by Alen Mattich
He focused his mind as he drove, focused on the radio, focused on the signposts in the dark, making sure he didn’t slow so much that he risked an accident.
The Montenegrin’s thoughts drifted to his own three girls. Two big ones, grown up. One married and the other one working in Dubrovnik. The youngest . . .
There was nothing to be done for her but to put her in a home, the doctors said. Maybe he’d do as they advised when he got back. They said she’d never walk or be able to do much for herself or even talk beyond rudimentary language. Her brain and body didn’t function properly, and there was nothing he could do for her.
Why then did he doubt them? When he’d sat with the little girl on his lap, in the warmth of the autumn sun, she’d spoken to him. She was four years old and could barely make herself understood. Maybe he was mistaken. No, what he’d heard was language. She’d spoken to him about the light on the water, how it sparkled like the glass in the rose bowl on the dining-room table. He found it hard to believe, yet she kept talking, slowly, laboriously, but he understood what she was saying. Insights that seemed impossible from a crippled, retarded child, and yet he was sure of it. Could a child who had thoughts like that really be mentally defective? A child who saw things, could speak of them, at an age when his eldest girls, the normal ones, could only blab nonsense.
The sign for the intersection came up. The Montenegrin looked in the rear-view mirror to ensure no one was coming up fast behind him. There wasn’t anyone, so he slowed down and took the next couple of kilometres at half the speed limit until he reached the turning, where he left the highway. He was pretty sure he had it right, but at night all these small Swedish forest roads looked alike.
He drove on the dirt road’s compacted snow and gravel. The tires had a good grip and the car was four-wheel drive, so he had no problem controlling it. Once again, he measured distance by time. He was driving at about two-thirds of the speed he’d gone during daylight, so he gave himself half an hour to get to the right place.
The trees were forbidding in the beams of his headlights. Twice he caught the demonic red reflection of a small animal’s eyes in the distance, but he couldn’t tell what it was, fox or small deer or something native to these parts that he didn’t know about. Did they have wolves?
When he reached a couple of landmarks he’d seen before — a big boulder that seemed to come from nowhere, and beyond it a tall fir tree that apparently had two trunks — he slowed right down. Beyond that he found the track, little more than a gap in the woods, barely enough space to squeeze between the trees, their needles scraping along the sides of the car. He didn’t want to drive too far off the loggers’ road for fear of getting stuck. He’d spun the wheels when they came here before, so he stopped well short of the narrow clearing where he’d done his target practice.
The boy had said you could fire machine guns here and no one would notice.
He left the car idling and got out. From the boot, he got out a good torch, a big Maglite that could double as a truncheon, and grabbed an empty rubbish bag made from heavy plastic, the sort that was advertised never to split. Carefully, he put the torch on the roof of the car and opened the passenger door. The boy was still sleeping; he’d barely shifted from the moment he’d shut his eyes.
In a smooth motion the Montenegrin pulled the plastic bag over the boy’s head, twisting him around so that his hands were pinned under him, and then knelt on his back. The boy woke with a start and then thrashed as he panicked. Fear gave him strength, but he was no match for the Montenegrin, who was nearly twice the boy’s weight and still powerful despite his middle age. The boy tried to bite through the bag, but his shrieking inflated it away from his mouth.
The struggle lasted for three minutes before the boy fell limp. But the Montenegrin held his position for an additional full five, tracking the seconds on his watch, before he pulled the boy out of the car. He took the plastic bag off only when the boy was lying on the snow. People who died of suffocation sometimes bled from the nose, and he didn’t want blood in the car. He aimed the torch down and with some difficulty stripped the corpse; the boy wore tight-fitting clothes. He stuffed them into the garbage bag.
He reached back in the car for the two cans of cat food and then, having wrapped the boy in the tartan blanket, carried him into the thick of the woods, pacing off fifty metres. The going was difficult — carrying the body over his shoulder, pushing through low pine branches, snow falling on him in lumps. The snow was deeper on the ground than he’d expected, given how thick the forest cover was.
