Keep November 2027 free in your diary. Why? Dark Winter
Press will be publishing The Dead Crows of Velika Plana by Neil Randall.
The sequel to 2025’s acclaimed The Professional Mourner and the second
part of The Yugoslav Trilogy; it takes up the story of a much-changed Milica
Stanković. Disillusioned by everything she has witnessed during the Balkan
conflict, she no longer sees anything good or worthy in mankind anymore. When
tragedy strikes her hometown of Velika Plana, it triggers a bizarre and deadly
chain of events that threatens not only the lives and well-being of everyone who
lives there but the whole Balkan region – and beyond.
Here is the
opening chapter to whet your literary appetites:
Tragedy in the Park
The people of Velika Plana had got out of the habit of
promenading on fine summer days. Whether the dire economic situation was to
blame, the harsh sanctions following the war, mass unemployment, low wages, and
rising prices, they tended to stay indoors in front of their televisions now.
The tatty, litter-strewn streets and derelict buildings, the once thriving
businesses, now no more than boarded-up shells, were the exclusive province of
gangs of snarling street dogs. The near-empty cafes and bars on the main
street, home to morose drunks who did little more than puff on cheap cigarettes
and stare into their empty glasses, willing them to miraculously replenish
themselves. The rundown bus station, a graveyard to rattling coaches that
spewed out black diesel fumes into the already tainted air of a town no one
ever wanted to visit anymore.
Why on such a
swelteringly hot July day, when temperatures had touched forty degrees for
three consecutive weeks, some of the town’s more prominent families decided to
put on their best clothes and take a stroll through the park could never be
satisfactorily explained. There was certainly no special occasion, a
traditional celebration, that would have justified such a rare foray outside
their homes. Still, the younger children raced around the designated play area,
clambered upon the swings, slides, and roundabouts, their voices and laughter
shrill and excited. Dogs barked. Crows cawed. The younger couples, the husbands
and wives or those soon to be married, walked hand in hand or with arms
interlinked. Some wafted fans to escape the desperate humidity, others had
treated themselves to ice-creams. While the older people stopped in the shade
of the towering linden trees which dominated the leafy space and talked
casually amongst themselves, just like they had in far happier times, when not
just Velika Plana but the whole nation was flourishing. Back then, small town
folk liked nothing better than to chat, gossip, put the world to rights with
their own people, those who had known them all their lives. The passage of
time, the course of history, however, had not only eroded the fabric of the
community, but embittered people against each other. When you don’t have much
to look forward to, it’s easy, almost natural, to blame somebody else for your
predicament.
That’s what made
this July scene all the more intriguing.
Those who didn’t
hold each other in particularly high esteem, warring in-laws who may not have
exchanged a word in anger for years, were amongst those who had decided to take
a stroll through the park. Families like the Darkovićs and Mijatovićs, the
Bobans and Brozovićs occupied the same space for the first time in months. But
rather than show any outward antipathy towards each other, they exchanged
pleasant greetings, shook hands, even embraced. If first-hand accounts are to
be believed (and they were corroborated by many sources), even the surly,
tyrannical Lazar Darković, one of the town’s most respected figures, a man who
had built up a thriving auto repair business, was seen deep in conversation
with both Uroš Mijatović and Robert Boban, estranged best friends, men who had
badly wronged each other in the past, men who had openly brawled in the street,
and uttered the most hideous curses acted with the utmost cordiality, as if
none of those poisonous, ugly scenes had ever taken place.
“How’s business?”
Uroš asked Lazar. “Every morning, I see you toiling away in your workshop.”
“Never been
better. Much as it pains me, I’m having to turn custom away. Still, I work from
six in the morning until seven in the evening. Barely time for a decent lunch
and a cup of tea.”
“You should ease
up, Lazar,” said Robert. “You’ve worked hard all your life. You shouldn’t push
yourself so hard.”
“Bah!” He
smoothed his thick handlebar moustache down with one hand and waved the words
away with the other. “I’m as fit now at fifty-five as I was at seventeen.
Besides, ever since Bojana’s passing, I like to keep myself busy.”
On a nearby
bench, in the shade of the trees, Uroš’ wife Tatijana was deep in conversation
with Ivana Brozović.
“I just don’t
know what to do with him anymore,” said Ivana, with eyes downcast. “Ever since
he returned from the war, he’s been like a ticking timebomb. We’ve tried
everything. We sent him to the best psychologists in Belgrade. We had him put
on a course of pills to control his temper. We refused to let him drink alcohol
under our roof – but he can easily get hold of the stuff anywhere in town.
Nothing has helped. Ten years and he’s still the same mixed-up ball of
confusion he was when the army returned him to us. I know it’s shameful to
admit, and I hope God will forgive me, but I’m scared of my own son.”
“You mustn’t give
up on Vladan.” Tatijana took hold of both of Ivana’s hands. “He served his
country like an honourable young man. He saw some truly horrendous things and
it left a mark on him. True, he’s a troubled soul. It pains us all to see him
so at odds with himself. Time will heal. God will see to that, don’t you
worry.”
