When Yesterday Comes Calling, page 3
`What do you mean? What girls?'
`We sure made a mistake hiring you, didn't we? I mean, I thought you were mildly intelligent. Jesus. How unbelievably fucking stupid you must be to hit on the girl at all, but to do it in front of her father and brothers is absolutely moronic.'
`If that's what they're saying they're lying. She came on to me. What's a man supposed to do?'
`Christ, you disgust me. But there is one thing I want from you.'
`Oh yeah? And then we're leaving?'
`Who paid you to get me killed?'
`What?' He began rapid blinking. He really was a miserable specimen. He couldn't even lie decently.
`You heard.'
`I don't know what you're talking about.'
`Yes, you do and if you ever want to see the outside of this jail again, you'll tell me who told you to kill me?'
`No one.'
`So you thought it up all by yourself?'
`Yes, no. I didn't try to kill you.'
I banged on the door. As we waited for the policeman, I said, `do you know what the punishment for rape is here? This is a Muslim town you know. First your balls will be fed to the local dogs while you watch, then they'll shove your cock down your throat, after they cut it off of course. But your misery might be cut short because you might bleed to death before they execute you. Mind you I might tell them how to stop you bleeding out so that you can become the comfort boy for all the other prisoners in here.'
The door opened and Bale screamed, `you can't leave me here. I'm Australian.'
`You're a fucking rapist and I can. None of us know you're here. Do we? Thank you, my man,' I said to the policemen and signalled that he shut the door behind me. It crashed shut.
Bale's scream followed me down the corridor past several empty cells, each as filthy as the last. There were no other prisoners. Either crime wasn't an issue here, or justice was quick and final.
Finally, I heard what I wanted to hear. `Harry—Help me—I'll tell you what I know.'
I tapped the policeman on the arm and we walked slowly back to Bale's cell. I grinned at the cop as he unlocked the door and asked him to wait just outside. He didn't grin back.
`Oh, thank God. Please Harry. I'll tell you what I know but you have to get me out of here.'
`No deals. You tell me now or you're on your own. Mate.'
`It was Milan. Milan Pavlovic. The producer I work with.'
`Nice try,' I said, `I don't believe you. I know about Pavlovic. He's a small fish. He doesn't give orders to waste people.'
`He gave them to me,' mumbled Bale sullenly.
He was lying. He wasn't the slightest bit afraid of Milan Pavlovic. I needed him to tell me who he was afraid of. I was sure it was Mladenovic.
I tapped the door and it opened immediately. ‘Thanks,' I said to the jailer who slammed the door behind him. I planned to leave Bale to stew in terror until the morning. Maybe the extra time would help him review his options.
Bale screamed at the closed door. He cursed me, the girl he tried to rape, the team and Kashmir. I smiled grimly. The shit could stew in here forever as far as I was concerned. But I did want whatever he knew. It probably wasn't much but I wanted it all. As I walked to the police station door Greg appeared with Ari, the doctor.
`He won't be needing you Ari. A few bruises. He's lucky that's all.'
Some of the crowd had dispersed though there were still a lot of angry people around. Barir said he'd told them we had no intention of taking our man out unless the police agreed. There was a lot of murmuring about police doing whatever they are paid to do. Greg told Barir to assure them that we would not be bribing the police. That justice would be done. But I did wonder if the police were happy about that.
It took a while to convince Greg to leave Bale to cool his heels overnight. That tomorrow would be soon enough to inform the nearest embassy which was in New Delhi. A long, long way from Kashmir Jammu. His hesitation finally vanished when I told him that Bale admitted he tried to get me killed.
`That's why extra time in the pokey, then Harry?' He grinned, shaking his head. `You evil bastard. What did you tell him would happen to him?' He roared laughing when I told him. `He'll be shitting himself all night after that.'
`Couldn't happen to a nicer prick.'
`Remind me not to get on your bad side, Harry.'
`You can't unless you try to kill me. I'm only nasty to people who do that.'
We adjourned to the mess hut and I was bailed up by the girls. `Did he really try it on with one of the local girls?' said Mandy.
