‘That it looks like the villa’s still got the alarm system Gazi had fitted. Which gives us a way in.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll explain later. There’s something else in the paper you should know about first.’ Piravani folded it open at an inside page and pointed to a head-and-shoulder photograph of a shaven-headed, bull-necked man with close-set eyes and a sullen jut to his chin. ‘Recognize him?’
‘No. Should I?’
‘Not really. It was dark when you drove into him.’
‘You mean … this was the man I …’
‘Yes. Guido’s killer. Identified by the Milan police as Branislav Jeličić. It turns out he’s been wanted by the Serbian police for the past two years as a possible co-conspirator of the people who organized the assassination in 2003 of Zoran Đinđić.’
Đinđić? The Prime Minister?’
‘That’s right, doctor. Todorović only hires the best.’ Piravani glanced down at the photograph. ‘You were lucky to get the better of him.’
‘Does the article mention Guido?’
‘Yes. The police think Jeličić killed him before he was killed himself. Beyond that … they’re in the dark. Or so they say. Ever had your fingerprints taken?’
‘No.’
‘Good. In that case there’ll be no match on their database for the prints they’ll have found in the car. But that’s not our only problem. They’ll begin making connections soon, if they haven’t already, between Guido and me and Gazi and possibly Todorović as well. We need to move fast.’ Piravani smiled drily at Hammond. ‘You’d better get some sleep, doctor. It’ll be an early start in the morning.’
SEVENTEEN
The rising sun cast low-angled darts through the swirling clouds as Hammond crossed Kalemegdan Park, his shoes crunching on patches of ice-crusted snow, his breath misting in the still, cold air. Following the route Piravani had prescribed for him, he veered to the left round the ramparts of the fortress and descended a long flight of steps in cautious fashion, then climbed equally cautiously towards the Pobednik Monument.
The paved plateau round the monument was deserted. The Messenger of Victory atop his column had no audience as he gazed across the Sava towards the tower blocks of New Belgrade. Hammond was carrying his trusty prop – the by now tattered copy of La Gazzetta dello Sport. He walked across to the railings at the edge of the plateau and leant against them. He unfurled the paper as if genuinely interested in out-of-date team news from Serie A and glanced down at a barge making slow but steady progress along the Sava towards its confluence with the Danube.
Piravani’s plan for entering the Villa Ruža undetected hinged on his knowledge of its alarm system. As back-up in case of power cuts, there was a heavy-duty rechargeable battery. Piravani knew where it was housed and reckoned he could disconnect it within minutes of breaking in. If the electricity supply had failed in the locality, no attention would be drawn by a brief activation of the alarm. All they needed to ensure was that the supply had indeed failed. Removal of the battery would then kill the system. And it was to meet the man who could arrange such a failure that Hammond had come to Kalemegdan.
On one level he regarded participating in the break-in as an act of lunacy. But the lure of a swift resolution of all his problems – almost surgical in its directness, now he came to think about it – was irresistible.
A noise caught his ear as he contemplated the barge far below him: the paying out of a ratcheted line. He turned and saw that he had been joined on the plateau by a man with a small terrier on a retractable lead. The terrier was sniffing round the base of the monument, oblivious to Hammond. But his owner was looking straight at him.
Feeding his dog a little more slack, the man walked across to join Hammond by the railings. He was stocky, grey-haired and sixtyish, muffled up in quilted coat, scarf and cap. A trimmed moustache and thick-framed glasses gave him a mild, bureaucratic look. He matched to a T Piravani’s description of Radomir Plessl, the senior manager at Elektrodistribucija Beograd, who had arranged for Gazi to be spared the inconvenience of the power cuts that had been so frequent under Milošević in return for generous supplements to his meagre salary. Piravani had been in touch with him and confirmed he was still eminently corruptible. The only real difference was that this time he would be cutting off the power to the Villa Ruža, not keeping it on, an irony which might have explained the smile playing at the edges of his lips.
