Deep Black - Andy McNab [18]
This particular execution had been carried out by Muslims. In the background was a group of women, some with small bundles of belongings, being helped on to a truck by a man. Somebody had painted a white arrow on the bark just above the blood splash, and daubed the words ‘Chetnik Mama’. It was hard enough wondering why they’d shot her, let alone stopped to paint a message. What was even worse was that the Muslims hadn’t killed the baby: hypothermia had. I kept my eyes on the girl, staring into her eyes for clues. Had she stayed conscious just long enough for her to know her kid was going to die as soon as the frost arrived that night?
I rubbed a hand into my scalp and smelt it, wondering if the mother had been able to smell her child’s hair while taking her last breaths.
I moved down the aisle, drawn to a particular plate four or five shots along. A drab image, with a flash of red in it.
I stood in front of it and couldn’t decide if I should laugh or burst into tears. It was Zina, smiling at the camera, her arms out as she showed off her new jacket while walking along a mud track with a group of older women. Everything else was grey – the sky, the buildings behind her, even the old women and their clothes. But not her: she was a splash of colour and her eyes were bright as they looked into the lens, perhaps smiling at her own reflection.
The caption simply said: ‘The Poppy’. The photographer was Finnish.
Her full name was Zina Osmanovich, and the picture had been taken on her fifteenth birthday. Two days later she was grabbed by Serbs, it said, along with the rest of her village, and killed while trying to escape.
Fifteen. I glanced down at Baby-G.
I tried not to, but couldn’t stop myself looking back and staring into her eyes. The last time I’d seen them they were dull and glazed like those of a dead fish, her mutilated body covered in mud. Tears started to well.
It had been nine years. What the fuck was wrong with me? I wanted to move, and yet I didn’t. In the end I just stood and gazed at her. I thought about her life and Kelly’s. How would things have turned out for them both? Would they have got married? Had kids of their own?
I should have done something. They would both have been alive still if it wasn’t for me . . .
What? What could I have done?
I felt a hand on my arm.
‘I’m not surprised you can’t tear yourself away from it,’ a voice behind me said. ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ There was a sigh. ‘What I’d give to have taken a shot like that . . . Wouldn’t you, Nick Collins?’
15
I spun round to find myself face to face with a grinning, clean-shaven Arab, who had the whitest teeth this side of the Oscar ceremony.
‘Jeral!’ I shook my head with surprise and what I hoped looked like delight. Pointless pretending I wasn’t who he thought I was: we’d spent too long together in Bosnia.
We shook hands. His face was still creased in a huge smile. ‘It’s been a few years, hasn’t it?’
Jerry still had a touch of Omar Sharif about him, even though he’d put on a few pounds. There were specks of paint in his hair and over his watch, as if he’d been having an argument with a roller. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, mate.’ I glanced at the holes in his faded black jeans, and the black shirt that had obviously been ironed with a cold mess-tin. ‘And neither has your kit . . .’
He rubbed the thinning patch on his head ruefully before giving me the once-over. He looked as if he wanted to say I hadn’t changed either, but couldn’t quite bring himself to tell that big a lie. In the end he just rubbed his head again and his expression became more serious. ‘By the way, I’m Jerry now. Arabic names haven’t gone down too well around here since 9/11. And things