by Ian Rankin
'Me, too,' said Ted. 'Preconceptions, Rosa. You see, Mr Elder, we get a lot of parents coming to us. Oh, yes, a lot. Their kiddies have gone missing and they're desperate to find them. One woman ... up in Watford, I think it is ... she's been coming to see me for six or seven years.
Very sad, clinging to hope like that.'
'Sad,' echoed Gypsy Rose.
'Diana's tall and slim,' Ted informed Gypsy Rose, 'and she's maybe got short dark hair. I don't suppose she came to you for a consultation while we were in Cliftonville?'
'No.' Gypsy Rose shook her head. 'No, I'd have remembered someone like that.'
Like what? thought Elder. The description was vague to the point of uselessness.
'Well, ask around the other stalls, will you, Rosa?' Ted had taken off his glasses and risen from his chair. He handed Elder the slip of paper, which Elder read. Four different fairs in four locations, with dates and a contact name for each.
'Thank you very much,' Elder said, pocketing the note. 'They're not as big as this, mind. We all join up for the bigger events. Tell them Ted sent you, they should see you right.'
'Thanks again,' Elder said. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small notebook and a pen. 'I'm staying at a hotel in Cliftonville.
I may have to move on, but they can forward any messages to me.' He wrote down the telephone number, tore out the page, and handed it to Ted.
'If I hear anything, I'll let you know,' said Ted.
'I'd be very grateful.' Elder rose to his feet. 'It's been nice to meet you,' he said to Gypsy Rose.
'Likewise.'
Ted saw him to the door. The two men shook hands.
'Mind how you go, Mr Elder,' said Ted. 'And good luck.'
'Thanks,' said Elder. 'Goodbye.'
He walked with care across the snaking lengths of power-cable, squeezed between two closed stalls, and was back on the road again. He wandered the length of the fair, and stopped beside the caravan belonging to Gypsy Rose Pellengro, reading the citations pinned to the board beside her door. He peered in through the window. The interior looked neat and plain.
'She'll be back in five minutes!' someone yelled from further along.
Elder walked towards the voice. A middle-aged man was unhooking chains from in front of the ghost train. Already, two young children, brother and sister, stood waiting for the ride to open. Elder nodded a greeting at the man. 'Thanks,' he said, 'maybe I'll come by later.'
'Please yourself.' The man looked at the children and jerked his head towards the carriages. 'On you go then, hop in.' They fairly sprinted for the train's front carriage. The man smiled, watching them go. Then he headed for his booth, leaning into it. 'Hold tight,' he warned. 'Or the goblins'll grab you.' He grinned towards Elder. 'And being grabbed by the goblins,' he said, 'is no laughing matter.'
Elder obliged with a laugh, then watched as the train jolted forwards, hit the doors, and rattled its way through them into darkness. The doors swung shut again, showing a picture of a leering demon.
'Your two, are they?' the man asked.
'No,' said Elder, listening for shrieks from the interior.
'No?' The man sounded surprised. 'I thought they were. If I'd known, I'd have had the money off them first.'
Elder brought out some coins from his pocket. 'They can have this ride on me anyway,' he said, handing over the money. Then he moved off again, passing rides and booths and Barnaby's Gun Stall. Outside the Gun Stall, which was locked shut, there was a wooden figure, its sex indeterminate.
Pinned to the centre of its chest was what remained of a small paper target, only the four right-angled edges left. Above this, taped to the figure's
head, was a crudely written message: 'A young lady did this. Can you do better?' Elder smiled.
A voice came from behind him. 'Well, could you?'
He turned. A young man was standing there, head cocked to one side, hands in the greasy pockets of his denims. Elder looked at the target.
'Probably not,' he said.
'Come back in an hour, guv, and you can see if you're right. Only two quid a go.'
'The young woman .. . she must have been quite something.'
The man winked. 'Maybe I'm lying, eh? Maybe I just tore the middle out myself.' And he snorted a short-lived laugh. 'Open in an hour,' he repeated, moving away. Elder watched him go.
