The Eyewitness (3 page)

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Solomon felt tears prick his eyes and he turned away. In the four years that he'd been working for the International War-dead Commission, he had been present at several dozen exhumations and had been involved in the identification of hundreds of men, women and children, but the remains had been generally little more than skeletons, barely human. This little girl was real, a child who had laughed and played, and now she was dead. The mother and father had obviously been trying to comfort her. It would have been dark. And cold. The truck would have rocked and bucked as it went down the bank, and then the splash as it went into the water. What had it been like inside the truck when they'd realised that they were in the water and nobody was coming to help them? There'd have been shouts and screams. Maybe someone had tried to take charge, had told them to relax, not to use up the air so quickly, that they'd live longer if they all stayed quiet. And the men had clawed at the back until their fingers were shredded and bloody.

There'd have been panic and fear and anger, with the women huddling together for comfort, probably praying. The old couple must have just sat down and held each other, waiting to die. The young couple had probably tried to comfort the little girl, soothing her with quiet words, trying to get her to sleep, whispering to her that everything was going to be all right, even though they knew that they were all dying.

The policeman came up behind Solomon and said something in Bosnian.

“He says it might have been an accident,” Kimete told him.

Solomon stood up.

“Bullshit. The door was padlocked.”

Kimete translated. The policeman shrugged and spoke again, gesturing at the bodies with the torch.

“He says maybe they were refugees, being smuggled across country. The truck ran off the road, went into the lake.”

“They were driving towards Serbia. Tell him that Kosovar Albanians wouldn't have been seeking refuge in Serbia. And if it was an accident, why wasn't it reported?”

Kimete spoke to the policeman, then listened as he replied.

“He says they might have been cutting through Serbia to Croatia,” said Kimete, 'that if they were people smugglers and there was an accident they wouldn't have hung around. If it was ethnic cleansing, why put them in a truck? Why drive them into Serbia?"

Solomon shook his head. There was no point in arguing with the man. Divisions between the ethnic groups in the Balkans were as deep and as bitter as they had ever been. It was only the presence of KFOR and SFOR that was keeping a lid on the situation, forcing the various factions to live together in a semblance of peace. He had no doubt that if the troops pulled out, the killing would start again within days.

“Tell him that the Commission has jurisdiction, and that KFOR will be in charge of securing the truck and the bodies. We'll be handling the identification, then passing the files on to the War Crimes Tribunal. If he thinks that this was an accident, he's more than welcome to tell that to the Tribunal investigators but as far as I'm concerned he can shove his explanation up his arse.” Kimete began to speak but Solomon put his hand on her shoulder.

“Forget the last bit.”

“I was going to,” she said.

Solomon walked back to the rear of the truck, counting bodies. He jumped down and the American lieutenant steadied him.

“I make it twenty-six, too,” said Solomon.

“Why would they do that to women and children?”

“What's your name?” asked Solomon.

“Matt,” said the lieutenant.

“Matt Richards.”

“How long have you been with KFOR, Matt?”

“Six weeks.”

Solomon gave him another cigarette and lit it, then lit one for himself.

“You're asking the one question that can't be answered, Matt,” said Solomon.

“We can find out what happened, and when, and we can identify the dead and maybe even the men who killed them, but we aren't going to get inside the heads of the people here to find out why. It's a frog-and-scorpion thing. Instinct.”

“But kids. Old people.”

“The Germans sent old people and children to the gas chambers.”

“I can't get my head around it,” Richards said.

“You'll get used to it,” said Solomon.

“You won't go far wrong if you just assume that people are basically evil.”

“I can't accept that. I let Jesus Christ into my life when I was in college.”

For a moment Solomon thought he was joking, then saw, from the intense look on his face, that he was not.

Solomon tried to blow a smoke-ring, but failed.

“Okay, this is what's going to happen now,” he said.

“Keep the truck secured until the coroner arrives. He'll carry out autopsies to determine cause of death. Then the bodies are to be bagged. We're short-staffed so if you could get your guys to do it, I'd be grateful. Make sure they wear gloves to avoid contamination. Then the bodies will be taken to our facility in Belgrade.”