Finally he lay the body on the ground, face down. He took a folding knife from his pocket and then counted the ribs up the left side of the boy’s back. Finding the spot, he pointed the knife straight down and stabbed once. Barely any blood came out of the wound. It was insurance. Whether the boy had suffocated or not, he was without question dead now.
He wiped the blade with some snow and dried it on his trousers. He opened the cat food and squeezed it onto the body. The food was still warm, so its scent would carry to any scavengers living in the woods. The corpse wouldn’t last long if the foxes found it. But he knew that if the body froze, it would stay preserved until the spring.
He made his way back to the car, inspecting his tracks closely and looking around the car for anything of his or the boy’s that might have dropped. He assured himself the woods were too thick for hunters, but if somebody did find the body he wanted as little as possible to be traced back to him.
He shoved the bag with the boy’s clothes into the boot and then slid back into the driver’s seat. He sat there shivering, the heater on full. When finally he was in control of his muscles again, he shifted into reverse and then looked back over his shoulder. The wheels spun. He cursed. He pressed the gas again. They kept spinning.
There was plenty of fuel in the car; he’d kept the tank full, just in case. But he hadn’t figured the snow would pose any difficulty for a four-wheel drive. That’s why he’d picked the car in the first place. This would be a bad place to get stuck. He guessed it would be more than a twenty-kilometre walk back to the main road. The boy had said that truckers always picked up hitchhikers, especially in the winter. If it came to that, the car was unlikely to be discovered for some time. But on the night of Palme’s death, everyone travelling away from Stockholm would be regarded with suspicion.
It was known to snow heavily in the Yugoslav mountains, and the Montenegrin was familiar with winter driving, but stupidly he hadn’t bought chains for the Opel. Swedish roads were kept pristinely clear, especially the motorways. He tried again, tried some tricks he knew, such as accelerating while pressing on the brakes and turning the steering wheel. But the car kept spinning ice.
He took his foot off the accelerator, forcing himself not to panic. He got out and tried to rock the car off the slick patches the spinning tires had made, but he was finding it hard to get a grip under his shoes. He should have bought those Korean boots with the felt insoles; his toes were freezing. He got back in the car and ran the engine to get warm; he was worried the sweat he’d worked up would give him hypothermia if he stayed in the cold.
He stared along the tunnel of brightness his headlights made through the conifers growing on either side of the track. The quiet stillness of the night, apart from the sound of the engine, was unnerving.
“Think,” he said to himself.
He’d gather branches and wedge them hard against the tires. That might give him a little purchase. He could jack up the car and put the floor mats, and maybe the boy’s clothes or the bedding, under the wheels to make a ramp. Then he remembered the rubbish bag full of things he’d emptied from the kitchen. There was a full kilo bag of salt in it. He’d bought it on his first shopping expedition because it was cheaper than a salt grinder or the gourmet crystals. He had never even opened it, because they’d never cooked in the flat.
He got the bag out and spread it
s contents under the two rear wheels. He waited for it to seep into the ice and then he tried again.
At first the wheels continued to spin, but then he felt them grip. The car jerked a little to one side. He rocked the steering wheel, alternately pumping the brake and accelerator.
And then he was moving, reversing down the track. He didn’t dare stop to turn the car around but kept reversing, using the pale red glow of the rear lights to guide him, as if he were backing into the mouth of hell. He drove that way for . . . how far was it? Two kilometres? Longer? His back and shoulder ached with the effort of sitting in the twisted position, until at long last he reached the gravel road that would take him back to the motorway.
It was only when he saw the ramp to the highway that he dared stop to relieve himself by the side of the road, making sure he was on the crest of a small rise so that he could coast out of any trouble. Then he sat in the parked car, breathing hard for a few minutes as the past hour caught up with him.