A travelling fair. What connection could Witch possibly have with a travelling fair? None that he could think of. I'd have remembered someone like that. Rosa Pellengro had sounded very sure of herself. Very sure.
But then she was supposed to be a clairvoyant. He wondered if it was worthwhile keeping a watch on the fair. Maybe Witch had been here. If so, she might come back or she might not.
He was in a thoughtful mood as he reached Doyle's car. Two gulls cackled somewhere in the distance. They had left generous gifts on the windscreen and bonnet. Elder sighed. Time to find a car-wash.
I'm glad you've called,' Michael Barclay said into the receiver.
'And who was that delightful French lady?' Dominic Elder asked.
'My colleague's mother.' Just then Dominique herself came into the hall and handed Barclay a glass of cold
beer, with which he toasted her. It had been another long day.
'Since you're glad I called,' Elder went on, 'I take it you're either in trouble or you're on to something.'
'Maybe both,' said Barclay. 'When I bugged Separt's apartment, I copied some of his computer disks.'
'Clever boy.'
'I bet Mrs Parry would say something different. Anyway, we've been reading through them. Mostly ideas for cartoon strips, but there's a lot of personal correspondence too, including a couple of letters to Wolf Bandorff.'
'Well well.'
'Discussing some project of Separt's, a cartoon book about Bandorff's career.'
'The world is a strange place, Michael. So what does this tell us?'
'It connects Separt to Witch's old teacher.'
'It does indeed. It's almost as if she's living her life again backwards.'
'Sorry?' Barclay had finished the beer. He held the cold glass against his face, like a second telephone receiver.
'She started her life in Britain, but early on joined Bandorff's gang.
The link seems still to be there.'
Barclay still wasn't sure what Elder was getting at. 'You told me,'
he said, 'always work the idea all the way through.'
There was a pause. 'You're thinking of taking another trip?'
Witch Hunt
'Yes. Do you think I could get it past Mrs Parry?'
Elder considered this. 'To be frank, almost certainly not. It's getting too far out of our territory.' He paused. 'Then again, maybe there's just a chance.'
'How?'
Elder's voice seemed to have faded slightly. 'You've lied to her before, haven't you ... ?'
Dominique had already made her necessary telephone calls, and now all Barclay had to do, before taking her to dinner, was make one call himself.
To Joyce Parry.
Elder was right, he'd lied to her before. Well, he'd been economical with the truth, say. But this time he was going to deliver a whopper.
He went over his story two or three times in his head, Dominique goading him into making the call right now and getting it over and done with.
At last he picked up the phone.
'Joyce Parry speaking.'
'It's Michael Barclay here.'
'Ah, Michael, I wondered where you'd got to.'
'Well, there's a bit of a lull here.'
'You're on your way home then?'
'Ah . . . not exactly. Any progress?'
'Special Branch and Mr Elder are still in Cliftonville. A lorry driver picked up a hitch-hiker and dropped her there, did you know? Anyway, it seems a note was left for Mr Elder at a pub in the town.'
'A note?'
'Vaguely threatening, signed with the initial W.'
'God, that must have sha
ken him up a bit.' He swallowed. He'd almost said, He didn't tell me.
'He seemed very calm when I spoke to him. Now then, what about you?'
He swallowed again. 'DST are keeping watch on a couple of men. One of them, the one who had his car stolen, he's a left-wing sympathiser.
He didn't report the car stolen until after the explosions on the two boats. DST think that's suspicious, and I tend to agree with them.'
'Go on.'
'This man has made contact with an anarchist. We
. . . that is, DST . . . think the anarchist may know Witch. They think maybe the anarchist persuaded the other man to turn a blind eye while his car was taken.'
'Not to say anything, you mean?'
'Yes, until after Witch was home and dry ... so to speak.'
'You sound tired, Michael. Are they treating you all right?'
He almost laughed. 'Oh yes, no complaints.'
'So what now?'
'As I say, they're keeping a watch on both men. I thought I'd give it until Monday, see if anything happens.'
'A weekend in Paris, eh?'
