The Dealer and the Dead

by Gerald Seymour

  The yell was an order. ‘Stop! Stop right there.’

  He did. He heard the thud of heavy shoes behind him and began to turn. The man had shouted at him in English, with only a light accent, as if he was educated. A big man, overweight, with a pallid face. Far behind him there was a car, with a door open, and now he could hear the quiet throb of the engine. The man carried a plastic bag.

  Robbie said emptily – as if he needed to justify himself, ‘I was going for water.’

  The man came close to him. ‘Do you like to gamble?’

  ‘What the fuck’s that got to do with anything? I don’t gamble. You left me without food or water.’

  ‘It would have been a gamble to go for water, high odds. If it’s roulette, the gamble begins when the wheel spins – and when you take a first step off the field into the undergrowth … Do you not have landmines, anti-personnel mines, where you come from?’

  He understood he was laughed at. He bit his lip and hung his head. The man squatted and said his name, then opened the plastic bag, took out a Thermos, a beaker, sandwiches made with thick bread, and an apple. He gestured to Robbie that they were for him.

  He wolfed the sandwiches, ham, salad and tomato, gulped the hot sweetened coffee, and was told why he had been about to gamble.

  ‘This corner of the field was mined. The Cetniks would have put down the mines after they’d killed four of our people and buried them here. The four were those who waited for the missiles Gillot had taken money and valuables for – that is why you were paid to kill Gillot. He took the money and did not deliver. Only very recently did this small village receive enough priority for a mine-clearance man to make this part of a field safe. It was done, we have the certificate, and the farmer – Petar – ploughed it for the first time in nineteen years. The bodies were found. Where you are now is clean.’

  ‘If I had gone down to the water …’ He spoke through a mouthful and crumbs dropped from his lips.

  ‘You would have gambled. The priority for the clearance was the field, not the banks. Perhaps there are mines there, perhaps not.’

  He had trusted the fox. It would have led him down the bank and gone light-footed to the pool where the water – from where Robbie had seen it – seemed fresh and without pollution. The fox would have killed him and he had given it his friendship …

  He was told that his target would be driven along the Cornfield Road to this place, would be herded here. The man spoke of the hunters going after wild boar and how they beat the beasts into the path of the guns. There would be no police in the fields or the village. He was told that here, by the cross, he would earn the money already paid to him.

  ‘And what happens if …’

  ‘You fail? If you fail? I believe you to be an intelligent man so you know very well what will happen if you fail. Don’t fail.’

  He said he would be there and ready. The man walked away from him. Where else would he be? If the fox came back, Robbie would kill it: it would have led him down a riverbank where there were mines. When the target came, he would shoot him. He stamped his feet on the earth, made dust puffs and slapped his arms on his chest to get warmth into his body. He would shoot him, then start to live again.

  He had run away before and could again. He turned once, near to his car, and saw that the man paid to kill had taken the firing posture and would not have realised he was watched. Josip no longer wanted to be a part of it. Before coming to the field, he had moved his car to the side of his house. The back door into the kitchen was not overlooked, and he had stripped his home of all that was important to him, had loaded the boot and the back seat, and his dog was in the front. He assumed that the corpse of Cairns would go into the same pit as would be dug for Harvey Gillot, and that the secret of that grave would remain inside the village. All those years before he had run from the fight, and could run again.

  In the car, he ruffled the dog’s neck, eased the ignition key, bumped along the track that led to the metalled road and turned away from the village. He thought it a place of death, condemned, and wanted no part in its future. The dawn was coming quickly and it would be a fine day, warm.

