THE HEART OF DANGER Read Free Page A

forward. He took his photographs, and made the necessary notes, and nodded his
    head
    to tell them that he was satisfied. They prised the stinking corpse
    of
    the young man apart from the stinking corpse of the young woman. It
    was when they lifted the body of the young woman out of the pit that
    the Professor felt the bulk of the money bag. The bag was under her
    windcheater, sweater and T-shirt. He delayed them while his
    rubber-gloved fingers struggled with the bag's clip fastening that
    was
    against the small of her back. He put the bag into the pocket pouch
    on
    the leg of his overalls. Bent under the weight of them, they loaded
    the eleven body-bags through the tail doors of the two Cherokee jeeps.
    They drove away. When they turned to reach the lane, as the rain
    pattered on the windscreen, beaten away by the wipers, the Professor
    saw that the crowd had broken and now meandered away towards the
    houses
    and the lights across the stream. Off the lane, in the ruined
    village,
    the Cherokee swerved to avoid a rusted and burned-out car, and then
    again to go past a collapsed farm cart; it was only when they were
    on
    the metal led road, going towards Glina and the Sisak crossing point
    through the front line, that the Professor asked the Canadian for
    the
    loan of the light. He opened the money bag. He took out an empty
    purse and a single sodden traveller's cheque to the value of twenty
    US
    dollars, and the passport. He squinted tired eyes at the passport,
    at
    the nationality and the name. He took his handkerchief and wiped
    the
    discoloured photograph. He wondered what she had been doing there,
    caught in a shit little war in a shit little corner of Europe. The
    engines were cut. There was a moment of quiet, before the scuffled
    stampede as the passengers surged for the cabin door. She sat three
    rows from the far end of the cabin. She stayed in her seat as it
    had
    been suggested to her that she should. She was tall, did not fit
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    easily into the tourist accommodation but the senior purser on the
    flight had, in kindness, arranged that neither of the seats beside
    her
    should be taken. She had the look and the elegance of a woman who
    was
    used to being noticed, as she had been by the other passengers, dark
    hair well cut and short, careful cosmetics, a string of pearls at
    her
    throat that were real, and confident dress. She wore a
    titian-coloured
    blouse and a deep-green skirt that had the length to cover her bent
    knees and its hem was over the upper part of her well-shined boots.
    Several of the salesmen on the flight, those who had been away from
    home the longest, had looked at her, wondered what her business had
    been in that dismal city they were so relieved to be gone from. The
    cabin was clearing, the canned music was now supreme, but she seemed
    not to hear the forced cheerfulness of the Viennese waltz that drove
    her fellow passengers towards the immigration desks and the baggage
    carousel and the Customs quiz. She ignored the movement around her,
    she leafed the pages of Vogue magazine. A small man, one of the last
    to go, bulged his stomach near to the diamond stud in her ear as he
    reached to lift down a shopping bag from the compartment above her
    head, and when he breathed an apology she seemed not to hear him.
    She
    gave the appearance of being quite engrossed in the colour
    advertisements that her eyes flitted over. She was a sham. The
    purser
    thought she was just brave. She was still turning the pages of the
    magazine when the hostess came up the empty aisle of the cabin. The
    cleaners were following, whistling and laughing and grabbing paper
    debris from the floor and from the backs of the vacated seats. She
    smiled up at the hostess and began to collect her possessions that
    were
    discarded over the empty seats beside her. A handbag, an overnight
    grip, a raincoat, a packet of cigarettes and a slim gold lighter,
    a
    spectacle case, and a patterned headscarf, and a single red rose of
    which