227Getting in touch with Boris was relatively easy. He dined at his own Russian restaurant at the same time almost every night. Above it was his office, and below was a club. You could only get into the restaurant with a reservation, a search warrant or an invitation from Boris. The bouncers outside the restaurant frisked me and brought me to Boris.

Boris and I had a pretty good relationship. I even liked him a little. Unlike Dragan, he wasn’t temperamental – which didn’t make him any less cruel. On the contrary, Boris knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t inflict pain on anyone impulsively, he did it intentionally. Boris was Russian-German and grew up in the same part of town as Dragan. Both outcasts in school, the two had become friends. They fought the same knobheads, chased the same skirts. They committed their first criminal offences together, bought and sold their first drugs together, and pimped out their first girls together. They’d had the signet rings made with their first earnings.

The reason for their split was the usual: Dragan had stolen Boris’s girlfriend. What was more unusual was Boris’s reaction: he had the girlfriend beheaded and then nailed her torso to Dragan’s front door. As a result, the police completely turned Dragan’s life upside down. From then on, 228they went their separate ways. Boris took the ring off, which unfortunately wasn’t an option for Dragan. They divided up their territory between them. Though Boris knew that Dragan was willing to cross any line at any time, Dragan knew that, if he did, it would come back to haunt him in ways he couldn’t even imagine. This established a balance of terror and mistrust.

In order to maintain that balance, they met every six months. Since becoming Dragan’s lawyer, I’d been attending these consultations. Boris appreciated my work, not least because I’d snuck him a few tips on how to legalise parts of his business. This helped preserve the peace, but Boris would never steal me away from Dragan. In this business, you didn’t do that with lawyers any more than with girlfriends. This was something that had really reassured me over the years – I wouldn’t have liked Dragan to nail my headless body to Boris’s door in retribution.

If Dragan was a man built like a tree, Boris was built like a bear: tall, massive, hairy. He looked stout and good-natured, but consisted of nothing but muscle, and behind his rounded face lurked an ice-cold intelligence.

Boris was at his table, having dinner. There were plates and bowls everywhere. I’d never been able to get the hang of Russian food. It honestly disgusted me a bit to see Boris stuff himself with all these strange dishes.

I remembered an exercise Breitner had about eating. Food is particularly well suited to stimulating all your senses. To experience this, we had both eaten a slice of apple and paid attention to how it sharpened each individual 229sense. It’d felt a bit silly, but I had found it relaxing. So as to get something positive out of my negative associations with watching Boris eat, I tried to repeat the exercise through Boris and his dinner.

Pick up an everyday food item and imagine you are experiencing it for the very first time. What does it look like?

To me, Russian food always looked like a Chinese person had eaten Italian food and then vomited it over a plate of traditional German cuisine. Massive ladles of sour mush laced with dough and vegetables, and here or there a chunk of meat or potato peeking through. I’d never been a big fan of stews; Boris loved stews.

What does it feel like?

Judging by the liquid dripping apparently unnoticed down his chin, it had to feel like a second skin: soft, supple, warm.

What does it smell like?

It smelled like a Sunday afternoon in a big apartment building’s stairwell: countless smells that didn’t mesh.

Does it make any sound when you bite into it?

Yes, or at least when Boris did. It sounded like a suede boat 230shoe stepping into pretty low-viscosity cowshit. You really had to listen carefully, but that was the exact sound.

What feelings can you perceive when your body ingests it?

A feeling of gratitude came over me: my body was not ingesting this.

Enjoy the process with all your senses. Have an experience that is entirely your own. This experience is perfect just as it is.

Thanks to my little mindfulness exercise, this experience had at least stretched and warmed up my senses.

‘Björn! I appreciate you stopping by in person.’ I knew Boris meant it. ‘Would you like something to eat?’ he asked, pointing to the dishes on the table.

‘No, thank you. I …’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve already eaten.’

‘I haven’t, I just hate Russian food.’

Boris laughed. ‘You know I prefer a brave truth over a craven lie, but you’re really missing out!’

I smiled politely.

Boris turned serious again. ‘Let’s get straight to the point, why didn’t that spineless dog come himself?’

‘Dragan … had to scatter.’ That wasn’t a lie: I’d scattered him myself.

‘He’s hiding from me.’

‘He’s hiding from the police.’231

‘And hiding from me.’

‘And hiding from you, yes. But I brought this for you.’

I gave Boris a page from the previous day’s newspaper covered in circles and lines. It was signed at the bottom with the ‘D’-branded fingerprint. Boris disdainfully picked it up.

‘Like in the good old days?’

Boris had a ‘B’ branded into his right thumb. Dragan and he had developed the newspaper method back when they were still close.

‘If this is one of Dragan’s crossword puzzles, then he can get the following solution tattooed on his arse: “Burn in hell!”’

Still, Boris started deciphering the squiggles into three sentences:

‘Igor’s death unfortunate. Lay-by was a trap. Lawyer has full authority to negotiate.’

Boris picked up the newspaper page, touched it to the table’s candle, and held it up in front of me.

‘If I remember the video correctly, Igor burned much longer than this newspaper.’ Boris let the ashes flutter down into a wine cooler. ‘Plus, he was beaten to death while still on fire. “Unfortunate” indeed.’

