‘What can I get you?’ asked the barman, his accent placing his origins firmly in the Balkans.
Tudor gestured at the cooler. ‘Give me a Budweiser,’ he said, slipping onto the nearest barstool. He pondered the choice of beverages stocked. There was plenty of slivovitz on display, but then the lethal plum brandy was a national drink. He saw one or two beers with Cyrillic labels and the wine of the week was from Montenegro, and yet most of what was on offer was American. He recalled a friend who had been posted to what was then Yugoslavia during the war in thenineties telling him the Serbs lusted after all things American, and as many of them improved their English by watching pirated movies, they often had a US twang to their second language.
‘Glass?’ the barman offered a stemmed balloon.
Tudor shook his head and accepted the opened bottle, taking a swig as he handed over a fiver. ‘You fully booked?’ he asked in an attempt to seem like an ordinary customer, even though he was pretty sure no-one was buying that.
‘Is Friday,’ the barman said by way of no explanation at all.
Tudor turned on the stool the better to study the clientele while he had the chance. They would, after all, be between him and the way out. Good natured chatter could be heard, in at least two languages, above the insistence of the traditional music. There were three couples and two tables of four. A mix of men and women, most quite well dressed but not posh or flashy. The women all wore full make up and had challenging hairdos. He noticed there were no children. Not uncommon given it was a school day, but not so much as a baby? Weren’t all Slavs supposed to revere the family? Aside from this lack, the diners seemed mundane enough. The way they were tucking into their meals suggested a familiarity with the menu. From where hesat this appeared to consist almost entirely of meat. He noticed sausages and patties and kebabs and steaks and cutlets and meatballs. Vegetarians were definitely not catered for. On each table a small bowl of basic salad sat unloved and untouched. Tudor drank a little more beer and then set the bottle down. No point in putting off the moment any longer. Wiry and Meathead were blatantly staring at him now and it was not a pleasant feeling. He got up and walked to the back of the room. As he came close to the old man’s table, both bodyguards stepped up, the nearest standing to block his way, the other moving forwards to stand beside his boss. This was the moment he had to remind himself it was his own idea to take the fight to his adversary. This time they would meet on his terms. He was banking on them not wanting trouble on their own doorstep, and that he would be safer among a restaurant full of diners than most places. He wasn’t going to wait for them to loom out of the dark again. Wasn’t going to wait for them to come for him. Or Emily. Especially Emily. Whatever it was they wanted from him, whatever problem they had with him, he was going to find out.
‘Mr Begovich ?’ he asked, ignoring the heavies.
The old man paused, a forkful of peppered steak half way to his mouth.
‘Who wants to know?’ asked the wiry bodyguard.
Again, Tudor ignored the hired help. ‘We haven’t met, but some of your …. workforce… have made themselves known to me.’
The old man lowered his fork, frowning. He spoke to the man nearest him in Serbian. Tudor had no idea what the actual words meant, but it was clear Mr Begovich was confused. Not just about who this stranger was. His movements, his speech, the way his eyes flickered slightly as if struggling to focus, all suggested here was a man whose mind was significantly diminished.
The wiry man moved fractionally closer to Tudor. He was skinny, but he smelled of violence.
‘Mr Begovich does not like to be disturbed while he eats,’ he said flatly.
‘I can understand that. What if I need for Mr Begovich to understand I don’t like being brutally attacked and my daughter assaulted by hired thugs.’
The air in the room crackled. To Tudor’s dismay, he noticed that all the other diners had stopped eating. Everyone was now watching him, listening to the exchange, waiting to see what would happen next. This should have reassured him. After all, his plan had been to use the small crowd as insurance against getting another beating. But this was not the sort of attention he had been banking on. These people weren’t watchingin the manner of alarmed bystanders. There was a very definite way their attention was upon him now, a definite and disturbing way. Glancing at their faces, at their stony expressions, and at the body posture of the men - more than one of whom had slipped a hand inside their jacket - Tudor realised that they were not random couples out for a spicy lunch. These people were Mr Begovich ’s people. Every last one of them.
The old man dabbed at his lips with an oversized napkin. ‘Are you going to eat?’ he asked. ‘You should trypljeskavica. These are excellent! And wine is from Montenegro -odlicno!’ he insisted, raising his glass of black-red wine and taking a long gulp. He spilled some, so that it trickled from his mouth, dripping off his chin. He dabbed some more and managed a little smile. ‘Try,’ he said again.
Tudor’s heart sank. Not only had he put himself in the vipers’ nest with no back up and no sensible escape route, but the man he had risked so much to talk to was of no use to him. Whatever the Begovich family business was beyond sausages and cutlets Papa Begovich clearly played no part in it. Deb’s information had been crucially lacking in that detail. He was on the point of outright asking the nearest henchman who was in charge when the restaurant door opened and the answer to his question walked in.
