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your name was?” she asked.
    “Jack. Jack Solomon.”
    “So, what do you need an old woman for, Mr. Solomon?”
    “You can call me Jack, for a start.”
    “Are you flirting with me?” She cackled, her eyes twinkling as Kimete translated. Then looked at Kimete and said something Solomon couldn't catch. Kimete laughed, and he waited for an explanation, but clearly Kimete wasn't going to give him one.
    Solomon smiled.
    “No, Nana. But if I was a few years younger.”
    She didn't understand his Bosnian so Kimete translated, and the old woman cackled again, then brushed a lock of wispy grey hair behind her ear.
    “Have you heard of the International War-dead Commission, Mrs. Berisha?” asked Kimete.
    The old woman shook her head.
    “Our job is to identify the victims of the war. To put names to the dead.”
    “A big job, I'd have thought.”
    “Jack has been doing it for more than two years, and I help him.”
    The old woman's eyes narrowed to little more than slits in her parchment-like face.
    “You have found them?”
    “Possibly,” Kimete said cautiously.
    “We have found bodies. That's why we've come to see you.” The old woman looked confused.
    “We need some blood from you, Nana,” Kimete continued.
    "So that we can check your DNA against the DNA of the She cut herself short. Solomon knew that she had been about to say tijela bodies.
    “The DNA will show us if it was members of your family who were killed.”
    “And this DNA is in my blood?”
    “It's in all your cells, but blood is easier for us.”
    Kimete reached into her bag and took out a grey plastic pouch, which she handed to Solomon, and the paperwork, which she kept.
    “Jack will take the sample,” she said, taking out a cheap Biro.
    “He likes to inflict pain, does he?” asked the old woman.
    Kimete translated and Solomon smiled as he tore open the plastic pouch. Inside was a small piece of card, used to collect four bloodstains, two surgical gloves, a sterile alcohol preparation pad, a blue and white plastic lancet and a piece of plaster.
    Kimete started to ask the routine questions. Name. ID number. Her family history.
    “I hate needles,” she said.
    “I've always hated needles.”
    “Don't worry,” said Kimete.
    “It's not really a needle. You don't see it and you don't feel it.” She asked him to show Mrs. Berisha the lancet. It looked like a tiny stapler. He showed her the nozzle, which was placed against the skin. When the button was pressed a small needle flicked in and out quicker than the eye could follow.
    “Ne brinite se,” said Solomon. Don't worry.
    “I've done this a thousand times.”
    Mrs. Berisha put her head on one side.
    “A thousand times?”
    Solomon nodded.
    “At least.”
    “But you are not a doctor?”
    “No.”
    “So every time you do this, it is because someone has died?”
    “That's right.”
    “And your job is to find out who has died? And to tell their relatives? To tell them that their loved ones have been murdered?”
    Solomon couldn't follow what she was saying. He looked across at Kimete, who translated as he put on the gloves.
    Then he said, “That's what I do, Nana. We call it closure. That's my job.”
    The old woman screwed up her face as if she was in pain.
    “Why would any man want to do a job like that?” she whispered to Kimete.
    “You never bring good news, do you? You either tell people that their loved ones are dead or you can tell them nothing.”
    “Someone has to do it, Nana,” Kimete said softly.
    Solomon tore off the corner sheet from the card, revealing the four printed circles where the blood drops were to be collected. He put it on the table next to him.
    The old woman nodded at Solomon.
    “But he is not a soldier, is he?” she asked Kimete.
    Solomon understood what she had said. Vojnik. Soldier.
    “No, I'm not a soldier,” he said.
    “So you do what you do from choice?”
    “Give me your hand, please, Nana.”
    The old woman did as he asked. Her arm was