Milena sighed. ‘I’d hoped Diana could help me. It concerns Goran’s parents. I spoke with his sister the day before yesterday.’
‘I didn’t know he had a sister.’ He added a few splashes from a little bottle to the cocktail, fingered a glacé cherry from a glass and stuck a slice of lemon on the rim of the glass. Then he dried his hands, placed a small cocktail napkin on the bar, straightened it out and served her cocktail with a flourish. ‘To your health.’
Milena placed the glass at her lips and took the first sip. ‘It really does taste old fashioned.’
With a smile, he wiped the bar with a cloth.
‘Is that bourbon?’ She took a slightly bigger sip.
‘With orange bitters and lemon.’ He started cutting limes in half and dropping them onto a silver plate. Conveyor-belt work. His red tie was stuck into his shirt between two buttons.
‘I’m sorry to be so nosy.’ Milena carefully put down the glass. The drink was strong stuff. ‘Could you tell me about Goran? What kind of guy is he? The last time you saw him – when would that have been?’
The bartender opened a cupboard under the bar. He looked past Milena and pondered. ‘He was wearing a dark suit, and I thought, wow! I asked him, “What’s with you?”’ He began plucking the leaves off a head of celery. ‘But he wasn’t in a good mood. He was already in her bad books.’ He gestured with his head towards the glass wall.
‘You mean Diana’s?’
The knife kept chopping on the board. ‘She’s sweet and nice, honestly. She just has one tiny flaw.’
‘Which is?’ a bright voice asked. A young woman had come in without either of them noticing. She had a round face, wore a black shirt, had a blonde ponytail and was in the process of tying on a long white apron. She was clearly irritated. ‘I’d really like to know, Marco!’
He took her by the hips, turned her around like a little child, and grabbed the apron strings. ‘You always fall in love with the wrong men.’
‘And whose business is that?’
‘Nobody’s.’ He tightened the knot. ‘I’m sorry, darling.’
Full of suspicion, the woman glanced over at Milena. ‘This your auntie?’ she asked sullenly.
‘Apologies. My name’s Milena Lukin.’ She took a business card out of her purse and pushed it across the bar. In the meantime, Diana had crouched down and was rummaging around behind the counter.
‘We were talking about Goran,’ Marco explained. ‘She’s looking for him.’
‘I was hoping you could help me,’ Milena added.
The young woman banged a box of candles on the bar. ‘There was someone else here recently asking after him. Remember, Marco?’
‘The bald guy?’
‘No, not him. The other one. With the pocket handkerchief with little spots on it.’
Milena pushed her glass to one side. ‘Somebody else was asking after Goran?’
‘Goran’s pretty busy at the moment and I haven’t a clue where he’s hanging out – yeah, Marco, go figure!’ She started putting new candles into the holders. ‘What’s your interest in him?’
‘I don’t know whether you know – Goran’s parents are dead, they were dispatched in a rather nasty way. I’ll spare you the details. I’d like to talk to Goran. Could you tell me where I can find him? Or do you have his telephone number, by any chance?’
‘And you are who again? Not from Safe ‘n’ Secure, are you?’
Before Milena could say anything, Marco began reading aloud what was written on her business card. ‘Milena Lukin. Institute for Forensic Science and Criminology.’ He handed Diana the card. ‘Does that mean that you’re from the police?’
Milena shook her head. ‘I’m a forensic scientist and acting in a private capacity.’
‘I honestly don’t know what’s going on anymore,’ Diana said.
Milena patiently explained the connection to her uncle and added, ‘And the tip-off to come here came from Goran’s sister.’
‘OK. Understood.’ Diana picked up the tray with the candles and stepped away.
Milena followed her. ‘Maybe Goran can help us clear a few things up. Do you have his number?’
‘Goran’s gone.’ Diana distributed the candles on the tables and lit them with a lighter, which she had put on the tray for the purpose. ‘As for his phone – you can forget about that. He doesn’t answer calls. I don’t even know whether the number’s still current. And I’ve no idea where he’s staying – so no point asking me that.’