He turned the radio back on as he pulled away, the car swaying through the gravel and snowy ruts of the rough road. He’d not been able to listen while he concentrated on driving out of that endless forest. Still there was no news. Could they really not have made the announcement about Palme’s death? The lively disc jockeys had been replaced by one with a soporific voice who played odd, jangly music that grated on the Montenegrin’s nerves. He tuned in to another station that seemed to be just talk. But here too there was no excitement.
He shrugged, though a little, nagging uncertainty tugged at him. What if it hadn’t been his target? What if he’d killed someone other than Pilgrim, someone who’d looked like him? He pushed it all out of his mind — Pilgrim . . . Palme . . . the boy.
He drove. He was at least five hours from the Helsingborg ferry, assuming all went well. Assuming the Swedish police hadn’t set roadblocks this far from Stockholm. Assuming his luck held.
CROATIA, AUGUST 1991
They stopped at a police roadblock on the northern part of the coast road, where it cut along the Velebit mountain range that divides inland Croatia from the Adriatic Sea.
Rebecca had called after their return from Strumbić’s weekend cottage, interrupting della Torre’s desultory unpacking at the office. He’d given up on the forms sent to him by Kakav, which had to be filled in triplicate and stamped by six separate departments before he could hope to get his military ID.
The call wasn’t so much a conversation as a series of nicely worded orders. Pack lightly for a trip that could last up to two weeks. Leave in two days’ time. And tell Strumbić he’s coming, but only for the first few days, just long enough for them to get settled into Šipan. Any fair bill he presented for use of the property would be paid in cash.
That was good enough for Strumbić. He took the news, churlishly delivered by della Torre, with a certain smug satisfaction. When della Torre said it would only be for the trip down and then a couple of days in Šipan, Strumbić shrugged and said, “We’ll see.”
Della Torre could tell the Zagreb cop’s enthusiasm wasn’t just down to his eagerness for a few days in the sun. He was straining to get away from Mrs. Strumbić, who wore away at her husband with her cheese-grater nagging. Della Torre, on the other hand, felt deeply uneasy about Irena leaving to go to Vukovar. He didn’t want her there. In fact, he’d rather she went back to London and her lover’s arms than waltz into a Danube tragedy. Because that’s where it was headed. He was sure of it. And he felt guilty about abandoning her for sunny safety.
He’d spent the whole drive from Zagreb ruminating on Irena, his irritation made worse by the fact that Rebecca wouldn’t let him or Strumbić smoke. It was going to be a long trip to Dubrovnik.
The Velebit police, proudly displaying the Croatian insignia, the red and white checkerboard shield that so incensed the Serbs, were waving traffic off the Zadar highway onto a smaller road to the coast. Della Torre asked Rebecca to pull over. The cops didn’t like it.
“Keep going,” the one nearest shouted. “Go down to Senj and take the old coast road.”
Della Torre got out of the car. The policeman raised his rifle a little, eyeing him warily. “If you need to take a piss you can take one somewhere else. There’s no stopping here.”
Della Torre showed his UDBA ID. “What’s going on?”
The cop looked carefully at the ID and then up at della Torre and then back down at the ID, which he showed to his colleague, who was sitting inside the police car they’d parked across both lanes of the highway. Della Torre followed him and leaned against the squad car.
“I thought they shut down the UDBA,” the cop said.
“They did.” The cop regarded him skeptically, so della Torre continued: “But all us former UDBA people still exist, and now we’re working for Croat intelligence. I’m military. You can call me Major.”
“It says captain here.”
“Well, it’s major now. In the military.”
“You have any proof —” The cop spat on the ground. “— Major?”
Only a few weeks before, the whole country had cowered before that bit of laminated card. But UDBA, it seemed, no longer spelled fear.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, officer?” della Torre asked.
“I figure I do . . . Major.” He stared with a practised emptiness at della Torre. “The Serbs cut off the road down towards Gospić, and my colleagues and I are here to tell folks to take the coast road down by Senj . . . Major.”