‘Dobar dan,’ said Plessl. ‘Hladno je, ne?’ His smile broadened at the sight of Hammond’s blank look. ‘I said it’s cold, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
‘But Trinko, he has to have his walk, so here we are.’
‘Mr Plessl?’
‘Da. I am Plessl.’
‘This is for you.’ Hammond handed him a thickly filled brown envelope, partly concealed by La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Plessl took off a glove, prised the envelope open and fanned through the wad of notes inside, then, seeming satisfied, slipped it into an inside pocket of his coat. ‘Say thanks to Marco for me,’ he said.
‘I will.’
‘What time does he want the outage?’
‘One o’clock tomorrow morning. For two hours.’
‘OK. I’ll make it a few minutes before one. It’ll look more … natural.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
Plessl’s arm was jerked as Trinko reached the limit of his lead. He glanced towards the dog, then back at Hammond. ‘I have to go. It’s clear, what we have arranged?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know what Marco is planning to do, but … good luck.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Doviđenja.’ Plessl touched his cap, then plodded off after Trinko.
Hammond watched Plessl wander away further into the fortress, then folded his paper and headed back the way he had come.
It was hardly to be expected that he and Plessl would be the only visitors to the park, early and bone-numbingly cold though it was, so there was nothing inherently suspicious about the figure who appeared away to Hammond’s left as he neared the exit on to Pariska: a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black overcoat, bareheaded despite the chill, walking fast. Yet Hammond was suspicious – and afraid.
His fear notched upwards when he saw a more or less identically dressed man of similar bearing loitering on the pavement just beyond the exit. He stopped, then stepped to one side, flourishing his newspaper and wondering if the man approaching from behind him would simply walk on by and the threat dissolve into misplaced anxiety.
But it did not dissolve. Glancing round, he saw the two men closing in on him. It was too late to make a run for it and he sensed his best bet was to bluff it out. They looked like plain-clothes police and, in the circumstances, he could only hope that was exactly what they were.
His hunch was swiftly confirmed when one of the men produced a badge from inside his coat and held it out for Hammond to see. ‘Policija,’ he said gruffly, adding a good deal more in Serbian to which Hammond was not equipped to respond.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Engleski?’
‘Yes. I’m English. I’m a British citizen.’
‘Passport?’
Reluctantly, he produced it. The man with the badge took it from him and glanced at the last page. Then he said, ‘With us, please,’ pointing towards the road. He made no move to return the passport.
‘What’s this about?’
‘With us, please.’
‘What do you want?’
At that the other man grabbed him firmly by the elbow and said something in Serbian that sounded both uncompromising and insistent. ‘
I recommend cooperation,’ said his colleague. And something told Hammond that it was good advice.
He was shepherded out of the park. A large grey salt- and snow-grimed Mercedes was drawn up at the side of the road. A rear door was pushed open as they approached and a heavy hand on the shoulde
r impelled Hammond towards it.
‘Get in.’
He obeyed, queasily aware that it was likely to be more than just a car he was getting into. This was the moment, it seemed clear to him, when his life left the tracks he had followed so long and so complacently. This was the moment he had told himself would never come. And now it had arrived.
The rear seat was a broad expanse of worn leather, but a tight squeeze once he had been bundled in between the English-speaking policeman and the waiting passenger – similarly overcoated, but an altogether slighter figure, younger and better-looking, with dark, short-cropped hair and a boyish face. He said something to the driver, who did not so much as glance round at Hammond. They started away with a jolt and a skid. The non-English-speaking policeman was sitting beside the driver. He did not look round either. To them this was purely routine; to Hammond, the start of a nightmare. It all depended, he reflected, on your point of view.
The English-speaking policeman stretched across Hammond to deliver his passport to the younger man, who began leafing carefully through it, page by page.
‘What’s going on?’ Hammond demanded, though to his own ear the demand fell pitifully flat.
‘One moment.’ The perusal of the passport continued.
‘I have a right to—’
‘You have a right to nothing, Mr Hammond.’ The younger man smiled fleetingly at him. ‘Trust me. I know our laws better than you do.’