`They're Muslims up here. They'll have his balls,' said Carly.
I grinned. `That's what I told him when I left him there.'
They too laughed. David Bale didn't have any friends in this crew.
We were due to leave for the main city of Leh by ten the next morning. It was a much bigger town than Kargil, with the colourfully named Kushok Bakula Rimpochee airport. It was an estimated five-hour drive on good roads. The weather was projected to be kind and the scenery spectacular. We were to pick up our flight to New Delhi the following morning at nine thirty.
That left me plenty of time to seriously hassle Mr Bale who, if I had my way, would not be on that flight. Once again, I took Barir, our interpreter down to the police station. When I asked the policemen at the front desk how Mr Bale was he stared at me without a word.
`He's not dead?' I asked tentatively.
The man picked up his keys and strode towards Bale's cell with Barir and me trotting behind. The sound of the keys elicited a loud groaning. Definitely not dead. As he stepped aside I was almost knocked over by the stink. Yesterday it had been bad, that institutional reek of urine along with sweat and a fainter reek of vomit that permeates all such places. But all of that was overwhelmed by the stench of shit.
5
My prediction that David Bale would shit himself stupid in fright was prescient. He had. Even the Kashmiri cop was disgusted and I just managed to push Barir out before he slammed the door behind me in double quick time.
I leaned back against the door. Bale was in bad shape. The blood on his face and clothes had dried but now he was covered in faeces.
`Had a little problem last night, did we?' I said noting that the latrine bucket was full as well.
`You bastard Nichols. I'll get you for this. Wait till I tell the embassy what you did.' Tears streaked through the dirt and dried blood on his face.
`Threats, Davey boy? And what embassy? The one who might not hear about this for a long time? That embassy? Or the one that says rapists in strange lands have to wear the consequences of their actions under local law. That embassy?'
He broke down. `Please, I beg you.'
`Like that little girl you attacked yesterday begged you to leave her alone? Or the girls in the crew who've been dodging your extremely unwelcome attentions for weeks. You are scum, Bale, a piece of garbage who seems to think you have the right to do whatever you like including paying someone to kill me. Well, payback time. Who paid you to get me killed?'
`I told you,' he wailed, `it was Milan. And I don't know why.'
`Just what did you not understand about, "I don't believe you," David? We leave in about an hour. It's a five-hour drive to Leh. Or more. We might have trouble getting onto the embassy by then and it's Saturday tomorrow. Guess what, the legal team will have very limited staff on weekends and they'll be dealing with drunken tourists. No time for a rapist in Kashmir. So, who and why?'
`I don't know,' he mumbled.
`Yes, you do. Think about it, Davey. Four more days in the Kargil Hilton. And you'll have to clean up your own shit too. I bet you're not used to doing that. Then of course there's the family of the girl. Without us around they'll think they can do whatever they like. Now I'll only say this once more. Who and why?'
`All right, you bastard. It was a bloke called Mladenovic. He's a friend of Milan's.'
`See that wasn't hard, was it? Now where did you meet him?'
`In Los Angeles. He's in movies.'
`And what else is he in, David?'
`I don't know.'
`Oh, spare me. I know you're stupid but really, I'm not. What.else.is.he.in?'
`Honest, I don't know.' I banged on the door. `All right. I think he might be connected to organised crime.'
`And…? Even I know that. So why does he want me dead? And if you say you don't know I walk out this door and tell the nice policeman that you want to marry the girl you tried to rape. That way you'll never leave Kargil.'
`I don't...I think it's got something to do with Australia.'
`Like?'
`I don't...'
`Wedding bells.'
He rushed on. Clearly a marriage was scarier than jail. `Some big takeover thing. Truly I don't...do you think a bloke like that would tell me?'
He had a point. A punk like him would only be good for a remote hit and he was too much of a klutz to even do that.
`So some kind of takeover? Of what? Business? Crime scene? Okay, you don't know. Pity. Means you'll be staying a bit longer. We'll email the embassy on the way and they'll get to you whenever. I'll tell the cop to keep you safe and give you a bucket to clean yourself up.'
