His mama couldn’t answer. It seemed as though words wouldn’t leave her mouth, instead remaining at the back of her throat, choking her.

‘Gone, little one,’ she said eventually. ‘He’s gone.’

*

The next day

Sarajevo

The crowds thronged the packed streets, an air of tension lingering, palpable in the cold, crisp afternoon sun. The smell of fear and uncertainty was almost visible, hanging like a fog above the human tide. Long queues formed outside banks and stores as people attempted to fill larders and empty bank accounts. Cash was king, and credit was a memory.

Soldiers lounged on every corner and by every queue, heavily armed with automatic weapons and hard faces. Mistrust lay everywhere. Mistrust between Serb, Croat, Bosniak, Roma, Muslim, Christian, and Orthodox. The community, once tolerant, was dividing before their very eyes. The buildings either side of the street showed the aftermath of a mortar attack. Shattered windows, strewn glass, and deep scars were gouged in the facades on both sides of the road. The siege of Sarajevo, the city known as The Jerusalem of the Balkans, was taking hold.

Aishe, a tall, lean woman, fought the tide of bodies while clutching Tomo’s hand. Both were dark in complexion, their brown eyes betraying their Roma lineage. A livid bruise coloured her cheek and a trace of blood remained on her lip. She carried a rucksack almost as large as herself and was dressed simply in a blue cotton dress and woollen coat. The boy looked bewildered and frightened, his world turned upside down.

‘Mama, what is happening? Where are we going?’

‘Hush, little one. We must hurry,’ she replied, a haunted look in her dark, glittering eyes. The mask of fear couldn’t quite disguise her classic bone structure and innate beauty.

‘But why have we left our home? What did those bad men want? Where’s Papa?’

‘Papa has gone, Tomo. He’s gone…’ Tears coursed down her cheeks, fear and fatigue etched across her features. ‘We must leave this place; we’re not safe. Keep up. We must hurry.’

The enormity of what had happened to her Jacov hit her so suddenly, it took all her resolve not to collapse.

Jacov had warned her they were at risk in the political turmoil of Bosnia and the wider Yugoslavia. Their mixed origins hadn’t endeared them to anyone: he was a Bosnian Catholic and she was of Romany gypsy heritage. Jacov’s work as an English interpreter with the government had raised his head firmly above the parapet and into the sights of the Serbians and the Bosniak Muslims.

Just the day before, he had told her that only in England could they be safe. ‘The Bosniak Muslims hate us because we’re Catholics, and my Serbian countrymen hate us because you’re Roma. I won’t join paramilitaries in the killing of innocents, so we will never be left alone.’