The Redeemer

Harry stammered something in English he struggled to understand himself.

'Sorry, sir,' the receptionist replied. 'The bar doesn't open until three o'clock. Do you want to check out now?'

Harry nodded and searched for the plane ticket in the jacket at the foot of the bed.

'Sir?'

'Yes,' Harry said, putting down the phone. He leaned back in bed to continue his search through his trouser pockets, but found only a Norwegian twenty-kroner coin. And then remembered what had happened to his watch. When the bar was closing and it was time to settle up, he had been short of a few kune and had put a Norwegian twenty-kroner coin on top of the notes and left. But before he had got as far as the door he'd heard an angry shout and felt a stinging pain at the back of his head; he had looked down as the coin bounced around the floor and spun between his feet with a ringing noise. So he had gone back to the bar and the barman, with a grunt, had accepted the wristwatch as final payment.

Harry knew the inside pockets of his jacket were torn; he fumbled and located the ticket inside the lining, coaxed it out and found the departure time. At that moment there was a knock at the door. One knock at first and then another, harder.

Harry could not remember much of what had happened after the bar closed, so if the knock was anything to do with that, there was little reason to believe there was anything pleasant in store for him. On the other hand, someone may have found his mobile phone. He staggered to the door and opened it a fraction.

'Good morning,' said the woman outside. 'Or perhaps not?'

Harry essayed a smile and leaned against the door frame. 'What do you want?'

She looked even more like an English teacher now with her hair up.

'To strike a deal,' she said.

'Oh? Why now and not yesterday?'

'Because I wanted to know what you would do after our meeting. Whether you would meet anyone from the Croatian police, for example.'

'And you know that I didn't?'

'You were drinking in the bar until it closed. Then you tottered up to your room.'

'Have you got spies, too?'

'Come on, Hole. You've got a plane to catch.'

There was a car outside waiting for them. Behind the wheel sat the barman with the prison tattoos.

'To St Stephen's, Fred,' the woman said. 'Step on it. His flight goes in an hour and a half.'

'You know a lot about me,' Harry said. 'And I know nothing about you.'

'You can call me Maria,' she said.

The tower of the mighty St Stephen's Cathedral vanished in the morning mist sweeping over Zagreb.

Maria led Harry in through the large, almost deserted, central nave. They passed confessionals and a selection of saints with appurtenant prayer benches. Recorded mantra-like choral singing issued from hidden speakers, low and heavy with reverberations, presumably to stimulate contemplation, but for Harry all it did was remind him of muzak in some kind of Catholic supermarket. She took him into a side aisle and through a door to a small room with double prayer benches. The morning light, red and blue, streamed in through the stained-glass windows. Two candles burned on either side of Jesus Christ on the cross. In front, a waxen figure knelt with upturned face and outstretched arms in desperate supplication.

'St Thomas the Apostle, the patron saint of builders,' she explained, bowing her head and making the sign of the cross. 'Who wanted to die with Jesus.'

Doubting Thomas, Harry thought, as she stooped over her bag, took out a small wax candle displaying a picture of a saint, lit it and placed it in front of the apostle.

'Kneel,' she said.

'Why?'

'Just do as I say.'

With reluctance, Harry knelt down on the tatty, red velvet prayer bench and placed his elbows on the slanting wooden arm rail, black with sweat, grease and tears. It was an oddly comfortable position.

'Swear by the Son of God that you will keep your part of the bargain.'

Harry hesitated. Then he bowed his head.

'I swear…' she began.

'I swear…'

'In the name of the Son, my Redeemer…'

'In the name of the Son, my Redeemer…'

'To do whatever is in my power to save the one they call mali spasitelj.'

Harry repeated.

She sat erect. 'This is where I met the client's go-between,' she said. 'This is where he set up the job. However, let's go. This is not the place to negotiate human destinies.'

Fred drove them to the large, open King Tomislav Park and waited in the car while Harry and Maria found a bench. Brown, withering blades of grass tried to stand but were flattened by the cold, wet wind. A tram bell rang on the other side of the old Exhibition Pavilion.

'I didn't see him,' she said. 'But he sounded young.'

'Sounded?'

'He phoned Hotel International in October the first time. If there are any calls about refugees they go through to Fred. He passed it on to me. The man told me he was ringing on behalf of an anonymous person who wanted a job done in Oslo. I remember there was a lot of traffic in the background.'

'Public telephone.'

'I assume so. I told him I never do business over the phone and never with anonymous individuals and rang off. Two days later he called again and asked me to go to St Stephen's in three days' time. I was given a precise time for when I was to appear and in which confessional.'

A crow landed on a branch in front of the bench, cocked its head and looked down on them gloomily.

'There were lots of tourists in the church that day. I entered the confessional at the appointed time. There was a sealed envelope on the chair. I opened it. Inside were detailed instructions about where and when Jon Karlsen was to be dispatched, an advance in dollars, way beyond our usual fee, and a suggested final figure. I was also informed that the go-between I had already spoken to on the phone would contact me to hear my answer and agree details of the financial arrangement if I accepted. The go-between would be our sole point of contact, but for security reasons he had not been initiated into the details of the task. Hence I was not allowed to divulge anything under any circumstances. I took the envelope, walked out of the confessional, the church and went back to the hotel. Half an hour later the go-between rang.'

'The same person who had called you from Oslo?'

'He didn't introduce himself, but as an ex-teacher I tend to notice how people speak English. And this person had a very idiosyncratic accent.'

'And what did you talk about?'

'I told him we were refusing the job for three reasons. First of all, because we make it our principle to know why a client wants a job done. Secondly, for security reasons we never let others determine the time or place. And, thirdly, because we don't work with anonymous clients.'

'What did he say?'

'He said he was responsible for making the payment, so I would have to put up with having only his identity. And he asked how much the price would have to increase for me to ignore the other objections. I answered that it was more than he could pay. So he told me how much he could pay. And I…'

Harry watched her as she searched for the right English words.

'… was not prepared for a sum of that size.'

'What did he say?'

'Two hundred thousand dollars. That's fifteen times our standard fee.'

Harry nodded slowly. 'So the motive wasn't that important any more?'

'You don't have to understand this, Hole, but we have had a plan the whole time. When we had enough money we would stop and move back to Vukovar. Start a new life. I knew this offer was our ticket out. This would be the last job.'

'So the principle of an ethical murder business had to give way?' Harry asked, rummaging for his cigarettes.

'Do you run ethical murder investigations, Hole?'