[Jack Harvey Novels 01] Witch Hunt

by Ian Rankin

  Darkness had fallen, and the atmosphere of the fair had grown darker and more restless, too. The children were home in bed, still excited and not asleep, but safe. Tough-speaking teenagers had taken over the fair now, swilling cheap beer from tins, stopping now and then for passionate kisses or to let off some shots at an unmoving target. Yells broke the night-time air. No longer the sounds of fun but feral sounds, the sounds of trouble. Gypsy Rose remembered one leather-jacketed boy, cradled in a friend's arms.

  Jesus, missus, he's been stabbed. He didn't die, but it was touch and go.

  Less than four hundred yards from her caravan was the ghost train. On the narrow set of tracks between the two double-doors sat the parked carriages. The sign on the kiosk said simply closed. Well, there wouldn't have been many people using it at this time of night anyway. A chain prevented anyone gaining access to the wooden-slatted running boards in front of the ride. She lifted her skirt and stepped over the chain, winning a cheer and a wolf whistle from somewhere behind her. With a final glance over her shoulder, she pushed open one of the double-doors, on which was painted the grinning face of the devil himself, and stepped inside.

  She stood for a moment, her eyes adjusting to the newer darkness. The doors muffled much of the sound

  from outside. Eventually, she felt confident enough to walk on, moving past the spindly mechanisms of ghost and goblin, the wires and pulleys which lowered shreds of raffia onto young heads, the skeleton, at rest now, which would spring to its feet at the approach of a carriage.

  It was all so cheap, so obvious. She couldn't recall ever having been scared of the ghost train, even as a tot. Now she was moving further into the cramped construction, off the rails, away from the papier mache Frankenstein and the strings that were supposed to be cobwebs, until she saw a glimmer of light behind a piece of black cloth. She made for the cloth and pulled it aside, stepping into the soft light of the tiny makeshift room.

  The young woman who sat there, sucking her thumb and humming to herself, looked up. She sat crosslegged on the floor, rocking slightly, in her lap a small armless teddy bear, and spread out on the floor a tarot pack.

  'He's been,' Gypsy Rose said. She fished the envelope out from under her skirt. It was slightly creased from where she had climbed over the chain. 'I didn't open it,' she said.

  The thumb slipped wetly out of the mouth. The young woman nodded, then arched back her neck and twisted it to one side slowly, mouth open wide, until a loud sound like breaking twigs was heard. She ran her fingers through her long black hair. There were two streaks of dyed white above her temples. She wasn't sure about them. She thought they made her look mysterious but old. She didn't want to look old.

  'Sit down,' she said. She nodded towards a low stool, the only seat in the room. Gypsy Rose sat down. The young woman gathered the tarot cards together carefully, edging them off the tarpaulin floor with long nails. She was wearing a long black skirt, tasselled at the hem, and a white open-necked blouse beneath a black waistcoat. She knew she looked mysterious. That was why she was playing with the tarot. She had rolled her sleeping bag into the shape of a log against the far wall. Having gathered up the cards and slipped them back into their box, she tossed the box over towards the sleeping bag and took the envelope from the older woman, slitting it open with one of her fingernails.

  'Work,' she said, spilling the contents out onto the ground. There were sheets of typed paper, black and white five-by-eight photographs with notes written in pencil on their backs, and the money. The banknotes were held together with two paper rings. She slit them open and fanned the money in front of her. 'I've got to go away again,' she said.

  Gypsy Rose Pellengro, who had seemed mesmerised by the money, now began to protest.

  'But I won't be gone for long this time. A day or two. Will you still be here?'

  'We pack up Sunday afternoon.'

  'Headed where?'

  'Brighton.' A pause. 'You'll take care, won't you?'

  'Oh, yes,' said the young woman. 'I'll take care. I always take care.'

  She turned one of the photographs towards the woman. 'What do you think?'

  'He's nice-looking,' said Gypsy Rose. 'An Asian gentleman.'

  'Asian, yes.'

