Blood Count Read online

  They climbed the stairs, the music growing louder as they went. Piravani unlocked the door leading to his flat: a lounge, bedroom and bathroom squeezed into what had once been a single large room, with a high, delicately corniced ceiling. The furniture was plain, the colour scheme drab and there were few personal possessions to be seen. Altogether, it looked more like a downmarket dentist’s waiting room than anyone’s home.

  Piravani tossed his coat over a chair and carried his rolled copy of La Gazzetta dello Sport into the bedroom, returning a few seconds later without it. Hammond was sorely tempted to ask what he had spotted in the classified ads, but did not quite have the nerve. Piravani stubbed out his cigarette in a well-filled ashtray and waved him to a seat.

  ‘Why haven’t you responded to Ingrid’s messages?’ Hammond asked, determined to seize back the initiative if he could.

  ‘Because I don’t want to speak to her.’ Piravani turned on the gas heater that occupied the fireplace with a dextrous toe-flick and smiled across at Hammond. ‘You want a drink?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  The answer did not deter Piravani from fetching a bottle and a couple of glasses from a cabinet in the corner of the room. He plonked them on the coffee table in front of Hammond, explaining the second glass with a mumbled, ‘In case you change your mind,’ before pouring himself a generous slug and slumping down in an armchair. ‘Plum brandy. A Serbian delicacy. They say Milošević made most of his mistakes because of this. Salute!’ He promptly swallowed a good third of what he had just poured. ‘Just think. Those five years in The Hague before he died: not a single drink. Poor bastard.’

  ‘It probably did him some good.’

  ‘Not enough to keep him alive.’

  Hammond sighed. He had had a basinful of Piravani already. ‘You were – are – Gazi’s accountant?’

  ‘Yes. I kept the score for him. Ten years I did that.’

  ‘Ingrid seems to think you’re still doing it.’

  ‘Well, I guess she’s right. I have the keys to the treasure chest.’

  ‘She wants you to open it.’

  ‘Of course. She wants his money. They all want his money. It’s no use to him now, is it? He’ll die in prison. So, why shouldn’t they have it?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Piravani gave a derisive snort and sipped some more brandy, then lit another cigarette. ‘How much is she paying you, doctor?’

  Hammond had no intention of admitting why he was acting as Ingrid’s messenger. It was preferable to let Piravani assume the worst. ‘It’s the family’s money, Marco. Why don’t—’

  ‘Hah! Their money? You’re joking. It’s thousands of dead men’s money, that’s what it is. Dead men and women. I should know. I know where it all came from as well as where it all is.’

  ‘Nobody forced you to work for Gazi.’

  ‘You’re right. Nobody did.’ Some of the bluster went out of him at the thought. ‘I did it for the same reason as you,’ he went on glumly. ‘The money was good. But the money is the cheese in the mousetrap. Ingrid isn’t paying you, is she? She’s blackmailing you.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I paid all Gazi’s bills, doctor. Including the one for your wife’s murder.’

  It was early April, 1996, a few days before Easter. He took the call in his consulting room at St George’s. At first he could not believe what they were telling him. It was impossible. Yet it was also, he was eventually forced to accept, true. Kate had been loading her shopping into her car at the Colliers Wood superstore. It was lunchtime. The car park was busy. There were numerous witnesses. But none of them seemed to see or understand exactly what happened. A car pulled up beside Kate. A man got out. Then he got back in and drove away. And soon afterwards Kate was found lying on the ground by her half-empty shopping trolley, with a bullet in her brain. If there was an altercation, no one heard it. No one even heard the gunshot. The sun was shining brightly after heavy rain. There was a lot of glare and reflection, shadow and noise. And a woman had been shot.

  They brought her to A & E, but she was dead on arrival – dead long before arrival, to tell the truth. By the time Hammond saw her, she was in the hospital mortuary. All that energy, all that force of personality, all that life, gone. Gone, gone, gone. The incomprehension and numbness he had observed in many a dead patient’s relatives were his. And he was no better equipped to cope with them than they had been.

