Witch Hunt

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Don’t joke about it! I warned you at the start of—’

  ‘Operation Silverfish, I know.’

  ‘And I’m warning you now. You didn’t listen then. But listen now, Dominic: if I get any hint that you’re going solo on this, I’ll send you back to the valleys. Understood?’

  ‘Jesus, next time I’ll phone after we’ve both had breakfast.’

  ‘Do you understand me?’

  He punched his pillow before replying. ‘Yes, Joyce,’ he said sweetly, ‘loud and impeccably clear.’

  ‘Good. Now go and eat, there’s a good boy.’

  ‘Yes, Joyce. Thank you, Joyce. Oh, one last thing. How’s the kid doing?’

  ‘I take it you mean Barclay. He’s in Paris, following a lead.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You sound surprised.’

  ‘I am. Pleasantly so. Field experience, Joyce. There’s no substitute for it.’

  ‘I don’t recall it doing you much good on Silverfish.’

  There was a moment’s silence. He was waiting for her to apologise. She didn’t.

  ‘Goodbye, Joyce,’ he said. ‘Oh, hold on. Did you ever find out where Ms Capri found Khan’s tongue?’

  ‘Between her thighs,’ Joyce Parry said quietly.

  ‘Exactly. Remember the rough trade NATO General? Same modus operandi. It goes all the way back, Joyce, just like I told you.’

  He put down the receiver. Then, going over the conversation again as he knotted his tie and slipped on his jacket, he smiled to himself. Same old Joyce. Prudent and cautious. She hadn’t got where she was today by going out on a limb. He’d always been the limb-creeper. And damn it, some things just didn’t and couldn’t change. He’d spoken to Barclay quarter of an hour ago. He knew what Barclay had done; he’d have done the same himself. Elder was smiling as he left his room, locking the door after him.

  He was impressed to find that Greenleaf and Doyle had already eaten and were on their way to the police station, where Joe the barman had agreed to meet them. So he took breakfast alone, staring out of the window at the early sunshine, thinking about his garden. A drinking companion, Tommy Bridges, had agreed at short notice to water the garden as necessary. But Tommy’s memory wasn’t so hot these days - too many bottles of rum had cascaded down his throat; perhaps Elder should phone and remind him. But according to the paper, it had rained in south-west Wales yesterday, with more to come today. He hoped his seedlings wouldn’t be drowned.

  After a filling breakfast and too much weak coffee, he headed back on to the streets, stomach swilling, and decided to concentrate his efforts on the town centre. Witch’s note had been a nice shortcut in one respect, in that they now knew she’d been here, had spent at least a little time here. But exactly where had she stayed? Doyle was to spend today organising door-to-door enquiries of the resort’s hotels and guest houses. Officers were being drafted in from Margate, but Elder doubted they’d be enough. They might have to start recruiting further afield. The problem with that was that it increased the visible presence, and while it was unlikely Witch was still here, it might be that too many coppers suddenly appearing on the streets would scare off accomplices or witnesses.

  He’d stressed to Doyle that it had to be low-key. Doyle in turn had argued that low-key was slow, and speed was of the essence. In a hostage situation, Doyle would not hesitate to kick the door down and go in shooting. Megaphone diplomacy, waiting it out, these were not his style. And it niggled Elder, for maybe Doyle was right at that. Greenleaf, the quiet one, had made no comment. He’d been fairly docile ever since his outburst at that first meeting in London. If careful Greenleaf, rather than wham-bam Doyle, had been sent to Calais in the first place, perhaps there would have been no new lead for Barclay to find. Now that he thought about it, Joyce hadn’t said what was happening in Paris. Keeping it close to her chest, in case nothing came of it: prudent and cautious. And he, Elder, hadn’t asked, hadn’t probed. Another slip-up on his part, and Joyce would doubtless realise it.

  He’d been too long out of the game, it was true. Whatever his failings, someone like Barclay at least had youth on his side. Elder stopped on the pavement and considered this. Yes, he’d wanted Barclay sent to France because he’d thought it would teach the young man a lesson. But what kind of lesson: the useful kind, or the cruel kind? He wasn’t sure now. It seemed so long ago. He was standing outside a butcher’s shop, busy despite the early hour. Inside the large plate-glass window was displayed an array of red, glistening meat, grey sausages, pink pork loins. The butcher and his young assistant were working speedily, chatting all the time with the customers, who were also passing the time talking among themselves. Pleasures of the flesh-ing.