‘It’s Dr Hammond, actually.’ As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted the attempt to assert his status.
‘Really?’ The younger man plucked a badge from his pocket and showed it to Hammond. There was a lot of Cyrillic script, an insignia of some kind and a laminated mugshot. ‘My name is Uželać. Radmilo Uželać. These gentlemen are police officers, assisting me with my investigations.’
‘Aren’t you a police officer?’
‘No. I am with ICEFA, a specially appointed government commission. Perhaps you have heard of us.’
‘I don’t think so.’ But Hammond had heard of them, of course. It was someone at ICEFA – for all he knew, Uželać himself – who had fed Zineta’s tip-off to Todorović. He wondered if fear of just such an intervention was the reason Piravani had insisted he should be the one to deliver the bribe to Plessl.
‘We are responsible for tracing the estimated thirty billion dollars stolen from the state by Milošević and the criminals who thrived under his regime.’
‘Well, I wish you luck.’
‘Your good wishes will not take us far, Dr Hammond.’
‘They’re all I can offer you, I’m afraid.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Nowhere. We shall cruise the streets while you and I discuss what you can do to help ICEFA.’
‘You’ve got the wrong man, Mr …’
‘Uželać.’
‘I know nothing about funds siphoned off under Milošević. I’m just a British tourist.’
‘Really? Well, you seem to be touring the wrong country. According to your passport, you’re in Croatia, not Serbia.’
‘Oh, I came on here by train. No one stamped my passport, that’s all.’
‘What attracts you to Belgrade in February? Our famously mild winter weather, maybe?’
‘I don’t know. I just … wanted to see the city.’
Uželać sighed and lit a cigarette, which acted as a trigger for the two policemen to light up as well. Hammond considered and rejected the idea of asking for a window to be opened. ‘I’d offer you one, doctor,’ Uželać said between puffs, ‘but I’m sure you’re too sensible to accept. Bad for the health. Very bad. Though not quite as bad as getting yourself mixed up with people like Dragan Gazi and Branko Todorović.’
‘Who?’
‘Please don’t ask stupid questions. We have film of you handing an envelope containing five thousand dinars to a senior employee of the municipal electricity company. You weren’t hiring him as a tour guide. He has in fact already told us what the money was for. You are therefore guilty of attempted bribery and sabotage.’
‘Sabotage?’
‘Of the electricity supply to part of the city. Serious charges, Dr Hammond. If convicted, you could be sentenced to many years’ imprisonment.’
As Uželać said it, the prospect sounded hideously plausible. Hammond’s throat tightened. ‘It was … the repayment of a debt. There was no bribe.’
‘Plessl says otherwise. And Plessl will be believed. We will make sure of that. If we have to. But maybe we won’t have to. I’ll give you a chance to come clean.’ Uželać looked round at Hammond, studying him closely. ‘Do you know why we’re not doing this at my office – or in an interrogation room at Police HQ?’
‘You want to keep our discussion off the record.’
‘Yes. But why?’
Hammond shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Then I’ll tell you. We have a mole at ICEFA, Dr Hammond. One of our agents – as yet unidentified – is supplying information to one of our principal targets, Branko Todorović, former associate of the notorious Dragan Gazi, currently on trial for war crimes in The Hague. As a result, a recent operation to apprehend Gazi’s accountant, Marco Piravani, was fatally interfered with. Piravani’s ex-partner, Guido Felltrini, was murdered at his office in Milan on Wednesday night to prevent him revealing to us Piravani’s whereabouts. Actually, thanks to Plessl, we believe we know where Piravani is: here, in Belgrade. He contacted Plessl yesterday and they agreed this morning’s meeting. That makes you Piravani’s messenger and co-conspirator.’
‘I know nothing about any conspiracy.’