I banged on the door.
`No, you have to take me with you. I've told you what I know. You promised.'
`No, I didn't. I just said I'll let the embassy know today. Anyway, you're under the jurisdiction of the Indian Authorities until then. I couldn't take you out even if I wanted to, and I don't. You disgust me and I'll make sure you never work as a cinematographer again.' The door opened. `See ya.'
The door closed and David Bale burst into tears. I bet it was the first time in his life he was paying the price for his own behaviour. I explained what I wanted to the policeman and sat down beside Barir in the jeep. He gave me a very strange look but said nothing as we sped back to the hotel.
I jumped out of the jeep and ran for our bus, settling into the seat next to Greg. I explained that the police wouldn't let Bale go. But I agreed with him that we should notify the embassy in New Delhi forthwith and let them handle it. We both knew full well that a decent bribe would have got Bale on the bus. He gave me a sideways glance and we left it at that. I didn't remind him that bribery could be used for getting justice as well as subverting it.
I settled back to watch the truly spectacular scenery along the road to Leh. Descents into deep valleys with terrifying hair pin bends cut into mountainsides then along the valley as the mountains rose on either side, until the next ascent. Along flat, stony deserts with a dusting of yellowish grasses on the gently rising hillsides until you turned a bend and there were fields of grazing sheep, all with the mass of snow-tipped mountains behind. Down roads cut along the side of another mountainside leaving nothing to the imagination if anything went wrong; the breath-taking descent into a tiny village with a beautiful temple cut into the side of the mountain behind.
Our passage was slow as the bus navigated the bends. Occasionally we were followed by a group of motorcyclists impatient to get past the lumbering vehicle. Happily, our driver was a phlegmatic man who travelled at his own pace and ignored every provocation. After a couple of hours, the rocking sent me to sleep. I was woken by Greg sliding sideways into me with a snort. He didn't wake up and most of the others were asleep as well.
My mind started ticking over again and I thought more and more about Bale's boss, the Serbian mobster, Vlado Mladenovic. What would such a man want in Australia? Was he related in any way to Anna? Unlikely. Anna's grandfather, Milos, must have left Serbia sometime after World War Two so he'd have been a lot older than this bloke.
Vlado Mladenovic was involved in the Serbian Croatian war in 1990, and Anna's grandfather died around then. But I needed to find out more about when Milos came to Australia, what he got up to when he did, and more importantly, whether he had family back in Serbia. Just to rule out any connection with Anna.
I took in more of the wild beauty of the Ladakh, hemmed in between the Kunlun Mountains and the Great Himalayas as I pondered whether to ask Anna to look up her grandfather's official bona fides, or not. To get a bit of a head start. But on what? All I had was that a Vlado Mladenovic had paid David Bale, a smart-arse shit from Melbourne, to kill me.
Bale had said that Mladenovic, a big-time crook was planning something in Australia. Like what? Drugs? The most common international crimes were tied to that. But the locals would have a stranglehold on that and inroads from outsiders could trigger a war. Or did Vlado have to disappear for a while and Australia looked remote enough to keep him safe? That too, might give him a problem with the local crime lords who would certainly know about him and might not believe his motives were pure.
The more I thought about it the less the vague idea that there was some kind of gangland invasion appealed. Mladenovic's name was too much of a coincidence to pass a smell test. He had specifically targeted me. I had contributed to the deaths of the Mladenovic women, Anna's mother and aunt. It had to be closer to home than that. As soon as I could, I'd call Anna. Apart from letting her know I was on my way home I could ask, quite casually, if she was okay and if anyone suspicious had contacted her. Maybe I was paranoid but Mladenovic had stuck a stick in a hornet's nest when he sent two assassins after me and I needed to soothe them.
I would also try to line up a meeting with Milan Pavlovic. He'd know far more than Bale and while he was only the suckerfish he might lead to the shark.
