Читать книгу Gemini - Mark Burnell - Страница 8

Summer drifted by, long, hot, empty. And, eventually, lovely. Once I’d learnt to relax. It wasn’t easy. The doubt persisted. Was I under review? That was the word they generally used instead of ‘suspicion’. If I found myself on the outside, what would that mean? There’d be no pension or gratitude, that was for sure. I told myself I was being paranoid. But that didn’t mean I was wrong.

However, as the weeks passed, that anxiety receded and I fell into a lazy routine. Late starts, a visit to the gym to maintain fitness, afternoons free, evenings and nights with Mark. For two months I was happy. It was carefree and uncomplicated. The days merged, the weeks lost their shape. I raced through half a dozen paperbacks a week. I went to the cinema in the afternoons. Or slept. Or lay on the grass in Kensington Gardens, listening to Garbage on my Walkman, the volume turned up. When Mark got back from his practice in Cadogan Gardens we’d have a drink on the roof terrace, or make love, or take a bath together. We went out, we had people over. We were a couple.

In late August we went to Malta for ten days. We stayed in a cheap hotel and did nothing, apart from a trip to Gozo and Comino. We sat in the sun and swam in the sea, we read, ate out, drank cheap red wine, went to bed early and got up late.

The day after our return to London I realized I’d missed my period. I didn’t tell Mark. I didn’t take the test, either. Not straight away. I wanted to sort out my head first. If it was positive, what would that mean? Alexander would assume I’d done it deliberately. But what would he do about it? The prospect of telling him had a lighter side – Does Magenta House have an active maternity leave policy? When I come back as a working mum, will the hours be flexible? – but the reality was more chilling. Most likely he’d prescribe an abortion and try to find some way to force me to accept it. Which I never would. That much I knew.

By the time I took the test I wanted it to be positive.

It was negative.

I decided not to tell anyone. What was there to say? Guess what – I’m not pregnant? Mark noticed a change. I said I was feeling down but it was nothing to worry about. Two days later I was with Karen. After a sweltering hour in John Lewis on Oxford Street, we were having a cup of coffee at a nearby café, sitting at a table on the pavement, just in the shade, shopping bags at our feet. We were having a good time when, out of the blue, Karen asked me if everything was all right.

‘I’m fine. Why?’

She looked at me, suddenly serious. ‘I don’t know. I just felt … something.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Forget it.’

Which was when it hit me. A pain in my chest that began to spread.

She seemed to sense it. She put her hand on my arm. ‘Stephanie?’

When I looked at her, she was blurred.

‘What is it?’

I told her. When I’d finished she hugged me, kissed me on both cheeks and wiped away the wetness from my eyes with her handkerchief.

‘I’m sorry.’

I tried to laugh it off. ‘Don’t be. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean….’

‘Stephanie.’

I sniffed loudly. ‘What?’

‘You’re not fooling me. Does Mark know?’

‘No.’

‘Are you going to tell him?’

I bit my lip. ‘Not yet.’

‘Later?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

The following week Magenta House called. Summer was over.

The subterranean conference room was deliciously cool. Dressed in a maroon T-shirt, black linen trousers and trainers, Stephanie felt goose-bumps on her arms. She sat at the most distant point of the oval table to Alexander.

‘Let’s talk about Lars Andersen. Remind me what he said to you.’

He opened the folder in front of him and began to scan printed pages. She wondered whether it was her debriefing transcript. Such transcripts had short lives. When Magenta House signed off on a contract, all trace of it was erased. That was the nature of the organization: to kill you, then once you were gone to deny you’d ever existed.

‘Any part in particular?’

‘The Russian conversation you had with Andersen and the man you later shot through the knee … what was his name?’

‘Jarni. I’m not sure there’s much I can add to what I’ve already said.’

‘This reference to Inter Milan, could you tell me something about that?’

‘Like what?’

‘The tone of the reference, maybe?’

‘It was just banter, I think. At least, it was until they found out I understood Russian. Even then the atmosphere was relaxed.’

‘Russian speakers but not Russian …’

‘My Russian was better than theirs.’

‘And you told them you hadn’t heard of Inter Milan.’

‘As I understand it, Inter Milan is an Italian football club. What does this have to do with Mostovoi?’