In the meantime, a group of four had come in and sat down at the very front of the room, while another couple had not yet made up their minds and were standing at the side. Milena followed Diana from table to table, and persisted. ‘But you are in touch with him. So why don’t you help me?’
Diana put the tray down. ‘Goran and I are no longer together. We stopped seeing one another six months ago.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since?’
‘After this horrible thing happened to his parents he turned up again a couple of times. OK, he spent the night at my place, but that’s that now. I don’t want anything more to do with him. I made that very clear to him.’ She combed her hair back. ‘And now I’ve got to work.’
Milena went back to the bar. She took a banknote out of her purse and put it on the bar.
‘Thank you,’ Marco nodded. ‘And good luck.’
She picked up her jacket from the bar stool. On the way to the exit she passed the next guests coming in. They were laughing and chatting – for them the evening had just started. Diana, with her ponytail jauntily bobbing up and down, was taking orders right and left, then stuffing her notebook back into her belt. Milena thought for a moment and then went up to her one last time.
‘This club you were talking about,’ she said, ‘Safe ‘n’…’ ‘Goran worked there. I don’t know whether he still does, though.’
‘And if he should turn up at yours?’
‘I’ll let you know.’
‘And you’ll give him my number?’
With the tray tucked under her arm, Diana stepped closer. ‘You know,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘it’s strange somehow: we refugee kids seem to bear some mark which we recognise each other by.’
‘Where are you from?’ Milena asked.
‘Croatia. Operation Storm. We were among the 250,000 who escaped back then. The point is, we were all tiny, some just born. Even so, I can understand where Goran’s coming from.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘If I picture them doing something like that to my parents – I’d go crazy. Honestly, I hope and pray Goran gets them.’
‘Gets who?’ asked Milena.
‘Those Albanian pigs.’
‘And then what?’
‘He’ll kill them, of course.’ She got out her notebook again and turned, smiling, to a guest.
Milena walked slowly towards the exit. In the foyer people were pushing and shoving to reach the cloakroom. She made her way through the crowd and stepped outside, where another short queue had formed. Milena hailed a taxi that had just dropped off its previous passengers, took her seat in the back and gave the driver her address. Before she forgot, she made sure to take out her notebook and write down ‘Safe ‘n’ Secure, Goran Valetić’s employer’. That would be the first thing to check out when she got home. Anything else? Goran had been wearing a suit – but maybe that was unimportant. Somebody with a dress handkerchief had asked after him. Perhaps an official. She leant back.
At Republic Square hordes were milling around, tourists and people in their finery, ladies clutching evening bags, probably just leaving the theatre. A large group, possibly a class of students, was crossing the road, bringing the traffic to a standstill. The taxi driver, an elderly man, grumbled and shook his head.
‘There’s a lot going on tonight, isn’t there?’ Milena said.
‘They’re all here to see that American singer, that nattily dressed one, and act like the whole city belongs to them. And none of them take a taxi.’
The y
oung men all wore hoodies and were around Goran’s age or younger. Why had Goran done a disappearing act, and why was he pestering his sister with phone calls?
She paid, thanked the driver and got out. She was tired but also elated, and her appetite for jelly bananas was rapidly developing into a ravenous craving. She searched her handbag.
Worse than not discovering any sweets there, she couldn’t find her house keys. Hopefully they hadn’t fallen out of her pocket when she pulled out her notebook. Surely not; most likely she’d left them at home. Whatever the case, she’d have to ring the bell and get Vera out of bed.
Her persistent ringing on the doorbell produced no results. When Vera finally went off to sleep – probably lying on her right ear, while she was almost deaf in her left – cannon fire wouldn’t wake her. And Adam was at a sleepover at his best friend’s house. It was maddening.
Milena quickly ran through her options. Should she ask Milka Bašić to put her up? Or call out a locksmith? She had a better idea.
She raised her arm. ‘Taxi!’
