Chapter 13
I
Vjeko Batorac was out when Banks called in the afternoon, and a neighbor said he usually came home from work at about five-thirty. Ken Blackstone, who said Batorac was probably the most believable of Jelačić’s three card-playing cronies, had given Banks the address.
Grateful for the free time, Banks played truant; he went up to the university and spent a delightful hour listening to Vaughan Williams’s String Quartet No. 2.
And he was glad he did. As he watched and listened, all the stress and disappointment of the verdict, all his fears of having persecuted the wrong man in the first place, seemed to become as insubstantial as air, at least for a while.
As he watched Pamela Jeffreys play in the bright room, prisms of light all around, her glossy raven hair dancing, skin like burnished gold, the diamond stud in her right nostril flashing in the sun, he thought not for the first time that there was something intensely, spiritually erotic about a beautiful woman playing music.
It seemed, as he watched, that Pamela first projected her spirit and emotions into her instrument, the bow an extension of her arm, fingers and strings inseparable, then she became the music, flowing and soaring with its rhythms and melodies, dipping and swooping, eyes closed, oblivious to the world outside.
Or so it seemed. Though he had taken a few hesitant steps towards learning the piano, Banks couldn’t actually play an instrument, so he was willing to admit he might be romanticizing. Maybe she was thinking about her pay-check.
Erotic fantasies aside, it was all perfectly innocent. They had coffee and a chat afterwards, then Banks headed back to Batorac’s house.
Vjeko Batorac lived in a small pre-war terrace house in Sheepscar, near the junction of Roseville Road and Roundhay Road, less than a mile from Jelačić’s Burmantofts flat. There was no garden; the front door, which looked as if it had been freshly painted, opened directly onto the pavement. This time, a few minutes before six o’clock, Banks’s knock was answered by a slight, hollow-cheeked young man with fair hair, wearing oil-stained jeans and a clean white T-shirt.
“Molim?” said Batorac, frowning.
“Mr. Batorac?” Banks asked, showing his warrant card. “I wonder if I might have a word? Do you speak English?”
Batorac nodded, looking puzzled. “What is it about?”
“Ive Jelačić.”
Batorac rolled his eyes and opened the door wider. “You’d better come in.”
The living-room was sunny and clean, and just a hint of baby smells mingled with those of cabbage and garlic from the kitchen. What surprised Banks most of all was the bookcase that took up most of one wall, crammed with English classics and foreign titles he couldn’t read. Serbo-Croatian, he guessed. The “Six O’Clock News” was on Radio 4 in the background.
“That’s quite a library you’ve got.”
Batorac beamed. “Hvala lipo. Thank you very much. Yes, I love books. In my own country I was a school-teacher. I taught English, so I have studied your language for many years. I also write poetry.”
“What do you do here?”
Batorac smiled ironically. “I am a garage mechanic. Fortunately for me, in Croatia you had to be good at fixing your own car.” He shrugged. “It’s a good job. Not much pay, but my boss treats me well.”
A baby started crying. Batorac excused himself for a moment and went upstairs. Banks examined the titles in more detail as he waited: Dickens, Hardy, Keats, Austen, Balzac, Flaubert, Coleridge, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Milton, Kafka…Many he had read, but many were books he had promised himself to read and never got around to. The baby fell silent and Batorac came back.
“Sorry,” he said. “We have a friend takes care of little Jelena during the day, while we work. When she comes home she…how do you say this…she misses her mother and father?”
Banks smiled. “Yes, that’s right. She has missed you.”
“Has missed. Yes. Sometimes I get the tenses wrong. What is it you wanted to see me about? Sit down, please.”
Banks sat. This didn’t look or smell like the kind of house where one could smoke, especially with the baby around, so he resigned himself to refrain. It would no doubt do him good. “Remember,” he asked, “a few months ago when the local police asked you about an evening you said you played cards with Ive Jelačić?”
Batorac nodded. “Yes. It was true. Every Monday we play cards. Dragica, my wife, she is very indulgent. But on Mondays only.” He smiled. “Tuesday I do not have to go to work, so sometimes we talk and play until late.”