  Her handbag had been stolen, encouraging the police to believe theft was the motive. But her credit cards were never used. As thefts went, it made little sense. From the outset the police were baffled, disoriented by a crime so lacking in the normal points of reference.

  One memory of the day stood now in sharp focus. Hammond had encountered Alan Kendall, Kate’s lover and aspiring husband, in a corridor at St George’s shortly after leaving the mortuary. Kendall was angry as well as shocked and grief-stricken. Something snapped in him when he saw Hammond. His handsome face twisted into a snarl of rage. ‘You’re behind this, aren’t you, you bastard? You had her killed because she chose me over you.’ It was fortunate there was a policeman on hand to hold Kendall off. He seemed intent on doing Hammond serious harm. The absurdity of his allegation made Hammond pity the man. It never occurred to him that there might come a day when the allegation would not seem so absurd after all.

  Hammond’s reaction to Piravani’s remark was so instinctive that he was out of his chair and grasping the Italian by the lapels of his jacket before he had consciously formed any such intention.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he shouted. ‘Gazi had nothing to do with my wife’s death.’

  ‘Let go of me,’ Piravani demanded.

  ‘Not until you tell me the truth.’

  ‘That is the truth.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  There was alarm in his eyes but no fear. It was suddenly clear to Hammond that Piravani was prepared to suffer the consequences of ignoring Ingrid’s message. He had decided to take some kind of a stand. And he was almost certainly speaking the absolute truth.

  ‘You do a deal with Gazi, he delivers. What’s wrong, doctor? Do you regret it now? Do you wish she was still alive?’

  Hammond released him and stepped back. The room swam around him, as if he was drunk. For a second, he seriously wondered if he had done a deal with Gazi to have Kate killed. It was a fleeting taste of what others would certainly believe. He drew a deep breath. The room stilled. ‘You’re saying you paid someone to murder my wife?’

  ‘I made the payment. It was just a line in the accounts to me. There were a lot of lines like that.’

  ‘I never asked Gazi to have her killed. This is … insane.’

  Piravani raised his eyebrows. ‘You never did?’

  ‘Of course not. I loved her. She was the mother of my child. If only for Alice’s sake, I’d never have—’ Hammond broke off. He was staring into a pit. The bottom, if there was one, was a long way down.

  ‘Sit down, doctor. You look as if you’ve had a shock.’

  Hammond retreated to his chair. He sat on the edge of the cushion, rested his elbows on his knees and began trying to massage some sense into his head. But sense was hard to find in what he now knew.

  ‘Gazi is a strange man,’ said Piravani. ‘You think you understand him. But you never do.’

  ‘I can’t believe this.’

  ‘The truth is the truth whether you believe it or not.’

  ‘Who killed her? Who did you pay?’

  ‘I can’t remember. There were many people Gazi used for that kind of thing. It could have been any one of them. Even if I could remember, what difference would it make? It was nothing personal to him. Gazi gave the order.’

  ‘How much did you pay him?’

  ‘In 1996? The rate would have been … five thousand US dollars plus expenses.’

  ‘Five thousand dollars?’ Small beer compared with Hammond’s fee for
Gazi’s liver transplant. Saving a life apparently cost a lot more than taking one. ‘Is that … all?’

  ‘Supply and demand, doctor. It’s the rule in every business.’

  ‘But … why did Gazi do it? He knew nothing about my wife. He knew nothing about me.’

  ‘It seems he knew more than you thought. A lot of people have learnt that about him. Usually too late.’

  ‘It makes no sense.’

  ‘Maybe you should go to The Hague and ask him to explain it to you.’

  Hammond sat back and sighed. ‘If this gets out … I’m finished.’

  Piravani shrugged. ‘I guess so.’

  ‘But it won’t get out if you transfer Gazi’s money to this account.’ Hammond laid on the table the piece of paper Ingrid had given him.

  Piravani looked at it and smiled. ‘Ah. Cayman Islands. Of course.’

