o’ clock, he was sitting in a ratty-looking pub on the corner of Earls Court Road. Two days without a shave, his clothes slightly rumpled, he blended into the scenery well. The pub was crawling with down-and-outs and those whose dissolute hue suggested that they were recovering from last night’s hangovers. Not easy, Tallis thought, when your head’s throbbing with the blast of sound from Big Screen Sky TV and three pool tables.
Tallis took his drink and sat down at a beer-stained table overrun with last night’s empties. Scouring the blunt-featured clientele, it wasn’t long before Tallis heard the sound of hrvatski, the official language of Croatia, and traced it to two men standing at the bar. They looked to be in their mid to late twenties. Both had shaved heads. Both had flat, slanted cheekbones. One had the triangular physique of a bodybuilder on anabolic steroids. The other was smaller, less pumped up. They were rattling away, joshing one another, excited about something. Tallis pushed his way through to get closer. They were talking about a VAT scam with mobile phones. After five minutes or so the conversation switched to drugs: heroin and amphetamines.
Tallis listened. From the way they were talking it was clear they were small fry, runners for someone else. Tallis wondered who their supplier was. He listened some more but no name emerged. “Oprosti!” he said, breaking into the conversation. “Excuse me.” The two men threw him slow, suspicious looks. Keeping his voice low, he asked whether they could supply him with some cocaine for personal use. He was careful to ask only for a small quantity so that he didn’t alert their suspicions. The triangular-shaped guy ignored him. The other issued a flat, ‘Ne razumijem’. I don’t understand.
“Come on, guys,” Tallis said persuasively, continuing to speak in their native tongue. “I’m off my own patch. It’s just to keep me going. Blood brothers and all that.”
Triangle shape burst out laughing.
Tallis looked him straight in the eye. “If you can get more, I’ll take it.”
The big guy stopped, stared. His sludgy-coloured eyes were unblinking. “Where are you from?”
“Vukovar.”
Both men exchanged glances. As Tallis already knew, Vukovar struck an emotional chord in the heart of every Croat. It wasn’t a place readily forgotten. A prosperous pretty little town on the Danube, Vukovar had once been the showcase for baroque architecture. No more. In the early 1990s, it had become a battleground, laid siege to by Serbian forces, a siege in which more than two thousand people had died, many more afterwards, a lot of them buried in mass graves. Tallis had visited once. The weather had been cold and damp and miserable, yet even if the sun had shone, the place would still have felt tainted. He thought of the town as a beautiful woman who’d had the misfortune to catch smallpox. Every street corner was pitted and made ugly by gunshot and mortar. Tallis remembered his grandmother weeping over its destruction.
The triangular-shaped man clapped a thick and meaty arm around Tallis’s shoulders. “Drink, my friend,” he said, ordering brandy. “A pity it isn’t slijvovica,” he added, referring to the fierce plum brandy traditionally drunk in Croatian restaurants. “My name is Goran,” the big guy explained. “This is Janko,” he said, indicating his waxy-faced friend.
“Marko Simunic,” Tallis said.
Two hours later, they were all drunk and the best of mates. Goran and Janko were originally from Split. Both had come to the UK at the start of the hostilities in Kosovo in 1999. Lying about their ages, they’d worked as bartenders for a couple of years before getting into a more lucrative line of business. As Tallis had guessed, they were runners for someone else. In return, Tallis told them that he’d been involved in a drug smuggling operation in the South-West. At this, Goran’s flat, almost Slav features twitched into life. “All you need is a fishing boat, a dinghy and some lobster pots.” Tallis laughed. He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t know what he was saying. “There are many small beaches, all of them accessible.”
“What about Customs?” Janko said.
“Non-existent.” Tallis grinned. “They used to run small inshore boats but they got sold off. Officers now spend most of their time patrolling Dover, the major airports, this neck of the woods.”
“So you think it would be a good way in?”
“Oh, sure.”
“And you have contacts?” Tallis decided that Janko was the smart one.
“Yes.”
“Then what are you doing here?” A cunning light in Goran’s eyes suggested that the brandy had not even begun to seep into his brain.
“Lying low.”
“From what?”
“A guy I pissed off.”
“How?”
“I wanted a slice of his action. It’s being sorted.” He’s being sorted was the implication.
Janko seemed to accept the story. Goran didn’t. “Why do you choose to do business with us?”
“I told you.”
“Why us?” Goran persisted, evil-eyed.
“Hey,” Janko said. “This is our friend, our brother.”
“More drinks,” Tallis said, standing up, feeling the heat.
“Sit down,” Goran snarled.
“Fuck you.”
The air was electric. Tallis had visions of thrown fists, thrown chairs.
Janko stepped in. “Guys, guys, calm down. We are as one. Our enemies are the same.” He meant the Serbs, Tallis thought. “Go get the drinks, Marco.”
Tallis felt more rattled than he should have done as he pushed his way to the bar. He took a few deep breaths. Told himself not to be so bloody unprofessional.
On his return, Goran had softened. “This operation in Devon, it’s easy to import the goods?”
“Dead easy.”
“We know someone,” Goran said, trading a look with Janko, “someone we work with. He might be interested.”
“Yeah, who?”
“Our boss,” Janko chipped in. “We need to run it past him. We’ll let you know what he thinks.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Zivjeli!” Goran said, raising his glass. “As a sign of good faith, Janko has a tester for you. You like it, we can discuss more.”
Without a word, Janko stood up. Tallis knew the routine. They both headed for the toilets. Janko discreetly passed him a wrap, which Tallis pushed into his trouser pocket. Job done, they went back to Goran. “You like girls?” he said.
Tallis grinned in what he hoped was a convincing manner. These guys were into machismo. To state otherwise would have displeased them.
“We fix you up,” Goran said, knocking back the rest of his brandy. “Come.”
Tallis