Alexander slid a selection of photographs down the table to Stephanie. There were a dozen, five in black-and-white, none of great quality. She flicked through and saw versions of a younger Lars Andersen: climbing out of a Mercedes with Dutch plates, wearing a leather jacket, faded jeans and trainers; exiting a glass office-block in a suit that was too tight; hunched over a plate in a crowded pizzeria, the photo taken through the window. In three shots his hair was collar-length, in the rest it was shorter. She stopped at the final photograph. He was standing in front of a dark forest in dirty camouflage combats, heavy boots caked in mud, webbing, with an AK-47 in his right hand. His scalp had been shaved more recently than his jaw; he was grinning through a week of stubble. The grain and crop of the image suggested it had once formed part of a larger picture. The irony was not lost on Stephanie.

Alexander said, ‘Ever heard of a man named Milan Savic?’

‘No.’

‘You’re looking at him. He was a Serb. During the Balkans conflict he was a paramilitary warlord. Before that he was a gangster, a black-marketeer in Belgrade.’

‘You said Savic “was” a Serb.’

‘Correct. He was shot dead by the Kosovo Liberation Army during an ambush outside Pristina on 13 February 1999. Three other members of his paramilitary unit were killed. The deaths were confirmed by two UNHCR representatives on a fact-finding mission to Kosovo. Before Kosovo, Savic and his paramilitaries were active in Croatia and Bosnia. Which means he was involved at the start and nearly made it to the end. That’s almost a decade. This photo was taken in woods not far from Banja Luka.’

‘How does Lars Andersen fit into this?’

‘Rumours have persisted suggesting Savic is still alive. We know that Lars Andersen is one of the aliases Savic is supposed to have used since 1999.’

‘And Inter Milan?’

‘It’s the nickname for the paramilitary unit he ran. The true title of Inter Milan – the Italian football club – is actually Internazionale. Savic’s paramilitary unit had an unusually high number of non-Serbs in it. He actively recruited foreigners – mercenaries, mostly – hence the name. Internationals became Inter Milan, Milan Savic’s private armed militia. They even took to wearing the club colours, black and blue.’

Stephanie re-examined the photograph from the woods. Wrapped around Savic’s throat and tucked into the top of his camouflage jacket was a black and blue football scarf.

‘Savic was a real bastard. Not that he was alone in that. There were plenty of others. Some of them have been indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague while others haven’t and never will be. Some died, some disappeared. At the time, Savic’s death was greeted with relief not only because of what he did but because of what he knew.’

‘Like what?’

‘In this matter, the International War Crimes Tribunal operates two types of indictment: the declared indictment, like those issued against Slobodan Milosevic or Radovan Karadzic, and the “sealed” or “secret” indictment, like the one used to bring General Momir Talic to justice. But there’s also a third list. Completely unofficial, it contains names of those war criminals who can never be permitted to see the inside of a courtroom. It’s not a long list, but Savic’s name is on it.’

Stephanie understood the nature of such lists. ‘I can see where this is heading. It sounds like a face-saving exercise.’

‘It doesn’t really matter what you think.’

He pressed a button on the console in front of him. The overhead lights dimmed and the wall-screen to her left flickered to life.

Alexander said, ‘Our arrangement has always been a hideous thing, I’m sure you’ll agree. Then again, we’re hideous people. Ever since New York, you and I have coexisted under the terms of an uneasy truce. As you know, the contract on Komarov was never rescinded. It was merely suspended. Consequently, we left our file on him open, amending it from time to time, when S3 came into possession of relevant material. Such as this …’

An unfamiliar black-and-white face formed on the wall: puffy cheeks, clipped hair, a neat goatee beard, rectangular glasses.

‘This is David Pearson. One of ours, Section 5, Support. In January, under S3 guidance, he went to Turkmenistan to make preparations for an Ether Division contract on Yuri Paskin, a Russian smuggler whose network is particularly strong through Central Asia. For the right fee Paskin will transport anything. Guns, drugs, prostitutes. Or Islamic terrorists. Out of Afghanistan, for instance. Which was what brought him to our attention and earned him a well-deserved contract. Based in Ashgabat, he runs a network that stretches in the east from Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to the western shore of the Caspian Sea. And from Iran and Afghanistan in the south, up through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan into Russia in the north. In the international scheme of things Paskin’s a nobody. Regionally he’s a giant. Which was why I took the decision to retire him discreetly, rather than the blunter approach.’

‘You mean, someone like me.’

