‘What?’
‘Ragusa. You arrested one of the waiters. Zoran Zigic. Last night.’
Padelin stared back at him for a long moment. ‘Jebi ga,’ he muttered, finally, and then belched softly for a man of his size, to which a couple of the policemen at the nearer tables offered what must have been pithy comments as it set off a new round of laughter in the bar. The ghost of a smile touched Padelin’s lips during all this, and Reinhardt could not help but smile back, but Padelin’s next words wiped it away. ‘I think I said before, I don’t need to be told how to do my job. I am satisfied in my knowledge of Vukic’s movements, and her death is my affair. That part of the investigation I take care of myself.’ He stopped and swirled his coffee before knocking the rest of it back. ‘Zigic is part Serb. We also think he’s closely related to a senior member of the Communist Party, here in Sarajevo. Someone we’ve been after for a while. And we think the Communists are involved. So, arresting him, we – how do you say? We take two birds with one stone,’ he said, sitting back in his chair. ‘Are you afraid we will solve this before you?’
Reinhardt shook his head, the skin around his eyes crinkling in frustration. ‘Padelin, it’s not a race.’ Then he thought of the Feld shy;gendarmerie. Becker’s stalling. A day ahead of him, and Padelin filled in what was suddenly racing through his mind.
‘Of course it’s a race, Reinhardt,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Maybe you just don’t know it yet, but you should.’ Reinhardt stared back at him, struck speechless. ‘You are fortunate, in a way, that this case has not attracted so much attention on your side. Still, you are hoping your investigation does not lead you into trouble with your commanders, right? That you can solve this in the proper way. The way you would like.’
‘My investigation?’ repeated Reinhardt. It was all he could manage. Any thought of telling him about Krause was gone, at least for now.
‘My mistake,’ said Padelin, placidly, and not at all sincerely. ‘I misspoke.’
‘All right. So now, we’re going to see Vukic’s film crew, correct?’
‘Just one. Her sound recorder.’
‘Sound engineer?’ Padelin nodded, covered a yawn with his hand, and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Ready when you are, champ.’
Padelin endured a series of loud farewells as they left. Picking up Reinhardt’s car, the detective directed Reinhardt towards Bjelava, to a relatively new area of housing and businesses at the western entrance of the town, constructed between the two wars, laid out in blocks. They stopped in front of a five-storey building. Following Padelin into the foyer through a door that squealed on rusty hinges, he scanned the address boxes for what he wanted. ‘Second floor,’ he said. The door was opened to their knock by a thin young man with floppy blond hair and glasses. He was what Reinhardt took to be fashionably dressed, with a burgundy knitted waistcoat on top of a blue shirt, its top button undone over a loosened, dark blue tie.
‘Jeste li policija?’ he said. His eyes were red, and puffy, as if he had been crying. Padelin showed him his identification and gestured at Reinhardt as they talked. ‘Jeste, I can speak German,’ the man said, as he let them in into a broad, open room. Filmmaking equipment was scattered all around: screens hanging from the walls, projectors, film reels, tripods and lights and other gear standing in corners. At one end of the room was a huge mirror, a tatty old couch under it covered in newspapers, magazines, and photos, like the kind of glossy prints film stars had made of themselves. On a big table in the middle of the room lay a disassembled camera, one of the big ones used for making films, surrounded by parts and tools. An overflowing ashtray and a pack of cigarettes sat next to a pile of newspapers. Beneath the smell of tobacco was a sharp chemical tang, as in Vukic’s darkroom.
The young man motioned them towards some high stools at the end of the big table. He lit himself a cigarette without offering one. He held his right forearm vertically, his elbow cupped in his left hand, and held the cigarette lightly between his fingers, wrist tilted back. It was a strangely effeminate gesture. Reinhardt wondered if Vukic had smoked, and if she had, had she held her cigarettes like that. ‘I am Dusko Jelic. What can I do for you?’
‘You were told we are investigating the murder of Marija Vukic?’ asked Padelin.
Jelic nodded, his eyes welling up again. ‘I am sorry,’ he sniffled. ‘I cannot seem to stop crying. You know? Since I heard.’
‘Yes,’ said Padelin. ‘We are sorry for your loss. Did you work with her a long time?’
‘About two years,’ said Jelic, around a deep drag of his cigarette. ‘I was the sound engineer. It was Branko took care of the cameras and films. He’s not here. He had to go back to Zagreb on Friday.’
‘And when was the last time you saw her?’
‘Friday as well. She was here.’ He motioned towards one of the doors that led off from the central space. ‘She has… had an editing studio. Just a small one. We were cutting the film we took in Visegrad. She sat just there.’ He pointed at the couch. ‘We talked, and laughed, and had coffee.’ His eyes watered over.
‘How did she seem to you?’ Reinhardt looked at the mirror and the couch, remembering the room in the club, and for a moment he imagined Vukic sitting there. Her legs crossed at the ankles as she read a magazine. No, too demure. Too like her mother. Crossed with one leg on her knee, like a man, and she was slumped back in the couch, one hand around a cup of coffee as she laughed and joked.
Jelic shrugged and looked at them with wide eyes. ‘What can I say? She was normal. Happy. Funny. She was looking forward to the weekend. There was a man coming, I think. But she was also very engaged in this film. She wanted it to be right,’ he continued, ‘because they were going to show it in Zagreb, to Pavelic. She kept Branko here so late, I was sure he would miss his train, but she drove him down to the station herself.’
‘This man you just mentioned,’ said Padelin. ‘Did you know who it was?’
Jelic shook his head as he stubbed out his cigarette with short, sharp movements. ‘No.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘I wasn’t her keeper.’
‘No,’ agreed Padelin. ‘No one is saying you were. But you were close to her. You knew her. And we believe this man may have been the one who killed her.’ Reinhardt blinked at that. They had no reason to think that yet, least of all Padelin. The Sarajevo police already had their suspect, so what was this line of questioning? Just stringing things along? Keeping the nosy German happy?
The technician squashed the butt flat and looked up at them with rebellious eyes. Almost adolescent eyes. Reinhardt had seen that look in the eyes of his son, many times. Padelin seemed to see something too, because he sat up straighter. The sniffling man was gone, replaced by something that looked more like a jilted lover. ‘Look, I didn’t keep track of her men. You know what they say about sailors, right? A girl in every port? That was Marija for you.’
Reinhardt leaned forward. ‘We understand she had a thing for older men.’
Jelic laughed. ‘Yeah. And in uniform if she could get them. The truth was, though, she would fuck anything she took a fancy to that could move its hips fast enough and that wasn’t dead.’
Without saying anything, Padelin rose and calmly struck him a thunderous blow across the ear with the flat of his hand. The slap reverberated around the room, followed by the crash and clatter of Jelic and his stool hitting the floor together. Jelic groaned in pain, his hand to the side of his ear. ‘Picku materinu!’ he croaked. He sat up on the floor, his head down between his knees, gasping and swearing in Serbo-Croat. Padelin sat down as if nothing had happened and folded his big hands on the table. Jelic looked up and seemed to remember Reinhardt, and that he had an audience. ‘Fuck! What the fuck did you do that for?’ he moaned, switching back to German. ‘Did you see that?’ he said to Reinhardt. ‘Did you see what he just did to me?’ Reinhardt nodded. ‘And you’re just going to let him do it?’