The Eyewitness (4 page)

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“The teddy bear,” he said quietly.

“I wanted to make sure they hadn't forgotten it.”

“What teddy bear?”

“The little girl was holding her teddy. I thought they might have left it behind.”

“They probably put it into the bag with her,” said Kimete softly.

Solomon switched off the torch.

“I hope so,” he said.

Two days later Audette faxed through his autopsy reports, with a handwritten reminder for Solomon to visit Belgrade for a malt-tasting session. The reports confirmed the Canadian's initial observations, that all twenty-six had died of suffocation. Several of the men had fractured bones and two had non-fatal bullet wounds.

Solomon picked up the faxed sheets and walked along the corridor to Chuck Miller's office. Miller's secretary, a middle-aged woman called Arnela, was on the phone and waved him through. The American was lying back in his leather chair, his tasseled loafers up on his expansive teak-veneer desk, the keyboard of his computer on his lap.

“Hiya, Jack,” said Miller, his eyes still on his VDU.

“What's up?” There were three framed photographs by his feet: one of his wife and two children, all with blonde hair, perfect skin and gleaming teeth, one of Miller surrounded by Mongolian tribesmen, and another of him receiving a Peace Corps commendation.

“I've got the reports on the Pristina bodies,” said Solomon.

“They're doing the DNA analysis, should have the results by the end of the week.”

“What about relatives?”

“I don't think there's any doubt,” said Solomon, 'but there's one family member I'm going to see today. I'll get a sample from her for corroboration. I'm going to take Kimete."

“Let me know what happens,” said Miller, his eyes still glued to his screen.

On the way out Arnela offered him a plate of biscuits and Solomon took one. Arnela's left hand was false, a realistic plastic model that had been made for her by an American charity. The original had been blown away by a Serbian sniper as she went to fetch water for her three young children one cold winter morning at the height of the siege of Sarajevo.

Solomon left the file in his office, put on his sheepskin jacket and collected the keys to his Nissan Patrol from the hook by the door.

He drove to the east of the city and stopped in front of the rundown apartment block where Kimete lived. There was a shell-hole in the concrete by the front door that filled with water when it rained, a memorial to the mortar that had killed a two-year-old boy and blown off his mother's leg. Solomon never stepped over the scarred concrete without wondering if the Serb who had fired the mortar knew that he'd killed a child and maimed a twenty-five-year-old woman. Or if he knew that his victims were Serbs too.

He rang Kimete's bell and she told him she'd be right down. Solomon went back to his car and tapped his fingers on the steering-wheel as he waited. The lifts must have been out of order because Kimete took almost five minutes to get to him and she was panting.

“Sorry,” she said, getting into the front passenger seat.

Solomon filled her in on Teuter Berisha's details as he drove down the Mese Selimovica boulevard, the main route out of the city heading towards Mostar. They passed the mustard yellow Holiday Inn on their right, then a rattling electric tram.

“Why is a Kosovar Albanian woman living in Bosnia?” she asked.

“Why didn't she stay with her family?”

“Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, Kimete,” said Solomon, braking to avoid a rusty red VW Golf that had swerved into his path without indicating.

“If she'd stayed with the family she'd be one of the bodies we're trying to identify.” The red VW swerved back to its original lane. Inside the car four young men in black-leather jackets were laughing and nodding in time to whatever was playing on the car's stereo. Solomon slowed the Nissan to give them plenty of room. Driving on Bosnian roads was dangerous at the best of times: it was as if surviving the war had given the locals a sense of invulnerability. If the Serbs couldn't kill them with tanks, mortars and sniper fire, then nothing as banal as a road-traffic accident would.

“I'm just saying, there must have been a reason.”

“She's originally from Bosnia, from a small village not far from Mostar. She married an Albanian and moved to Kosovo to be with his family. He died, but she stayed in Kosovo to raise her kids. In 'ninety-four her relatives in Bosnia were pretty much wiped out by the Serbs. There were a couple of teenagers who needed looking after, so she went back. Her kids had grown up by then and I think she just wanted to get back to her roots. I think the fact that they risked losing their land had something to do with it.”

“She's going to be distraught when she finds out what's happened,” said Kimete.

“Did she report them missing?”

Solomon wound down his window a fraction to let in some fresh air. On his left were austere tower blocks, many still bearing the scars of shrapnel hits, the hillside to his right dotted with brown houses that had new orange-tiled roofs. Virtually all the houses on the hillsides around the city had been devastated by the fighting, and after the war builders had made fortunes repairing the damage.

“No, it was a neighbour. Back then there was no procedure for contacting relatives, and because the bodies weren't found they weren't included in our database. The police didn't take a statement from her and certainly no blood sample they didn't do that back then.”