‘Precisely. Anyway, Pearson went to Ashgabat. Paskin’s a heavy smoker and drinker – not to mention casual cocaine user – so we’d decided an induced heart attack would be best. Nobody who knew him would have been surprised. We had an Ether Division unit standing by in Baku, ready to cross the Caspian. But at the last minute Paskin was tipped off. He fled to Irkutsk, and Pearson was shot twice in the head in his room at the Hotel Oktyabrskaya. That crucial piece of information came from Komarov.’

Don’t say a word. Not now.

Alexander looked strangely weary, almost resigned. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Stephanie: in the past I’ve activated contracts for less, and I make no apology for it. My choices are based on hard, factual analysis. It can’t be any other way. Which is why Komarov should be dead. Twice, in fact. Once in New York, and once for Pearson.’

‘Killing him for Pearson would be revenge. That’s emotional.’

‘Not true. Revenge is an instrument. It sends a message: kill one of ours and we’ll kill one of yours. Take my word for it, as a policy it works.’

She opened her mouth to speak but he raised his hand to silence her. In the past she would have ignored such a gesture. But not now.

Alexander said, ‘I’m considering closing the file on Komarov.’

For a moment, she didn’t understand. Closing the file – it sounded terminal. But it wasn’t. On the contrary. Like a Caesar, Alexander was granting life. Gradually Stephanie realized what was happening. His tone made sense, the anecdote made sense: it was the carrot and the stick. And so far it had all been carrot.

She chose to probe a little. ‘If that’s true, there’s no reason for me to stay. Not under the terms of our agreement.’

‘I said “considering”. I didn’t say it was done.’

A succession of images filled the screen. Komarov was coming out of the Turkmenistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Magtumguly Prospekt. The date, 5 January, the time, 17:43. Next he was with a shorter man. They were only visible from the shoulders up, their bodies blocked by a black Mercedes. The caption read: Y. Paskin and K. Komarov outside Ak-Altyn Plaza Hotel, 7 January, 19:57. There were two more shots of Komarov in Ashgabat, one walking past the Azadi mosque, the other getting out of a dusty Toyota outside the Russian Embassy on Saparamurat Turkmenbashi Prospekt. The final image of the sequence saw both men either side of a stunning blonde in a sable coat. K. Komarov, L. Ivanova and Y. Paskin, leaving the Lancaster hotel, rue de Berri, Paris, 19 March, 17:08.

‘Technically you’re right, of course,’ Alexander was saying. ‘Without the threat to Komarov, what’s to keep you here?’

Mark filled her mind. ‘I’m sure you could find something.’

‘I’m sure I could. But I’m not inclined to. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m inclined to let you leave Magenta House.’

She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. ‘Leave?’

‘That’s right.’

There would be a condition. ‘But?’

‘But first, Savic’

‘That’s it? Then I walk?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the threat to Komarov is lifted?’

‘After Savic, yes.’

‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘I don’t want you to kill Savic. I want you to get close to him.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of this.’

From his folder he took a crumpled piece of paper and pushed it across the table. Stephanie had to get up to retrieve it. She sat back down and smoothed the creases with her palm.

The paper had been torn from a notebook. Some of the blue ink had run. There were two dark splashes on the top left-hand corner. It was a list. There were nine names before the rip, which severed the tenth. Six of the names appeared to be from the Balkans. The other three were French, English and German.

‘Recovered by Pearson three days before he died.’

‘What is it?’

‘Before his death in Kosovo, Savic was rumoured to be running an exit pipeline for war criminals. Four of the names on that list have International War Crimes Tribunal declared indictments against them, two have sealed indictments against them and the other two are on the third list. None of them have been seen since 1999.’

‘Savic spirited them away?’

‘It’s possible. One thing’s for certain: they’re not on this list by coincidence.’

‘What am I supposed to do?’

‘Locate Savic and find out if this so-called pipeline ever really existed.’

‘Savic is definitely alive, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘The Far East. We’re still collating. You’ll be fully briefed when we’re ready.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you have a way in.’

‘Marrakech?’

‘Correct. You were looking for Mostovoi. They know each other. You can make that work to your advantage.’

Stephanie shook her head. ‘This isn’t what I do. You know that. I’m S7, an in-and-out girl. This is something for S3.’

Section 3 was the intelligence section. Section 7 was Operations (Primary), one of two assassination sections. In total, Magenta House had ten sections, including Control, Archive, Resources, Support, Finance, Security (Internal), Security (External), Operations (Invisible).

‘S3 is fully stretched supporting the Ether Division. Besides, this will require an external presence.’

‘There must be somebody else.’

Still staring at her, Alexander said, ‘I’m not asking you.’

