Deep Black - Andy McNab [93]
The interior was cavernous, with a dome at least twenty-five metres high. Chandeliers hung down on cable and chain. The walls were decorated with beautiful framed quotes from the Qur’en. The entire floor was covered in intricately woven Oriental carpets.
Four old women had their backs against the wall to our right, heads covered and mumbling to themselves. I smiled, gesturing for their permission to enter. They smiled back and ushered me in. They gave Jerry a strange look, which made me smile: in a world of Muslims, he was clearly the weird-looking one.
The moment we stepped out of the hustle and bustle of the street, there was a sense of tranquillity I could almost touch. People seemed to glide across the carpets; voices were hushed.
I looked down and could see my socks were leaving sweat marks on the highly polished tiles. I shrugged an apology to the women.
They all smiled back.
Encouraged, I moved closer to them. ‘English? Speak English?’
They smiled even more, nodded and said nothing. I thought I might as well start asking about Salkic. I wanted as many people as possible to know we were looking for him. With luck, the bush telegraph would swing into operation. He’d either run for cover, or get curious and come looking.
‘Mr Salkic? Do you know him? Ramzi Salkic?’
They looked at each other and gobbed off, then just smiled and nodded again.
I had another go, but got exactly the same response.
I shrugged my shoulders and thanked them, then started to back out with Jerry. We put on our shoes and left.
‘You did well there, didn’t you?’ At least Jerry thought it was funny.
‘C’mon, then, we’ll go in the shop. Let’s see you do better.’
It turned out to be little more than a table covered with a jumbled selection of books and cassettes and other religious bric-à-brac. Maybe this was where the airport’s minibus driver had bought his greatest-hits collection. A guy with a grey beard stood behind the display, in a black tanktop over a white shirt buttoned all the way up his neck. He smiled at me and I smiled back.
Jerry tried his luck. ‘Speak English?’
He looked almost offended. ‘Of course!’
‘I’m looking for Ramzi Salkic. We were told he prays here. Do you know where we can find him?’
He didn’t even give it time for the name to sink in. ‘No, no. I’ve never heard that name. What does he look like?’
‘That’s the thing, we don’t really know.’
He opened his hands, palms upwards. ‘Then I am sorry.’
‘Never mind, thanks a lot.’
Dark clouds were scudding across the sky as we emerged from the mosque, and it had turned noticeably colder. ‘We’ve got thirty-five till Zuhr.’ I shoved my Baby-G under his nose. ‘Let’s get a brew. Pointless hanging around.’
We left the sanctuary of the courtyard and moved back into the hustle and bustle of the streets. A guy in a fluorescent vest was holding a fat hose over a blocked manhole while his truck sucked noisily. Paddy obviously hadn’t got round to sorting out the sewers yet. It probably wasn’t top of his list of priorities because, according to the waffle on its side, this shit-clearing vehicle was a gift from the German Red Cross. I wondered if they were being ironic.
72
There were cafés everywhere, and each one was a bigger lung-cancer factory than the last. Bosnians smoked like chimneys. Last time I’d been here the running gag was that if the Serbs didn’t finish you off, the Drinas certainly would. Health and safety probably worked in reverse here, like so much else. If they found out you had an extractor fan or a no-smoking policy, they’d probably shut you down.
We walked into one with lots of glass and chrome, cutting through a curtain of nicotine. We sat down and ordered a couple of cappuccinos. Apart from the smoke, we could have been in London or New York. The spectrum was the same, from teenagers sipping hot chocolate and obsessively checking for texts, to old boys on their own trying to make a small coffee last a lifetime.
The brew finally turned up