[Jack Harvey Novels 01] Witch Hunt

by Ian Rankin

  Today, it was an Alfa Romeo.

  The chauffeur swore under his breath and stopped the minister's car in the road, a little way behind the Alfa, giving the driver room to move it. Always supposing the driver was anywhere around. The chauffeur sounded the car-horn, just in case the driver was in one of the houses near the minister's.

  The minister's bodyguard spotted something from his passenger seat.

  'There's somebody still in the car,' he said. And so there was, a woman.

  She appeared to be consulting a map. The driver sounded his horn again.

  'Come on, you dozy bint.'

  'She must be deaf.'

  'Come on.'

  Throughout this exchange, Jonathan Barker sat in the back of the car with his private secretary. They were discussing an afternoon meeting, with the aid of an agenda on which the minister was scratching with a slim gold fountain-pen. Suddenly, the minister seemed to realise it was lurichtime. He handed the agenda to his private secretary and slipped the pen into his breast pocket.

  'Sort it out, will you?' he said to the men in the front of the car.

  'I'm going inside.'

  And with that, he got out of his car. So did the private secretary.

  And so, with a muttered, 'I'll sort it out all right,' did the bodyguard.

  And so did the woman. The chauffeur couldn't believe it. He rested his hand on the horn again and called out: 'Come on, darling, you can't park there!' But she appeared not to have heard him. The bodyguard was just behind her as she bent down, looking as though she was locking her car door. The minister and his private secretary were mounting the pavement behind the Alfa Romeo.

  'Excuse me, miss, that's a private parking bay, I'm afraid.' The guard didn't think she'd heard him. Bloody foreigner. He touched her shoulder.

  Witch, crouching, slammed her elbow back into the bodyguard's groin, then clasped the hand on her shoulder and twisted her whole body, taking the man's arm with it, turning it all the way round and up his back.

  He sank to his knees in pain. The butt of the Beretta smashed against the back of his neck. He slumped unconscious to the ground.

  Now her gun was on the minister.

  'Into the car!'

  He hesitated.

  'You,' she said to the blanching secretary, 'back into the minister's car. You,' to Jonathan Barker again, 'into this car.'

  'Now look here .. .'

  But the private secretary was already shuffling back to the Rover where the driver sat motionless, trying to decide whether to try ramming her or merely blocking her escape or even reversing to a safe distance.

  She settled his mind for him by swivelling and expertly shooting one front and one rear tyre. The driver yelped and ducked beneath the level of the windscreen. The private secretary had fallen to his knees and was crawling on all fours. Witch turned her eyes on Jonathan Barker.

  'You're dead.'

  People were looking out of their windows now. A few pedestrians had stopped and were watching from a safe distance. Jonathan Barker decided he'd stalled long enough. She walked around the car towards him. He opened the passenger door.

  'No, the back,' she said. Her aim with the pistol looked steady as he opened the car's rear door and leaned down to get in.

  'I think you must be making a—' The sentence went unfinished as Witch flipped the pistol and smashed the butt down on Jonathan Barker's skull.

  He fell into the car and she pushed his legs in after him, closing the door and running to the driver's side. Then she started the car and sent it hurtling out of the parking space. It would be a short drive.

  Her other car was parked and waiting.

  As she drove off, the private secretary opened the Rover's passenger door.

  'A lot of help you were,' he squealed at the chauffeur.

  'I didn't notice you exactly leaping into action.'

  'No, but at least I got the licence plate. Here, hand me that phone.

  We'll have the cunt in five minutes.'

  But in five minutes, all they had was a general alert and the arrival of a single police car .. . which didn't even contain police.

  'Who are you?' asked the private secretary. Neighbours had come out of their houses and were milling around. The bodyguard sat on the edge of the pavement, holding his head. A woman was trying to give him an aspirin and some water.

  Elder took it all in with a single sweep: the flat car-tyres, the empty parking space, the sickly looks on the faces of the three men.

