Drina river rushed along the base of the valley and through the middle of the town, the waters a startling turquoise even on a dull day. A huge stone bridge spanned the river, its massive arches lidded, watching eyes. The rain had stopped, but the clouds hung low, warning of more to come. The cab deposited Heather in the main square, the driver gesturing vaguely in the direction of the police station.
Everything in the town appeared at once old and new. The style was nineteenth century, but there was something about it that made her think of a sinister theme park. A large brass statue, at once broadly smiling and malevolent, beamed down at her. Cafés with primary-coloured awnings and timber-fronted shops faced the square. It was absolutely empty, bereft of shoppers. If it was a theme park, it was one after all the visitors had gone home. Something about it gave her the creeps. Instead of ancient cobbles, the square had been paved with slick marble slabs, shining wetly with rain. They looked better suited to a hotel bathroom than a town square.
She hurried through the deserted square, arriving with relief in a busier part of town. The street had a grocers and a pharmacy and a few pedestrians, umbrellas thrust out, barricading them against the drizzle that was starting up again. At least this part of the town looked lived in – ordinary red-roofed houses mixed in with the ubiquitous ones hurriedly rebuilt in concrete block. Yet there remained an odd atmosphere about the place. It was too big for the number of people, like a shrunken man buckled into a pair of vast trousers. The town hall was large and ornate; even the churches were decorated and grand. They whispered of a more illustrious, peopled past. Heather looked around for the minarets of the mosque with their bright Ottoman blue and splash of cheerful gold.
She took several wrong turns and was soaked by the time she arrived at the police station. The station itself was relatively quiet. A drunk dozed on a bench, a bored sergeant stood behind a desk. He grunted as he saw Heather. There was no one else waiting as far as she could tell, but he made her stand for another ten minutes before summoning her.
‘I want to report a missing person,’ she said.
The sergeant turned around and called out, ‘Inspektor!’ An older man appeared a minute or two later. Heather recognised him as the policeman who’d given the statement after the drugs bust at the race. He looked at Heather and gave a short nod.
‘Inspektor Simo Subotić,’ he said in crisp, barely accented English. ‘May I help?’
‘My boyfriend is missing, Inspektor Subotić.’
‘Please, call me Simo.’
She realised she’d been handed over to the Inspektor because he was the only one who could speak English. She hoped his talents extended beyond languages.
‘This way, please. Follow me.’
There were three policemen on duty, and they surveyed Heather with lazy curiosity as she passed. One sat with his feet up on his desk. Simo hesitated, saying nothing, and the feet were hastily removed with what Heather guessed to be an apology. He held open the door to a cramped office crowded with files and papers and gestured for her to sit.
‘When did he disappear?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Tell me what happened, from the beginning.’
He listened patiently, without interrupting, as she described the events leading up to the disappearance. He made a few scribbled notes, turning to them once she had finished.
‘Why do you think something bad has happened to Ryan?’ he asked. ‘And that he hasn’t, I’m sorry to say . . . ?’
‘Left me?’
Simo shrugged. ‘Possibly. Or, you say he is a journalist. I’ve known in my life quite a few journalists, British and American. They can all drink. Did Ryan drink?’
‘Absolutely not. Never.’
‘Ah, okay. So he was an alcoholic.’
‘Yes,’ said Heather with some reluctance. She looked at Simo, grey-haired with a neat, triangular beard and shrewd black eyes like wet stones. She wondered why he was stuck here and not in the capital. It appeared to her, even after only a few minutes, that he was somewhat over-qualified for this uncanny little town.
‘And when was Ryan’s last . . .’ the policeman paused, swirling his hand in the air as he reached for the word, ‘his last relapse?’
Heather swallowed, met his eye. ‘A long time ago. Before he met me.’
Simo smiled. ‘I am not sure you’re being absolutely honest with me. I want to help you find Ryan, and I can only use what you tell me. But okay, Ryan has not had a drink for a long time. It’s not possible that he met with this attractive lady and had a few too many plum brandies – we like that here – and did something he regretted? Then, feeling guilty, decided to go off for a while?’ he pressed, not unkindly.
