by Ian Rankin
He returned to his television. A new quiz show was about to replace the old one. 'Ah, now this one is my favourite. It contains a nice element of chance.'
Barclay stood up, followed by Dominique. Was this it?
Was this what they'd come so far for? Barclay tried to think of other things to say. He turned to Dominique, who nodded merely. It was time to leave. But Barclay paused, reaching into his pocket again for the photograph. He placed it silently on the desk.
'Thank you, Herr Witchfinder,' said Bandorff.
Barclay and Dominique walked back the way they'd come. 'You were brilliant, Michael,' she told him. 'Have you forgiven me yet?'
'For what?'
'For lying to you ... and then for telling you the truth?'
He smiled. 'It was a shock, that's all.'
'Yes, and look what it did to you.'
Which was true. Something had galvanised him. He'd actually interviewed Wolf Bandorff and had come away with information on Witch - useless information in itself, but something to be added to the file.
'So what now?' he asked.
'Back to Paris, I suppose. Then back to London for you.'
He nodded. There was nothing keeping him on the Continent any more.
Time to head back and confess that he'd come away from France with not a great deal. They were passing Herr Grunner's office.
'Should we look in and say goodbye?' asked Barclay.
'He's probably already gone home,' said Dominique. But the office door opened and Herr Grunner stood there, gesturing to them.
'Would you be so kind . . . ?' He held the door open and motioned for them to enter. Past him, a man was standing in front of Herr Grunner's desk, his raincoat still on, arms folded. Dominique gasped.
'Who is it?' asked Barclay.
'Not my boss,'she said. 'But his boss!'
They were at the door now, crossing the threshold, the door closing with a quiet click after them. A figure stood staring from Herr Grunner's rain-dappled window. It turned around and spoke in a voice which chilled Barclay all the way down to his feet.
'Good afternoon, Mr Barclay,' said Joyce Parry.
The trip back to London was the least comfortable of Barclay's life.
Despite the chauffeured car, the airplane waiting on the tarmac, coffee and biscuits on board.
'My car's still in Calais,' he said. 'And I've some clothes in Paris.'
'They'll be picked up,' Parry said coolly. She had her glasses on and was browsing through the big fat Witch file, Dominic Elder's file. She didn't seem to be in much of a mood for talking, which worried Barclay all the more. Not much had been said in Herr Grunner's office. Dominique had been given a few curt words of French and then had followed her superior's superior out of the room, without so much as a backward glance at Barclay. Barclay had steeled himself for similar treatment from Parry.
It hadn't come. She'd thanked Herr Grunner - in fluent German - and they'd left. He saw Dominique being driven away in a large black Citroen, while an official-looking person got into her 2CV, started it, and rolled out of the prison car park.
'Come on,' said Parry. She led him to a white Rover 2000 where a driver was waiting. He had an embassy look about him which Barclay translated into MI6. 'Straight to the airport,' Parry informed the driver.
'Yes, ma'am,' he said. Barclay heard humour in his tone, the joke being that Barclay was in for it and he, the driver, was not.
'How did you know?' Barclay asked Joyce Parry. He was thinking of Dominic Elder. He had tried phoning the hotel again first thing, but they said they couldn't put through his call. He hadn't understood at the time. He thought maybe he did now. Parry turned her head towards him.
'Don't be stupid. How could we not know? I've heard of cavalier, but this little stunt . . .' She exhaled noisily. '“How did you know?” '
she echoed, mockingly. She shook her head slowly. By the time they'd reached the airport, she'd decided to explain it to him anyway. 'Herr Grunner contacted the BfV, who contacted the DGSE and SIS. What do you think SIS did?'
'Contacted you?' hazarded Barclay.
'You can imagine my surprise, being told that one of my agents, who had told me he was in Paris, was actually in Germany. Perhaps you can also imagine my humiliation at having to be told your true whereabouts by bloody SIS!'
Yes, thought Barclay, there was little love lost between MI5 and SIS
- the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. The French DGSE
was the equivalent of the SIS, an external intelligence service. They'd no doubt contacted the DST. Dominique was no doubt receiving a similar lashing. Dominique . ..
