Free The Eyewitness by Stephen Leather Page A

keyboard. He groaned as he sat down and read it. Evidently Miller hadn't felt that the verbal warning was enough, or that an email would be a permanent enough record of his instructions. Solomon had no doubt that a copy had been placed in his personnel file.
    Miller was a seasoned memo writer and never used one word where half a dozen would do, but the meaning was clear: drop all interest in the Pristina truck case referred to in the memo only by its reference number and pass it to the Tribunal investigators. And keep the appointments diary up to date. Solomon screwed it up and tossed it into his wastepaper basket.
    He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out the Pristina truck file. He signed it off, scribbled a note that it was to be forwarded to the War Crimes Tribunal and dropped it into his out-tray.
    A stack of manila files was waiting for his attention and he picked one up and opened it: six Albanian factory workers had been taken off a works bus at gunpoint, marched into a wood and clubbed to death with rifle butts then doused with petrol and set on fire. The problem wasn't identifying the dead their names were all on a roster at the factory it was finding out who was who from a pile of charred bones. A Serbian army unit had been responsible: the police had taken statements from the rest of the workers on the bus, almost all of whom were Serbs. To a man they had refused to say anything other than that soldiers had boarded the bus and ordered off the Albanians. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Solomon wondered what sort of men would allow their work mates to be murdered, then refuse to identify the perpetrators. It wasn't that they were scared of the repercussions, Solomon knew: it was that they almost certainly supported what the soldiers had done.
    All Solomon had to do was to cross-check the DNA samples from the charred remains with DNA taken from relatives and ensure that the individual remains were given to the right families. Wherever possible they would be returned by a worker from the Family Outreach Programme, men and women trained to deal with grieving families.
    Solomon flicked through the file. There were no photographs, just closely typed pages and computer printouts. It was the sort of case that would make Miller's statistics look good: six bodies identified; six sets of relatives informed. End of story. Case closed. Solomon swore. At Miller. At the Commission. At the bloody futility of it all. Then he picked up the truck file from his out-tray and went over to the photocopier. It took him twenty minutes to photocopy every document. He also made several copies of Nicole's picture, a blow-up of the smiling face in the wedding photograph. The Tribunal could do what they wanted with the case, but as far as Solomon was concerned, he was still working on it. No matter what Miller said.

The Eyewitness
    It was a great name for a policeman, Solomon thought, as he started on his second bottle of Heineken. Dragan Jovanovic. The name "Dragan' inspired trepidation, if not fear, before you even met the man. A shovel-like hand fell on his shoulder and thick sausage-sized fingers squeezed. He winced.
    “Started without me, did you? And why are you drinking that foreign muck? Sarajevsko Pivo not good enough for you, huh?”
    “You're late, Dragan,” said Solomon, without turning.
    “Yeah, well, I've got more to do than shuffle papers,” said Dragan, sliding on to the stool next to him.
    Solomon ordered him a bottle of Sarajevsko beer, and they clinked bottles.
    "Zivjelil' said Solomon. Cheers.
    Dragan worked for the Sektor Kriminalisticke Policije, the equivalent of the British CID, and was based at the Sarajevo Canton Headquarters in La Benevolencije Street, off Mis Irbina Street. He was one of the first policemen Solomon had met in Sarajevo and, like detectives the world over, he enjoyed a drink and the opportunity to swap stories.
    “So, how is life Jack?” he asked. He was a big man, well over