‘Please, doctor, please. Let’s be reasonable. You came to Belgrade with Piravani to help him carry out a criminal act. Why you’re helping him I don’t need to know at this time. He has something on you. Todorović has something on you. Gazi has something on you. Whichever. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the criminal act – and its consequences. That is what you’re going to tell me about.’
‘I’m not a criminal. I’m a—’
‘Tourist. Yes. I know. Repeating the line doesn’t make it any more convincing.’
Uželać said something to the driver in Serbian and he took an abrupt turn off the road. Hammond had no idea which direction they had been going in since leaving Kalemegdan. And the rubbish-strewn expanse of concrete they were now crossing beneath a motorway flyover gave him no clues. The car pulled in behind one of the huge pillars supporting the flyover and stopped. There was a rumble of traffic above them, but nothing moved in Hammond’s field of vision except a flattened cardboard box, sliding and flopping in the wind.
‘Here’s the situation, doctor. You paid Plessl five thousand dinars to cut the electricity supply to the Villa Ruža tonight. The Villa Ruža used to belong to Dragan Gazi. My guess is you and Piravani plan to break into the villa. Or maybe you’ve hired some men to do it for you. Whichever. The power cut is necessary to disable the alarm. The current owner is abroad and has no known connections with Gazi. So, what are you after?’
Hammond said nothing. He truly did not know what to say.
‘My guess,’ Uželać continued, ‘is that Piravani has decided to respond to Felltrini’s murder with a direct move against Todorović. To make that move he needs something he hid in the villa during the time Gazi lived there. Documents. Records. Incriminating material. Something only he knows about. And you, of course – his accomplice. Whatever it is, we’d like to see it. We’d like to be the ones to use it against Todorović – and whoever else it implicates. So, why don’t you tell me, doctor? What exactly is it you’re looking for?’
‘I can assure you, Mr Uželać, I don’t—’
‘Please don’t assure me of anything, doctor. It’s pointless and … too late. I don’t have time to be patient with you. Tell me. Or my two friends here will take you over there’ – he pointed towards the next pillar – ‘and beat the shit out of you. Y
ou will tell me. I can promise you that. The only question is how many teeth you have left when you do it. Oh, what sort of doctor are you, by the way?’
‘I’m a liver specialist.’
‘Uhuh. Do you operate on people?’
‘Yes. I perform surgery.’
‘Well, never again, or at least not for a very long time, after these two have finished stamping on your fingers. Pravi, Franko?’
Franko, the English-speaking policeman, responded to the question by grasping Hammond’s left hand in a crushing grip. Hammond winced as his knuckles ground together. ‘Let go of me,’ he gasped. But Franko did not let go.
‘Dosta,’ said Uželać. Then, and only then, Franko relaxed his hold.
‘I’m a British citizen,’ Hammond said hoarsely. ‘You can’t treat me like this.’
‘We will if we have to. We can’t let Todorović go on spitting in our faces. He has to be stopped. Now, here’s the good news. We can work with you, doctor. You see, we can’t break into the Villa Ruža and search for whatever Piravani hid there. That would be illegal. But you and Piravani can. And if you can convince me the material you plan to retrieve will destroy Todorović, we’ll let you. We’ll be waiting outside to take the material from you, of course. But there’ll be no charges against you. We’ll put you on a plane to London, or wherever you want to go, and that’ll be the end of the matter. The same goes for Piravani. Once he’s released Gazi’s money to the Ministry of Finance. A clean break for both of you.’ Uželać smiled. ‘What do you say?’
EIGHTEEN
Hammond trudged doggedly across the bridge over the Sava through the exhaust fumes of the slow-moving Saturday traffic. The tower blocks of New Belgrade loomed ahead and, in one of them, Marco Piravani was awaiting his return. What precisely Hammond was going to say to him he had still not finally decided. The deal he had struck with Uželać was justified to his satisfaction by sheer necessity. What alternative had there been, after all? He would have gained nothing by obliging them to beat the truth out of him. They had already guessed most of it anyway and needed only to stake out the Villa Ruža to prevent Piravani going through with the planned break-in, whatever happened.
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