'You're as bad as Dominic bloody Elder,' said Parry. 'This is just the sort of stupid trick he'd have played.' She paused. 'I know he's been in touch with you throughout. Tell me, did he tell you to come here?'
Barclay stayed silent. No point defending himself. It was best just to let her get on with it; let all the anger roll out of her. But in fact she said nothing more until the airport, where they boarded their plane. As she was fastening her seatbelt, she looked up at him.
'Why did yoiji lie?'
He'd been preparing for this very question. 'Would you have let me go?'
'Certainly not.'
He shrugged. 'That's your answer then. You saw Dom .,. Ms Herault. She was going. If I'd called you for permission and you'd turned me down flat, how would that have made me look?'
'It would have made you look like a junior agent who's still got to be kept on a tight leash. Which is the truth. But I suppose that wouldn't have done, would it? It would hardly have .. . impressed Ms Herault.'
'It would have made me look like a fool.'
'So you lied to me instead.'
'I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have.'
'No, you shouldn't. Believe me, Mr Barclay, you shouldn't. As for conspiring with Dominic Elder behind my back, it's intolerable!'
'I did what I did because I thought it was in our best interests.' He paused. 'Ma'am.'
'And you think that's an excuse?'
There was no more dialogue between them until after take-off. Barclay felt a sudden crushing fatigue, despite the sour airplane coffee. It was days since he'd had an unbroken night's sleep. Adrenaline had kept him going, but now the adventure had come to an abrupt end and his body just wanted sleep. Only fear of his boss's reaction should he doze off kept his eyes open.
Joyce Parry kept tapping the Witch file which lay across her lap. 'For your information,' she said at last, 'I learned of your little escapade yesterday. I arrived in Germany late last night.'
'What? Then why did—'
'I had some trouble persuading Monsieur Roche that we should let you and Ms Herault go ahead with the interview.'
'You let it go ahead? But why?' He was wide awake now.
She shrugged. 'Why not? What did we have to lose? Tell me, why were you there?'
'It's a long story.'
'And this is a long flight. I expect a report from you, and I mean a full report. If you leave anything out . ..'
'I understand.'
'I'll want it by tomorrow morning, first thing, on my desk. Meantime I want to hear it from your own mouth. Did you learn anything from Bandorff?'
Barclay shrugged. 'Tidbits.'
'But something?'
'Maybe, yes.'
'Well, at least there's something to' show for all your bungling.'
'It's not much. He told me she hated men. He wondered what could have caused that. He said maybe psychoanalysis would provide an answer. What do you think he meant?'
'Families?' Parry answered.
'So it goes back to her parents? He also mentioned two things she carried with her: a teddy bear and a pack of tarot cards.'
Parry considered this. 'Maybe Profiling can make something of it.'
'They're both signs of insecurity, aren't they? A teddy bear brings past security, a tarot is supposed to reassure for the future.'
She stared at hi
m, eyebrows raised a fraction. 'Maybe you've been in the wrong department all along.'
Barclay gave her just a hint of his winning smile. 'He also mentioned clairvoyance at one point, just in passing. Maybe it was a reference to the tarot.'
'Elder visited a fairground in Brighton,' Parry stated.
'Really? Coincidence?'
She shrugged. 'We'll see.'
Barclay had trouble forming his next question. 'She left a message for Mr Elder, and Bandorff hints that she hates her father.'
'What are you saying?'
'It's just, when I was at Mr Elder's, there was a photograph there of his daughter.'
Joyce Parry went very still. 'Did he talk about her?'
'He just said she was dead. “Deceased” was his word.'
Joyce Parry nodded. 'She is.'
'What happened?'
'Her name was Susanne, and she was on a school trip to Paris. There was an explosion in a shopping arcade. No group ever claimed responsibility. Three children were among the dead.'
Barclay recalled how Dominique's father had died. 'He thinks Witch did it?'
