The Kenyan said, "Maybe he has a problem with his bowel movement. Our good friend did not seem happy.. ." "Not as happy as a hog in dung." The Canadian knew. It was the big mouth. The big mouth had said, "There have been no atrocities here. We Serbs have always treated our Croat enemies correctly and with care." It was the big boast that said, "There are no hidden graves here. We have nothing to be ashamed of." The big mouth and the big boast in the grimy dining hall of the administration building at the TDF camp in Salika, and all the guys around him to hear it. The Canadian had put in his report, and he had heard that Milan Stankovic was called to the summit chat in Belgrade, and the village was a headless chicken, and the Professor had been dragged off the Ovcara dig for the day… The Canadian could smile when he remembered how they had been, the mothers in the village, the old men and the kids, when the jeeps had shown up in the week before, and not been able to deny that he had the permission of old shit-sour face to go hunting a mass grave. The Canadian could smile when he imagined old shit-sour face coming back from the Belgrade knees-up to find a nice corner of a dug field, empty

… "Mister, do you think we could have given him something for his bowel movement, a pill, something to make him happy…?" The Canadian said, "A stone turned, under the stone was a secret, and the secret's abroad and public knowledge, that might just have stopped his bowel movement." "But, mister, you're not talking evidence."

The Canadian police sergeant, far from Toronto and Yonge Street, and far from the whores and the pushers of home, had not caught a good night's sleep since they had prised the black-grey earth from a young woman's face. No, he was not talking evidence… It was that sort of place, Sector North, the sort of place where evidence did not come easy.

It was rare for Arnold Browne to lose his temper.