'A working weekend, ma'am.'
'I don't doubt it.' Her tone was good-humoured. Barclay hated himself for what he was doing. But it had to be done. No way would she sanction a trip to Germany, especially when explaining the trip would mean explaining how he'd come upon Separt's correspondence and Wrightson's leaflets.
'Okay, take the weekend,' Joyce Parry was saying. 'But be back here Monday. The summit begins Tuesday, and I want you in London. God knows, we'll be stretched as it is.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'And let me know the minute you learn anything.'
'Of course.'
'And Michael .. . ?'
'Yes, ma'am?'
'You've already proved a point. You found something Special Branch missed. Okay?'
'Yes, thank you, ma'am. Goodbye.'
He noticed that his hand was shaking as he replaced the receiver.
'Well?' asked Dominique. Barclay wiped a line of perspiration from his forehead.
'I can stay on till Monday.'
Dominique grinned. Somehow, Barclay didn't share her enthusiasm.
'Good,' she said, 'we can start for Germany in the morning. The interview is arranged for two o'clock on Sunday.' She noticed his pallor. 'What's wrong, Michael?'
'I don't know .. . It's not every day I put my career on the line.'
'How will your boss find out? She won't. If we find nothing, we say nothing. But if we find something, then we are the heroes, yes?'
'I suppose so.'
'Cheer up. You are taking me to dinner, remember?'
He gave a weak smile. 'Of course. Listen, any chance that I can wash these clothes?' He picked at his shirt. 'Remember, I only brought the one change with me.'
She smiled. 'Of course. We will put them in the machine. They will be dry by morning. All right?'
He nodded.
'Good, now I will get changed. You, too.' She skipped down the hall to her room, calling back after her: 'Rendezvous in twenty minutes!'
After a moment, Barclay walked slowly back to his own room, his feet barely rising from the floor. Behind Dominique's door, he could hear her humming a tune, the sound of a zip being unfastened, of something being thrown on to the bed or a chair. In his own room, he fell onto the bed and stared at the dusty ceiling, focusing on one of its dark cobwebbed corners.
How did I talk myself into this?
Perhaps Witch had been in touch with Bandorff recently. But why should Bandorff admit it or say anything to them about it? Although he knew what he
was doing, and knew that Dominique and he were making the decisions, he couldn't help feeling that Dominic Elder was an influence too, and not entirely a benign one. He wished he knew more about the man. He knew almost nothing about him, did he? All he knew was that Elder had pulled him into this obsession - an obsession Barclay himself had recently termed a psychosis.
'I'm mad,' he said to the ceiling.
But if he was, Dominique was mad too. She'd been the first to phone her office, securing clearance for herself and Barclay to go to Germany.
He'd missed most of that call actually: he'd been busy in the toilet.
He'd emerged again as she was dialling Germany, dialling direct to the Burgwede Maximum Security Prison, just north of Hanover.
'It's fixed,' she said after dialling, waiting for an answer. 'My office has given me clearance. I just have to . . .'
And then she lapsed into German, talking to the person on the other end of the phone. Barclay heard her mention the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz, Germany's security service, the BfV. Even in German, she was able to charm whoever she was speaking with. She laughed, she apologised for her accent and her lack of vocabulary (not that either, to Barclay's ear, needed apologising for). And eventually, after some quibbling, she had a day - Sunday - and a time - two in the afternoon.
For a meeting with the terrorist Wolfgang Bandorff, Witch's old lover.
She looked distinctly pleased with herself when she came off the phone, and hummed a little triumphant tune.
'What was that about the BfV?' asked Barclay.
'Michael, you are so ... astute. That was my one little white lie. I told Herr Grunner I had liaised with the BfV. I think this means he takes me more seriously.'
'Don't tell me, when we turn up there, I'm going to pretend to be a German secret agent?'
'Of course not, Michael. But sometimes bureaucracy has to be . . .'
She sought the word.
'Got around?' he suggested.
She liked that, and nodded. 'Yes,' she said, 'like swerving to avoid another car, yes?'