10
Marco had been working in the Zeppelin for a year and a half now, but he still didn’t understand a strange phenomenon: whereas yesterday people had been knocking back one gin and tonic after the other, today they were drinking prosecco like it was going out of fashion. Diana and he had once speculated whether there was a link between the music they played and the drinks they served – somebody who loved free jazz drank gin, soul meant they should put the prosecco on ice, techno led to vodka with Red Bull, while pop music tended to go with the ladies’ favourite, a Buck’s Fizz. But in all likelihood it was far simpler than that, like tomato juice on aeroplanes: someone orders one and then other people follow suit. Marco placed the glass upside down to let it dripdry and blew a strand of hair out of his face.
The guy with the dress handkerchief had of course ordered a Bloody Mary, after first slapping his fancy leather gloves down on the bar. Typical foreigner. Nat – the name he introduced himself with – spoke perfect Serbian with a refined accent and asked after Goran in such a smarmily friendly way that Diana immediately marked him down as a creep and later rechristened him ‘Mr Natty’. Marco especially remembered his spotted handkerchief and the fact that he played tennis. But the significance of the business with Goran can only have dawned on Marco after this woman had come round enquiring so persistently after that twat.
Diana used a short break to key something into her smartphone. The singer on stage had closed her eyes while performing and the people in the audience were swaying along to the rhythm. Marco dried his hands and glanced at his watch. It was too early to tell whether the programme would end with this set or whether there would be a couple of encores. Marco tucked his shirt into his trousers, leant against the bar and crossed his arms.
Tomorrow morning he’d have to go to the Office of Registration and ask about his passport, a monthly ritual. They would make him wait – two hours minimum – before informing him that the matter was in hand. It had been the same story for over a year now. When he enquired after the first three months they’d told him that he had submitted the wrong photographs. Then the official who was dealing with his application had gone on holiday, for an eternity, and apparently no one else in this shitty office was capable of dealing with his application. Finally they told him they’d had a burst water pipe and that everything had been destroyed, sorry. He’d had to resubmit all his papers, have new photos taken and fill out all the forms again. He had no choice. Kosovan Albanians were treated by officialdom as second-class citizens but, even so, he had a right to a Serbian passport. How much longer would that be the case, though? The fact that his application had been dragged out endlessly was quite deliberate; this system was corrupt and paradoxical and he was caught in the middle of it, at the mercy of these bureaucrats, with their arbitrary abuse of power and their harassment.
‘Hey Marco, could I stay at yours for a couple of days?’ Diana said, putting down her telephone. ‘From Tuesday to Thursday?’
‘No problem.’ Marco took the sieve out of the sink and emptied it into the rubbish bin. ‘Are you subletting?’
‘I’m pissed off.’ She took a sip. ‘Goran stole from me. I mean, what’s wrong with the guy? If he needed money he could have asked, couldn’t he? Maybe I’d even have given it to him.’
‘The guy’s off his trolley.’
‘I can absolutely understand how he’d be freaked out at the moment.’ Diana pulled the hairband off her ponytail and straightened her hair. ‘That horrific story with his parents and the fact he has nobody to unburden himself to… But I can do without him taking the piss myself.’
‘Where’s he living now?’
‘No idea. In his car, maybe?’
Marco thought for a minute. ‘That woman earlier, with the Old Fashioned, the one who said Goran had a sister. Did you know that? Perhaps you should talk to her.’
‘Forget it. That one only thinks about money and how she can make more.’ Her eyes lighted on the little business card, which was still lying on the bar. ‘That’s it now. I’ve had it with him. I’m changing the locks, then I’ll get a new phone number and he need never darken my door again.’ She pushed the card into her trouser pocket, picked up the tray and started serving again.
Marco watched her collect glasses and take new orders, and saw how her ponytail bounced with every movement. He knew full well that she would let Goran back into her life, every time. He only had to turn up at her door, with those puppy eyes, and she’d open her purse and offer him a space in her warm bed. And that was fine; after all, Goran’s parents had been murdered, slaughtered by Kosovan Albanians, Marco’s fellow countrymen. The whole thing was completely sick, totally fucked, utterly unbelievable. Marco drank and then put away his glass.