  There were defining days in Mark Roscoe’s life. Some he had recognised as the dawn had advanced, others had been flung without warning into his lap – not many – and they had shaped him. On the most recent – twice – he had been a voyeur, like a pavement gawper. A stake-out in west London, in Chiswick: the firearms had been in place and the bad guys on the pavement, about to go into the building society, but one must have had a decent enough ‘villain’s nose’ to sense the trap about to be sprung. He had grabbed a woman, held a handgun to her head and backed all the way to the van. She – and he – would have been in the marksmen’s telescopic sights so they hadn’t fired. The woman had been thrown aside as the gang had piled into the van and disappeared round a street corner in a scream of tyres. All had been taken into custody three hours later. A defining moment? When not to shoot, when to be patient, when to wait for a better opportunity. Another such moment was outside a high-street bank in a nothing little town in the northern suburbs of Southampton. Roscoe had been with the gun team in the public lavatories when the gang had hit. A cash-delivery guard was looking down the barrel of a handgun, and the team had thought it right to fire, had done so, had taken the life of a serial robber, Nunes, killing him outright, with an accomplice. A defining moment? When it was right to shoot, and extinguish a life at ruthless speed.

  Big moments … but as big had been the session in the police-station interview room when he had faced Harvey Gillot across a table, and when, in Harvey Gillot’s lounge, he had seen the stubborn refusal to submit to a threat. It was the nature of Mark Roscoe’s work that he was an observer of defining moments, not a participant.

  He had had a shower, which had cleared the tiredness from his head, and now dressed fast. He didn’t catch bullets in his teeth: the Bible as taught to protection officers on the courses stated that he could do precious little protecting when he had no firearm, no back-up, no co-operation and no liaison. He had only a package.

  When he was ready – suit, buttoned-up shirt collar, tie, clean, reasonably robust shoes – he swilled his teeth again and drank some tap water. Then he put his thumb into the package and dragged it open. He found inside a canvas pouch with a belt strap. He unzipped it. There was a list at the top, with a mass of items stowed beneath it: analgesic – pain relief; Immodium – intestinal sedative; penicillin – antibiotics; potassium permanganate – steriliser; surgical blades – various; butterfly sutures – general plasters; mini-tampons – blood-loss suppression; condom – can carry a litre of water.

  In the Flying Squad, they had regular updates on what to do in a medical emergency before the professionals arrived. He’d never taken it seriously because he’d always believed there would be an ambulance team just round the corner, or someone on the team who had specialised in gunshot and stabbing injuries. The previous evening, there had been a doctor in the bar who had talked politics and psychology. Roscoe undid his trouser belt, slipped on the pouch and refastened his buckle. He thought of what he had said the previous evening – or earlier that morning – on ‘duty of care’; he would have given much to be wearing a holster with a weapon inside it. The kit was a poor substitute.

  He made a call, explained how the situation seemed to pan out. There was an expletive and he wondered if his guv’nor had nicked his chin while shaving. He was told at what time the Gold Group would meet. And, like an afterthought, he was wished luck.

  He shoved his night clothes, soiled socks and washbag into his duffel and hitched it on to his shoulder. What did duty of care mean? Easy enough to trot out at the Gold Group, harder when the kit was a condom, mini-tampons, little blades, sutures and a canister of antiseptic. The medical teams on the scene when Nunes and his associate were dropped in Hampshire had brought vast cases of gear with them and had set up half a field dressing station on the pavement in front of the bank. He had agreed,
in the small hours, that Gillot was a ‘sinner’ and a ‘reptile’. Now, checking that he had everything, those words seemed cheapening and duty of care a crap commitment. Big breath. Best foot forward.

  He took the stairs down.

  He saw Penny Laing. She avoided his eyes, showed him her back. He thought her a snapped reed, and couldn’t get his head round what had happened to her at this place. In London, she would have been resourceful and conscientious, probably pushy with it or she wouldn’t have made it to the airport. A snapped reed had nothing to contribute. Anders, the professor who cut up decomposed corpses, was paying his bill at Reception. The voice boomed at him: ‘Good to see you looking so chipper, Mr Roscoe.’

  There was a little bit, Roscoe reckoned, of the music hall about Benjamin Arbuthnot: he wore green corduroy slacks, a lightweight jacket from which a polka-dotted red handkerchief ballooned, an impeccable white shirt, a tie that looked ancient and military, heavy brogues, well buffed, and a frayed straw hat askew on his head. Almost a costume from the good old days of the Hackney Empire or the Collins’ Music Hall on Islington Green. A clatter down the staircase and Megs Behan reached them. She was still damp from the shower and wore last night’s clothes as she mumbled apologies that were ignored. She was carrying a crumpled jacket that was holed in the back with a bulletproof vest that had twin indents. He hadn’t expected to see Harvey Gillot in the hall, but looked anyway.