The carrot and the stick – it didn’t matter which Alexander used. In the end they came to the same thing. A choice with no alternatives.

I don’t bother picking the fight. In the past I would have. And Alexander would have expected me to. But we’re beyond that now. These days I know what I am and I don’t bother to deny it. I’ve accepted myself. I’m a professional woman of twenty-nine, trying to balance my work with my private life. On the Underground, in the supermarket, at home or in the office, most of my concerns are the same as everyone else’s. It’s only the nature of my work that marks me out.

Upstairs, on the ground floor, I run into Rosie Chaudhuri. I haven’t seen her since she came to Maclise Road after Marrakech. The fact that we’re friends is strange because we’re so different. She truly believes in Magenta House. She heads S10, Operations (Invisible), the newest section, which was established after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. S10 leaves no traces. Its victims die from natural causes, or accidents, or they simply vanish, ensuring they don’t become martyrs. Initially it only targeted Islamic extremists. Not a politically correct remit, to be sure, but then Magenta House has never been too concerned with political correctness. Now S10 targets anyone who merits their talents. Among Magenta House staff, S10 is always referred to as the Ether Division.

‘Hey, Steph. I didn’t know you were due in today.’

‘Nor did I.’

‘Something new?’

‘He wants me to chase a ghost.’

‘Savic?’

‘You knew?’

‘He mentioned it. I wasn’t sure how far he‘d take it.’

‘Apparently your lot are soaking up everyone in S3.’

‘You don’t sound thrilled.’

‘I feel like a three-star Michelin chef who’s been asked to scrub dishes.’

We take the lift to the top floor to Rosie’s new office with its view of the Adelphi Building. When I was first recruited Rosie was a member of the support staff with limited security clearance. It was her talent for analysis that won her promotion. With promotion came full clearance. I’ve never discovered Rosie’s flaw, but I know there is one. Somewhere, lurking in a file, she has a weakness that’s been documented. We all do. Magenta House insist upon it. Personally I have too many to count so it’s never bothered me the way it bothers others. Rosie has never mentioned hers to me. It is, perhaps, the only taboo subject between us.

In her early thirties, Rosie could be the picture of a successful modern woman. Before she started up S10 she spent a spell in S7 with me. That was when she lost weight and toned up. Like me, she was reincarnated.

She moves behind her kidney-shaped desk and settles into her Herman Miller chair. ‘What kind of tea would you like?’

‘Green, if you have it.’

She pushes a button on the phone base. ‘Adam, two teas, when you‘re ready. One green, one lemon and ginger.’

‘What do you know about Savic?’

‘Not much. He hasn’t strayed across my desk. But I’ve heard the rumours, naturally. There’ve been alleged sightings of him in Germany, Belgium and Holland. Some say he runs a chain of call-girls in Prague and Budapest.’

‘How original.’

‘Others say he’s gun-running down to Maputo. Or was it Harare?’

‘That sounds more like Mostovoi’s line of work.’

‘There have been reports of him in Pyongyang, Osaka and Shanghai.’

‘How long can it be before he’s spotted working with Elvis in a fish-and-chip shop in Scarborough? Anything concrete?’

‘Not until you landed Lars Andersen. By the way, I’m sorry about S3. I’ll get somebody to put some stuff together for you. Give me a couple of days.’

‘Thanks.’

‘How’s Mark?’

‘He’s well. We’re starting to plan a big climbing trip for next summer.’

‘Where?’

‘El Capitan.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘It’s in California. What about you? How was your date with that architect? You never said. Did he have any designs on you?’

Rosie winces. ‘Oh Steph, that’s really lame. Even for you.’

‘Couldn’t resist it.’

‘Put it this way. He made me go halves at dinner and then wanted to go the whole way afterwards.’

I laugh loudly. As gorgeous as she is, Rosie has little luck with men. I suspect it’s because she intimidates most of them. She wants to be dazzled and so assumes they do too. If she was more like me she’d understand that most men don’t want a competitor in a woman, or even an equal.

‘Are you taking precautions?’ she asks me.

‘God, you sound like my mother.’

‘You know what I mean.’

I tell her I am. The door opens and Adam, Rosie’s assistant, enters the room carrying two steaming mugs. He’s older than she is, in his mid-forties, perhaps. Stereotypically, it would be easy to imagine that he was Rosie’s boss. But then there’s nothing conventional here.

