Reinhardt raised his eyebrows, more shocked than he wanted to let on. Padelin’s sudden ferocity had awakened a slew of bad memories, of the last months and weeks of his service in Berlin, when that sort of casual violence had become commonplace, accepted. ‘He’s your problem, not mine.’
Jelic sneered. ‘Fucking cops. You’re all the fucking same.’
‘Keep a civil tongue,’ said Padelin, heavily. ‘Or I’ll give you another one to go with it. Sit down.’ The technician picked up his stool and righted it, sitting down a respectful distance from Padelin’s hands. ‘And tell us about Marija Vukic, and what you know about the men she frequented.’
Jelic worked his jaw and winced. He straightened his glasses on his nose, and his hand crawled across the table to his cigarettes. He lit one, all the while keeping Padelin in sight out of the corner of his eyes. His hand shook as he held it. ‘Look, all I know is Marija liked them… mature. And she liked to hurt, and to be hurt. That was her thing.’
‘Masochism, is that what you’re saying?’ said Reinhardt.
‘Right, that’s it,’ Jelic replied, still working his jaw. ‘She was into pain. Watching it. And giving it. She got some sort of kick out of it. Some of the stuff we saw in Russia. And here. Jesus.’ He trailed off, his eyes far away. ‘Look, there was this story, right? I don’t know if it’s true. It was before I joined her crew. But I heard it like this. There was this Serb, rich, good-looking, someone important in Banja Luka. Banja Luka’s a nice enough town. Nice river. Mostly Serbs. Rather, it was a nice town in which a lot of Serbs used to live. Until we came along, right?’ He suddenly giggled. ‘So, this Serb, he was famous before the war for something or other, I don’t know. Music, maybe.’ He took a furious drag on his cigarette, his other hand cupping his cheek. ‘So, he’s got nothing, he’s due for deportation, and she sees him. In a line, or a queue, whatever, and he’s with his family, and she takes a fancy to him, and she tells the Ustase to give him to her. For something like a week, she takes him. Takes care of him, dresses him, feeds him, and she’s fucki -’ He flinched, looking at Padelin. ‘And at the end of the week, they’re in bed, and she cuts his throat, and leaves the body there and walks away.’
There was silence. Reinhardt and Padelin looked at each other, and each knew the other was thinking of that bedroom in Ilidza, and the knife wounds that had killed her. Could it be, wondered Reinhardt? Could it be that Padelin was right, and this was vengeance, pure and simple? ‘Like I said,’ Jelic said with his mouth all stretched out, eyes looking inward, trying to work out where it hurt the most, ‘it’s a story I heard. Might not be true. I never worked up the guts to ask her, even though we’d been through all kinds of hell together. But it’s got enough of the Marija I knew for me to believe it. Angel and demon. Light and dark. Someone who cares for you, and someone who takes away all you have. Shows you the highs, and leaves you in the lows.’ Reinhardt looked at the couch, and imagined Vukic on it, and something began to gnaw at him.
‘Where were you before you came back to film in Bosnia?’ asked Reinhardt.
Jelic got up and went over to a small stove. ‘You want coffee?’ he asked. They both shook their heads, and Jelic continued. ‘Russia, until November last year,’ he said, pouring a cup, then taking a small sip. ‘Then back to North Africa, but that didn’t last long because the Afrika Korps was getting kicked out by the British. That made her cross, as she had designs on Rommel.’ Despite what was gnawing at him, Reinhardt could not suppress the grin he felt at her audacity. Jelic grinned sheepishly as he came back to the table, wrinkling his glasses on his nose. Only Padelin stayed expressionless. ‘She wanted to go back to Russia. Thank Christ that one was turned down. She was angry about that, so we went to Stokerau, in Austria. We interviewed some of the surviving Croat soldiers from Stalingrad, watched the training for the new 369th Division. They’re here now, you know. We filmed some of them up in Visegrad. Some of them remembered Marija from Stokerau. God, they were happy to see her…’
He trailed off, staring at his cigarette, then sniffed and took a deep draw on it. ‘Italy, for a bit, earlier this year,’ Jelic continued, ‘filming the training of this new Croat division that the Italians are putting together. The Legion, they call it. We got back here about three months ago.’
‘Did anything like this story you told happen in Russia? Or anywhere else?’ asked Reinhardt.
‘Not that I know,’ replied Jelic. He seemed subdued now, turned in on himself. He lifted his cup to his mouth, then paused. ‘There were three guys I know of who she was seeing in Russia. One of those affairs was just crazy. But that was pretty much straight-up sex, if what I heard was right.’
‘And here?’ demanded Padelin. Jelic shook his head. ‘And you? Did you… ?’ Padelin trailed off. Reinhardt looked at the table, trying to work out what was bothering him. Why was he thinking of mirrors?
Jelic shook his head. ‘Not that I didn’t want to.’
‘What were the names of the men she was seeing in Russia?’ asked Padelin.
‘One was an SS general, but he was killed. The other two…’ He sighed. ‘I can’t remember. There was one of them, though. Christ, half the division could hear them having sex. That one ended badly, apparently. That’s all she’d say about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they’d picked up where they left off.’
Reinhardt and Padelin sat up, Jelic cowering back from the big detective. ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Reinhardt. Mirrors. Why was he thinking of mirrors? Vukic in front of mirrors. At the club. Here. Her bedroom.
‘Yeah, yeah. One of those guys she was seeing in Russia. I heard he was here. Heard his name, something like that, don’t know, about a month ago, and asked her wasn’t that one of her… one of her men.’ His eyes glazed over a bit, as he focused inward, then back out at them. ‘You know, she had the strangest look when I mentioned it. She said she knew he was coming. She knew he was coming, and she had it all planned out.
‘Something happened between them, in Russia. I don’t know what it was, she never talked about it. I’m pretty sure it was some kind of argument. Maybe a lovers’ quarrel. Maybe he’d had enough of her, told her to get lost. That was something no man did to Marija. She’d never let them get away with it.’ He looked between them. ‘Hey, I mean, emotionally. Never let them get away with it emotionally. She’d find some way to get back at them.’
‘Mr Jelic, do you think you’d be able to identify this general if I found a picture of him?’ said Reinhardt.
The man pursed his lips. ‘Look,’ he hesitated, ‘I don’t know he was a general…’
‘There’s a good chance, correct? From what you’ve told us about her, and about what she liked?’ said Reinhardt. Jelic shrugged, and nodded. ‘We’ll arrange it, then.’ He pulled out a notebook. ‘Give me the dates you were in Russia, please, when Vukic was seeing this man.’
Jelic swallowed and squirmed on his stool. ‘Look. Sir. I really don’t want anything to do with this. I mean, come on. Look at me. I don’t want to get mixed up in stories like this. I wouldn’t last a second.’
Reinhardt said nothing, just held his gaze as Padelin glowered next to him. Jelic’s eyes narrowed and twitched, and he sighed out. ‘Errr… it was last year. Hang on. I think I’ve got the dates somewhere.’ He went over to a desk and, opening a drawer, pulled out what looked like a journal. Reaching out for it, Reinhardt was disappointed to see it was some kind of ledger, not one of the missing diaries.
Padelin peered over his shoulder, and turned a few pages with a thick finger. ‘It’s… how do you say?’ He looked at Jelic.