  'What happened?' he asked, ignoring the private secretary's question.

  'Where are the bloody police?' asked the private secretary, ignoring Elder's. 'I called them.'

  'They're a bit busy at Victoria Street. I suppose all available units have rushed down there.'

  The man's interest was deflected for a moment. 'What happened?'

  'A bomb. Nothing serious. It was just a ..." A what? A flanker? Yes, that's what it was. A tactic to shift attention solidly and completely on to Victoria Street, so that this could happen. She'd bought herself valuable time. Five minutes already, and still no police had arrived.

  Too late to go chasing her now, though Elder could see Dominique was keen. She was still sitting in the police car's driving-seat, ready for the off. Barclay was getting the story from one of the neighbours who'd seen everything.

  "It's a mess,' Elder said, more to himself than anyone else. 'A shambles.

  She led us all the way up the garden path and in through the front door.

  Only we were in the

  wrong house, the wrong garden, the wrong bloody street!'

  What he still couldn't work out was the one simple question: why Jonathan Barker? Why go second division when the premier league were there for the taking?

  Why?

  The question bothered him, and others, for the rest of the afternoon.

  He talked it through with Barclay and Dominique. He talked it through with Joyce Parry, and with Trilling and Greenleaf. Doyle was in hospital, though unwillingly. They were keeping him in overnight, if such were possible. Trilling, shaken by the bomb, had developed a stammer, but Greenleaf seemed fine. Certainly, he was up to the task of re-interviewing the Dutchman and informing him of Witch's devastating double-cross. Would the Dutchman's employers believe that he didn't know anything about it? Or would they suspect he must have been in on it with Witch?

  Always supposing it was a double-cross. It was. The Dutchman was evidence of that.

  The Dutchman was scared. They allowed him to watch the news reports on TV, just so he would know this was no bluff. He did not blink as he watched. And afterwards, with the tape recorders turning, he talked.

  But he had little enough to say. He told Greenleaf about Crane, told him where to find Christine Jones (they were close to finding her anyway, thirsty and frightened but otherwise unharmed). He wouldn't say anything about the men who'd employed him in the first place, the men who'd paid him to liaise with Witch. But he did admit to meeting her in Paris, at the Australian's apartment.

  He did not, however, know the answer to the question: why Barker? He kept shaking his head disbelievingly. 'They paid her a million,' he kept saying, 'a million to kill

  the US President . .. and she pulls a stunt like this.' He looked up at Greenleaf. 'She must be crazy.'

  Greenleaf tended to agree.

  The media, of course, had their own ideas. First reaction was that the double-blow was the work of the IRA, of at least two active service units, one attacking the motorcade while the other abducted the Home Secretary. This made sense to the reporters: who else but the IRA would go to so much trouble to kidnap the Home Secretary? Then the speculation started, all about IRA 'cells' in London and how there might be more of them, about safe houses where the gang (numbering at least a dozen) could be hiding. There was a blackout on the real story, of course.

  None of Jonathan Barker's neighbours had been allowed to speak to the media, and those who had had been disbelieved. One woman? No ne
ws editor was going to believe that. So the idea of the gang stuck, and Londoners were asked to keep their eyes open for anything suspicious.

  London, thought Elder: that's the last place she'll be. He was sitting in Joyce Parry's office. Outside, Barclay was showing Dominique around.

  It looked as though MI5 had adopted her, which didn't bother Elder: a friend in the DST camp would no doubt be welcome at the department, and especially one who might rise through the ranks .. . There had been a potential spot of bother earlier on, when some furious policemen had tried to arrest her for taking their car, but Elder had calmed them.

  He was calm himself now; well, calmer. Again, they'd come so close and yet were back to square one. For a couple of naive, undisciplined cavaliers, Barclay and Dominique hadn't done so badly. He took The Times obituary column from his pocket and read it again. Had this started the whole thing rolling in Witch's mind? Had this somehow persuaded her that instead of fulfilling her objective she should run away with the Home Secretary? It still didn't make sense.