'Bobbing and weaving, ducking and diving.'
As now, hours later, staring at the cobwebbed ceiling above his bed, he feels his stomach diving. He might not be able to keep anything down at dinner. Maybe he'll have to cry wolf on the whole thing. Let Dominique cover herself with glory; he could ship out on the first hovercraft or cross-Channel ferry. But he knows he won't. He can't. He's already told Joyce Parry too many white lies.
So they're going to Germany, driving there in the awful 2CV. Hanover wasn't just across the border either. It is hard driving. And both of them out of their territory - even Elder had said as much. He didn't think they'd learn anything from Bandorff. And they'd have to be careful, too. If he found out how keen they were to track down Witch, he might start throwing them off her scent, laying false trails.
Jesus, what if this whole thing was an extended false trail? No, no, best not to think about that. She couldn't be that clever, could she?
No one was that clever, clever enough to lay a trail backwards through Europe, a trail with a trap lying at the end of it.
Jesus, don't think about it!
Dominique came in unannounced. She looked sensational, in a clinging woollen red dress and black tights. She wasn't wearing shoes or make-up yet.
'I thought you were being quiet,' she said. She closed the door, before settling herself on the edge of his bed. 'What's the matter?'
'Pre-match jitters.'
'What?'
'It's a football term. The nerves you get before a game.'
'Ah.' She nodded understanding and took his hand in hers. 'But I am nervous, too, Michael. We must plan carefully what we will say to Herr Bandorff. We must. .. like actors, you know?'
'Rehearse.'
'Yes, rehearse. We must be word perfect. We will set off in the morning, and stay overnight at a hotel. We will rehearse and rehearse and rehearse.
The leading man and leading woman.' She smiled, and squeezed his hand.
'It's all right for you,' said Barclay, 'your department's behind you.
I've lied through my teeth to mine.'
'Because you want to stay with me, yes?'
He stared into her eyes and nodded. She stood up, dropping his hand.
'And you are right to stay with me,' she said. 'Because I am going to find out about thi
s Witch woman, I am going to discover all about her from Herr Bandorff. Just you wait and see. Besides, Mr Elder is behind you.'
'Yes, and pushing hard.'
She was at the door now, opening it. She turned back to him. 'Rendezvous in five minutes,' she said, 'whether you're ready or not.'
And with a final carefree smile, she was gone. Barclay sat up on the bed, clasping his arms around his knees. From the living-room came the sound of an accordion. Madame Herault was listening to her radio. Madame Herault, who had already lost a husband to the terrorist threat, and whose daughter now might be in danger. He got up off the bed and stood in front of the dressing table, where the Witch file sat surrounded by bits of wire and solder, unused diodes and broken bits of circuit-board. He touched the cover of the file for luck.
Back in her room, Dominique studied herself in her mirror. Her employers had attached her to Michael Barclay because she was persistent. She had been brought up to be stubborn in pursuit of her goal, and her goal had been an assignment. She wanted to prove herself. How could you prove yourself in an office? She touched a framed photograph of her father.
He had proved himself on the streets of the city, not behind a desk.
He was her hero, and always would be, his life snuffed out by terrorists.
And now she was in pursuit of terrorists, of people like those who had murdered her father. She kept her mind focused on that fact.
She didn't mind cutting corners. She didn't mind lying to her employers.
She gave them daily reports on the British agent's actions and whereabouts. As long as he was around, she was to stick close to him, nothing more than that. They did not know how fascinated she had become, fascinated by this creature called Witch, conjured up from scattered events and rumours. It was as though the creature stood for all the terrorists in the world. Dominique wanted to get closer to it still.
She examined her hair, her face, her body, and she smiled. She knew she was just about beautiful.
She knew too that Witch, not she, was the real femme fatale.
She had spent much of the past few days in London, watching. At times she had been a tourist, clutching her
street-map and her carrier bag from Fortnum's, her head arched up to take in the sights, while those around her kept their eyes either firmly straight ahead or else angled downwards, checking the paving stones for cracks to be avoided.