  Then his eyes focused on the window itself. There was a small poster advertising a craft exhibition. And on the glass door to the shop, a door wedged open, there was a larger poster advertising a travelling fair. He’d passed similar flysheets last night during his walk, but he hadn’t actually seen the fair itself. He recalled someone saying, ‘Maybe she was going to run away with the circus ...’ Moncur the lorry driver had said it. A travelling fair. Night-people. Maybe one of them would have seen something. She’d been making for Cliftonville, and there’d been a fair here. Now she’d gone, and so it seemed had the fair. Elder walked briskly into the shop.

  The women stared at him suspiciously as he failed to join the queue. Instead, he leaned over the counter.

  ‘Excuse me, that fair ...’ He pointed to the poster on the door. ‘Is it still in town?’

  The butcher, busy wrapping a package, glanced at the door. ‘Don’t know, sorry,’ he said, taking a pencil from behind his ear. ‘Now, Mrs Slattery, is that it?’ The woman nodded, and he began totting up figures on a scrap of paper. ‘That’s four pounds and fifty pence then,’ he said.

  ‘Cleared out at the beginning of the week,’ said a voice from the queue. Elder turned towards it.

  ‘Do you know where they were headed next?’

  Mutters and shakes of the head. ‘Someone down on the front might know. A landlord, someone like that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elder. ‘Thank you.’ A woman was coming into the shop.

  ‘Hello, Elsie,’ said a voice from the queue. ‘Here, any idea where that fair was off to?’

  ‘Same as every year,’ said Elsie authoritatively. ‘Brighton.’

  She wondered why the man beamed at her before rushing out of the shop. ‘You get some funny types,’ she said, ‘this time of year. Some right funny types.’ Then she sniffed and joined the end of the queue, where there was valuable gossip to be exchanged and the man was soon forgotten.

  Madame Herault and Barclay were getting along like the proverbial house on fire. Despite the language barrier, despite barriers of age and culture, they knew one thing: they both liked to dunk their croissants in their coffee. They sat together at the table in the kitchen. Now and then Madame Herault would call for Dominique, and Dominique would call back that she’d be there in a moment. There was a news programme on the radio, the presenters talking too fast for Barclay to make much sense of any of the stories. Madame Herault commented from time to time before shrugging her shoulders and returning to her coffee. She pushed the basket of croissants and chocolatines closer to him, exhorting him to eat, eat. He nodded and smiled, smiled and nodded. And he ate.

  He’d spent a restless night in the spare room. Dominique’s bedroom was through the wall from his, and he could hear her old bed creaking and groaning. His own bed was newer, more solid. It was also short, so that he couldn’t lie stretched out unless he lay in a diagonal across the bed. His feather-filled pillow smelt musty, as did the sheets and the single blanket. Finally, he shrugged off sleep altogether and got up. He still had a lot of bits and pieces left over from his shopping trip to the electronics store. He plugged in the soldering-iron and hummed an aria or two from The Marriage of Figaro, waiting for it to warm...

  Now here she came, into the kitchen. Madame Herault gave an insu
lted gasp. Barclay almost gasped too. Dominique was dressed in winkle-picker black-buckled boots, black tights, black leather mini-skirt, a white T-SHIRT torn at the armpits and spattered with paint, and more jewellery than Barclay had seen outside a department store. Her eyes were surrounded by thick black eyeshadow and her face was dusted white, making her lips seem redder than ever before. She’d teased her hair up into spikes, brittle with gel or hairspray, and she wore three earrings in either ear.

  Her mother said something biting. Dominique ignored her and leaned past Barclay to grab a chocolatine. With it in her mouth, she went to the stove and poured coffee from the ancient metal percolator, then dragged a chair out from beneath the table and sat down between her mother and her guest. Barclay tried not to look at her. He kept his eyes on the tabletop, on her mother, on the pans and utensils hanging from the wall in front of him. He could smell patchouli oil. He could feel his heart pounding. She really did look incredible. It was just that she wasn’t Dominique any more.

