Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

'Tomorrow, then, I follow where he leads. My bloody bumper against his exhaust – no, no doctor.'

'We go mob-handed, Joey. I'll not take argument on it.' She said it as if she were his mother, his aunt, or his teacher.

'It's my show.'

'We go in numbers – it's not about whose show it is.'

'Yes, ma'am, three bags bloody full, ma'am.'

'Mob-handed, hardware, protection – safe. I wouldn't want to look like you look… Just so you know – the woman, she's Monika Holberg. She's a Norwegian tree-hugger. She does good deeds for unfortunates, out of UNHCR. You'll find her in Novo Sarajevo, third floor, apartment H, Fojnicka 27. Be a shame, wouldn't it, Joey, if she didn't know what Mister was, what he did? Wouldn't be a shame if, when she's learned it, she kept her legs together and Mister didn't get his over You up for that?'

'Could be.'

'You want me lo dry you?'

'I'll manage.'

She closed the door after her.

Joey staggered to the bed. He was dripping wet. He collapsed onto it. He might have passed out but for the pain and the memory. He was back on the ground, squirming on the ice the Tarmac to make himself smaller, as the lists and boots rained in on him. That was a mistake, Misler, a mistake. The hammering, in his body and his head, was on the door.

He shouted, 'Yes?'

'Are you Cann. Customs and Excise?'

He crawled off the bed, leaned on the wall and then the wardrobe to steady himself, held the towel across his privates and opened the door. The man wore a grey suit, was five or so years older than Cann, had a good shirt and a nice tie. He looked at Cann with contempt, a replica of the sons of the landowner his father managed for superiority buried under a caked veneer of politeness.

'Sorry to disturb you, Mr Cann – by God, you've been in the wars. Don't tell me, let me guess, tripped down some steps, did you? I'm Hearn, from the embassy. I've been asked to pass to you a message that came to us via the Ministry of Justice. I do apologize for the inconvenience of calling on you so late, but we thought it the sort of matter that should not have been passed, for fear of misunderstandings, by telephone.

You had written authorization from Judge Zenjil Delic for "intrusive surveillance" of the UK national Albert William Packer during that gentleman's visit to Sarajevo. You can go home now, Mr Cann, which might save you another accident. Judge Delic informs us, through the Ministry of Justice, that he has with drawn such authorization. He's cancelled it. There's no mistake. I have it in writing, couriered to the embassy, over his signature.'

Joey gagged,'But that's impossible.'

' 'Fraid n o t… ' He paused. 'We do have a list of doctors, should you wish for medical attention. If you'd gone through us in the first place then things might have been different, but you chose not to…

The authorization for you to operate here is withdrawn. Good night.'

The X-ray machine had gone, and the metal detector arch. They walked, flanking Mister, across the empty atrium bar.

Mister said, again, 'I don't want to talk about it.'

Atkins persisted, 'His place has been turned over, searched, so's mine.'

' I'm not talking about it. Don't you listen?'

He gestured with his hand, into Atkins's face, made a cutting motion across Atkins's throat.

They went out through the doors, and the night frost's blast, carried in the wind, caught them. They went along the side of the hotel heading for the city and the old quarter.

'He was my friend,' Mister said. 'We don't ever forget that he was my friend.'

The Cruncher hadn't been the Eagle's friend, and Atkins hadn't known him. Small matter, the Eagle thought. It was enough that the Cruncher had been the friend of Mister. Atkins wouldn't have understood, was frightened, wouldn't have known when to close his mouth and keep it tight shut. They were walking briskly, filling the pavement of an empty street. Atkins would have seen the cuts on the knuckles when Mister had his fist near to his throat.

'What have you done to your hand, Mister?'

'I've done nothing to my hand.'

'The skin's all broken, it's '

Mister stopped. He turned to the Eagle. He held his hands under the Eagle's nose. The scars were angry, weeping, where the skin was split. 'Do you see anything wrong with my hands, Eagle?'

The Eagle said quietly, 'I don'I see anything wrong with your hands, Mister.'

He was Mister's man. He did not then and had not ever dared to be anything else They walked past the shops with the steel shutters down, and the benches where couples cuddled hopelessly in the cold, past the cafes where the waiters sluiced the floors and lifted the chairs onto the tables They came to the small park. Round the grass were thick bushes, bare of leaves but heavy enough to loss shadows on to the grass. They saw the boy. He had the earphones on his pretty head, and was gyrating with the music he listened to. The dogs smiled the grass, meandered between the shadows Their leashes were hooked to their collars and trailed on the ground after them. He was watched and he did not know it.

Atkins veered away to the right. The Eagle followed Mister to the left, to be behind the boy, as he had been told. He always did what Mister told him. It was about the Cruncher, whom the Eagle had detested, and about the Cruncher's honour, which there had never been any.

They closed on the boy, Enver, who was lost in his music.

C h a p t e r S i x t e e n

He walked, each step laboured, in agony. He could have taken the blue van

The excuse Joey gave himself for walking was that exercise would loosen the joints at his hips, knees, ankles, would dull the bruising on his ribcage, the wheeze in his lung's, and soften the ache behind his eyes. The excuse was merely a delaying tactic. He walked because he was in no hurry to reach his destination He had gone first to the third floor, apartment H, of Foinicka 37. A young woman had answered, draped in a long tailed man's shirt, and he'd asked lor Miss Holberg. She'd come to the door, wrapped in a heavy dressing gown, and she'd used her fingers to squeeze the sleep from her eyes, joey had betrayed her dreams, had told his story. When he'd finished, had demolished her, she'd stuttered questions at him Who are you? How do you know this? Why do you come to tell me it?' Without answering, he'd slipped away down the stairs, and back to the night.

The darkness and the chill of it were close to him.

From Novo Sarajevo, he had tracked alongside the Miljacka river going past the black towers of apartments, the snipers' homes, then had crossed the river at the Vrbanja bridge. It was where she had been shot where Jasmina and her boy had been, in their turn betrayed. Cars crossed where she had lain. Oil grease was smeared where she had bled. He was drawn towards the hill, the steep climb, a place he had no wish to be.

He had said: But that's impossible. He knew their stories, what they had suffered, and their strength…

It was not possible.

There were no more cars now, no people scurrying for home up the unlit road. The faster he went up the hill, the sooner he would know the truth of it. Without the moon, full and bright, he would have seen nothing after the last lit pool from the street-lamp. An owl shrieked from the cemetery. He went on. On his watch the hands were past midnight. It was already the day of the meeting. Without authorization for intrusive surveillance, signed by a recognized judge, any evidence accrued from the telephoto camera lens or the directional microphone carried in Maggie Bolton's steel-sided box was inadmissible in court. He could see the old, worn, condescending faces of the new men and the new woman who made the Sierra Quebec Golf team, and he could hear the criticizing merciless rasp of Gough's voice… He did not think it could be true, it was not possible.