They drove past factories empty since the war and out of the city. They curved round to the south-east and followed the Neretva river to the town of Jablanica, then along the twisting road through heavily wooded hills and rocky gorges.

It started to rain so Solomon flicked on the windscreen wipers and his side-lights. When they were ninety kilometres outside Sarajevo, Solomon passed a map to Kimete and tapped on the road they were looking for.

They turned off the main road and headed up a hill, then Kimete told Solomon to turn again and he urged the four-wheel-drive down a narrow, rutted track. They rumbled over an ancient stone bridge speckled with bullet strikes, then went through a small village with cobbled roads. More than half of the houses were roofless and every building had been pockmarked by shrapnel. They passed an orchard of fruit trees, the trunks painted white with quicklime to keep insects away, and Kimete pointed to a single-storey stone cottage.

“There it is,” she said. It was a long, low building with a pitched orange-tiled roof and a small chimney at one end. The walls had been painted white, probably with the same lime that had been used to protect the trees. Set into the wall by the door was an alcove filled with neatly chopped firewood. A lonely cow was tethered to a tree-stump, cropping a clump of tired grass. Solomon pulled up the collar of his sheepskin jacket and jogged along a rough gravel path to the front door, Kimete following close behind. There was a big brass knocker in the shape of a coil of rope and he banged it against the door. The blows echoed dully around the cottage. Solomon stood with his back pressed up against the door, trying to shelter from the rain. After a couple of minutes he knocked again, harder this time. There was still no reply. He shivered as cold water trickled down the back of his neck.

He walked along the side of the house, squelching through mud. He came to a window and peered inside. An old woman was sitting in a wooden rocking-chair, huddled over a small black stove. Solomon rapped on the window. The old woman didn't react. He knocked harder, cursing under his breath. When she didn't look away from the stove, he banged on the window with the flat of his hand, so hard that he feared the glass might break.

The woman turned to the window. Then she screwed up her eyes and craned her neck, like an inquisitive bird.

Solomon waved and nodded.

“Mrs. Berisha?” he shouted.

“Teuter Berisha?”

She made a patting movement with her hand, groping for a walking-stick that was leaning against the armchair, then pushed herself slowly to her feet.

“It's okay, Mrs. Berisha,” shouted Solomon, in Bosnian.

“You stay where you are.” He pointed at the front door.

“The door, it's open?”

The old woman nodded and sank back into her chair.

Solomon walked back to the door and pushed down on the rusting latch. It creaked open, scraping across worn grey slate tiles. He went in.

“My name is Jack Solomon,” he said to the woman, in Bosnian.

“I work for the International War-dead Commission.”

She frowned, not understanding.

Kimete stepped in beside him, and explained again who they were.

“Come in, come in, the heat's going,” snapped the old woman.

Solomon closed the door behind him, took off his mud-caked shoes and put them on the rack by the door. Kimete did the same.

“Put them by the stove to dry,” said the old woman. She gestured at a stack of old newspapers “On there.”

Solomon and Kimete did as they had been told.

“Do you want coffee?” asked Mrs. Berisha.

“Yes, please,” said Solomon.

She started to get to her feet again, but he waved her back.

“Let me, Mrs. Berisha.”

“No, no, you are my guests,” she insisted, and stood up.

Solomon wanted to help her, but he could see that the old woman prided herself on her independence. He and Kimete watched as she reached up for an old wood and metal grinder on a shelf and a jar of coffee beans. She poured beans carefully into the grinder, then sat down and slowly turned the handle, every circuit taking almost ten seconds.

“Who takes care of you, Nana?”asked Solomon. Grandmother.

She shrugged away his concern.

“I can take care of myself,” she said.

“We lived through the war. Anyone can take care of themselves during the peace.”

Solomon indicated at the stove.

“Who chops wood for you?” Who shops for your food?"

__ “A boy comes in every morning with wood and food, and he helps me to bed at night.” Solomon didn't understand, and Kimete translated.

“A relative?”

“The son of a cousin. A distant relative. But a good boy. He respects his elders.”

“You have other relatives here?”

“Cousins. I had a brother, but he died. He had two sons, but they died, too.” She continued to grind the beans slowly.

“It doesn't matter,” she said.

Solomon looked across at Kimete: she should explain to the old woman what they needed. She was about to speak when Mrs. Berisha pushed herself to her feet again, went over to the stove and spooned the ground coffee into a large dzezva, a conical brass pot with a long handle. She put it on the stove, jiggled the handle as the coffee toasted, then poured in hot water from a battered metal kettle. She brought it to the boil and added more hot water. Then she put the dzezva and three cups on a metal tray and carried it over to Solomon and Kimete. She laid it on a three-legged wooden stool and poured the thick, treacly coffee.

“I've no sugar or milk,” she said apologetically.