  ‘I think it’s time, Mr Roscoe, for coffee before the Vulture Club’s charabanc departs. Follow me, please.’

  He wondered why Megs Behan had the jacket and the vest, but it was too early in the morning to come up with the solutions. ‘What about Mr Gillot?’ he asked.

  ‘Long gone, but we’ll catch up with him.’

  At the desk he stood beside Megs Behan as she shovelled cash towards the girl. When it was his turn Roscoe scrawled his name on his account and followed them into the dining area where coffee steamed on a table and there were plates of rolls. He thought that the old spy had successfully tied his loose ends and now ran the show.

  He was unsure what duty of care meant – what obligation it required.

  They gathered at the café. It was not a parade – they had never stood in lines in the mornings or evenings before taking up shifts in the trenches. They wore the uniforms again, but did not salute now and had not then. Old Zoran, of course, had been respected by the village’s younger men when he commanded them but not for his self-appointed military rank; it was from his history as the village schoolteacher. Mladen had commanded them after Zoran’s death, and led them now. They were a cussed crowd but accepted the need for a spokesman. Mladen had said they should find something close to a uniform: then, they had not worn the uniform as an indication that they were part of the 204 Vukovarske Brigade that defended the town to the west, but because the camouflage pattern made it harder for the enemy’s snipers to kill them.

  His own tunic was the one he had worn when he had broken out through the cornfields, large enough for him to put the baby boy under it and still draw up the zipper. It fitted him well. Andrija’s was too tight and the front was stretched grotesquely. Tomislav’s hung loose. Petar’s still had mud on it from having been buried before the break-out, then dug up on his return seven years later. It had not been washed in the last twelve years. Mladen carried his assault rifle as he walked among them in front of the café.

  Andrija had his prized sniper weapon, the Dragunov SVD with 7.62mm calibre and a maximum range of 1300 metres with a telescopic sight. Its butt rested against his crutch. Tomislav held upright an RPG-7, with a loaded grenade, and Petar had brought a heavy leather shoulder holster that carried a Zastava M57 pistol taken from the body of a Serb officer. All their weapons had been buried in the hours before the break-out.

  Simun had no firearm. One could have been found but that would not have been correct. He thought the boy sulked. Many were there, and all were armed. Only one man from the village had not come to the café. He felt a small breeze of irritation that Josip was not there. He had delayed his address until the Widow was with them and now he saw her in the low sunlight, hobbling towards them on a stick. Maria was with her, would have helped her dress. All the women already at the café wore black. Maria had on a black anorak, a black knee-length skirt and black stockings, and the Widow had chosen a long black dress and a black overcoat that would have been right for a winter funeral – today the temperature would climb to the high eighties.

  But it would not last long in the cornfields. It would be over by the time the sun was high and the heat had built.

  He drove carefully. It seemed right to Daniel Steyn that there should be no alarms for his passenger. The car had been past the command bunker from which the town’s defence had been organised. Steyn talked quietly, thought it necessary, but his passenger fiddled with his mobile and the doctor realised that the phone was being checked for the first time in hours, perhaps days. A low surrounding wall of concrete shielded the padlocked trapdoor to the hidden steps.

  Steyn said, ‘Then, around here, it would have seemed like Stalingrad. Now it is merely a sunken stairway in a pretty garden. What was done here and in the villages on the Cornfield Road was heroic.’

  Just want you to know that what you did was disgraceful, pathetic and criminal. You stole those papers, and what was in the safe, like a common thief. Whatever happens to you, it’ll be too good for you – and Fee thinks that. We’ve scrubbed you out, right out, and you’re a bastard we’re well rid of.