  She was wearing her disguise.

  ‘I telephoned a colleague,’ she informed Barclay in English. ‘He’s checking on possible Janettas. With luck there won’t be more than one or two.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve made a wire,’ he said.

  ‘A wire?’ Flakes of pastry escaped from her mouth.

  ‘A bug for you to wear, so I can listen.’

  She swallowed some coffee. ‘When did you make it?’

  ‘During the night. I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Me neither. I was reading your file. It was interesting. I would like to meet Mr Dominic Elder.’

  Madame Herault, who had been muttering throughout and averting her gaze, now said something aloud, directed at her daughter. Dominique replied in similarly caustic tones then turned to Barclay. ‘My mother says I am insulting her in front of a guest. I’ve told her all the women dress like this in London. She’s waiting for you to agree.’

  Barclay shrugged and nodded. Madame Herault pursed her lips and stirred her coffee-cup, shaking her head. The rest of breakfast was passed more or less in silence. After breakfast, Dominique and Barclay retired to the spare room.

  ‘We need some tape,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll bring some.’

  She was back within a minute, holding a roll of thick brown packing tape.

  ‘Just as well your T-shirt’s baggy,’ said Barclay. ‘Otherwise, anyone could see you’re wearing a wire.’

  She stood with the transmitter in her hand. There wasn’t much to it - a length of wire connecting a small microphone at one end to a transmitter at the other. It was bulkier than Barclay would have liked, and at the same time it was more delicate, too. His soldering wasn’t perfect, but it would hold ... he hoped.

  ‘Lift your shirt at the back,’ he ordered. She did so, and he stood behind her. Her skin was very lightly tanned, smooth, broken only by a pattern of variously-sized brown moles. She was not wearing a bra. This is work, he told himself. Just work.

  He tore off a length of tape with his teeth and placed it over the wire, pushing it on to her back so that the transmitter hung free below the tape itself. Then around to her front, the T-shirt lifted still higher so that he could make out the swelling shadowy undersides of her breasts. Work, work, work. He ran the wire around to her smooth stomach, wondering whether to place the microphone just above her belly-button, or higher, in the hollow of her sternum.

  ‘Having fun down there?’ said Dominique.

  ‘Sorry, I’m considering placements.’ He touched her stomach then her sternum with the tip of his forefinger. ‘Here or here?’

  ‘Ah, I see. High up, I think. Unless the man is a midget, the microphone will be closer to his mouth.’

  ‘Good point.’ He tore off more tape and secured the microphone in the cleft just below her breasts. Then he used more tape to attach the wire to her side. ‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘Just try not to wriggle or bend over. He might hear the tape crinkling.’

  She dropped her T-shirt and examined herself in the mirror, twisting to see if the wire was visible through the cotton. She stepped over to the window, then walked back slowly towards Barclay. He shook his head.

  ‘Can’t see a thing,’ he said.

  ‘What if I stretch myself?’ She thrust back her shoulders and stuck out her chest. Barclay still couldn’t see any sign either of brown tape or of black wire. And as for the slight bulge of the microphone itself ...

  ‘If you do that,’ he said, ‘I don’t think Jean-Pierre’s eyes are going to rest between your breasts so much as on them.’

  She thumped his shoulder. ‘You are teasing,’ she said. He was about to deny it when there was a sound from the hall: the telephone was ringing. Dominique dashed out of the room to answer it, spoke excitedly, then dashed back.

  ‘The fifth arrondissement,’ she said. ‘A street in the Latin Quarter. There is a bar called Janetta’s.’

  ‘Sounds good. Lift your T-shirt again. After all that running around, I want to check the tapes are still fast.’

  ‘Fast?’

  ‘Still stuck down.’

  ‘Okay.’ She lifted the T-shirt. ‘But listen,’ she said, ‘there’s more. In the same street lives an Australian, an anarchist. Called John Peter Wrightson. He’s lived in France for years. You see?’

  ‘John Peter, Jean-Pierre.’

  ‘Yes! It makes sense, no?’