“This is fine,” said Solomon. He sipped: it was strong and bitter, not a brew for the faint-hearted. He smacked his lips and smiled.

“Ukusan,” he said. Delicious.

The old woman hobbled back to her chair and lowered herself into it with a groan. Kimete took a cup to her and put it down at her side.

“Nana, we need you to do something for us,” said Kimete.

The old woman snorted.

“I am an old woman, I can barely walk and my eyes are no good.” She fixed them on Solomon.

“What did you say your name was?” she asked.

“Jack. Jack Solomon.”

“So, what do you need an old woman for, Mr. Solomon?”

“You can call me Jack, for a start.”

“Are you flirting with me?” She cackled, her eyes twinkling as Kimete translated. Then looked at Kimete and said something Solomon couldn't catch. Kimete laughed, and he waited for an explanation, but clearly Kimete wasn't going to give him one.

Solomon smiled.

“No, Nana. But if I was a few years younger.”

She didn't understand his Bosnian so Kimete translated, and the old woman cackled again, then brushed a lock of wispy grey hair behind her ear.

“Have you heard of the International War-dead Commission, Mrs. Berisha?” asked Kimete.

The old woman shook her head.

“Our job is to identify the victims of the war. To put names to the dead.”

“A big job, I'd have thought.”

“Jack has been doing it for more than two years, and I help him.”

The old woman's eyes narrowed to little more than slits in her parchment-like face.

“You have found them?”

“Possibly,” Kimete said cautiously.

“We have found bodies. That's why we've come to see you.” The old woman looked confused.

“We need some blood from you, Nana,” Kimete continued.

"So that we can check your DNA against the DNA of the She cut herself short. Solomon knew that she had been about to say tijela bodies.

“The DNA will show us if it was members of your family who were killed.”

“And this DNA is in my blood?”

“It's in all your cells, but blood is easier for us.”

Kimete reached into her bag and took out a grey plastic pouch, which she handed to Solomon, and the paperwork, which she kept.

“Jack will take the sample,” she said, taking out a cheap Biro.

“He likes to inflict pain, does he?” asked the old woman.

Kimete translated and Solomon smiled as he tore open the plastic pouch. Inside was a small piece of card, used to collect four bloodstains, two surgical gloves, a sterile alcohol preparation pad, a blue and white plastic lancet and a piece of plaster.

Kimete started to ask the routine questions. Name. ID number. Her family history.

“I hate needles,” she said.

“I've always hated needles.”

“Don't worry,” said Kimete.

“It's not really a needle. You don't see it and you don't feel it.” She asked him to show Mrs. Berisha the lancet. It looked like a tiny stapler. He showed her the nozzle, which was placed against the skin. When the button was pressed a small needle flicked in and out quicker than the eye could follow.

“Ne brinite se,” said Solomon. Don't worry.

“I've done this a thousand times.”

Mrs. Berisha put her head on one side.

“A thousand times?”

Solomon nodded.

“At least.”

“But you are not a doctor?”

“No.”

“So every time you do this, it is because someone has died?”

“That's right.”

“And your job is to find out who has died? And to tell their relatives? To tell them that their loved ones have been murdered?”

Solomon couldn't follow what she was saying. He looked across at Kimete, who translated as he put on the gloves.

Then he said, “That's what I do, Nana. We call it closure. That's my job.”

The old woman screwed up her face as if she was in pain.

“Why would any man want to do a job like that?” she whispered to Kimete.

“You never bring good news, do you? You either tell people that their loved ones are dead or you can tell them nothing.”

“Someone has to do it, Nana,” Kimete said softly.

Solomon tore off the corner sheet from the card, revealing the four printed circles where the blood drops were to be collected. He put it on the table next to him.

The old woman nodded at Solomon.

“But he is not a soldier, is he?” she asked Kimete.

Solomon understood what she had said. Vojnik. Soldier.

“No, I'm not a soldier,” he said.

“So you do what you do from choice?”

“Give me your hand, please, Nana.”

The old woman did as he asked. Her arm was stick-thin, the skin surprisingly smooth and white on the forearm, a stark contrast to the liver-spotted wrinkled hands. He turned the palm upward. The nails were yellow and curved, the knuckles gnarled with rheumatoid arthritis. Solomon swabbed her ring finger with the preparation pad. He nodded at a black-and-white photograph on the wall: a stunningly pretty girl with shoulder-length wavy hair on the arm of a tall, good-looking man in evening dress.

“Is that you, Nana? And your husband?”

The old woman looked across at the picture.

“Handsome, isn't he? All the girls in the village said I was lucky to have him, but they didn't know what he was like. Not really.”

As she talked, Solomon pricked her finger with the lancet. A small drop of blood blossomed at the tip. He put the lancet on the table.

“He had a temper and he was a big man.” She smiled at the photograph.