  Marion Barker, nee Rose. Secretary to Jonathan Barker .. . then his first wife died and later on he married Marion. Nothing so unusual about that. Tireless worker for various charities and so on. Lifelong interest in spiritualism ... What else did he know about her? What did he know about Jonathan Barker? Not much.

  'Dominic, sorry I've been so long.' Joyce Parry came into the room, went to her desk, and began lifting files out of her briefcase.

  'How did it go?'

  'PM's furious, of course. He doesn't know what's worse, the scratches on the delegates' limos or someone buggering off with Jonathan Barker.'

  She looked down at him. 'You got close.'

  'Not close enough. If I'd let Barclay go on digging last night instead of sending him off to bed ...'

  'Don't blame yourself. I don't know anyone who's done more on this.'

  'Barclay has. So has Miss Herault.'

  'And whose idea was it to involve Barclay in the first place?'

  He smiled. 'As you know, my motives at the time were not exactly . ..'

  'Honourable?'

  He nodded.

  'Well, honourable or not, we came bloody close.'

  'Is that what you told the PM?'

  'Of course. No doubt Commander Trilling will tell him something else entirely, but we'll see.' She sat down at last, leaning back in her chair, arms falling down over its sides. A brief smile passed between them, a shared

  memory of the previous night. Then it was back to business. 'So what now?'

  Elder sat forwards. 'Joyce, I need to see the file on Barker. I mean the real file, warts and all.'

  She formed her lips into an 0. 'Absolutely not.'

  'Joyce ..."

  'Do you know how restricted that is? I hardly get access to those files.'

  'Joyce, you've got to understand. His wife's obituary set Witch off.

  The answer's got to lie somewhere in Barker's past, or somewhere in his wife's. Jonathan Barker's life is at stake here. I think he'd want me to see that file.'

  She was shaking her head. She was still shaking it as she sighed and said, 'I'll see what I can do.'

  'Now, Joyce, it's got to be now.'

  'Dominic, it's not that simple.'

  'Yes it is. Get the file, Joyce. Please.'

  She looked at him, considering. 'You always have to take shortcuts, don't you?'

  'Always.'

  'You want her badly.'

  'Very badly,' he agreed.

  Joyce Parry sat for a moment, her eyes on her desk. "I'll get the file,'

  she said at last.

  Sitting in Joyce Parry's office a little later, Michael Barclay looked decidedly grumpy. And not without cause. Everything he'd shown Dominique, from his computer to his wastepaper-bin, had been received with a shrug and five short words: 'We have better in France.' She'd been impressed by none of it. She sat beside him now, one leg crossed over the other, her foot waggling in the air, and looked around the room. Inwardly, she was still crackling. Her drive through the London streets had

  been exhilarating. They'd come so close to confronting the assassin.

  And yet in the end, it was reduced to this: sitting around in an office waiting for something to happen. She felt she would explode with the energy inside her. Why didn't someone do something?

  Dominic Elder knew what she was thinking. It was the sort of thing he'd have been thinking twenty-five years ago. Who needs patience? Let's get out there and hunt. Only just over two years ago, that same instinct had led him straight to retirement and a scar that would never disappear.

  'The gang's all here,' said Joyce Parry, walking through the ever-open door. She paused inside the room, turned, and closed the door behind her. Then she went to her desk and sat down. She did not have a file with her.

  'Nobody told me there was going to be a party,' she said to Elder, having first smiled a greeting towards Dominique.

  'I thought, after what they've been through, Mr Barclay and Miss Herault deserved not to be left out of anything at this late stage.'

  It smacked of a prepared speech. Parry didn't reply to it. Instead she said, 'I've changed my mind.'

  'Yes, so I see.'

  'I've read the file, Dominic. There's a lot in there that isn't relevant to this case.'

  'How can you be sure?'

  'I can't. So instead of reading the file, you can question me. I'll answer anything. That way, whatever isn't touched upon isn't touched upon. It stays secret. Agreed?'