  ‘Separt’s caller didn’t sound Aussie to me.’ She shrugged. The tape had held fairly well. He just hoped she didn’t sweat. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘you can drop the shirt. It looks okay.’

  ‘You sound like a doctor.’

  He smiled. ‘Your ... colleague, he sounds as if he’s on the ball. I mean, he sounds efficient.’

  ‘It was easy for him. The bar was in the directory. Then he entered the street name into the computer just to see if there was any further information. Monsieur Wrightson’s name came on to the screen.’

  ‘Speaking of computers ...’

  ‘Everything is being printed out at my office. We can pick up copies later today. That was a clever trick you played.’

  He shrugged. ‘A computer makes it easy.’ Not that he imagined Separt would keep anything important on the disks. Dominique looked ready to go. ‘We haven’t tried out the transmitter yet.’

  ‘They worked yesterday. This one will work today. I trust you.’

  ‘That’s another thing. We’ve got to go back to Separt’s apartment and get those two—’

  ‘Later, later.’ She grabbed his hand. ‘Now let’s hurry, otherwise Mama will wonder what we’re doing in here.’ And she giggled as she led him down the hall, yelling a farewell to her mother. Then she stopped. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said returning to her bedroom. When she appeared again, she was pinning an Anarchy badge to her T-shirt.

  ‘Nice touch,’ he said.

  The punk driving the 2CV certainly attracted stares from male drivers whenever she stopped at lights or was caught in a jam. Barclay had to give her credit. If - when - Separt and Jean-Pierre spoke again, their descriptions of the two women who visited them would be difficult to reconcile into a single individual. The winkle-picker heels even made her a good inch taller. Her hair was the same colour as yesterday, but that was the only area of comparison. In all other details, she was a different person.

  They’d agreed that she would visit Jean-Pierre alone: Barclay would stick out like a sore thumb. Dominique could disguise herself, but there was no disguising Barclay. She would visit alone, but Barclay insisted that she would wear a wire, so that he could listen from the car. He didn’t want her getting into trouble.

  They went over Dominique’s story again on the way there. The fact that Jean-Pierre might well be the anarchist John Wrightson gave them a new angle to work from. They added it to her story, making slight alterations. The street they finally entered was squalid and incredibly narrow, or rather made narrow by the lines of parked cars either side, leaving a single lane with no passing places. A car i
n front of them - and thankfully travelling the same direction as them - hesitated by a gap between two of the parked cars, considered it but moved on. It was a gap just about big enough for a motorbike or a moped, but not for a car.

  ‘We’re in luck,’ said Dominique, passing the gap and then stopping. ‘Here’s a space.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  But she’d already pushed the dashboard-mounted gear-stick into reverse, and craned her neck around to watch through the rear window as she backed the car in towards the kerb, turning the steering-wheel hard. Barclay watched through the front windscreen and saw that they were a centimetre from the car in front. Then there was the slight jolt of a collision: they had hit the car behind. But Dominique just kept reversing, pushing against the car behind, then easing down on the clutch and turning the steering-wheel hard back around. This time, edging forwards, her front bumper touched the car in front and pushed it forward a couple of centimetres.

  ‘In Paris,’ she said, ‘we park with the handbrake off.’

  ‘Right,’ said Barclay. The 2CV was now parked, kerbside, a couple of inches from the car in front, and the same distance from the car behind. He tried not to think about how they would make a fast getaway.

  ‘That’s Janetta’s,’ said Dominique. ‘You see? With the PMU sign.’

  Barclay saw. ‘It doesn’t look particularly open.’

  ‘It’s open,’ she said. With nice timing, the door of the bar was pulled from within, and a fat unshaven man wearing blue workman’s clothes and a beret came sauntering out. He looked like he’d had a few drinks. It was quarter to ten. The door jangled closed behind him.

  ‘So it’s open,’ he said.

  ‘Monsieur Wrightson lives this side of the street, across from the bar. Number thirty-eight. Oh, well.’ She took a deep breath. She did look a little nervous. It struck Barclay that maybe she too was getting out of her depth.

  ‘Be careful,’ he said as she opened the door.

  ‘I’ll be careful,’ she said, closing the door after her. She came round to his side of the car and opened the door to say something more. ‘If anything does happen to me ...’