“I thought the Serbs were on the other side of Gospić.”
The cop tilted his head at della Torre as if he couldn’t believe somebody could be so stupid. “I don’t know where you’ve been, but this road’s been blocked more or less since the start of the year. Last year we could shift some of the logs they dropped across it, but nothing doing now. Nowadays you try that and they shoot at you. They’ve got the road cut off on both sides of Gospić. You’ve got to go down to Senj, along the coast road, and then up.”
“What about the small roads?”
“You mean get off the highway before where those Serb lumberjacks have set up camp?”
“Yes.”
“You sure are desperate to get to Gospić quick.”
“No. I just know that if we follow the coast road it’ll take us a week just to get to Zadar.”
“You’re not kidding. But go this way and the only place you’re going to get to is a funeral. Your own. And as much as I’d like that . . .”
Della Torre ignored him. “What about the locals?”
“What about the locals?”
“Well, do you let them take this road?” Della Torre asked, enunciating each word to show his irritation.
“Yes.”
“How far?”
“Most of the way to Gospić.”
“And you can turn off onto the little roads before then, can’t you?”
“Yes,” the cop said, giving della Torre a dull-eyed stare.
“And are those little roads blocked by Serbs?”
“Not that I know of.”
“There been a police patrol to Gospić today on the little roads?”
“This morning.”
“Any problems?”
“No.”
“What about past Gospić?”
“The Serbs have trees down there too.”
“On the main road or the little roads?”
“Main road.”
“So you’re telling me that if we take the main road and turn off just before the Gospić exit and follow the little roads through Gospić and then on past it, we should avoid the Serbs and avoid having to go down to Senj and the coast road, which to my understanding is a fifty-kilometre traffic jam,” della Torre said, using incremental lawyerly logic to make his point blindingly clear.
The cop shrugged. “Except I’m not letting you on the main
road. You’re just going to have to follow everyone else down to Senj. Major.”
He dropped della Torre’s ID on the ground. Della Torre stared at it and then up at the cop, whose eyes were emotionless and, somewhere deep down in the blackness of the pupils, contemptuous. After the shock came the rage. With difficulty, della Torre contained himself. There was nothing he could do against this man. He bent over, picked up the ID, thinking revenge but knowing that searing hatred of the UDBA was everywhere. And with the fear gone, they could show it.
Perhaps the cop had good reason to loathe the UDBA. Many people did.
Della Torre walked back to the car. He leaned into the window. “The pricks aren’t letting us past. Serb roadblocks on the highway are pretty permanent now. Everything’s got to go through Senj and along the very slow coastal road. But it seems Julius was right when he said it was only the main highway that’s a problem.”
Rebecca had been keen to drive down as quickly as possible. None of them was looking forward to the single-lane road that wound its way along the coast. Even though foreign tourists were thin on the ground, refugee traffic had been growing; displaced people were being put up in otherwise empty seafront hotels. Add the military traffic and some domestic tourism — it would take more than the prospect of a civil war to keep Yugoslavs from their seaside cottages in August — and all it took was a broken-down bus or a tractor pulling along a family’s possessions, and traffic could be snarled for most of a day. A coastal ferry was a possibility, but Rebecca was reluctant to use it. The ones that took cars from Rijeka to Dubrovnik were exceptionally slow, slower even than the coast road, and worse still, were subject to snap inspections by the Yugoslav navy, looking for gun smugglers.
“If we could just get past the cops, we’d be able to turn off before the Serb roadblocks and onto small roads. They seem to be clear. Though I suppose if Serbs saw people using them they’d block those as well. We could do that, go through Gospić and along small roads on the other side until we can join the highway beyond the roadblocks again. Which would mean getting to Zadar in a couple of hours if all went well. As it is, we’re going to have to go down the coast road and be in Zadar in, oh —” Della Torre looked skyward as though he were doing a difficult sum. “— sometime tomorrow.”