  Elder shrugged. 'It seems a long-winded way of—'

  'Agreed?'

  'Agreed,' he said. Barclay and Dominique were paying attention now, their own problems forgotten. Dominique burst in with the first question.

  'Is the Home Secretary suspected of being a double agent?'

  Joyce Parry smiled. 'No,' she said.

  'I think you're on the wrong track,' Elder told Dominique gently. 'What we have here is something altogether more . .'. personal.' He turned to Parry. The idea, growing in his mind these past hours, was monstrous, almost unthinkable. Yet it had to be tested. 'Did Jonathan Barker have an affair with his secretary?'

  'Which secretary?'

  'Marion Rose.'

  Joyce Parry nodded. 'That's my understanding.'

  'This was before his first wife died?'

  'Yes.'

  'Long before she died?'

  'Probably, yes. A number of years.'

  Elder nodded thoughtfully. Doyle had known something about it, had heard some rumour. Hence his nickname for Barker. 'Did his wife know?'

  'I shouldn't think so. She wasn't the type to keep that sort of knowledge to herself.'

  Now Barclay interrupted. 'There's no suspicion surrounding her death?'

  'No, the post mortem was meticulous. She died from natural causes.'

  'To wit?'

  'Lung cancer. She was a heavy smoker.'

  "Yes,' said Elder, 'so I seem to remember. What about Barker during this time?'

  'What time?'

  'The time he was having an affair with Marion Rose. How was his career shaping up?'

  'Pretty well. He wasn't quite in politics then, of course.

  But he was in the running for a candidacy. He got it, won the seat, and that was him into parliament.'

  'At quite a young age.'

  'Twenty-nine.'

  'Yes, twenty-nine. No children by the first marriage?'

  'No.'

  'Did the first marriage have its problems then?'

  'Not that we know of. Apart from the glaring fact that Barker was having at least one affair.'

  'This was his second marriage - Marion's first?'

  'That's right.'

  'A quiet woman?'

  'Yes, until recently. I mean, her profile increased.'

  'Mmm, the image-men got their hands on her. Charitable good works and so on, but unassuming with it ... the model MP's wife.'

  'I suppose you could say that.'

  'He didn
't get into parliament at the first attempt, did he?'

  'No.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because he lost.'

  'Yes, but why did he lose?'

  A shrug. 'Swing to the—'

  'But why, Joyce?'

  She paused, swallowed. 'There was a rumour he was a bit of a ladies'

  man. A localised rumour, but it put enough voters off.'

  'But by the second by-election?'

  'He was cleaner than clean.'

  'And has been since?'

  'Yes.'

  'And he's risen and risen.'

  'Not exactly meteoric though.'

  'No, slow, meticulous, I agree with you there. And there've been no scandals?'

  'Not in parliament, no.'

  'But outside parliament?'

  'Just the one you referred to, and that was never public'

  'What? His fling with Marion? Mm, wouldn't have gone down well though, would it? Wouldn't go down well even now, even as ancient history -

  MP sleeping with secretary while wife's dying of cancer. Bit of a black mark. He was a millionaire?'

  'By the time he was twenty-one.'

  'Father's money?'

  'Mostly, yes, but he put it to good use.'

  'A wise investor.'

  'A chain of record shops, actually, just in time to clean up on the Beatles and the Stones.'

  'Like I say, a wise investor.' Elder rubbed at his forehead. 'To get back to his affair with Marion, what do we know about it?'

  'You tell me.'

  'All right,' said Elder, 'I will. What happened to the child?'

  'Child?'

  'There was a child, wasn't there?'

  Joyce Parry looked down at the desk. 'We don't know for sure.'

  'No? But there were “localised rumours”, yes?'

  •Yes.'

  'Dear me, a pregnant secretary, a wife dying of cancer, and he's put himself forward as a constituency candidate. Maybe for the second and potentially the last time. 1 mean, the last time if he didn't win.'