“And drink?”
“Yes. I do not drink much because I drive home. The streets are not safe at night. But I drink some, yes. A little.”
“And are you absolutely certain on that Monday, the sixth of November, you were playing cards with Stipe Pavic and Ive Jelačić at Mile Pavelic’s house?”
“Yes. I swear on the Bible. I do not lie, Inspector.”
“No offense. Please understand we have to be very thorough about these things. Was Jelačić there the whole time?”
“Yes.”
“He said that he walked to Mr. Pavelic’s house and back. Did he usually do that?”
“Yes. He only lives about five hundred meters away, over the waste ground.”
“I’m curious, Mr. Batorac-”
“Call me Vjeko, please.”
“Very well, Vjeko. I’m curious as to how the four of you got together. If you don’t mind my saying so, you and Ive Jelačić seem very different kinds of people.”
Vjeko smiled. “There are not many of my countrymen here in Leeds,” he said. “We have clubs and societies where we meet to get news from home and talk about politics. What you English call a very good grapevine. Ive knew Mile from the old country. They are both from Split. I met Stipe here, in Leeds. He is from Zagreb and I am from Dubrovnik, long way apart. Have you ever visited Dubrovnik, Chief Inspector?”
Banks shook his head,
“It is a very beautiful city. Very much history, ancient architecture. Many English tourists came before the war. You have missed much. Perhaps forever.”
“When did you come here?”
“In 1991, after the siege. I could not bear to see my home destroyed.” He tapped his chest. “I am a poet, not a soldier, Chief Inspector. And my health is not strong. I have only one lung.” Vjeko shrugged. “When Ive came from Eastvale, he came into contact with us. He told us his parents were both killed in the fighting. Many of us have lost friends and relatives in the war. I lost my sister two years ago. Raped and butchered by Serb soldiers. It gives us a common bond. The kind of bond that transcends-is that right? Yes?-that transcends personality. After that, we just started meeting to talk and play cards.” He smiled. “Not for money, you understand. My Dragica would not be so indulgent about that.”
Almost on cue, the front door opened, and a pretty, petite young woman with dark hair and sparkling eyes walked in. “What would your Dragica not be so indulgent about?” she asked with a smile, going over and kissing Vjeko affectionately before turning to glance curiously at Banks.
Vjeko told her who Banks was and why he was there. “I said you would not be indulgent if I played cards for money.”
Dragica thumped him playfully on the shoulder and perched on the arm of the sofa. “Sometimes,” she said, “I ask myself why you must stay up most of the night playing cards with those people instead of keeping your wife warm in bed and getting up when little Jelena cries. Ive Jelačić, particularly, is nothing but a useless pijanac.”
“Pijanac?” Banks repeated. “What is that?”
“Drunk,” said Vjeko. “Yes, Ive is…he does drink too much. He is not a pleasant man in many ways, Inspector. You must not judge my fellow countrymen by Ive’s example. And I do not put forward the tragedy in his life as an excuse for his behavior. He lies. He boasts. Most of all, he is greedy. He often suggests that we play cards for money, and I know he cheats. With women he is bad, too. Dragica cannot bear him near her.”
“That is true,” Dragica told Banks, shuddering at the thought and hugging her slight frame. “He undresses you with his eyes.”
Banks remembered Susan Gay’s reaction to Jelačić’s ogling and nodded.
“Please excuse me,” Dragica said. “I must attend to Jelena.” And she went upstairs.
“He is rude, too,” Vjeko went on. “Ill-mannered. And I have seen him behave violently in pubs, picking fights when he is drunk.” He laughed. “When I put it like that, I wonder why I do spend time with him. It is a mystery to me. But one thing I can tell you is that Ive wouldn’t kill a young girl that way. Never. Perhaps in a fight, in a pub, he could kill, but not like that, not someone weaker than himself. It is a joke with us that Ive always picks on people bigger than himself, and he usually comes off worst.”
“Do you know why Mr. Jelačić left Eastvale?” Banks asked.
