CHAPTER ELEVEN
The restaurant was the sort of place that did not shout about its existence.
It sat quietly in a quiet corner of Shepherd’s Bush, with very little to mark it out as a place of interest at all.
The fact that Tudor was able to find a lunchtime parking space within sight of the place spoke volumes about how unfashionable the street was.
The facade suggested more cafe than high end eatery, with a broad window showing plain modern decor inside, and a single word sign above: Jagoda.
He had already typed it into Google translate.
Strawberry. Was there, he wondered, some cultural significance lost on those not from Serbia?
Or was it an attempt to suggest something sweet and wholesome.
From what he had already discovered about the place, and the family who used it as their front, there was very little that was either sweet or wholesome connected to it.
Whether or not the food was any good he doubted he would have time to find out.
Lunch was not, after all, the purpose of his visit.
He clicked the Audi’s fob and heard the answering clunk that rendered it secure.
As he crossed the road his practiced eye swept the area.
No obvious muscle to be seen. One ostentatiously expensive car the only indicator that money might be inside.
The first thing he noticed as he stepped through the front door was the aroma of spice.
It wrong footed him for a moment. If he had had any preconceptions about the cuisine of central Europe they had not been quite so peppery or aromatic.
Speakers emitted a playlist evidently selected to tug at the homesick heartstrings of any Serb within earshot.
There were brass instruments over frantic fiddles over wailing vocals, all upbeat and urgent.
Not good music to eat to, but he imagined you could successfully plot a revolution to that rhythm.
The interior was as modest as the exterior, with a long bar running down one side, small wooden tables randomly positioned, framed sepia photos of distant times and a distant land.
Tudor took in the seating arrangement, noticing the tables in the windows were only big enough for couples and allowed good visibility from the bar onto the street.
The l-shaped room had a run of tables along its length, most of which were already occupied with happy diners, with the short end at the back boasting cushioned banquette seating and a cosier feel.
It was there that he saw an elderly man dressed in a suit too fine for its surroundings, his Rolex and signet ring costly enough to rent the place for a year.
Tudor would put money on this being Branke Begovich, the papa of the family.
It wasn’t just his bling that gave him away.
It was the meathead standing behind his chair, whose flattened nose and general brawn suggested a history of boxing, and the wiry one sitting at the next table with his eyes on the door that made it plain this man was important enough to have his own protection.
And important enough to need it. In Tudor’s experience, big men made big enemies.
He pointedly looked the other way as he approached the bar. He had no intention of ordering food, but he wanted a moment to take in his surroundings. It was too small a place to sit and people-watch without being noticed, that much was clear. He could already feel at least two pairs of eyes on him.
‘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 the nineties 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 he sat 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 watching in 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 try pljeskavica. 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.