The Eyewitness Read Online Free PDF

walked over to the barn. The policeman was still there, talking to his men. He pointed at the man's torch, and the policeman handed it to him. He stood at the rear of the truck and played the beam around the interior.
    Kimete came up behind him.
    “What are you looking for?” she asked.
    “The teddy bear,” he said quietly.
    “I wanted to make sure they hadn't forgotten it.”
    “What teddy bear?”
    “The little girl was holding her teddy. I thought they might have left it behind.”
    “They probably put it into the bag with her,” said Kimete softly.
    Solomon switched off the torch.
    “I hope so,” he said.
    Two days later Audette faxed through his autopsy reports, with a handwritten reminder for Solomon to visit Belgrade for a malt-tasting session. The reports confirmed the Canadian's initial observations, that all twenty-six had died of suffocation. Several of the men had fractured bones and two had non-fatal bullet wounds.
    Solomon picked up the faxed sheets and walked along the corridor to Chuck Miller's office. Miller's secretary, a middle-aged woman called Arnela, was on the phone and waved him through. The American was lying back in his leather chair, his tasseled loafers up on his expansive teak-veneer desk, the keyboard of his computer on his lap.
    “Hiya, Jack,” said Miller, his eyes still on his VDU.
    “What's up?” There were three framed photographs by his feet: one of his wife and two children, all with blonde hair, perfect skin and gleaming teeth, one of Miller surrounded by Mongolian tribesmen, and another of him receiving a Peace Corps commendation.
    “I've got the reports on the Pristina bodies,” said Solomon.
    “They're doing the DNA analysis, should have the results by the end of the week.”
    “What about relatives?”
    “I don't think there's any doubt,” said Solomon, 'but there's one family member I'm going to see today. I'll get a sample from her for corroboration. I'm going to take Kimete."
    “Let me know what happens,” said Miller, his eyes still glued to his screen.
    On the way out Arnela offered him a plate of biscuits and Solomon took one. Arnela's left hand was false, a realistic plastic model that had been made for her by an American charity. The original had been blown away by a Serbian sniper as she went to fetch water for her three young children one cold winter morning at the height of the siege of Sarajevo.
    Solomon left the file in his office, put on his sheepskin jacket and collected the keys to his Nissan Patrol from the hook by the door.
    He drove to the east of the city and stopped in front of the rundown apartment block where Kimete lived. There was a shell-hole in the concrete by the front door that filled with water when it rained, a memorial to the mortar that had killed a two-year-old boy and blown off his mother's leg. Solomon never stepped over the scarred concrete without wondering if the Serb who had fired the mortar knew that he'd killed a child and maimed a twenty-five-year-old woman. Or if he knew that his victims were Serbs too.
    He rang Kimete's bell and she told him she'd be right down. Solomon went back to his car and tapped his fingers on the steering-wheel as he waited. The lifts must have been out of order because Kimete took almost five minutes to get to him and she was panting.
    “Sorry,” she said, getting into the front passenger seat.
    Solomon filled her in on Teuter Berisha's details as he drove down the Mese Selimovica boulevard, the main route out of the city heading towards Mostar. They passed the mustard yellow Holiday Inn on their right, then a rattling electric tram.
    “Why is a Kosovar Albanian woman living in Bosnia?” she asked.
    “Why didn't she stay with her family?”
    “Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, Kimete,” said Solomon, braking to avoid a rusty red VW Golf that had swerved into his path without indicating.
    “If she'd stayed with the family she'd be one of the bodies we're trying to identify.”