“What happens there?”

“We take DNA samples and compare them with the DNA from relatives, if we can find any. And assuming the coroner says it's murder, it gets passed to the War Crimes Tribunal.”

“You do this a lot?”

“It's my job.”

“How do you deal with it?” asked the American.

“Deal with what?”

“What you see. What they've done to each other.”

“You're a soldier,” said Solomon, surprised.

“You must have seen worse.”

Richards took a long pull on his cigarette.

“These are the first bodies I've seen,” he said. He gestured at the truck.

“That's the work of the devil.”

“It's the work of human beings, Matt. We've got almost ten thousand bodies to identify, and probably as many still in the ground. And not one died peacefully. I try not to think what happened to them. I just do my job.”

Kimete jumped down from the back of the truck, leaving the policeman inside it.

“Is he okay?” asked Solomon.

“I've smoothed his feathers, he's fine.” She paused.

“It's different, isn't it, when you can see their faces?”

Solomon nodded. The remains in the body-bags at Tuzla didn't have faces. They were just bones, like museum exhibits.

“Are you feeling all right?” Kimete asked.

“You look pale.”

Solomon swallowed. There was a bad taste in his mouth, bitter and acrid.

“I'm okay.”

“Shall I get you a glass of water from the farmhouse?”

Solomon swallowed again.

“Yeah, thanks.” Suddenly he threw up. Richards and Kimete jumped back. After a moment, she put a hand on his back and patted him.

Solomon heard laughing and he looked across at the policeman, who was standing now with two of his men at the back of the truck. He took a step towards the man but Kimete grasped his wrist.

“It's not worth it,” she said.

“He's not worth it.”

Solomon glared at the three policemen who were still laughing at him. Gradually his anger subsided.

“Yeah, you're right,” he said.

He and Kimete went over to the farmhouse. On the way, he collected the file from his car.

Two US troopers were standing at the farmhouse door and one pushed it open for them. An old couple were sitting by an open-hearth fire, warming themselves. Kimete explained who they were. The old man, his face weathered to the consistency of leather, spoke to her in Serbo-Croatian as the old woman poured them cups of strong coffee.

“He wants to know if he will be reimbursed for the use of his barn,” said Kimete.

“Tell him he will be,” said Solomon.

“Is that true?” she asked.

“Hell, I don't know and, frankly, I don't care,” said Solomon.

“By the look of it, the barn wasn't being used before they put the truck in it. Just say the Serbo-Croatian equivalent of ”The cheque's in the post“ and leave it at that.”

Kimete spoke briefly, the old man beamed and Solomon raised his coffee cup in salute. Twenty-six men, women and children lay dead just a hundred yards away and all the old man was concerned about was money. Solomon wondered how long Matt Richards would retain his born-again faith surrounded by people who happily saw their neighbours shipped out to murder camps and communal graves.

“And ask him if it's okay if we stay here until we've got the bodies processed,” said Solomon.

“Should all be done by this evening.”

He began to read through the slim file as Kimete translated. The reports had been handwritten in Serbo-Croatian but translated and typed in English.

Of the twenty-one names of those believed to be missing, fifteen were female. Two were infants. A missing-person's report had been compiled for each name; in most cases it consisted of a single sheet on which there was a name and an approximate age. There were no photographs, no medical details, nothing Solomon could use to match the missing with the bodies in the truck.

The reports had been prepared by the federal police in Pristina, and in the absence of evidence that a crime had been committed they had clearly decided just to go through the motions. The Pristina police probably took the same view as the policeman: that the family might have decided to leave voluntarily in the hope of making a new life for themselves elsewhere.

There was only one next-of-kin named, a woman who was now living in Bosnia: Teuter Berisha, aged seventy-two. She was the aunt of the owner of the farm outside Pristina, Agim Shala; his wife was Drita. There was nothing in the file to suggest that Teuter Berisha had been contacted about the missing family.