Rosie’s parents are first-generation immigrants. Both are doctors, both still practising; her mother is a GP, her father is a chest specialist. They live in north London and have three other children, all boys. Two work in the City, one shoots commercials. None of them have any idea what she does. Like me, she lies. Like me, she’s so good at it, it’s as natural to her as telling the truth. They believe she’s a security analyst at the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College, London. Elsewhere it might seem strange that a young second-generation Indian woman is heading an outfit like the Ether Division. But in our world it seems perfectly normal because we can be anybody we need to be at any given moment.

They drove south-west in Mark’s fifteen-year-old slate grey Saab, reaching the Saracen Arms, a fifteenth-century manor house with a twenty-first-century interior.

Saturday was hot and still. They climbed at Uphill Quarry, a Site of Special Scientific Interest on account of its rare flora. A westerly crag set beneath a village church and a graveyard, Uphill’s challenges were technical rather than strength-orientated. Mark climbed smoothly, but Stephanie felt heavy-limbed and was frustrated to be stumped by A Lesser Evil on the Great Yellow Wall. Mark completed The Jimi Hendrix Experience – the route had recently been bolted – and then both of them completed Graveyard Gate, the arête furthest to the right of the Pedestal Wall.

In the evening they soaked for an hour in the giant freestanding bath in their bathroom, then ordered room service. They ate looking out to sea, as the bloody sun set. They drank a bottle of Mercurey and Stephanie expected they would make love. Instead, somehow, they fell asleep without either of them noticing. When Stephanie awoke she was face down on the bed, cocooned in a white dressing-gown, Mark beside her, snoring and sunburnt.

Sunday was hotter but with a breeze. They drove to Brean Down, a limestone peninsula protruding into the Bristol Channel, not far from Uphill Quarry. Boulder Cove was a five-minute walk across the beach from the car park. They warmed up on Coral Sea and then proceeded up Achtung Torpedo, through the face’s black bulge, before moving on to Chulilla, Casino Royale and Root of Inequity. Stephanie climbed effortlessly, the clumsiness of Saturday falling away from her as lightly as sweat. Mark finished with Anti-Missile Missile, a girdle traverse.

From Brean Down they drove straight back to London, simultaneously spent and energized. They were sitting in a traffic jam on the M4, not far from Heathrow, when Stephanie said, ‘I might have a new job lined up.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘It might be longer term than usual.’

‘Longer than Uzbekistan?’

At three weeks, the journey from Ostend to Marrakech had been her longest contract since she’d started seeing Mark by more than a fortnight. Usually she was only away for two or three days. That made the deception a lot easier.

‘Could be. I don’t know yet.’

‘Where?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘You don’t sound very happy about it.’

‘Well, to be honest, I’m considering a change of career.’

He gave her a quick glance. ‘Really?’

‘After this job, yes. Maybe.’

‘How long have you been thinking about this?’

‘Not long. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it.’

‘What will you do instead?’

Stephanie smiled. ‘That’s the good part. I have no idea.’

Magenta House was two different buildings that had been merged laterally. The building that overlooked Victoria Embankment Gardens had been erected by a wealthy sugar trader who had insisted on a large cellar. When Stephanie had first come to Magenta House the cellar had still housed wines, brandies, damp and dirt. It had been a smaller organization, then. No less venal, but more personal, it had been Alexander’s private fiefdom. Now it was growing and Alexander was more of an anonymous corporate chairman, while the wines in the cellar had made way for an expanded intelligence section.

The staircase had been removed. Section 3 could only be accessed by a lift, which required security clearance on entry and exit. Rosie led her through the main cellar, which was now an open-plan department with state-of-the-art work stations for its permanent staff of five, and into a vaulted sub-cellar made of brick. The original wooden doors had been replaced by sliding glass.

Stephanie sat at a swivel chair in front of a keyboard and three flat screens. ‘Have you seen any of this material?’

‘Just the basics,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s not pretty. I’ll leave you to it.’

The door whispered shut and Stephanie was cocooned in soundproofed silence. She stroked the keyboard and the central screen came to life. She typed in her security code, MARKET-EAST-1-1-6-4-R-P, and the other two screens illuminated. The one on her right subdivided into thirty-six boxed images, the one to her left into sixteen boxes containing text headlines. She started with a general profile.

Milan Savic was an only child. His father, Borisav, left home when Milan was six. A year later his mother committed suicide. Thereafter he lived with his maternal grandparents in Belgrade. A teenage thug, then a black-marketeer, by 1989 Savic was well known to the police in the Yugoslav capital, not only for his criminal activity, but also for the generous bribes he paid to them.