After we unloaded our equipment into the airport hotel we were more than ready to head for the centre of town for a night out. Not that Leh was known for its nightlife but someone had found out about a place called Lehchen, listed as Leh's first decent cocktail bar. With a warning about bad behaviour and after weeks of abstinence, we relaxed and tucked into some good food and lethal tasting cocktails. Leh was a Hindu town and the booze flowed but because of our early call we left just as the place started jumping.
Next morning, I changed my mind about calling Anna. I would email her when we were closer to home. To tell the truth I was anxious about talking to her. The fight we'd had before I left upset me more than I thought and I didn't want to give her any more reasons to turn away from me than she already had.
About an hour and a half after take-off from Leh in the morning we landed in New Delhi. Our connection back to Australia was tight enough to make Greg anxious. He needn't have worried. The flight was delayed by an hour due to runway maintenance. Once in the aircraft we endured another long wait until finally we taxied out to sit while God knows how many aircraft landed and took off ahead of us.
Eventually the Australian pilot assured us that we had reached the head of the queue but said that he had no idea when we would actually take off. A half hour later we finally did. I was sitting shaking my head when Mandy leaned over and grinned.
`First trip to India, Harry? Wonderful place, but just a teeny bit disorganised. I see that Mr Bale is not with us. He's spending a very uncomfortable few days in the Kargil nick, is he? How did you manage that? I mean a handful of dollars…ah—' Her eyes narrowed. `You used reverse bribery, didn't you? Paid them to keep him?'
I grinned. `Who me?’
6
I sent an email to Anna giving her our ETA and telling her I'd call when I'd unpacked. That would give her time to get used to the fact that I was going to be around again. While she said her animals were all she needed, I knew that she enjoyed talking to someone other than the local farmers and tradesmen. As she once said, it was nice to chat about nothing.
I used the time on the twelve-hour plus flight to look up more on Vlado Mladenovic. There wasn't much. He was sixty-nine, still lived in Serbia, and had a wife and a son. His father was Bogdan Mladenovic who was executed by partisans in the mountains in 1994 aged seventy-six. The entry was two years old.
I had the bug by then and looked Bogdan up. Again, there wasn't much but what there was almost lifted me out of my seat. He was born in 1918 to Maria and Slobodan Mladenovic and had a younger brother, Milos, who was born in 1924. Of course, Milos was a common name in Serbia but...I took a deep breath. Was this the connection? Was Milos Mladenovic, Anna's grandfather, Vlado Mladenovic's uncle? That would make her mother and aunt his first cousins.
I had to know more about Milos. When he came to Australia? Did he have a brother called Bogdan? If he did Vlado was also Anna's cousin. Did he know about her? Did he know about the Australian connection at all? I needed to know about Milos's business too. What happened to his wealth? How was it distributed?
Before she died Eleanor, Anna's mother said that her father was instrumental in making R.S. Holdings wealthy. Yet, though that company was an established, publicly listed, medium sized business that belonged to her husband, it was far from the juggernaut it later became. From what Eleanor said, I'd assumed that was because of her business ruthlessness but what if there was a major money injection as well as the advice that came from her father.
Anna was vague about where her grandfather's money came from too. Property, she thought. But he was generally thought to be a crook. So, was he too, involved in organised crime? If he was, it was kept very quiet. I needed to see his will. What had he left to his daughters? Did Vlado want some of it?
I emailed a friend who worked at the probate office. He might be able to extradite the old man's will. All I knew about Milos was that he died before Anna was born and that was in 1991. Second stop, ASIC. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission. How many times had I scoured that website? Every time I tried a pain settled in my gut. Long before R.S. there was my brother-in-law's family company. The one that got him killed and sent my sister Maggie and her kids into purgatory, just to keep them alive. Their identities were hidden even from me and our sister, Eve,
It had ripped me out of my normal life and turned me, aged nineteen, into an angry investigator who vowed to destroy injustice no matter what the cost. So far it had cost me any semblance of what others call a normal life, but at thirty-two it was my normal. So much a part of me that leaving it would be like dying.