A horn sounded outside and Solomon put down the file. He and Kimete went to the door of the farmhouse. A grey-haired man with piercing blue eyes was parking a white four-wheel-drive with UN on its side in big black letters. Solomon waved to him. It was Alain Audette, a Canadian doctor who had worked as a UN coroner in Belgrade for the past two years. He had a dry sense of humour and a love of single malt whisky, which meant most of Solomon's encounters with him ended in a raging hangover.

Audette climbed out of the vehicle and opened the back as Solomon and Kimete walked over to him.

“I brought the bags with me,” said Audette.

“Save time, hey?”

Solomon shook hands with him, and Kimete gave him a hug and accepted a kiss on both cheeks. Audette was a good twenty-five years older than Kimete but whenever he saw her the look in his eyes was anything but avuncular. After their first meeting Kimete had seemed quite interested, until Solomon had told her about the Canadian's three ex-wives and half-dozen children in Montreal.

“Twenty-six,” said Solomon.

“I brought thirty to be on the safe side,” said Audette.

“Where are they?”

“The barn,” said Solomon.

“Are you going to do the autopsies here?”

“Twenty-six? I'm a coroner, not a short-order cook, Jack. There's procedures to be followed. I'll give them the once-over in situ then we'll bag them and take them back to Belgrade.”

Matt Richards walked over from the barn and introduced himself to Audette. The Canadian explained that he was going to carry out a preliminary examination, and that he'd need the troopers to place the bodies in bags. Richards threw him a crisp salute and went to talk to his men. Audette nodded at Solomon.

“Let's get on with it,” he said.

Solomon and Kimete followed him into the barn. Solomon helped him into the back of the truck but didn't climb in with him.

Audette had a small dictating machine and he moved through the truck, whispering into it.

“Are you okay, Jack?” asked Kimete.

“Will you stop asking me if I'm okay?” said Solomon.

“I bought some grilled chicken at the market yesterday. Probably wasn't cooked enough.”

Kimete nodded, but it was clear from her expression that she didn't believe him.

Audette spent half an hour in the truck, then jumped down next to Solomon.

“Not often we get to see bodies in such good condition, hey?” said the Canadian.

“Other than them being dead, you mean?” asked Solomon.

Audette ignored the sarcasm.

“Cause of death in all cases appears to be suffocation,” he said.

“Two of the men had gunshot wounds, non-fatal. One in the leg, one in the arm.”

“So they were forced into the truck against their will?”

“I'd say so. I found a skull fracture on one of the men consistent with a blow. A rifle butt, maybe. I'll be able to tell you more once I've got them on the table. All Muslims, right?”

“Looks like it. All from one family farm outside Pristina. Neighbours are Serbs, but nobody saw anything. Hear no evil, see no evil.”

“There were atrocities on both sides, Jack,” said Audette quietly.

“I know,” said Solomon.

Audette put a hand on Solomon's shoulder and squeezed gently.

“It's about time we had a night on the town, isn't it? Why don't you fix up a trip to my neck of the woods? I picked up a couple of fifteen-year-old malts last time I was in Zurich airport.”

Solomon nodded without enthusiasm.

“It's a shit job, Jack, but if we didn't do it, this place would be darn sight shittier than it is.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Audette gestured towards the farmhouse.

“They got coffee in there?”

A few minutes later Solomon, Audette and Kimete were sitting at the table in the farmhouse kitchen drinking coffee and swapping stories while the KFOR troopers put the bodies into bags, then into a UN truck, which had arrived as the sun was going down.

Matt Richards came over to say goodbye, gave Kimete a wistful look, then climbed into one of the Humvees and led the convoy out of the farmyard, down the rutted track. Audette climbed into his four-wheel-drive and followed them.

Solomon lit a Marlboro and blew a tight plume of smoke towards the floor. He stared at the barn, frowning.

“What's wrong?” asked Kimete.

“Just give me a minute,” he said.

He walked over to the barn. The policeman was still there, talking to his men. He pointed at the man's torch, and the policeman handed it to him. He stood at the rear of the truck and played the beam around the interior.

Kimete came up behind him.