“The things you put up with when you are in love.” She looked down at her finger.

“You've started already?”

“It's done, Nana. I said it wouldn't hurt. We've almost finished.”

He took her hand and gently pressed the finger against each of the four printed circles, then stuck the plaster over the tiny wound.

“That's it,” he said, putting the card on the table to dry.

“When will you know?” she asked.

“A few days.”

“Where were they found?”

Solomon swallowed.

She saw his hesitation.

“It was bad?” She looked across at Kimete.

“It was bad?” she repeated.

“It's always bad, Nana,” said Kimete.

“They were cruel times.” She reached over and held the old woman's hand.

“But we don't think there's much doubt. We have to be sure before we say anything officially, but I think you must prepare yourself for the worst.”

“What happened to them?” she asked.

Solomon sighed “Nana .. .”

The old woman spoke to Kimete.

“I have a right to know. I might be a silly old woman who's no use to anyone, but I have a right to know.” She leaned forward so that her wrinkled face was only inches from Kimete's.

“I know they're dead. I accepted that long ago. If any of them was alive they would have been in touch. But I have a right to know how they died. Don't I?” She looked across at Solomon, her hand still in Kimete's.

“Don't I?” she repeated.

Solomon took a deep breath.

“They were put into a truck, Nana,” he said, in Bosnian.

“A refrigerator truck used to carry meat. Some of the men fought back and they were shot. The doors were locked and the truck was driven into a lake.”

She frowned.

“They drowned?”

“The back of the truck was airtight so they suffocated.”

Kimete translated.

“Posto?” asked the old woman. How many?

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty-six,” repeated the old woman.

“There were children?”

“Four boys. And three girls. One was a toddler. Two years old, maybe.”

Kimete translated.

“A baby girl?”

“Yes.”

“Shpresa,” whispered the old woman.

“My great granddaughter.” Tears ran down her wrinkled cheeks but she made no move to brush them away.

Shpresa. Now the child had a name. The image of the little girl, clutching her teddy to her chest, cradled in the arms of her mother, flashed into Solomon's mind and he felt tears at the back of his eyes. But he was damned if he'd cry.

“It would be a help, Nana, if you could give me the names of the people at the farm,” he said.

The old woman groped for her stick and pushed herself to her feet.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“I have photographs,” she said.

Solomon stood up.

“Let me get them for you,” he said.

“Where are they?”

The woman sighed and lowered herself back into her chair. She gestured with her walking-stick at a low wooden sideboard.

“The top drawer,” she said.

Solomon went over to it and pulled open the drawer. Inside there was a large album with thick cardboard covers. He moved his chair so that he could sit down next to Mrs. Berisha, and placed the album on his knees.

“It was a wedding,” said the old woman.

“My grandson. Three years ago. I couldn't go because of my legs so my daughter sent me the album. Do you have a cigarette?”

A look of surprise flashed across Solomon's face.

“Oh come on, young man,” Mrs. Berisha said tartly.

“You think that just because I'm an old woman I've said goodbye to all pleasures?”

Solomon laughed as Kimete translated.

“I suppose I'm surprised that a smoker has lived so long,” he said.

“It's not the tobacco, it's the chemicals they mix with it,” said the old woman.

“Decent tobacco never hurt anyone. My father smoked a pipe every day for seventy years. Now, do you have a cigarette or not?”

Solomon fished a packet of Marlboro out of his jacket pocket and handed her a cigarette. She had trouble moving the first finger of her right hand, the tip of which was curled into her palm, so she pushed the cigarette between her second and third fingers. He lit it for her with his Zippo. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes as she held the smoke in her lungs'. Then opened them, exhaled and smiled at him.

“That's better,” she said.

Solomon gave a cigarette to Kimete, took one himself, lit them, and put the packet on the table.

“Keep them for later,” he said.

He opened the album. The pages were separated by sheets of tissue paper and he turned them carefully. The photographs hadn't been taken by a professional. Many were out of focus and framed badly, but there was no mistaking the joy on the faces of the subjects. The groom was a stocky man in his late twenties with wide shoulders and a strong jaw. Farming stock. His wife was maybe five years younger, a frail-looking girl with long black hair and a slightly upturned nose. She had a mischievous smile and in most of the photographs she was gazing up adoringly at her new husband.

“They're a lovely couple,” said Solomon, and shuddered. They had died in the back of that truck less than a year after the photograph was taken.

“The little girl wasn't hers?” he asked.

Kimete translated, and the old woman shook her head.

“No. Shpresa was born just a few days after the wedding.” She tapped one of the photographs a group of six women, one of whom was heavily pregnant.

“My nephew's wife.” She used her stick to pull a brass ashtray in the shape of a leaf across the table towards her, then deftly flicked ash into it.