“He told us that a svecenik, a man of God, made homosexual advances towards him.”
“You said he was a liar. Do you believe his story?”
Vjeko shook his head. “No. I do not think it is true. I have listened to him talk about it, and I think he did what he did to get revenge for losing his job.”
“If that’s so,” said Banks, “then he’s caused Daniel Charters an awful lot of grief.”
Vjeko spread his hands. “But what can anyone do? I did not know Ive back in Eastvale, when all this happened, and I do not know this Father Daniel Charters. Perhaps he is a good man; perhaps he is not. But I do think that Ive is tired with his revenge. He has had enough. The problem is that he is mixed up with lawyers and human-rights campaigners among our own people. It is not so easy for him to turn around and say to them it was all a lie, a mistake or a joke. He would lose face.”
“And face is important to him?”
“Yes.”
Dragica returned carrying a sleeping Jelena in her arms and said something in Croatian; Vjeko nodded, and she went into the kitchen.
“Dragica asked if dinner is nearly ready,” he said. “I told her yes.”
Banks stood up. “Then I won’t use up any more of your time. You’ve been very helpful.” He stuck out his hand.
“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” Vjeko asked. “It is not very much, just sarma. Cabbage rolls. But we would be happy if you would share with us.”
Banks paused at the door. It was almost six-thirty and he hadn’t had anything since lunch at Whitelock’s. He would have to eat sometime. “All right,” he said. “Thanks very much. Yes, I’d love to stay.”
II
Instead of continuing along Roundhay Road towards Wetherby and the A1, Banks cut back down Roseville Road and Regent Street, then headed for Burmantofts. He had dined well with the Batoracs, and conversation had ranged from books and teaching to the Balkan war and crime. After their goodbyes, it was a quarter to eight on a fine May evening, and dusk was slowly gathering when Banks pulled up near Jelačić’s flat. In the failing, honeyed light, the shabby concrete tower blocks looked as eerie as a landscape on Mars.
There were plenty of people around in the recreation areas between the buildings, mostly teenagers congregated in little knots here and there, some of them playing on swings and roundabouts.
Banks managed to climb the six flights of graffiti-scarred concrete without incident, apart from a little shortness of breath, and rapped on Jelačić’s door.
He could already hear the television blaring “Coronation Street” through the paper-thin walls, so when no-one answered the first time, he knocked even harder. Finally Jelačić answered the door, grubby shirt hanging out of his jeans, and scowled when he recognized Banks.
“You,” he said. “ upak. Why you come here? You already have killer.”
“Things change, Ive,” said Banks, gently shouldering his way inside. The place was as he remembered, tidy but overlaid with a patina of stale booze and cigarette smoke. Here he could light up with impunity. He turned down the sound on one of Jack and Vera Duckworth’s loud public arguments.
Jelačić didn’t complain. He picked up a glass of clear liquid-probably vodka, Banks guessed-from the table and flopped down on the settee. It creaked under his weight. Jelačić had put on quite a few pounds since they had last met, most of it on his gut. He looked about eight months pregnant.
“You’ll be glad to hear,” Banks said, “that your alibi still seems to hold water.”
Jelačić frowned. “Water? Hold water? What you mean?”
“I mean we believe you were playing cards at Mile Pavelič’s house at the time Deborah Harrison was killed.”
“I already tell you that. So why you come here?”
“To ask you some questions.”
Jelačić grunted.
“First of all, when exactly did you come here from Eastvale?”
“Was last year. September.”
“So the St. Mary’s girls would have been back at school for a while before you left?”
“Yes. Two weeks.”
Banks leaned forward and flicked his ash into an overflowing tin ashtray, which looked as if it had been stolen from a pub. “Now the last time we talked,” he said, “you swore blind you’d never seen Deborah Harrison, or at most that you might just have seen her once or twice, in passing.”
“Is true.”
“Now I’m asking you to rethink. I’m giving you another chance to tell the truth, Ive. There’s no blame attached to this now. You’re not a suspect. But you might be a witness.”
“I saw nothing.”
