To Hell in a Handcart. Richard Littlejohn
Thirty-four
The Tigani, Romania
The Tigani doesn’t feature on many maps. It isn’t sign–posted. The Tigani doesn’t advertise. Strangers are rare in these parts.
The Tigani – Gypsyland. Bandit country, home to six hundred close-knit families.
The police never ventured here. There had been no official law enforcement since the fall of Communism and the death of the dictator Ceausüescu. When the men in the black Mercedes S500 had stopped en route to ask directions, the non-gypsy locals questioned their sanity.
Their $100,000 limousine passed silently along the dust road, its computer-assisted air suspension soaking up the potholes like a sponge absorbing spilt milk. The trademark double-glazed smoked glass of the Daimler-Benz company concealed the faces of the driver and his three passengers.
It had cost the men in the Merc $100 and a carton of Marlboro to persuade a taxi driver from a town thirty miles away to lead them to the turning for Gypsyland. They followed his rotting Romanian-built Renault saloon for over an hour before he pulled off the single carriageway, pointed them towards their destination and wished them good luck. Then he was off in the opposite direction in a cloud of dust.
It had taken them just over three hours to cover the ninety miles from the Romanian capital of Bucharest, the final leg of a journey begun in Moscow.
As the car made its stately progress along the unmetalled lane, it was surrounded by raggedy, bare-footed, snot-nosed children and their semi-feral pets. Further back stood a gaggle of women aged from