  'The man who made the delivery was Asian, too.'

  Witch nodded then read through the notes, taking her time. Gypsy Rose sat quite still, not wanting to disturb her, happy just to be here.

  She looked at the money again. Eventually, the young woman placed everything back in the envelope. She got up and lifted the tarot from where it lay, tossing it into Gypsy Rose Pellengro's lap.

  'Here,' she said, 'take the cards.' There was a scream from outside.

  A girl's scream. Maybe a fight was starting. It might be the first tonight; it wouldn't be the last. 'Now, Rosa, tell me. Tell me what you see.

  Tell me about my mother.'

  Gypsy Rose stared at the tarot pack, unwilling to lift it. The young woman slipped her thumb into her mouth again and began to hum, rocking backwards and forwards with the teddy bear on her lap. Outside, someone was still screaming. Gypsy Rose touched the box, pushed its flap open with her thumb. Slowly, she eased out the cards.

  Friday 5 June

  Greenleaf was in the office early. He'd spent the previous late-afternoon and evening in Folkestone, getting in the way, bothering people, not making any friends, but finally gathering all the information he needed, information he just couldn't get by telephone alone. He'd spoken to George Crane's widow, Brian Perch's parents, Crane's accountants, to people who knew the men, to other boatmen. He'd asked questions of the coastguard, the local police, forensics, and the pathologist. He'd been busy - so busy that he hadn't left Folkestone until ten o'clock, arriving home in Edmonton at close on midnight, thanks to a jam on the M20 and the Blackwall Tunnel being closed. Shirley was pretending to be asleep with the bedside lamp off but still hot to the touch, and her book pushed under her pillow.

  'What time is it?' she'd muttered.

  'Ten past ten.'

  'Bloody liar.'

  'Then stop trying to make me feel guilty.'

  The hour was too late for an argument, really. The neighbours had complained in the past. So they kept it jokey and low-key. Just.

  He'd taken her toast and tea in bed this morning as penance, despite feeling dead on his feet. And the drive into work hadn't helped. A car smash at Finsbury Park and a defunct bus holding everybody up between Oxford Street and Warren Street. There was nothing he could do about it except consult the A-Z for useless shortcuts and swear that he'd start travelling to work by tube. Good old public transport: a brisk morning walk to the bus stop, bus straight to Seven Sisters, and hop onto a Victoria Line tube which would rush him to Victoria and the short final walk to his office. Good old public transport.

  Only he'd tried the trip a few times and it didn't work like that. From the half dozen crammed buses that glided past his stop without slowing, right to the crushed and sweaty tube compartment and the feeling that he would kill the next person who jammed their elbow into him . .. Good old public transport. London transportation. He'd stick to the car.

  At least in the car you had a choice. Stuck in a jam, you could park and wait it out in a cafe, or try another route. But stuck in a tunnel in a tube train . .. well, that was a tiny rehearsal for hell.

  He thought of Doyle, dawdling over croissants and coffee at some French bar, making ready to stock up on cheap beer and duty free. Bastard.

  But Doyle was useful. Or rather, Greenleaf's dislike of Doyle was useful: it goaded him. It made him want his work to be efficient, and that included his reports. Which was why he was here so early. He wanted to get his notes typed up into presentable shape, so he could hand them to Trilling before lunchtime.

  Basically Doyle had been right. The pathologist noted burns, scorch marks, on both men. A razor-sharp section of plastic had almost taken off Crane's head. And there were splinters and shards - of wood, glass, metal, perspex - emb
edded in both bodies. Definite signs of an explosion.

  'Somewhere beneath them,' the pathologist added. 'Below decks. The two men were probably on deck at the time. The various angles of penetration are all consistent with a blast from below, sending the shrapnel upwards.

  For example, one splinter enters above the left knee and makes its way up the leg towards the groin, the exit wound appearing on the inside upper-thigh.'