He hated it, being an Albanian from Kosovo. He wanted nothing to do with the people who roamed the inner city begging, who lived in corrugated-iron huts on the outskirts of the city, stole cars and murdered Serbians back home. He personally had never had any problems with Serbs, quite the contrary: his first friend came from Novi Sad, and Belgrade had always been the greatest where he was concerned.
Diana put empty glasses on the bar and handed the new order to him. Marco scanned the piece of paper: two beers, two white wines, one OJ and – bingo – seven glasses of prosecco! With a grin on his face he flipped the towel over his shoulder and went to work.
A crack had developed in his view of the world only since that business with Pascal, the Frenchman with the curly black hair. He caught his first glimpse of the guy in the Grade, exchanged glances with him in the Interim; they had met up again in the 2044 and became inseparable thereafter. The weekend had been perfect until, on the last evening, on Skardar Street in the middle of the nightclub district, they had been abused, spat on and called gay foreigners, and ultimately almost beaten up for it. Marco pushed the cork back into the bottle.
He should have kept a wary eye out and seen those guys – standard-issue straights – coming. Instead, Pascal had blamed himself for being so rash as to hold Marco’s hand in public. But how could he have known what people here were like? He was at home in Paris, in Marseille and other places where no one had to hide from anyone else. Even at the airport, when they’d said goodbye, Pascal had been completely beside himself, so Marco hadn’t bothered to ask whether he’d ever come back. It had been the saddest of farewells. Angered by recalling it now, Marco flung his empty juice box into the rubbish bin.
Without a passport, he was a prisoner. He couldn’t book a flight and go after Pascal like any other normal human being would have. His life’s happiness depended on some officials in cardigans who didn’t see fit to issue him with a piece of paper that he was entitled to by law. As a Kosovan Albanian, he was a piece of shit as far as they were concerned. He wiped the tray and put the drinks on it.
What if he gave the guy with the dress handkerchief a bit of lowdown about Goran? That might be a possibility. He should check what the
information would be worth to the guy. It wouldn’t do anybody any harm, and he could immediately pass the cash on to the officials at the Registration Office. How much would he have to put into the envelope and surreptitiously push across the desk in order to finally get the damned thing issued? He pulled the drawer open.
The piece of paper with the telephone number was still there. He shoved it into his trouser pocket. Calm down, now. One step at a time. He took a glass, one of the big ones, poured in mineral water and added the juice of half a lemon, just the way Diana liked it. He set the drink down in front of her and asked, ‘By the way, do you know what he’s got in mind?’
She didn’t react, but went on keying something into her smartphone.
Marco wiped the surface and polished it with a cloth. He tried again. ‘I mean, after all this has happened – is Goran going to go back to his job now and carry on as if nothing’s happened? I can’t see it myself.’
She drank, put down the glass and muttered, without once taking her eyes off the display, ‘Honestly, I don’t even want to know.’
‘What don’t you want to know?’ he insisted. ‘That he’s going to go down there and sort those people put?’ He poured some more fresh lemon juice into the glass. ‘Does Goran still have his gun?’
‘What?’
‘His service pistol. Or did he have to hand that in?’
‘As far as I know, he’s only on gardening leave. Why are you so interested all of a sudden?’ As she was drinking she was checking him out. Marco shrugged his shoulders and threw the squeezed lemon into the waste.
Diana went off to serve again, and Marco starred at his phone. He’d never done anything like this before. But what had he got to lose? He just had to keep it vague to start with and, most importantly, make it clear that this information wasn’t for free.
He pushed open the door to the toilet cubicle, locked it, closed the seat lid and sat down. In one hand he held the piece of paper, and in the other his phone. He keyed in the number, found he’d misdialled and started again. He was nervous. But why? If the worst came to the worst he’d get the brush-off, but at least he’d have tried.
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