Joyce Parry was staring from her window. 'He doesn't know. He can't know.' She turned to him. Barclay supplied her thoughts.
'Unless he asks her himself?'
She nodded. 'That's his obsession, Michael. He's got a question he needs to ask her, a question only she can answer.'
He thought of Dominique who had lost a father, of Elder's lost daughter.
It would mean nothing to people like Bandorff and Witch. He saw now why Dominique, who had been so full of action before, had said almost nothing in Bandorff's cell. She had been facing a ghost, a terror with her since childhood.
'Get some sleep,' Joyce Parry was saying. 'You look exhausted.'
She was right, he was exhausted. Yet he doubted he would sleep.
Enterprise & Initiative
Monday 15 June
They were arriving. Or had already arrived. Mostly, they touched down in their national jets at an RAF base outside London. A few chose to helicopter into the city itself, the rest travelled by way of a huge police escort. These were the heads of state, heading for the summit.
They came with full and impressive entourages, almost as if one-upmanship were the game. Several brought with them personal hair-stylists. All of them brought 'gofers': anonymous individuals whose job it was to find and fetch whatever was needed during the stay in London. The gofers tended to be ex-diplomats who had spent time in England and built up a network of contacts in London itself. There were some who said the gofers were the most important people of all. It was they who kept the heads of state happy.
The real show of one-upmanship, as it turned out, was to bring your own chef with you. And the chef brought with him his equipe, his pots and pans and utensils. Ingredients from the various homelands were brought, too, all slipping quietly through as diplomatic baggage so that no customs people need declare them illegal. Arms were brought too, of course. More diplomatic baggage, arriving in well-packed crates.
High-tech equipment was packed in separate cases: scramblers, decoders, debuggers, communications systems .. .
Watching it all arrive, there were those who were glad the summit was only lasting a week. Vans were provided at the base, to be loaded and driven by members of each
entourage. Some of the vans made for the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, others for the embassies of the countries concerned, where the delegations were staying for the week. There was fun to be had from sorting out the secret servicemen from the rest of each delegation.
Sometimes they made it easy, donning the near-mandatory dark glasses even though the day was overcast and showery. Perfect summer weather, and due to last for the whole week. The hot spell had been just that
- a spell. Now someone had cast another spell, and storms were rumbling inland from the west.
So far the movement of the eight delegations into London had been accomplished without a hitch. There were several small demonstrations to contend with outside certain embassies, but these passed off with a minimum of bother. And they gave the secret servicemen a chance to try out their discreet photographic equipment. The Metropolitan Police had drafted several hundred extra officers into the capital for the week. The mood in the ranks was buoyant: there'd be plenty of overtime, plenty of holiday money made over the next seven days.
But the mood elsewhere was verging on panic. There had been a catastrophe at a large nursery garden in Cornwall: an invasion of cows. As a result, several thousand fresh flowers, just ready to be picked, had been crushed or beheaded. The flowers had been ordered to decorate the Conference Centre itself. A 'floral decorist' had been hired, and Monday afternoon was when he and his own equipe had intended to start their work, finishing late on Monday night. But now there were no flowers for them to work with.
A senior civil servant spent several panicky hours making various telephone calls, until at last four new and willing suppliers were located. Between them, they
had just about enough spare flowers to save the day: two hundred carnations short of the original plan, but so be it. However, this in turn led to problems with security, since the new firms needed clearance before delivering the flowers. Once more, the civil servant picked up her telephone.
In a sticky, overworked office on the second floor of a building in Victoria Street, the telephone rang. Judy Clarke picked it up. Judy was in a panic too. Her boss hadn't come in yet, and it was already quarter past ten. She hadn't heard of any train disputes or hitches on the underground. Mind you, you only heard of hold-ups on the underground after they'd happened. Still, it wasn't like her boss. And there was so much to do! She was breathless as she picked up the receiver.
'Hello?' she said.
'Oh, hello,' said the female voice at the other end. 'My name's Tessa.
I share a house with Chris . .. Christine Jones.'
'Oh, yes?' Judy's heart sank. She knew what a call like this meant.