After January 1989 there was a gap in the files. A two-year blackout. When it was over, early in 1991, Savic was running a paramilitary unit in Croatia. The file claimed that in conjunction with the SDB, the Serb secret police, Savic was instrumental in preparing Serb communities within Croatia for insurrection. These activities were coordinated by Colonel Ratko Mladic, commander of the Knin garrison. Despite this Savic remained under the direct control of Franko Simatovic, known to everyone as Frenki, and Radovan Stojicic, known as Badza, numbers two and three at the SDB.

Frenki and Badza – pronounced Badger – were familiar names to her. They’d both known Zeljko Raznatovic, also known as Arkan. As Petra, Stephanie had known Arkan too, if only for a moment. On 15 January 2000 both of them had been in the lobby of the Hotel Inter-Continental in Belgrade. So had Dragica Maric. But Stephanie had only discovered that later, inside the derelict Somerset Hotel on West 54th Street, New York. It had been raining, she remembered, the downpour drowning the sound of Manhattan’s traffic. That was when Dragica Maric had told her that she was there too, watching, as Arkan walked towards Petra Reuter, unaware.

Arkan had founded the Serbian Volunteer Guard, later known as the Tigers, just as Savic had founded Inter Milan, his Internationals, a group of outsiders, hungry for violence and money. Between Arkan and Savic existed Frenki and Badza, on behalf of the SDB.

At first Savic worked in areas of the Krajina, stirring the ghosts of the Second World War, resurrecting the spectre of the dreaded fascist Ustashas. Arkan was doing similar work, as well as making arrangements to arm the local Serb population. Once the Serb Autonomous Region – the SAR – had been set up in the Krajina, Savic’s unit was instrumental in purging it of non-Serbs. This formed a behavioural template that was to last for eight years. In Croatia and Bosnia, then Kosovo, villages were attacked, cattle slaughtered, crops burnt, houses looted, innocents brutalized, then murdered.

From the screen to her left she picked another title: Inter Milan. There were photographs and brief biographies. She scanned them.

Savic’s right-hand man within Inter Milan was Vojislav Brankovic. His name was one of the nine on the list that Alexander had shown her. A native of the Krajina, Brankovic came from the small town of Titova Korenica, not far from the beautiful Plitvica National Park in Croatia. The son of a baker, he’d done military service with the JNA, the Yugoslav National Army, before returning home. In early 1991, when Savic went to the Krajina, Brankovic was apparently contented, working in the family business, living with his parents, surrounded by friends from childhood. His girlfriend, Maria, was a beautiful Croat whose parents lived in a house four doors away. The file did not disclose how Brankovic had been recruited by Savic. It only documented those activities accredited to him.

Brankovic was known as the Spoon because he wore a JNA army-issue canteen spoon on a chain around his neck for good luck. There was a picture to prove it, Brankovic in a tight-fitting olive T-shirt, the battered teaspoon worn like a set of dog-tags. He had a broad, agricultural face, a fuzz of fair hair, pale skin and a physique that radiated power through scale rather than menace. Here was a chopper of trees, Stephanie felt, rather than a baker of bread. Along with Savic, Brankovic had been one of those allegedly killed by the KLA outside Pristina on 13 February 1999.

She looked at some of the internationals. Barry Ferguson, British, from Gateshead, ex-SAS, ex-husband to a battered wife, ex-father of three, ex-inmate of Durham Prison. Troy Carter from Maine – unlike Ferguson, he’d never made the grade as a professional soldier. He’d gone to the Balkans to prove himself. And had failed again. Within a fortnight a landmine had scattered him over his colleagues. Fabrice Blanc, a native of Marseille, had deserted the French Foreign Legion specifically to go to the Balkans.

‘I need to fight to live,’ he’d claimed.

It was a phrase with resonance among the Inter Milan hard core. How did mild-mannered Vojislav Brankovic, the baker’s son, become a vicious murderer? How did a boy with a beautiful Croat girlfriend end up stabbing other Croats in the face simply for being Croat? Stephanie knew part of the answer: in war, some men found themselves.

There was a picture of Harald Gross kicking a severed Bosniak head into a makeshift goal with spent shell cases for posts. In the background there were several blurred onlookers, their grins smudged. The rest of the mercenaries were European apart from a Canadian, two Australians and a South African. At any given moment the internationals accounted for between thirty and forty per cent of the Inter Milan force. Mercenaries they might have been, but one thing was clear: they were there for the fighting, not for the money.