  There were photographs to go with the doctor's various graphic descriptions. What couldn't be shown, and might possibly never be shown, was what had caused the explosion in the first place. That was all down to deduction and supposition. Greenleaf guessed that a bomb wouldn't be too far out. One of those simple IRA jobs with timer attached. Messy though, blowing the whole caboodle up like that. Why not shoot the men and dump the bodies with weights attached? That way the bodies disappeared, and the boat remained: a mystery, but without the certainty that murder had been done. Yes, a loud and messy way to enter the country.

  In trying to cover their tracks they'd left a calling-card: no forwarding address, but a sure sign they'd been there.

  And could now be anywhere, planning or doing anything, with a cache of drugs or of arms. It had to be a sizeable haul to merit killing two men. Six if you included the French ...

  Well, so much for the doctor. The local police were on the ball, too.

  Inside George Crane's jacket they'd discovered a wad of bank notes,

  £2,000 or thereabouts. The wad had been pierced by a chunk of metal, but the notes were still recognisable. More important, some of the serial numbers remained intact. Steeped in blood, but intact.

  There were ways of checking these things, and Greenleaf knew all of them. He'd faxed details that evening to the Bank of England, and to the Counterfeit Currency Department inside New Scotland Yard, supplying photocopies of several of the cleaner notes. The photocopies weren't great, but the serial numbers were the crucial thing anyway. The notes themselves he was careful not to handle, except with the use of polythene gloves and tweezers. After all, it was unlikely that Crane carried so much money around with him on every boating trip (unless he was planning to bribe some customs officials). It was much more likely that the money had been a payment made to him by whomever he'd transported from mid-Channel to the English coast.

  As such, the notes might well boast the odd fingerprint. The corpse of George Crane had already been fingerprinted - on Greenleaf's orders

  - so that the dead man's prints could be eliminated. Somehow, Greenleaf didn't think George Crane would have let Brian Perch near the money, but Ms body was being fingerprinted too. Best to be rigorous.

  Perch was an employee, a no-questions-asked hired-hand who would, as a fellow worker had put it, 'go to the end of the earth' for Crane, so long as there was overtime in it. Why had Crane taken him along?

  For protection? Because he didn't trust whomever he was carrying? Maybe just for company on the voyage out to mid-Channel? Whatever, Brian Perch didn't really interest Greenleaf, while George Crane did.

  The accountant to the building business wasn't about to say that Crane's company was in terminal trouble, but he agreed that times were hard and that the company was 'overstretched financially'. Which meant there were bigger loan repayments than there were cheques from satisfied and solvent customers. For example, a larger than usual contract had gone unfinished and unpaid when the company employing Crane's firm had themselves gone broke. Crane just managed to hold his head above water.

  Well, in the financial sense anyway. He still had the big house outside Folkestone with the swimming pool and sauna. He still had a Porsche.

  He still had his boat. But Greenleaf knew that often the more prosperous a man tried to look, the deeper he was sinking.

  He'd considered an insurance scam. Take the boat out at dead of night and blow it up, then claim the money. But it didn't add up. Why not just sell the boat? One reason might be that no one was buying. Okay, so why did he have to die too? A miscalculation with the timer or the amount of explosive used? Possible. But Greenleaf still didn't rate it. Why take someone else along? And besides, there was the French sinking to consider. It had to be tied in with the British sinking; too much of a coincidence otherwise.

  Bringing him back to murder.

  Crane's wife didn't know anything about anything. She knew nothing about her husband's movements that night, nothing about his business affairs, nothing about any of his meetings. All she knew was that she should wear black and deserve sympathy. She seemed to find his questions in particularly bad taste. Crane's secretary, when tracked down, had been no more forthcoming. No, no meetings with strangers. No sudden

  'appointments' out of the office which couldn't be squared with his diary. No mysterious telephone calls.

  So what was Greenleaf left with? A man in debt, needing a few thousand (well, fifteen or so actually) to see him back on dry land. Personal financial affairs which had yet to be disentangled (it seemed Crane had been a bit naughty, stashing his cash in several accounts kept hidden from the prying taxman). A midnight boat trip which ends with him two grand in pocket but not in any position to spend it. It all came back to smuggling, didn't it? Just as Doyle had said. Arms or dope or someone creeping back into the country unannounced. Well, hardly unannounced.