Then she brightened. 'Tessa, yes, hello. Remember me? Judy Clarke. We met at Christine's birthday party.'
'Judy ... ? Oh yes, hello again, how are you?'
'Not so bad. Is Christine ill?'
'Not exactly. But she's had a bit of bad news, a bereavement.'
'Oh dear.'
'Family, an aunt. I think they were very close.'
'An aunt? Oh dear, I am sorry.'
'Wiell, these things ...'
'Sj6 Christine's not coming in today?'
'Well, that's the thing. She's gone off. The funeral's not till Wednesday.'
'Wednesday! God, I need to speak to her. There are things that need—'
'She said she thought you could cope.'
'Yes, well, maybe we can but it's still
'If I hear from her, shall I tell her to call you?'
'Could you get in touch with her? Is she at her mum's in Doncaster?
Maybe if you gave me the phone number . .. ?'
'She didn't leave one.'
'That's not like—'
'She was a bit distraught. She's not in Doncaster anyway. The aunt lived somewhere in Liverpool.'
'Yes, I see.' Liverpool? Christine hadn't mentioned an aunt in Liverpool.
'Shall I get her to call you?'
'Yes, please, Tessa. I really need to know about Dobson's and about the MTD meeting.'
'Hold on, I'll write that down. Dobson's . ..'
'And the MTD meeting. Management Training Directive. Just tell her MTD, she'll know what it is.'
'Okay.'
'And if you do hear from her, please tell her I'm sorry.'
'Yes, thank you, I will.'
'Oh, and Tessa?'
'Yes?'
'Have you got a cold or something? Your voice sounds hoarse.'
'Must be the anabolic steroids. 'Bye, Judy.'
"Bye, Tessa,' said Judy, putting down the phone. She sighed. Oh, hell.
No Christine till Thursday. No one to steer the ship for the
next three days. Three days off for a bereavement. She wondered how Mrs Pyle in personnel would react to that. She didn't like you taking off three consecutive days for major surgery, never mind a funeral. Liverpool?
An aunt in Liverpool? Oh well, it
came to us all, didn't it? Maybe she'd phone Christine's house tonight. ..
talk to Tessa again, see if Christine had been in touch.
Then again, maybe she wouldn't. Derek was supposed to be taking her out to the pictures. That was typical of him, choosing Monday night.
He knew the cinemas were half-price on a Monday ...
'There goes another one,' said her colleague Martin, coming into the room.
'What?'
'A motorcade.' He walked to the window. She joined him, peering down.
Four growling motorbikes preceded the slow-moving convoy of long black cars.
'Wonder who it is this time?' she said.
'I can't see. Usually there's a flag on the front of the chiefs car.
Can you see one?'
She craned her neck. 'No,' she said.
'Me neither.'
'I feel we should be throwing down confetti or something.'
He laughed. 'You mean tickertape. Except these days, we'd have to use the leftovers from the paper-shredder instead.'
She laughed at this, at the idea of tipping a binful of shredded documents out of the window. Martin could be really funny at times. If he took off his glasses, he wasn't bad-looking either. Nice bum, too. He seemed to sense what she was thinking and turned towards her, taking off his glasses to wipe them with his hankie. There were red I marks either side of his nose where the frames pinched.
'So,' he said, 'what are you doing tonight, Judy?'
She thought for a moment, swallowed, and said: 'Nothing.'
Witch put down the receiver. Shit, merde, scheisse. Trust her to end up speaking to someone who knew Tessa. A girl called Judy .. . who sounded concerned about Christine Jones. Concerned enough to pick up the phone and make some enquiries? Concerned enough to telephone the real Tessa this evening? Witch bit her bottom lip. Dispose of the girl Judy? No, it would be too suspicious. Two people disappearing from the same office ... a laughable idea. No, this would have to be one of those rare occasions where she was forced to trust to luck. That's all there was to it. Maybe she should read her tarot again, see what it had planned for her. Maybe she shouldn't. What good would it do if the news were bad? She'd still have to go through with it. Too late to back out now.