On the screen to her right Stephanie touched a box with a woman’s face. She came to life, her expression as harrowed in motion as it had been frozen. A box of text in the right-hand corner informed Stephanie that the woman was from a small village close to Foca, in eastern Bosnia, a town that had been ethnically cleansed in 1992. Over her testimony, another woman translated into English.

‘They came in the morning. They beat up anybody who got in their way. One of them shot a farmer in front of his wife and children. When the wife attacked the gunman, another one intervened and cut her throat. The children were hysterical. Their mother was in a pool of blood in the dirt. Other men took the children away. The leader told us we were to be transported to Foca, where we would join the people of the town, and then we would all leave the district together. They said we had one hour to make our preparations. We went home. An hour later we gathered in the market square. I had a bag, packed with … I don’t know what … anything … I couldn’t think. My husband carried a sack with bread and clothes. Then there was a delay, a lot of confusion. They made us sit down in the square. It was very hot. We were there for some hours.’

Stephanie reckoned the woman was in her late forties. The interview was taking place in an institutional room: cream gloss walls, a smooth concrete floor with a single table at its centre. She was talking to another woman whose back was to camera. Stephanie paused the footage and checked the directory; the interview had been conducted in a Bologna police cell. When the action resumed, so did the clock in the bottom left-hand corner: 14.14 on 11 April 1997.

‘They asked me what I did. I said I was a teacher. The one with no teeth told me to show him where the school was. He said they would need a place to keep us for the night because we would not go to Foca until the next day. I got up from the ground to take him to the school. That was the last time I saw my husband alive. Four other men came with us. It was a small building with one large classroom and two small utility rooms. The man with no teeth told me to take off my clothes. I refused and one of the others hit me across the cheek with the butt of his rifle. Then they stripped me and raped me.’

The other woman asked a question that Stephanie couldn’t hear. The first woman shook her head defiantly and continued, her voice a sobering monotone.

‘No, it was all of them. The man with no teeth went first. When he was finished, the others followed. I tried not to make a sound because I knew they would hear me outside. Later some of the men went out, then others came in. Sometimes it was one of them, sometimes two or three. They brought in other women. Some of the women were older than me, some were just girls.

‘They brought in the doctor’s wife late in the afternoon. After four or five men had raped her, they brought in her husband. They made him watch as more men raped her. Then they slit his throat in front of her. Like me, she survived the massacre the next day. I know that because she made it to Athens where she had some family. But she’s dead now. She killed herself.

‘During the night they were drinking. We heard screams and shouts in the square. We didn’t know what they were doing until the morning when we saw the bodies. They’d knifed some of the old men and hung some of the boys. One of them was six. By the end I don’t think I felt a thing. I don’t know how many of them raped me, or how many times. It doesn’t matter.

‘When they left they shot some of those who were still in the square. But not all of them. It was the same in the school-house. They murdered a few and let the rest live. To tell others what had happened, to spread the fear. I can’t forgive any of them for anything. But in particular, I can’t forgive them for not shooting me. For letting me live. I don’t care what any of the other survivors say, that was the worst thing they did to me. I think about suicide every day, but I can’t do it. It’s a sin. I want to die, though. As soon as possible so I won’t have to remember.’

She was staring, unblinking. Not at the woman opposite her, but at the camera. At Stephanie.

Another box on the right-hand screen, another face, this one a man’s, an Albanian from Kosovo. The interview was recorded in a community centre in Hamburg on 13 June 2001. There were other immigrants in the frame. The man spoke slow, clear English.

‘They kicked us out of our houses, robbed us, then beat us up. They separated the men of fighting age from the rest and told us they would be taken to a secure camp. They said they would be well treated, but we didn’t believe them. We already knew they were butchers. There was panic, women clinging to their husbands. The terrorists – that is what they were, not soldiers – beat the women back. But there was no controlling them. There was one woman, she was on her knees clinging to her husband’s legs with one arm and her little boy with the other. The leader of the terrorists, a big man with a shaved head, tried to pull her off her husband. I could see how angry this monster was. His eyes were dead. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled but she would not let go. Instead she spat at him. And so he shot her husband. Just like that. As though he was taking the top off a bottle.

‘Before the woman had time to react, he grabbed the little boy, his face splattered with his father’s blood. The savage held him tight, put a gun to his head and threatened to shoot unless there was order. Nobody said anything. Nobody protested any more. The men who had been singled out got on the bus and were driven away. Those of us who were left – the sick, the old, the women and children – we watched, some crying, some too terrified to cry.

