Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

No, no, I mean it. Our house, home, us, we've been invaded by people from the Customs. They had a warrant. They've been through every nook and cranny… Of course, I'm trying to be calm… I don't know where Henry is… I don't know what it's all about, they never told me. They were here three hours, they've just gone… Where is he? I want him found. Find him and tell him that his home and his family have been subjected to a nightmarish intrusion

… I don't care what he told you. We've been treated like criminals, and I don't know why.'

'Was that all right, Mr Gough?' the woman, SQG8, asked him.

'That was dandy.'

'We didn't find anything.'

They were out of the lanes and had reached the bypass skirting Guildford.

'It was more than satisfactory. Far from home and a panic call down the phone, sobs and screams, that'll make Eagle's day. I thought it went well, and yesterday… Do you know, my dear, you or I would have to work for thirty years – without deductions of tax, pension scheme and National Insurance, and not touch our salary, only bank it – to afford that house?

Perhaps it'll be on the market soon… Do you mind if I take a nap? I doubt there'll be much opportunity for sleep later.'

The note had come by hand delivery. It was dropped through the letter-box and the bell was rung to alert her to its presence on the mat. The Princess, nee Primrose Hinds, took the envelope back to her bed.

She settled against her feather pillows and slit open the envelope.

My dearest Princess,

I miss you.

It's going well, but slowly. I hope to leave on the 22nd, 23rd at the latest. Hope all is good with you.

With love, Mister XXXX

A letter from Mister was a rare treasure. She understood why he never used the telephone and why she must never call him. Even when he'd been on remand, in Brixton, and she'd been forbidden to visit him, he had never written. Verbal messages had passed between them via the Eagle. It would have been five years, or six, since he had last written, from Amsterdam. She would have been with him in Amsterdam but for the influenza.

She kissed the letter, then lay back on the bed for a few moments, held a pillow and thought of him.

Then, she went to the en-suite bathroom, tore the page into small pieces and flushed them down the pan, as he would have wanted her to.

Through the hotel's big ground-floor windows, Joey saw the arc-lights that burned down on the Secretary of State. The wire services and the satellite news programmes would carry his words: 'Society here has to rid itself of corrosive corruption. Citizens of Bosnia Herzegovina, you must resist the extremists and the criminals, you have to turn your backs on the past.'

An American officer would interrupt the great man, cut him short in mid-stride, and would say into the microphone: 'I'm afraid, ladies and gentlemen, we've run out of time if we're to make our flight window.'

Joey watched the stampede of the circus around the great man as they went out with him through the swing doors. The Secretary of State was hemmed in by bodyguards, military liaison officers, advisers, stenographers and his own travelling media, and all were hurrying to the long line of station-wagons, governed by their pecking order of importance. They couldn't get shot of the place fast enough, couldn't race to the airport and climb onto the 747 too soon.

Troops waved them away, sirens escorted them down Zmaja od Bosne, which had been Snipers' Alley.

A stillness seemed to settle on the yellow and chocolate hotel building, as if all inside it now caught their breath, sighed, sagged

… Joey saw the white UNHCR truck pull up in the space where the station-wagon convoy had been. She slipped out of the vehicle. He recognized her.

She was only half-way to the swing doors when Mister came through them. They were like kids meeting in a park. No kisses, but their handshake was more about touching and holding than formal greeting. He couldn't hear their laughter, but watched the mute pleasure on their faces.

When they drove away, Joey followed in the van.

She had the wheel, Mister was beside her.

They went past the new American headquarters camp on the far side of the airport, and along the road were stretched little wooden shacks, closed and locked.

She said, 'It's a little part ol the black market. Later in the day they will be opened. They sell every CD and video you ever heard of, all illegally recorded.

They've paid no duty on them, no copyright. Other than the market of servicing foreigners, the only industry is black. It is worse on the Tuzla road. There are not CDs and videos in the huts on the way to Tuzla, it is women, young women, some from Bosnia but most from outside – Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine.

When they have been "trained" here, they are sent on to brothels in western Europe – it is a disgusting, exploitative trade. Always, Mister, it is the criminals who win here… I am sorry, it is gloomy – but that is the reality.'

They climbed on hairpin bends and came to the village of Tvorno. There was lustreless snow beside the road, but the ice on it glistened prettily in the early sunshine. Rows of houses on the approach were gutted, roofless and burned, sandwiched between the road and a tumbling river. Beyond the river were rolling forested hills, then mountains that were snow-swept, formidable and magnificent. He was looking at the wreckage.

She said, 'We call them cabriolet houses. Do you understand? It is houses without roofs… I am sorry, perhaps you do not think that funny. I promise you, Mister, it is sometimes necessary to have a dark humour if you work here. If you are too serious then you would weep. It is very beautiful, yes?'

The road came down from the high ground into a wide agricultural valley, leaving the snow and ice behind them. She pulled off the road, produced battered, well-used Thermos and poured coffee for them. They stood beside her vehicle and looked down at the valley and the big river running through it, and at a town beyond the river where there were close-set houses and the chimneys of industrial plants. He looked for damage. All he saw was the collapsed bridge that had spanned the river and had linked the town to the main road. The water now flowed over the bridge.

She said, 'It is Foca. I don't go there. It is a place of evil. I should go there. I could go with troops from the SFOR, but I do not wish to. There is suffering there, the same as everywhere, but I am not perfect. Do you think it wrong to care less for the suffering of some than I do for others? I could not argue if you thought that, Mister. Do you see men fishing? They have no work and they fish for food to eat. The factories have stopped, the chemicals leak into the river – it is the Drina river. I would not eat the fish but they are desperate… I do not go to Foca because it is a place where war criminals walk. Everyone knows their names, who the beasts are. You could meet them on the street in Foca just as in Sarajevo you could meet Ismet Mujic. In six years only once have the SFOR dared to try to capture one of them – Janko Janjic, the mass rapist and mass cleanser. He had an eagle tattooed on his stomach and the words "Slaughter Me" on his neck. Every minute of every day he had a hand-grenade hanging from his throat, and he pulled the pin when German troops came to take him. The rapist and the murderer, in Foca, was a hero. Many thousands went to his funeral. Myself – and a good man like you, Mister we do not know how to speak with such creatures.'

He kissed her at that moment, first her cheeks, then her forehead, then her eyes, then her lips.

'How long will you he here?'

'Just a couple more days.'

'But you will come back?'

I will bring, more lorries but that won't be as important as coming, back to see you.' Mister held her close, hugged her. It was not the way he embraced his Princess. He clung to her as if he had been infected by the misery she spoke of. I will come back, not send people who could do it instead of me, I'll come back because you're here…I don't talk a lot – Monika, you are the best human being I've ever met.' He saw the openness of her face and the trust. He had thought of her at first as a contact, a tool to be used, an opportunity lo be exploited. 'They were alone beside the road and his arms were tight round her. She was looking down. The way he held her she could see his left hand She was looking at his hand and the heavy gold ring on his third finger, the ring the Princess had given him.