The younger
members of the families, the teenage boys and girls who used to play together
at birthday celebrations and religious festivals and who were now forbidden
from spending much (or any) time in each other’s company, seized the
opportunity to catch up. In particular, Jovana Darković and Ivan Brozović.
Secret sweethearts since not long after they were out of swaddling clothes,
everybody in Velika Plana knew of the extreme lengths they went to to see each other
without the express knowledge or permission of their parents. Common was the
sight of the handsome, athletic, seventeen-year-old boy sneaking out of his
bedroom window and racing across town to be with his betrothed. Hiding behind a
derelict kiosk abutting the park, the couple held hands and pressed their
foreheads close together.
“Don’t worry
about a thing,” said Ivan. “In six months, I officially come of age. Already,
Igor from the tennis club has promised me a coaching position. And not just for
the summer season, but all-year-round. Once I start earning a regular wage, we
can declare our intentions to our families.”
“Declare out
intentions!” Jovana spluttered, but not in a harsh or dismissive manner, even
if that was how Ivan initially took it. But because she was as scared as she
was excited by the prospect.
“Why do you
laugh?” He was hurt and offended. “Everything I just told you is so close, we
can almost reach out and touch it.”
Jovana looked
away from him. There was a brief yet heavy silence.
“You know what
our parents are like. They’ll never allow it. It’s pointless to try and fool
ourselves into believing anything else.”
“Then we’ll run
away. I’ll get hold of some money. We’ll be together. I promise.”
As for the more
grown-up of the younger people, the husbands and wives who had been enjoying
the fine weather and the refreshments on offer, they all began to gravitate in
one direction. A few weeks ago, Dusan and Sladana Mijatović, son of Uroš and
Tatijana, daughter of Nemanja and Ivana respectively, welcomed their first
child into the world, a fine, healthy boy they had named Mihajlo, in honour of
a paternal grandfather who had distinguished himself in the Great War.
Naturally, relatives and neighbours who hadn’t seen the child before crowded
around the pram.
“What a
beautiful child!”
“He has his
father’s eyes.”
“And his
mother’s cute button nose.”
Like all proud
parents, the couple wanted nothing more than to talk about the new arrival, how
he was such a good baby, how he slept through the night, how he hardly ever
cried, and how he drank the last drop of his milk during every feeding time.
“I know every
new mother says the same thing,” beamed Sladana, “but this gift from God has
truly made our lives complete. It was no secret that we’d been trying for a
baby for a number years. Why we couldn’t conceive was as big a mystery to the
specialists in the city as it was to us. But despite all the painful
disappointments we endured, I now know that we were fated to have our first
child in just the way we had him. We’re so lucky and have got so much to look
forward to.”
“You’re not
wrong there, girl,” said the grandfather, Nemanja Brozović, “every seed knows
its time. We’ve truly been blessed as a family. I couldn’t be happier for the
two of you. It’s about time we had some good news round these here parts.”
At this point in
the afternoon, the sun was hotter still. Even more local people, perhaps
encouraged by the sight of the town’s notable families outside enjoying both
the fine weather and each other’s company, came and sat on benches, cracked
open a cold beer or dribbled a little rakija into a plastic cup, and chatted
and reminisced with their neighbours or former school friends. Some set up
chess boards on the picnic tables and dividing out some cheese and hunks of
bread, started to move the pieces across the board with as much deliberation as
contentment.
A more pleasant
or convivial scene, the most skilful artist in Serbia couldn’t have captured.
But all of that
was only moments away from being shattered forever more.
As Dusan and
Sladana thanked Nevena Boban for a bag of baby clothes the kindly middle-aged
woman had just rushed home to fetch, the most savage, extraordinary, and tragic
event that had ever taken place in the history of Velika Plana destroyed both
the peacefulness of the summer’s day and the lives of so many of its residents.
Without warning, one of the crows that nested in the trees high above, swooped
down and began to attack the baby in its pram. Before the parents or anyone in
close proximity could react, before the first anguished howl of pain had
registered from the infant himself, the bird had pecked away at the baby’s
face, gouging both eyes from their sockets, stabbed deep into the child’s heart
with its beak, piercing both clothing and skin, reducing the innocent soul to
no more than a bloody, barely recognisable pulp.
“No!” Dusan
rushed over and tried to grab the bird amidst this violent frenzy, only it was
far too quick and simply flew up and away, back to its nest in the trees.
Like a delayed
reaction, a little girl and a hunched-over old pensioner nearby started to
scream. Duly alerted, every man, woman, and child rushed over to see a pram
awash with blood.
“Whatever is
going on?” Lazar Darković pushed his way to front of the crowd. “In God’s
name,” he cried. “How did this happen?”
If you liked what you read so far, why not take a closer
look at the first book in the series – The Professional Mourner?
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