‘Meanwhile, the Zemun clan – it’s named after a district in Belgrade, not a family – continues to function, but the Dutch share and all European territory to the west of the Netherlands were effectively ceded to the Vuksans, probably on orders from politicians in Belgrade, on the grounds that the bloodshed was making them look bad in front of their fancy European friends. The Zemun name stuck, though, because you can choose to call a wolf whatever you like, but it remains a wolf. It might also be argued that the Zemun brand had a certain market value, even a cachet.’

In truth, Holt’s interest in Serbian gangsters was minimal and didn’t extend much farther than Glendale, Ridgewood, and Astoria, the Serb enclaves in Queens, New York. But back in the late eighties and early nineties, the Bureau had briefly been forced to reckon with Boško ‘The Yugo’ Radonjić, who, thanks to his connections with the mobster Jimmy Coonan, had managed to gain control of the Irish-American Westies crime gang after most of its leadership was imprisoned. But Radonjić was dead now, and Jimmy Coonan was serving seventy-five years for racketeering, without the possibility of parole. As far as Holt was concerned, the Serbs were someone else’s problem, and they could do what they liked as long as they did it outside the United States. Armitage’s involvement with them was an unwelcome complication.

‘Since their takeover of the Dutch operation,’ said Ross, ‘the Vuksans have renewed efforts to establish who might have killed Andrej Buha. He was their cousin, a Vuksan loyalist within the syndicate, and had served under Spiridon in the military, so his murder has always rankled. A Muslim group claimed responsibility for Buha’s assassination as revenge for his activities during the war, but the Vuksans were never entirely convinced. A clean kill – two shots to the chest, and a double tap to the head – wasn’t their style, and the Vuksans’ own inquiries, which mostly involved torturing Muslim captives, seemed to confirm their suspicions.’

‘Then who killed Buha?’ said Holt.

‘I think Louis did,’ said Ross, ‘as a favor to an old friend called De Jaager. Buha had murdered a man named Jos, the husband of De Jaager’s sister-in-law, Anouk. De Jaager felt, not unreasonably, that a reprisal was in order, and tasked Louis with carrying it out. My understanding is that Louis did it for free.’

‘And you believe Armitage discovered this?’

‘There had long been rumors of an outside contractor for the hit on Buha, and Armitage had good contacts in IPOL, the Dutch police intelligence service. When Louis returned to the Netherlands with Parker, and made contact with De Jaager’s people, Armitage might have started digging deeper and come up with gold.’

‘But why feed this information to the Vuksans?’ said Holt.

‘Money. Or because she was told to.’

‘Told by whom?’