Heather shook her head. ‘No. It’s just not him.’
Simo sighed. ‘It’s boring, it’s sad, but I’m sorry to say it’s what men do. Even to those we love.’
‘No,’ said Heather, vehement. ‘I know him, he wouldn’t. I was injured. He stood by me.’
‘Okay,’ Simo said, letting the topic go.
He took out a map and asked Heather to mark exactly where he had disappeared. She drew a circle.
‘I think it’s about here. I was aware that I hadn’t seen him for a while – really since the descent from the peak. I can’t be exactly sure.’
‘Of course.’
‘And there was a truck. I saw it at the top. But it never reached me. That’s odd. Don’t you think that’s odd?’ she said, hearing the note of desperation.
‘Did you see a number plate?’
‘It was too far away.’
‘What kind of truck?’
‘White. I think. No. A van.’
‘So, it was a truck or a van? Maybe white.’
‘I didn’t know it was important at the time,’ snapped Heather.
‘No, of course not. How could you?’
Simo poured her a glass of water, and Heather drank gratefully. She glanced at his desk and took in the framed photograph on his desk, of a woman and two young women, his daughters presumably.
‘Where are you staying?’ asked Simo.
‘Zikoč.’
‘An ugly town on a beautiful mountain,’ he said. ‘An unusual spot for a romantic trip.’ Simo was silent for a moment, considering. ‘What sort of journalist is Ryan? Political?’
‘No. Cycling.’
‘Okay. And you say he was following the Tour de Balkans for the last few weeks?’
‘Yes,’ said Heather, growing impatient.
‘We had a problem with this year’s tour. One of the teams was targeted by a drugs gang and used to bring cocaine into the country.’
‘I know. We were there. We watched the arrests.’
‘You did?’ He looked at her sharply.
Heather prickled. ‘Yes. Ryan was really torn up about it all.’
‘Okay. Then the next day he goes missing.’
‘There is no connection,’ Heather insisted.
‘You seem very sure.’
‘I know Ryan.’
‘And I don’t. So tell me a little more about him. He speaks good Serbian. When did he learn?’
‘He was here during the war, from nineteen ninety-two. With the U.N.’
‘From nineteen ninety-two?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re quite sure?’
‘Yeah. He was here for a few years. He doesn’t like to talk about it. I know he saw some really awful stuff.’
‘That’s this place. Terrible and beautiful. Some of our loveliest sites hide our ugliest secrets. You saw our town bridge?’
Heather nodded.
‘During the war, every evening at sunset they lined up Bosniaks and shot them off the Sokolović bridge right here in Višegrad. No one knows how many. Maybe one thousand. Maybe three thousand. Men. Women. Little children.’
She felt the colour drain from her face.
‘It stopped only because the corpses blocked the hydroelectric dam down river. But it is a very beautiful bridge. A World Heritage Site. You should see Lake Perućac in June. At first light. Ah, that is something. The water here is very mineral. So blue . . . like the Madonna’s robes. Of course, she hides so many bodies. They’ve found about four hundred so far, but I still have eight hundred missing person cases just from this town.’
Simo’s voice was even, as though he was reciting from a tourist brochure, but he watched her steadily with his black eyes.
Heather met his gaze. ‘Are you telling me that you won’t look for Ryan? That you have too many old cases?’
He shook his head. ‘To me they are not old. And no, of course not. Everyone matters. Of course I’ll look. But some of these bodies we found in the lake, they were from the Second World War. On top of them were new ones. The people here knew for more than fifty years the good places to hide a body, and how to keep it a secret. These are not people who talk.’ He sighed. ‘Your Ryan, he is probably gone off for a few days and he will come back, a little embarrassed but nothing worse.’
Heather bit her fingernail. ‘You tell me that nothing has happened and I shouldn’t worry, and then you tell me how people round here know how to hide a dead body for fifty years.’