  He’d pointed to the Irish pub, made a weak sort of crack about the Liffey’s water being cleaner than the Danube’s, and passed the hospital. Steyn said, ‘The wounded from the fighting were brought here. It must have been Dante’s Inferno. Too dangerous to bury the dead, so they were wrapped in soiled sheets and dumped outside the entrance to the bomb-shelter basements the staff and patients had retreated into. There was a fantastic woman who ran the place through unimaginable times, and it was her good fortune that she was too high-profile to be butchered. The wounded men and a few staff were taken out of a back door while peace envoys were at the front, and they were massacred. That is the war crime, the atrocity of Vukovar, and it leads to the accusation of betrayal. The name of this town, today, is the same as that of treason. Nothing is forgotten and nothing is forgiven. They see you, Mr Gillot, as part of the treason and part of the betrayal.’

  To confirm, Harvey, that the shipment is on course and everything in the world is good. Warmest greetings from Burgas.

  The road had opened out and they were clear of the buildings. A concrete bridge crossed a river and they were close to the quays where lines of barges were moored. There was quiet and peace. Steyn said, ‘The bridge was a key point in the defence of Vukovar. It’s open ground, except for the docks and the grain silos, until you reach the shoe factory, then Borovo. It was a weak point to defend and was exploited. The enemy came across the river and cut the defences into two. Then resistance was impossible. The men who were here had the best chance in the break-out, those in the centre the least. Why am I telling you this? Mr Gillot, there was phenomenal bravery here but those imposters – treason and betrayal – gnaw at the pride of the survivors. They wallow in hatred. You are a target for the hatred.’

  This is Aleksandre, in the ministry – from Tbilisi – and I confirm that cargo is delivered to us tomorrow and we are satisfied with all arrangements you have made. A pleasure to do business with you, as always. All good wishes.

  Steyn changed gear. The lights were red in front of him, a bus alongside, a petrol tanker behind, and the first kids were out on the streets with footballs. Women were hoisting washing lines and old men sat by their front doors, smoking. Many of these homes were pocked with bullet marks and the pavement was dented. Steyn said, ‘We’re nearly there, Mr Gillot, nearly at the start of the Cornfield Road. That is what you want?’

  Charles here, sunshine. What we talked about over lunch and on the phone, Harvey, yes, can do that, and at a bette
r price than I quoted you. It’ll have come back from the Province but should still be serviceable. I suppose you’re on holiday – fine for the leisured classes while the rest of us are labouring for the public good and to keep the old country afloat. Call me when you’re back.

  Steyn said, ‘Not for me to intrude, Mr Gillot, but my advice is well-meant. These folk won’t be impressed by a grand gesture. There was real suffering here and on a level that people from the so-called civilised corners would find hard to appreciate. Worth considering – they have the same nerve ends, same ability to suffer as you or me. I don’t gild it. You want to go further. We’re nearly there, near the beginning.’

  Monty here, my friend. The BPV arrived? I just wanted to bounce at you that I can do a hundred and there would be a 40 per cent discount on what you’re paying for one. I can assure you, Harvey, that the makers give very solid guarantees on their product. Let me know if you want a century, but don’t hang about. Bestest.

  There was another bridge and Steyn eased on to the side of the road a little short of the span. Behind, there were ribbon-development bungalows and detached houses, with flowers in the gardens. Steyn said, ‘This is pretty much where the Cornfield Road started. Don’t harbour an impression of busy traffic going up and down it every night – it didn’t. Very little ammunition could be brought in because of the artillery and mortar fire. A bit along the track, the trees were close to it and Serb snipers in them. Wounded couldn’t be evacuated along it. Of course, a few weren’t cut out for hero status – they’d money put aside and paid heavily for guides to bring them through, but that’s not much talked of. Mr Gillot, this was a place of extraordinary courage, which is why the survivors have little tolerance for betrayal and treason.’

  Calling from Marbella, my precious old mucker. We’re making progress and I don’t doubt it’ll all turn up rosy. Where are you? Rang home and had the phone slammed down on me. Trouble with the secretarial staff? Get a grip – sun’s shining here and I’m about to pop the day’s first cork. Wherever you are, enjoy it.