‘The man said we had to pay for the trouble we had caused. Fifteen thousand deutschmarks for the boy. I was one of those detailed to collect the cash. He gave us half an hour to find the money. What could we do? They had already robbed us. But they knew we would find cash that was hidden. We went from house to house, collecting what we could. When we returned we had just over ten thousand deutschmarks, much more than I expected. I was the one who handed the money to him. He counted it and said, “Ten thousand is not enough. I said fifteen.” Somebody else said there was no more, that it was all we had. He shrugged and said, “Okay. I’m a fair man. A deal is a deal. You give me two thirds of the money, I give you two thirds of the boy.” He decapitated the child in front of us. When they left they took their third away – the head – and left his little body on the ground next to his father.’

The windows are open. I can hear the distant murmur of traffic on the Gloucester Road, a phone ringing, the dull drum-roll of a helicopter passing overhead. Mark looms over me, enters me and kisses me. I can taste myself on his tongue.

Already flushed, I break into a sweat, our skins soon slippery, the sheets beneath us crushed and damp. I push my fingers through his dark hair and they come away wet. At first I’m content to let his weight pin me to the bed; I snake my arms around his neck and pull him down onto me. Later we roll over and I’m in charge, swiping away his hands from my hips so that I decide how hard we go, how deep, how fast. Which is when I seize up. Suddenly I’m no longer in his bedroom and I have no idea how it’s happened.

I try to escape his grasp but he doesn’t get it. He hardens his grip so I grab the fingers of his right hand and twist violently. I lurch forward and we separate. Still clutching his fingers with a force that amazes both of us, I wrench again, clamping my other hand over his, straining the tendons in his wrist.

‘Jesus … Stephanie …’

He rolls with the pain. He has to, otherwise the wrist would snap. I know that for certain. It’s a move I’ve used often. I let go just in time, but he’s hurt. And in shock. For a second or two neither of us does or says anything. Then I stumble off the bed and scramble to the bathroom, where I lock the door.

I’m trembling but I’m not sure whether it’s anger, sorrow or surprise. I lash out at the shelf above the basin, scattering two plastic mugs, a can of shaving foam and a half-used bottle of Listerine.

I don’t know what to think. Or what I can say to him. Because whatever I do, I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t share my day’s work with him. I can’t say what I’ve learnt after ten hours, or excuse my behaviour by telling him that all I could see was a Bosnian school-teacher being gang-raped by a Serb paramilitary unit. Or a little boy lying in the dirt next to his father, his head severed.

There’s a knock on the door. My breathing is slowing but my skin still gleams with sweat. He murmurs my name. I stare into my reflected eyes – my most potent weapon – and take control again.

Then I turn round and open the door.

Mark had pulled on a pair of cotton trousers. Stephanie was still naked. Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘Do you want me to go?’

‘I want you to talk.’

‘It would be easier to go.’

‘I’m sure it would.’

He offered her an old shirt of his. She pulled it around her damp body. When she said she was sorry, she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. He asked if she needed a drink. She did but she declined. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him.

‘You know that feeling, when you’re almost asleep but not quite? And you’re not actually sure whether you’re awake or not. And then you picture yourself tripping or falling, and even though it’s your imagination your whole body lurches … that’s what it was like.’

‘I know the feeling. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

Mark said it was okay. When it clearly wasn’t. Or, at least, shouldn’t have been. He should have asked questions. Or shouted. Something. Anything. But he didn’t because he didn’t have to. He understood without the details.

From the very start there had been a condition, laid down in her bed in the hotel in the Dolomites. Don’t imagine you’ll ever get too close to me, Mark. No matter what happens to us, there are whole areas of my life that I will never be able to share with anyone. He’d said he didn’t care.

Now, despite what she’d said, he had got close. Far closer than she could have anticipated. But not to her past. The condition remained intact.

He opened a bottle of wine to soothe the tension. Later, he cooked for them and they relaxed a little, a second bottle helping.

They went to bed just before midnight. With the curtains open, a street-lamp washed the ceiling dirty orange. They lay tangled together, her head on his chest, his fingers in her hair.

He said, ‘You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met.’

‘I’m not half as strange as you.’

‘I don’t think I’m strange.’

She looked up at him. ‘Do you really think I am?’

‘One moment you’re one person, the next moment you’re somebody completely different. That seems to me to be strange. Then again, it is who you are.’

‘Trust me, Mark. You have no idea.’