sleep. I miss Laurent and the sound of the dogs barking in the valley. I miss the murmur of the cicadas, the scent of lavender and a glass of wine on the terrace.
On Friday afternoon, Alexander says, ‘Stern handled all your financial affairs, did he?’
‘He’s an information broker, not my accountant or banker.’
‘But he negotiated your contracts?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much money did you make through him?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘I’m making it my business.’
I shrug in an off-hand way. ‘A lot more than I took from you.’
Alexander looks absolutely furious.
I smile slyly. ‘A lot more.’
We move into the second week. Sometimes I’m moody and silent, sometimes I’m ready for a fight. We argue several times a day, which brings out the worst in my vocabulary. On Thursday afternoon, we have a stand-up row in his office. I storm out, slamming the door behind me. I don’t slow down until I’ve left the building. Rosie Chaudhuri catches up with me in Victoria Embankment Gardens.
She approaches me as though I’m a dog that bites. ‘Stephanie?’
I’m pacing but I’ve got nowhere to go. ‘What?’
‘You okay?’
‘What the fuck do you care?’
‘Hey …’
‘What is this? Good cop, bad cop? Are you going to sweet-talk me, then run back inside and tell him what I tell you?’
‘Is that what you think?’
It wasn’t. ‘You work in there, don’t you? For him …’
She looked disappointed, not cross. ‘I thought you knew me better than that.’
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Christ, Rosie …’
‘It’s okay.’
I put my hand on my forehead, shielding my eyes. ‘No, it isn’t. I’m sorry.’
At the weekend, I decide to strip the flat. I’d sooner it was bare than cluttered with someone else’s idea of personal touches. I take the pictures off the walls and dump them in the storage room in the basement. I empty the photos and paperbacks into black bin-liners. I sift through the CDs to see if there’s anything worth keeping. It’s a collection of chilling mediocrity; Michael Bolton, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Elton John. Not a decent song between them and the rest. I reject all thirty-four albums in the rack.
I spend an hour of Saturday afternoon in Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street, where I buy a few paperbacks of my own. On Sunday afternoon, I buy half a dozen CDs at Tower Records on Piccadilly Circus, including two Garbage albums and Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp. In the early evening, I watch Wonder Boys at the Prince Charles cinema on Leicester Square. When I come out, I go back round to the front and pay to watch the next film on the bill, Buena Vista Social Club.
Wednesday afternoon. The febrile humidity of morning had made way for rain. They were sitting in Alexander’s office. Two windows were open; the downpour drowned the sound of traffic on the Embankment.
Alexander lit a Rothmans and said, ‘Tell me about Arkan.’
Arkan and his paramilitary Tigers. Stephanie’s skin prickled. ‘What about him?’
‘There was a rumour that Petra Reuter killed him.’
‘I never read that.’
‘It wasn’t in the papers.’
Stephanie tilted back on her chair. ‘Arkan was a dog. Not a tiger. And he died like a dog; he was put down, not assassinated.’
‘Did you kill him?’
Stephanie closed her eyes. It was 15 January 2000. Arkan – real name, Zeljko Raznatovic – was striding through the lobby of the Hotel Inter-Continental in Belgrade. For a fraction of a second they’d looked at one another. It had been his last fraction of a second. She’d used a Heckler & Koch submachine gun and had aimed for the head because Stern’s sources had said that Arkan would be wearing a bullet-proof vest. Which turned out to be true. Three of the bullets she fired found the target.
‘Eye-witnesses spoke of two assassins. Who was the other?’
‘It doesn’t matter. He’s dead.’
Stephanie saw something in Alexander’s reaction. Surprise, distaste, consternation? She couldn’t tell. He said, ‘The contract came through Stern?’
‘Yes.’
‘With no indication of the client’s identity?’
‘Not at first. Stern described the job as domestic.’
‘How did you interpret that?’
‘Slobodan Milosevic.’
Alexander reflected for a moment and then nodded. ‘I agree. You never met Milosevic, I assume.’
‘No. But I met his idiot son, Marko.’
‘How did that come about?’
‘Stern set up a meeting with an intermediary. I travelled from Belgrade to Pozarevac –’
‘Milosevic’s home town?’
Stephanie nodded. ‘I met the intermediary – a Belgian named Marcel Claesen – at Bambi Park. It’s a kind of sick amusement park that Marko Milosevic built.’
‘And he was there?’
‘Yes. With Malizia Gajic.’
‘Who?’
‘His partner. They had a child together.’
‘Did she have any connections that you know of?’
‘Only to a plastic surgeon who evidently believed the bigger the breasts the better.’
‘What about Marko?’
‘He thought he was a businessman.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘I thought he was as thick as elephant shit. He had a peroxide spike for a haircut and wore a lot of Tommy Hilfiger.’
‘Did he appear to know the Belgian?’
‘In a manner of speaking. They were talking but I got the impression that Claesen was embarrassed to be seen with Marko.’
‘Do you think Marko passed on the information to Claesen?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Was Bambi Park simply the rendezvous or was Marko in the loop?’
‘I doubt it. I mean, Claesen was the intermediary. If Marko had been involved, he could have just given the information to me himself. There would have been no need for Claesen.’
‘Yet they clearly knew each other. Suggesting previous associations. Perhaps involving other members of the family?’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Then what?’
‘Claesen and I drove back to Belgrade and he provided me with the information.’
‘Which