Banks nodded towards the TV set. “I don’t suppose you watch the news,” he said. “But for your information Owen Pierce was found not guilty and released earlier today.”
“He is free?” Jelačić stared open-mouthed, then began to laugh. “Then you failed. You let the guilty man go free. Always that happens here.” He shook his head. “Such a crazy country.”
“Yes, well at least we don’t shoot them first and ask questions later. But that’s beside the point. He may or may not have committed the crime, but officially he didn’t and we’re reopening the case. Which is why I’m here. Now why is trying to get the tiniest scrap of help from you like getting blood out of a stone, Ive? Can you tell me that?”
Jelačić shrugged. “I know nothing.”
“Don’t you care what happened to Deborah Harrison?”
“Deborah Harrison. Deborah Harrison. Silly little English rich girl. Why I care? More girls killed in my homeland. Who cares about them? My father and mother die. My girlfriend is killed. But to you that means nothing. Nobody cares.”
“‘Any man’s death diminishes me.’ John Donne wrote that. Have you never heard it, Ive? Have you never heard of the concept that we’re all in this together, all part of mankind?”
Jelačić just looked at Banks, incomprehension written on his features.
“Why don’t you answer my questions?” Banks went on. “You saw the girl, you’ve admitted as much. You must have seen her quite often when you were working outside.”
“I work inside and out. Clean church. Cut grass…”
“Right. So you liked to watch the St. Mary’s girls-we know you did-and you must have noticed Deborah. She was very striking and she complained about your making lewd gestures towards her.”
“I never-”
“Ive, spare me the bullshit, please. I’ve heard enough of it to last a lifetime. Nobody’s going to arrest you or deport you for this. Bloody hell, they might even give you a medal if you tell us anything that leads to the killer.”
Jelačić’s eyes lit up. “Medal? You mean there is reward?”
“It was a joke, Ive,” said Banks. “No, there isn’t a reward. We just expect you to do your duty like any other decent, law-abiding citizen.”
“I see nothing.”
“Did you ever notice anyone hanging around the graveyard looking suspicious?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see Deborah Harrison meet anyone in St. Mary’s churchyard?�
�
He shook his head.
“Did she ever linger around there, as if she was going to meet someone, or was up to something?”
Again, he shook his head, but not before Banks noticed something flicker behind his eyes, some memory, some sign of recognition.
“What is it?” Banks asked.
“What is what? Is nothing.”
“You remembered something?”
But it was gone. “No,” said Jelačić. “Like I say, I only see her when she walk home sometimes. She never stay, never meet anyone. That is all.”
He was lying about something, Banks was certain. But he was equally certain Jelačić was too stubborn to part with whatever he had remembered right now. Banks would have to find more leverage. Sometimes he wished he had the freedom and power of certain other police forces in certain other countries-the freedom and power to torture and beat the truth out of Jelačić, for example-but only sometimes.
There was no point going on. Banks said goodbye and opened the door to leave. Before he had got ten feet away from the flat, he heard the sound on Jelačić’s television shoot up loud again.
III
It was late that Wednesday evening when Owen finally got home. After he had picked up his belongings from the prison, he decided he didn’t want to spend even one or two hours of such a beautiful day-his first moments of freedom in over six months-trapped in a car with Gordon Wharton. So he begged off, walked into town and just wandered aimlessly for a while, savoring his liberty. Late in the afternoon, he went into a pub on Boar Lane and had a pint of bitter and a roast beef sandwich, which almost made him gag after months of prison food. Then he walked over to the bus station, and by a circuitous route and a surprising number of changes, he managed to get himself back to Eastvale.
When Owen finally put his key in the lock, the door swung open by itself. He stood in the silence for a moment but could hear nothing. That seemed wrong. He knew there should have been a familiar sound, even if he couldn’t, right now, remember what it was. His house had never been in such complete silence. No place ever is. And there was an odd smell. Dust he had expected, after so long away, perhaps mildew, too. He couldn’t expect Ivor or Siobhan next door to do his cleaning for him. But this was something else. He stayed by the door listening for a while, then went into the living-room.
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