In common with Radovan, Bilbija was an avid reader, and they shared an affection for early twentieth-century Serbian poetry. Bilbija had a degree in Serbian Literature and Language from the University of Belgrade, and had intended continuing his studies at the postgraduate level until the family’s money ran out, forcing him to consider working for a living instead. Unfortunately, jobs were not in plentiful supply in Belgrade, and even less so in his home village in the east, close to the Danubian border with Romania. The village boasted three hundred houses but only two hundred inhabitants. Those with ambition, or of sufficient desperation, had departed to work in other countries – Austria, in the main – leaving the rest to survive as best they could. It was, like so many other Serbian communities, fit only for old men and women, and then barely. Bilbija had not wanted to go back there, but neither was he convinced that he wished to wait tables in Viennese restaurants or deliver parcels from a van in Berlin.

And then, through Zivco Ilić, who was a friend of Bilbija’s uncle, he was offered a door position at one of the Vuksans’ clubs in Amsterdam. After a couple of weeks of bouncing drunks, he was assigned the task of driving prostitutes to their clients; Bilbija might have possessed the heart of a poet, but it was housed in the body of a wrestler. He liked his new role, and took a proprietorial interest in the young women under his care, although this did not stop him from inflicting pain on them when they tried to hold money back,

Six months into his time in Amsterdam, he helped Zivco Ilić dispose of a body. The victim was a dealer who had begun to dip into his own supply and ended up owing the Vuksans more money than he could ever hope to pay. He was given one chance to make up for his lack of self-control by transporting a consignment of heroin from Amsterdam to Brussels. Unfortunately, his drug-induced paranoia led him to believe that he was being followed by the police – or possibly demons dressed as police, the precise details were unclear – which caused him to dump all five kilos in a pond near Brecht.