Simo had the grace to look sheepish. ‘Yes. I am not very used to tourists. Perhaps I should take the refresher course. It has been suggested.’ He was silent for a moment, thinking. ‘Ryan is an American?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he was here as a U.N. soldier during the war?’
‘Yes,’ said Heather, annoyed, sitting back down. She couldn’t see what this had to do with anything.
‘I don’t know of any who learned to speak Serbian. Not more than a few words.’
Heather said nothing, wondering if Simo was trying to trip her up.
‘I know these things as I was a translator for one of the American regiments,’ said Simo. ‘I knew some of them quite well. They liked to learn a few words. It was a good game. But mostly they liked to learn dirty words, or how to order beer. That’s all.’
He studied Heather, but she was careful to make no reply.
‘Or perhaps the waitress did not hear so well, and his Serbian was not fluent, after all. But I don’t think so. I remember him, I think. My friend David said something to me at the press conference and your Ryan overheard, and he asked a question about it. His Serbian is excellent.’
Heather looked at him in surprise that the policeman had remembered such a detail, as well as Ryan himself.
Simo smiled. ‘So, your Ryan speaks Serbian. It is interesting, at the moment, nothing more.’
‘Okay,’ said Heather, tight with worry.
‘And perhaps the waitress did not see what she thought, and he did not kiss this lady. I know nothing. After all, I don’t know him at all.’
Heather remained silent. They both heard the other question, even though it remained unspoken: how well did she know Ryan?
Unable to find a taxi willing to take her on the long drive back to Zikoč for some time, she stayed in Višegrad for the rest of the afternoon, roaming the empty square and keeping away from the bridge. Somehow its beauty made it worse – the perfect symmetry of the stonework stretching between the sculpted green foothills, the elegance of the archways reflected into smooth circles in the aquamarine water. Every time she caught a glimpse of it, she saw the ghosts of the unnumbered dead.
It was dusk by the time Heather returned to Zikoč. Ryan had been gone for more than twenty-four hours. He was officially missing. She suspected Simo would file the report, although she couldn’t imagine him pursuing the case with any diligence. Everyone had made their opinion quite clear. There was no evidence of any crime, and this was a country accustomed to the very worst crimes of humanity, so they knew how to recognise the signs. A missing cyclist. No sign of a struggle. No shell casing. No blood. No weapon. It was nothing at all.
She was exhausted by the time she reached the hotel. It really was an ugly town on a beautiful mountain. Though by now the charm of the mountain was wearing thin. The trees were too thick and oppressive. The earlier rain had brought a slide of mud onto the road, thick and visceral. A squat buzzard eyed her from a blasted pine.
She went straight to her room and rifled through her bag. Soon she’d have to find somewhere to do some laundry. She caught herself with a ripple of self-loathing. How could she think about that when Ryan was gone? She wouldn’t let everyone else’s slow drip-drip of whispers make her doubt him. Not one of them knew him. Even Simo was full of insinuations and he’d never spoken to him.
She hurried into the squalid bathroom and washed her face in the sink, scrubbing at her skin again and again. If she could only get it properly clean, scrape all the dirt and filth from her skin then everything would be all right again. She stood there for some time, the taps running at full pelt. The water was warm, trickling all over her hands but when she looked down at them, she realised that they were bleeding and cut. She rinsed off the blood and saw that the knuckles on her right hand were seeping. She glanced up and saw that the mirror above the sink was smashed. Her reflection was shattered. She stared back at a broken version of herself, splintered into a myriad of tiny pieces. She stared down again at her bleeding hand. She must have punched the mirror but had no recollection of the apparent act of violence. A small cry of horror escaped her lips. She sat on the floor of the bathroom and began to whimper with fear and confusion. What had she done?
It took her several moments to realise her phone was ringing.
She raced back to the bedroom and grabbed it.
‘Miss Bishop? Inspektor Simo Subotić.’
Adrenaline coursed through her veins like heat. ‘Have you found him?’