  Whatever it was, it had cost six lives so far, which was too high a price to pay, whatever the payoff.

  Most of these thoughts Greenleaf kept to himself. On paper, he stuck to the facts and the procedures followed. It still looked like a tidy bit of work, scrupulous and unstinting. He began to feel quite pleased with himself. He'd get it to Trilling before lunchtime.

  Definite. When would Doyle file his findings? Not before tomorrow. He was due back tomorrow morning. Say tomorrow afternoon then. Giving Greenleaf over a day clear, a day during which he'd be ahead of his nemesis. He breathed deeply and decided to pause for another cup of coffee.

  When he got back from the machine, his phone was ringing. He almost spilled hot coffee all down his shirt as he lunged for the receiver.

  'Yes? Greenleaf here.'

  'John? Terry Willard at CC

  'Morning, Terry.' Good. Terry Willard was one of Counterfeit Currency's best workers. 'What can you do for me?'

  'You sound chirpy for a man who must've been in -where was it? -

  Folkestone? - till all hours last night. We're not used to getting faxes after six.'

  Greenleaf laughed and relaxed into his chair. 'Just conscientious, Terry. So you've got some news, have you?'

  'The notes aren't counterfeit. I'm pretty sure of that.'

  'Oh.' Greenleaf tried not to sound disappointed.

  'Better than that, really,' said Willard. 'I've already traced them.'

  'What?' Greenleaf sat forward in his chair. 'Terry, you're a genius.

  Christ, it's not even ten o'clock yet.'

  'To be honest, it wasn't the hardest work I've done. The computer picked the numbers out inside a couple of minutes. Those notes are ancient history. You probably wouldn't have noticed that last night, the state most of them must have been in, but take it from me they are old banknotes.

  And they've been out of circulation for some time. We were beginning to doubt we'd ever see them again.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I mean they're marked. The serial numbers are on record. They're part of a kidnap pay-off.'

  'A kidnap?'

  'Best part of five years ago. In Italy. A British businessman's daughter was kidnapped by some gang ... It's a bit of a long story. Want me to send you over what I've got?'

  'Christ, yes. A kidnap?' Greenleaf's head was reeling. 'Yes, send me what you've got. And Terry .. . ?'

  'Yes?'

  'I owe you a beer.'

  'No sweat.'

  Commander Trilling showed no emotion as Greenleaf told his, or rather Willard's, story. Greenleaf's report was in front of Trilling, as was the file sent over from Willard, and he glanced at them from time to tim
e as the Special Branch officer recapped.

  'The father's name is Gibson, sir. At the time he was an executive with the Gironi chemicals company in Turin. The daughter, Christina, was in a private school near Genoa. She disappeared during a visit to an art gallery. She was missing two days before Mr Gibson received a telephone call from the kidnappers.

  'By that time the Italian police were already involved. They know that when a rich businessman's daughter goes missing, there's usually a ransom demand somewhere at the back of it. They'd set up telephone taps at the Gibson home and the Gironi headquarters before the first call came.'

  Trilling crunched down hard on a mint and nodded.

  'The problem was timing,' Greenleaf went on. 'The gang telephoned on four occasions that first day, but never for more than eight seconds, not long enough for any tracing system to work.

  The first call merely stated that Christina had been kidnapped, the second identified the terrorist gang responsible, the third stated how much of a ransom was required, and the fourth was a plea from Christina herself.

  'Another two days passed before the gang got in touch again.'

  Trilling interrupted. 'Was the caller male or female?'

  'Male, sir.' Greenleaf had studied the case file well over the previous hour. He knew that he was leaving just enough out so that the Commander would ask him questions. He already knew the answers to those questions.

  It was an old trick which made you look not-quite-perfect but not too far off it either.

  'And the gang?'