Boris shovelled a forkful of food into his mouth and chewed for a while.

‘Alright,’ he said finally, looking me in the eye. ‘So Dragan claims to have been lured into a trap?’

I nodded.

‘And he didn’t mean to kill Igor, that was just collateral damage.’232

I nodded again.

‘OK.’ Boris put on a false smile. ‘If he’s sure of this, then … Let me think … Yes, then he can’t help it that Igor has been turned into a pile of smashed-up cinders and the matter is settled. Please tell Dragan he can come out of hiding, so we can get together and make some blini.’

‘You mean those little Russian pancakes?’

Boris turned serious again. ‘Those little Russian pancakes will be the last thing Dragan puts in his mouth, before I cut off his head.’ Looking almost bored, he devoured another forkful.

‘Boris – let’s discuss retribution later. If Dragan was ambushed, then the person responsible is also responsible for Igor’s death. As soon as that person is caught, you can both take your revenge on him together.’

Boris stopped chewing. He swallowed, put his fork aside and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. I finally had his attention. ‘Let’s pretend Dragan and I have interests in common. What do you think happened in this lay-by?’

That question was a good sign. I took a deep breath. ‘For weeks now, someone on Dragan’s territory has been selling drugs at half-price.’

‘I had no part in that,’ Boris responded. It sounded like a factual statement, not a justification.

‘Sasha got a call from Murat,’ I continued.

‘Who’s Murat?’ Boris looked at me, clearly in the dark.

‘One of Toni’s little soldiers, no reason you should know him. Anyway, Murat said Igor was about to receive a drugs shipment for Dragan’s territory from a guy on this lay-by. Sasha and Dragan went over. Igor was there, the guy was too.’233

‘And were there any drugs?’ Boris enquired.

‘No, but there was a crate of hand grenades.’

‘Then you should ask this Murat why he’s spreading such shite.’

‘Dragan would love to, but Murat was found shot dead yesterday morning.’

Boris picked up his napkin with both hands and folded it twice. He was thinking. ‘And what does Toni have to say about that?’

‘He wants Dragan to start a war against you. He has already threatened me that something will happen to my daughter if he’s not put in touch with Dragan.’

‘And what does Dragan think?’

‘He doesn’t really like it when his lawyer’s daughter is threatened – incidentally, I don’t either.’

‘Perhaps anyone looking to talk to Dragan should just kill you: if he no longer has a mouthpiece, he’ll have to come back.’

I hadn’t thought about it like that. This was not ideal, but for now Dragan still spoke through me. So I spoke.

‘Dragan sees you as the priority, not Toni. Dragan doesn’t want to go to war with you, Boris. He wants clarity between you first.’

Boris looked at me. It was obvious what he had concluded from what I just said: Dragan is alive, Dragan is scared, Dragan is dealing with an internal problem.

Boris pushed his plate aside, as though clearing the table between us.

‘Since you were so open and honest with me, dear 234Björn, I want to be open and honest with you. Igor got a very cheap deal on French hand grenades. Not usually our kind of thing, as they’re no good as a tool of war. But when we throw them into a competitor’s club where we’d like to be selling our drugs, they occasionally come in handy. Igor had never seen the guy or his goods. It was their first meeting.’

‘And Igor’s last.’

I shouldn’t have said that.

Boris shot me a menacing glare. ‘Igor was one of my most important men. And I still have no proof that Dragan wasn’t trying to meddle in my affairs.’

I raised my hands in a placatory gesture. ‘Boris, Dragan was ambushed just like Igor. We have to assume that all three of them – Dragan, Sasha and Igor – were supposed to have died that night. The guy with the hand grenades was supposed to make sure of that. But then the coachload of kids showed up.’

‘Who’s responsible for this? I need a name.’

It was the one we both knew we were really talking about, Toni. But officially saying so would have immediate consequences: Boris would pick him up. To save my own skin, however, I first needed to convince the rest of Dragan’s officers Toni had to go. I needed proof for that, and to get it I needed time.

‘If you give me a little time, I—’

Boris did not let me finish. ‘I’ll give Dragan six days. Then he will give me a clear answer as to who I’ve got to thank for my dead officer. You will then serve up the pig with an apple 235in his mouth. I’ll then personally stuff him with a few hand grenades, or else …’

I was all ears.

‘Or else I’ll hang a few hand grenades around your neck. Maybe that’ll get you motivated.’

‘Within six days?’ I pretended to think it over, pretended two other people hadn’t already given me 30 April as a final deadline. ‘That’d be … next Monday.’

‘Exactly. Next Monday you hand over the traitor or else you’re dead.’

Six days. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was doable. I felt a degree of relief. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring him to you. Anything else?’

‘And then you take me to Dragan.’

Any relief I’d felt evaporated. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I need to have a little chat with that coward. So something like this doesn’t happen again.’

‘Yes, but … how do you imagine that happening? He’s wanted by the police.’

‘It’s your job to make it happen. If I haven’t spoken to Dragan by next Monday, you’re dead.’

By now I was wondering if my life wouldn’t have been a lot easier if I’d had Dragan just kill me the previous Saturday. But oh well, just another problem that needed to be solved by Monday.

‘Well, now we’ve covered all things business,’ Boris beamed at me, ‘how about a nice slice of Leningradsky cake for pudding?’236