Dragana Begovich had her father’s angular features and dark eyes but there the similarities ended. As she strode towards Tudor she exuded confidence, power, and danger. Deb’s had mentioned a daughter and two sons. Seeing her now, Tudor decided that the boys would have to be quite something to outdo their sister. A scowling bodyguard shadowed her every move. Through the window, Tudor saw the familiar black Range Rover and two more henchmen standing with it. He recognised the garb of hoodies and expensive trainers. Evidently Miss Begovich’s taste in muscle was a little more modern than her father’s. He turned to face the head of the family. Dragana stopped and gave him an appraising look, a head to toe sweep. She folded her arms. Her guard darted forwards and set about frisking Tudor, checking inside his jacket. Tudor held his arms akimbo as if this was the most natural thing in the world. Indeed, he had been expecting it, which is why he had left his Glock at home, choosing instead to strap a small Taurus 380 Auto to his ankle. It was, as he had anticipated, a cursory frisk, more for form’s sake, and missed the more concealed weapon. He noticed the diners had all stopped any pretence of eating now. Their body language had subtly altered, each one of them showing signs of fear and respect for their true boss.
Wordlessly, Dragana brushed past him. He was unsettled by a curious heaviness that seemed to move with her. Hers was an oppressive, weighty presence. She went to her father, leaning down to kiss him tenderly on the forehead.
‘Ciao, Papa,’ she said, smiling at him sweetly.
As she straightened up again she draped one arm around his shoulders. She wore expensive jewellery with a particularly masculine signet ring that seemed a little out of place. Tudor expected to see the old man beaming after such an affectionate greeting. Instead he seemed to shrink further into himself, his eyes wary, his enjoyment of his meal gone. However gentle and attentive Dragana might wish to appear, there was no mistaking the fact that her own father was terrified of her.
‘So, Mr Tudor,’ she said, her English flavoured by sharp slavic consonants and heavy vowels, v’s replacing w’s when she couldn’t be bothered to resist the habit, ’have you come to try world famous Serbian food?’
Refusing to appear wrong-footed by the fact that she knew who he was and didn’t attempt to hide it he replied, ‘Tempting, but no thanks.’
‘No? Why else would you be here, I wonder?’
As she spoke Tudor became aware of her men closing in behind him. And there was something else that made his scalp prickle. Something in the young woman’s eyes. In the cast of her perfectly made up skin. There was a transient blue tinge to her somehow, most noticeable in the whites of her eyes. It was faint but eery and almost ghoulish, there for a fleeting moment and then gone. Tudor was so distracted by it that for a moment he forgot how perilous a situation he was in. All he could think of was that he had seen that strange colouration, that curious intensity to the eyes and dark shadow to the face, seen them somewhere before. Somewhere else they shouldn’t have been. In an instant it came to him. Mrs Salinger - the crazed old woman at the Aurora who had eviscerated her husband. He noticed a taut silence in the room and felt that everyone in it was waiting for his response. He marshalled his thoughts.
‘You know, I don’t like dancing around a subject and wasting everyone’s time, especially my own,’ he said carefully. ‘And you know what else I don’t like? Murderous thugs leaping out of the dark at me and my daughter. I don’t like that at all. And it seems to me you know who I am, and you’re not going to insult my intelligence by denying you were behind that attack. Now, I have no idea what your interest in me is, andI’m pretty certain you are not going to tell me, so here’s the thing. I don’t care. Whatever you think I’m connected to, you’re wrong. I don’t know you. I’m not mixed up with anyone who could be part of your… business. You’ve got the wrong guy. You made a mistake. Understand?’
Dragana took a packet of cigarettes from her Gucci handbag, selected one, and fished out a gold lighter. Her movements were confident and unhurried, the behaviour of someone accustomed to making people wait. As she lit her cigarette she continued to study Tudor minutely, narrowing her eyes at him. Beside her, her father paled, his whole body trembling.
‘You think I am kind of person makes mistake?’ she asked him at last.
‘Well, I’m hoping you are, because if it wasn’t a mistake, that means you deliberately targeted me and my daughter. You deliberately had your hired help try to kill us. Are you the kind of person who does that?’
Dragana stepped forwards until she was standing close enough for Tudor to smell her perfume. Close enough for him to feel the warmth of her body and again be assailed by her heaviness. He knew nothing about auras but it occurred to him that if hers were visible, it would be black. She was close enough for him to get to her quicker than her bodyguards could stophim. Which meant she didn’t believe he would hurt her. Or perhaps, she didn’t believe hecouldhurt her. At such close quarters the blue in the whites of her eyes was even more noticeable, as was the sense that he could almost see the pulsing veins beneath her skin. She was a strikingly handsome woman, but this unnatural hue and the way it moved across her face, rendered her almost repulsive. Instead of exuding the sex appeal of an attractive and powerful woman, she had about her what he could only think of as an undercurrent not just of violence, but of malevolence. Slowly, she exhaled smoke through her nostrils.
