Gemini. Mark Burnell
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mum, will the hours be flexible? – but the reality was more chilling. Most likely he’d prescribe an abortion and try to find some way to force me to accept it. Which I never would. That much I knew.
By the time I took the test I wanted it to be positive.
It was negative.
I decided not to tell anyone. What was there to say? Guess what – I’m not pregnant? Mark noticed a change. I said I was feeling down but it was nothing to worry about. Two days later I was with Karen. After a sweltering hour in John Lewis on Oxford Street, we were having a cup of coffee at a nearby café, sitting at a table on the pavement, just in the shade, shopping bags at our feet. We were having a good time when, out of the blue, Karen asked me if everything was all right.
‘I’m fine. Why?’
She looked at me, suddenly serious. ‘I don’t know. I just felt … something.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Forget it.’
Which was when it hit me. A pain in my chest that began to spread.
She seemed to sense it. She put her hand on my arm. ‘Stephanie?’
When I looked at her, she was blurred.
‘What is it?’
I told her. When I’d finished she hugged me, kissed me on both cheeks and wiped away the wetness from my eyes with her handkerchief.
‘I’m sorry.’
I tried to laugh it off. ‘Don’t be. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean….’
‘Stephanie.’
I sniffed loudly. ‘What?’
‘You’re not fooling me. Does Mark know?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to tell him?’
I bit my lip. ‘Not yet.’
‘Later?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
The following week Magenta House called. Summer was over.
The subterranean conference room was deliciously cool. Dressed in a maroon T-shirt, black linen trousers and trainers, Stephanie felt goose-bumps on her arms. She sat at the most distant point of the oval table to Alexander.
‘Let’s talk about Lars Andersen. Remind me what he said to you.’
He opened the folder in front of him and began to scan printed pages. She wondered whether it was her debriefing transcript. Such transcripts had short lives. When Magenta House signed off on a contract, all trace of it was erased. That was the nature of the organization: to kill you, then once you were gone to deny you’d ever existed.
‘Any part in particular?’
‘The Russian conversation you had with Andersen and the man you later shot through the knee … what was his name?’
‘Jarni. I’m not sure there’s much I can add to what I’ve already said.’
‘This reference to Inter Milan, could you tell me something about that?’
‘Like what?’
‘The tone of the reference, maybe?’
‘It was just banter, I think. At least, it was until they found out I understood Russian. Even then the atmosphere was relaxed.’
‘Russian speakers but not Russian …’
‘My Russian was better than theirs.’
‘And you told them you hadn’t heard of Inter Milan.’
‘As I understand it, Inter Milan is an Italian football club. What does this have to do with Mostovoi?’
Alexander slid a selection of photographs down the table to Stephanie. There were a dozen, five in black-and-white, none of great quality. She flicked through and saw versions of a younger Lars Andersen: climbing out of a Mercedes with Dutch plates, wearing a leather jacket, faded jeans and trainers; exiting a glass office-block in a suit that was too tight; hunched over a plate in a crowded pizzeria, the photo taken through the window. In three shots his hair was collar-length, in the rest it was shorter. She stopped at the final photograph. He was standing in front of a dark forest in dirty camouflage combats, heavy boots caked in mud, webbing, with an AK-47 in his right hand. His scalp had been shaved more recently than his jaw; he was grinning through a week of stubble. The grain and crop of the image suggested it had once formed part of a larger picture. The irony was not lost on Stephanie.
Alexander said, ‘Ever heard of a man named Milan Savic?’
‘No.’
‘You’re looking at him. He was a Serb. During the Balkans conflict he was a paramilitary warlord. Before that he was a gangster, a black-marketeer in Belgrade.’
‘You said Savic “was” a Serb.’
‘Correct. He was shot dead by the Kosovo Liberation Army during an ambush outside Pristina on 13 February 1999. Three other members of his paramilitary unit were killed. The deaths were confirmed by two UNHCR representatives on a fact-finding mission to Kosovo. Before Kosovo, Savic and his paramilitaries were active in Croatia and Bosnia. Which means he was involved at the start and nearly made it to the end. That’s almost a decade. This photo was taken in woods not far from Banja Luka.’
‘How does Lars Andersen fit into this?’
‘Rumours have persisted suggesting Savic is still alive. We know that Lars Andersen is one of the aliases Savic is supposed to have used since 1999.’
‘And Inter Milan?’
‘It’s the nickname for the paramilitary unit he ran. The true title of Inter Milan – the Italian football club – is actually Internazionale. Savic’s paramilitary unit had an unusually high number of non-Serbs in it. He actively recruited foreigners – mercenaries, mostly – hence the name. Internationals became Inter Milan, Milan Savic’s private armed militia. They even took to wearing the club colours, black and blue.’
Stephanie re-examined the photograph from the woods. Wrapped around Savic’s throat and tucked into the top of his camouflage jacket was a black and blue football scarf.
‘Savic was a real bastard. Not that he was alone in that. There were plenty of others. Some of them have been indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague while others haven’t and never will be. Some died, some disappeared. At the time, Savic’s death was greeted with relief not only because of what he did but because of what he knew.’
‘Like what?’
‘In this matter, the International War Crimes Tribunal operates two types of indictment: the declared indictment, like those issued against Slobodan Milosevic or Radovan Karadzic, and the “sealed” or “secret” indictment, like the one used to bring General Momir Talic to justice. But there’s also a third list. Completely unofficial, it contains names of those war criminals who can never be permitted to see the inside of a courtroom. It’s not a long list, but Savic’s name is on it.’
Stephanie understood the nature of such lists. ‘I can see where this is heading. It sounds like a face-saving exercise.’
‘It doesn’t really matter what you think.’
He pressed a button on the console in front of him. The overhead lights dimmed and the wall-screen to her left flickered to life.
Alexander