‘I don’t understand a bloody word you’re saying,’ grated Reinhardt. ‘I want to speak to Inspector Padelin. Now!’ He raised his voice on the last word, and the policeman took a step back, those arms coming up again to placate, or to ward off. He said something again, slowly, painfully, as one does to a foreigner. Reinhardt’s face twisted. He felt it go out of his control for a moment. Horrified at himself, he lurched back from the counter, into the middle of the foyer. He smelled smoke, again, that damned memory of smoke.
‘Padelin!’ he shouted. ‘Padelin! Get down here and talk to me!’ The policeman was calling something, coming out from behind the counter. ‘Padelin,’ he shouted again.
He went over to one of the doors on the left and pulled the handle. It was locked. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Unthinking, he reached up, squeezing the fingers and pushing them up and back. He heard a yelp, saw one of the policemen from outside. He shoved him back, seeing the man’s face go red with anger. Reinhardt ignored him, pulling on the handle of the second door, but it was locked as well. He heard voices behind him, the clatter of feet on the steps.
‘PADELIN!’ he bellowed.
‘Captain Reinhardt.’
He turned at the quiet voice, his last shout echoing up into silence. Dr Begovic stood there, looking very small and rumpled, a brimmed hat in one hand and a bag in the other. His eyes were large behind his thick glasses. Two policemen stood behind him. He took one step towards Reinhardt. ‘Captain. Please. This is not helping anyone.’
Reinhardt found he was breathing heavily. ‘No?’ he managed. ‘What the hell would you know?’
Begovic took another small step. ‘I might know a great deal, shy;Captain, of what goes on in this building, and who it goes on to.’ He shifted his arm, ever so slightly, the one carrying the doctor’s bag. Reinhardt’s eyes were drawn to the movement, then back up to Begovic’s face. It was carefully blank, calm, and Reinhardt felt abruptly and completely a fool, but no less angry. The anger just felt more shy;focused.
‘You should come away, Captain. You can do no good here.’
‘I want to see Padelin,’ said Reinhardt. He felt foolish saying it in front of the doctor but could not see any way around it.
‘He isn’t here,’ said Begovic, simply. ‘No one here can help you.’
‘Padelin,’ Reinhardt repeated. ‘I need to see him. He has the wrong man, you see.’
Begovic stared back at him. ‘The wrong man?’
‘The wrong man for the Vukic killing. Whoever he has, he couldn’t have done it.’
Begovic’s mouth moved, as if he wanted to say something. The two of them stared at each other for what seemed like a long moment, and then Reinhardt felt the rage begin to drain away. The anger stayed, and he held it tight, hoping it would keep him focused, but he nodded to Begovic and stepped away from the door. The doctor turned, ushering him towards the exit. The two policemen followed him out into the dusk, looking at him warily. Reinhardt walked down the steps slowly, feeling drained, empty.
‘I did warn you, did I not?’ Reinhardt jumped, startled. He had been so lost in his thoughts he had forgotten the doctor, standing quietly just a few feet away. ‘About these people?’
‘Who is he? The man they’ve got?’ asked Reinhardt.
‘There are two of them. One is a waiter. The other is his uncle. Both Serbs, although the waiter is half Croat.’ Reinhardt shook a cigarette into his hand, offering one to Begovic. He lit his, finding his hand shaking. He let the match go out, clenching his fist hard for a moment, before lighting another one for the doctor. Its flame pitched Begovic’s pasty pale face into sharp relief and woke answering glints in his thick spectacles. The match flickered out, and they were plunged back into that peculiar deep gloom dusk sometimes brought on.
‘What have they really done?’ asked Reinhardt around a deep lungful of smoke. He felt more than saw Begovic look at him, the pause as the doctor obviously wondered how much to tell him.
‘The uncle is a member of the Communist Party. His name is Milan Topalovic. They say he’s one of the Partisans’ contacts in the city. The police have had their eye on him for a while. What is it you policemen often say? “Motive and opportunity”? Unfortunately for him, Topalovic lives in Ilijas, not far from Ilidza. They’ve witnesses – including that old Austrian woman, Frau Hofler – who said they saw him, several times, near Vukic’s house. So he had the opportunity, apparently. And he’s a Serb, allegedly a Partisan, and Vukic hated both, so that’s motive. Apparently. The waiter’s just a boy really. They used him to get to Topalovic. He’s his only relative. They said if Topalovic confesses to the Vukic killing, they’ll let the boy go.’
Reinhardt finished his cigarette and tossed the butt into the road. ‘Thank you, Doctor. I wish you a pleasant evening.’ There was a foul taste in the back of this throat, and he wanted to be away from there.
‘Wait,’ said Begovic, coming after him. ‘You’re walking? You didn’t bring a car?’ Reinhardt shook his head. What little light there was ran up and down the frames of Begovic’s glasses as he turned his head from side to side. ‘It’s not safe for you to walk alone. Not even here. I will come with you. I’m going your way in any case.’
Reinhardt smiled, somewhat bemused that this little man thought to protect him. Then he tensed as a shape suddenly loomed out of the shadows. The man exchanged a few words with Begovic in Serbo-Croat. Reinhardt could not see him well, only the gleam of his eyes above the shape of his beard as he listened to the doctor. He nodded, reluctantly, it seemed, and stepped away. Begovic smiled as he answered Reinhardt’s unspoken question. ‘That’s Goran. You saw him yesterday. My driver cum assistant cum handyman. He doesn’t like me walking about after dark.’
‘Your friend is right, Doctor. It will be curfew any minute now. You should not be out.’
Begovic patted his jacket pocket. ‘I have a doctor’s permit.’
Reinhardt inclined his head courteously, putting his heels together. ‘In that case, it would be my pleasure, Doctor.’
The two of them walked in silence down to the end of the street, then left on Kvaternik. There was some street lighting here, shining creamy from lamps atop wrought-iron posts that stood along the quai, on the side nearest the river. Without speaking, the two of them crossed over and proceeded down towards Bascarsija, following the little pools of light winding down the road and around the corner. The shrunken river trickled quietly past them. There was something calming about walking. It was something Reinhardt seldom was able to do anymore, and the doctor was a strangely comforting presence. He was obviously fairly well known as he tipped his hat several times to people he passed as they hurried to get off the street before curfew, stopping once to talk to a woman with a little boy. He tickled the boy under the chin as he said goodbye, but the child only had eyes for Reinhardt. Big, wide eyes over a solemn mouth, the sort of face that expected the worst from people like him. Reinhardt looked away, suppressing a shiver of memory.
As the boy and his mother left, Begovic caught Reinhardt looking at him. He gave a little smile, then let his eyes slip, looking over Reinhardt’s shoulder at the opposite bank. He took a couple of steps over to the parapet that ran along the pavement. ‘You know, I was born just across there. In Cumurija.’ He looked down at the water. ‘We used to play down there. I can remember the Austrians building this, it was called Appelquai in those days. Very exciting. All that machinery. We used to play on the building site all the time; it drove the workers crazy. They would thrash us if they caught us, but it never stopped us.’ He gestured with his head across the river. ‘It used to flood all along and over there, quite regularly. I remember once, we were washed out of the house. It was the most exciting day of my life.’ He smiled at the reminiscence.