  ‘How long would it take you to do that?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four banking hours, I mean. Gazi always insisted everything had to be liquid. So by Tuesday it could be there. But it won’t be. I’m not going to do it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Too much blood, doctor. In the end, you can’t ignore it. Gazi went into hiding early in 2000. He’d already been indicted by the International Tribunal and when another indictee, Arkan, was murdered, Gazi reckoned Milošević was trying to cover his tracks for when he had to answer his own indictment. So, he disappeared, straight after telling me to do the same. I’ve been in hiding ever since. London’s the best city in the world if you want to be invisible. But invisibility isn’t good for your social life. So, I’ve had a lot of time to think. And to read. More than a hundred thousand people were killed in three years of war in Bosnia, more than seven thousand in one day at Srebrenica. I didn’t kill anyone. But I didn’t stop anyone being killed either. I did nothing. If Gazi was here, in this room, I’d do what he told me to do. That’s his power. But he isn’t here. He’s in prison. And he’ll never get out. He said he’d look after me. I actually believed him. I trusted him. And he trusted me. Well, that was a mistake for both of us. Ingrid isn’t going to get a cent of his money. That’s my power. That’s the only thing I can do to make up for what I didn’t do in Serbia.’

  ‘Listen to me, Marco. I understand what you’re saying. Gazi is a monster. But he hasn’t got away with his crimes. He’s going to answer for them. What does it matter if his family have his money to spend. What does it really matter?’

  ‘I wire it all to the Cayman Islands and forget I ever had a choice. Is that your idea?’

  ‘My daughter lost her mother because of Gazi. Do you want her to lose her father as well? That’s what it could come to if I can’t convince her I had nothing to do with Kate’s death. I never actually told her about my trip to Belgrade. How will that look now? How will she be able to believe me?’ Hammond fumbled for his wallet and showed Piravani the photograph of Alice he always carried: sparkling-eyed, sunlight shining in her hair, holding her head just as Kate used to, smiling at her father lovingly and trustingly through the camera lens. ‘This is Alice. I love her. She loves me. But all that could change, couldn’t it? That could change overnight. She went through hell when her mother died. Do you want to put her through hell all over again?’

  ‘I’m sorry, doctor. She’s a lovely girl, but some things must be. You’ve given her everything she needs, I’m sure. A nice home. A good education. A lot of young women in Bosnia would be happy to change places with her. They’d say she was lucky. They’d say she has no idea what hell really means. Because they do know.’

  ‘Do you have children, Marco?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I thought I had a son. I learnt later … someone else was his father.’ The shadow of that discovery fell across Piravani’s face. He sighed. ‘I was betrayed.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ How sorry was a moot point. Hammond wanted only one thing: Piravani’s agreement to transfer the money. And he was prepared to use any argument to extract it. ‘Look, Marco, we’ve both been guilty of turning a blind eye to Gazi’s crimes. I certainly didn’t want to know about them. I admit that. But Alice isn’t guilty of anything. She’s already had to grow up without a mother because, I now discover, of my involvement with Gazi. Don’t you think that’s punishment enough? Do you really want her to lose all faith in her father as well?’

  ‘When NATO bombed Belgrade in 1999, doctor, they were trying to save victims of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. It worked. But those bombs killed innocent people in Belgrade, some of them children. There’s a memorial in Tasmajdan Park with a question inscribed on it. Zašto? Why? There’s no answer. There can’t be. It’s what they call collateral damage. Neat phrase. Messy reality.’

  ‘I’m pleading with you, Marco. Don’t do this to my daughter.’

  Piravani studied Hammond carefully as he stubbed out his cigarette. Then he took a sip of brandy and said, ‘The best advice Gazi ever gave me was, “Only take decisions when you’re sober”. So, I hear what you say, doctor. I understand. And this is what I’ll do. I’ll think about it. There’s nothing I could do over the weekend anyway. I’ll meet you Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park. I’ll be on the Serpentine bridge at three o’clock. You bring your piece of paper to me there.’ He stretched forward and pushed the sheet with the Cayman Islands account number on it back to Hammond’s side of the table. ‘And I’ll tell you what I’ve decided to do.’

