And then they reached the island, and she was gone. There were only commuters and tourists, and soon the train was slowing for its entry into the Donauinsel station. Zorya had exited in a daze, and now here she was, watching the women and children on the beach, terrified of returning to Leopoldstadt because to do so would require crossing the river again, where the dead girl might be waiting.

But the contact between them was not all one way, because Zorya knew the girl’s name.

Jennifer. Jennifer Parker.

And that could be used against her.

Chapter XLII

Frend arrived at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport feeling vulnerable and exposed. He was here representing men whom many might have preferred to see dead. It was possible that Frend was walking into a trap instead of a negotiation, and might soon find himself in a basement in Palilula with a blowtorch being applied to his genitals before vinegar was poured onto the wounds.

Frend knew all about the Serbs’ interrogation methods. Radovan Vuksan had sometimes spoken of them over postprandial drinks, although he had differentiated between torture for the purposes of eliciting information and torture for its own sake. Burning and vinegar were best for persuading someone to talk, but pure sadism offered more scope for experimentation – theoretically, at least. It had been a source of some regret to Radovan that his countrymen displayed a marked lack of imagination when it came to inflicting suffering on others. Bats, chains, axes, and blades were the preferred instruments of the Serbs, Radovan explained, the sessions fueled by tequila, vodka, narcotics, and violent pornography. Oh, and rape: the Serbs enjoyed using sexual assault as torment for both men and women. Now, in Belgrade, such abstractions were assuming disturbingly concrete forms for Anton Frend.

There was also the small matter of Nikola Musulin’s head. Despite a careful search of the ruins of Tri Lovca and the immediate vicinity, the head had still not been recovered, and Musulin had finally been laid to rest without it. The Vuksans believed that the head might have been taken away by those responsible for the explosion, an act designed to further antagonize and humiliate Musulin’s family and allies. Musulin’s widow very much wanted the head restored to her in order that it might be placed in the coffin with the remains of her husband – ‘remains’, in this case, being the operative word, since the C4 had contrived to separate Musulin into a great many pieces, and he weighed much less in death than in life. One of Frend’s tasks would be to establish if, in fact, the head was in the possession of Matija Kiš or Simo Stajić, both of whom would be at the meeting, and potentially secure its safe return.