  FIVE

  A sick man is not himself. In Edward Hammond’s experience, that was more than a mere turn of phrase. Illness drains individuality. There is no way to tell whether a sick person when fully fit is likely to be sullen or genial, mean or generous, arrogant or humble. So it certainly was with Dragan Gazi, whose liver disease was well advanced when Hammond first met him in his private room at the Voćnjak Clinic in Belgrade. He was confused and heavily sedated, his personality crushed by his body’s struggle for survival.

  Only forty-eight hours had passed since Miljanović’s call to report the availability of a donor and Hammond proposed to operate first thing in the morning. He and his team had flown in earlier that day. There was no time to be lost.

  A week later, with the gravest danger of post-operative complications past, Gazi was recovering well. He had begun to converse with Hammond on non-medical matters. He enjoyed practising his English, he said. He was gruffly humorous and complimentary about Hammond’s surgical skills as well as grateful for them. He was a thoughtful, inquisitive man. The male and female members of Hammond’s team were charmed by him. His rugged good looks – square jaw, grey wiry hair, keen blue eyes – added to his aura. Even his liver problems were due more to hepatitis-infected blood received in a transfusion after what he called a ‘wound in battle’ than to heavy drinking. It was hard to dislike him.

  Only during conversations in Serbian with some of his visitors did a different side to his character show itself. He spoke more harshly. He smiled less. He used a chopping gesture of the hand for emphasis. Hammond noted this but made little of it. The exact nature of Gazi’s activities during the years since Yugoslavia’s disintegration was something he remained studiously uninquisitive about.

  The closest they came to discussing the Bosnian conflict that had been resolved only a few months previously was, as it turned out, their last exchange before Hammond and his team returned home. The prognosis, he explained to his patient, was good.

  ‘You’ll soon be able to resume a normal life.’

  Gazi smiled. ‘That will be good. I look forward to it.’

  ‘And your country is at peace, so there’s no reason why—’

  ‘Peace?’ Gazi laughed, as if genuinely amused. ‘We are a long way from that.’

  ‘But I thought—’

  ‘A truce, doctor. That is all we have. That is all we ever have. War is in our soul.’

  ‘Every war has to end some time.’

  ‘Not in the Balkans.’

&nb
sp; ‘It can’t be as bad as that, surely.’

  ‘It can be as good as that.’ Gazi flashed Hammond a meaningful look. ‘Lives should not always be saved.’ Then he grinned, as if mightily pleased with himself. ‘But I’m glad you saved mine.’

  Hammond’s thoughts were plucked back from Belgrade thirteen years in the past by the chirruping of his phone. It was a text from Alice. ‘How was flight? Is there lots of snow?’ He looked out of the train window at the neon-spattered night and his own sallow reflection, wondering how he should reply. The truth was out of the question, of course. The lie he had told Peter and Julie would have to be recycled for Alice’s benefit. He did not like it. But he had no choice. He could only hope the need to lie would soon end.

  *

  Paddington was colder and emptier than when he had left it. He felt tired now his anger had faded. He tried to tell himself Piravani would reflect on the situation and see reason. His safety was at stake along with Hammond’s reputation. But he was not convinced. Piravani was looking for redemption. And safeguarding the peace of mind of a young Englishwoman he had never met was hardly going to supply it. Hammond had to devise an added incentive for Piravani to cooperate. And he had until Sunday afternoon to do it.

  He had parked his car at Lancaster Gate. On his way there from the station, he stopped at a small newsagent-cum-general store to buy a pint of milk. There would be none at home, since he had not expected to be home that night. While he was queuing to pay, his eye was taken by a splash of pink in the newspaper rack: La Gazzetta dello Sport. Remembering the ad Piravani had circled, he grabbed a copy, hoping he might be able to deduce which one it was. But there was no chance of that. There were no classified ads. The explanation came to him while he was in the middle of complaining to the helpful but baffled Asian proprietor. It was the export edition. Only the Italian domestic edition included classifieds. But how had Piravani come by that? It must have been sent to him from Italy, in which case it was probably several days old at least. Whatever the ad was, Hammond was not going to get a look at it.