Ian Rankin - Witch Hunt

But Elder was nodding. He waved his left hand towards Barclay. There was a ring on his wedding finger. “Didn’t you notice? I suppose you’ve got computers to do that sort of thing for you.”

Barclay knew now what Joyce Parry had been getting at when she’d talked of Elder as though he were some dinosaur from the ancient past. He’d retired only two years ago, yet his ideas were Stone Age. Barclay had come across them before, these troglodytes who thought the Enigma code breaker was a bit too high-tech to deal with. They belonged to old spy novels, left unread in secondhand bookshops.

“A penny for them,” Elder said, startling Barclay.

“Oh, I was just wondering about your wife.”

“Why?”

“Curious, I suppose.”

“We’re separated. Have been for years. No plans for divorce. Funny, we get on fine when we’re not living together. We can meet for dinner or the theater.”

“And you still wear your ring.”

“No reason not to.”

Barclay noticed a small framed photograph on one of the shelves. He got up the better to study it. A young girl dressed in pale colors. A big gap-toothed grin and short black hair. It looked like an old photo. He waited for Elder to say something, but Elder was ignoring him.

“Your daughter?” Barclay offered.

Elder nodded. “Deceased.”

Barclay put the photograph back carefully. “I’m sorry,” he said. “How did she —”

“So,” Elder interrupted, “how’s Joyce Parry?”

“Fine.” Barclay sat down again.

“It was nice to hear from her. We haven’t really kept in touch.” A pause. “We should have. Have you worked it out yet?”

“Worked out what?”

Elder smiled. “Something we all used to wonder: whether she’s an iron fist in a velvet glove, or a velvet fist in an iron one.”

Barclay smiled back. “Both have the same effect, surely?”

“Not when the gloves are off.” Elder took another mouthful of beer. “So,” he said, sounding suddenly businesslike, “you’re here to tell me something.”

“Well, yes.”

“Something about Witch.”

“We don’t know that yet, even supposing Witch exists...”

“She exists.”

“She?”

“She, Mr. Barclay. One woman.”

“I thought it was a group.”

Elder shook his head. “That’s what the department thought at the time. It’s what Joyce believes to this day. It’s not a gang, Mr. Barclay, it’s an individual, an assassin.”

“And female?”

“Female.”

“Because of the Hiroshima murder?”

“No, not just that. Hiroshima was merely her entrance. And now something similar has happened?”

“Two boats, one either side of the Channel —”

“Yes, so Joyce said. One off Calais, the other near Folkestone...”

“The Cassandra Christa. ”

“What?”

“The English boat, it was called the Cassandra Christa. ”

“Cassandra... extraordinary.”

Barclay didn’t follow. “You know it?”

But Elder shook his head. “I meant the parallel. You didn’t have a classical education, Mr. Barclay?”

Barclay’s voice was as cold as his drink. “Apparently not.”

“Cassandra,” Elder was saying, “was the daughter of Priam, King of Troy. The god Apollo endowed her with the gift of prophecy... but not of being believed.”

Barclay nodded slowly, smiling. “And you’re Cassandra, Mr. Elder?”

His eyes twinkled. “In the present case, yes, perhaps I am.” He paused. “Mr. Barclay, do you know why Joyce has sent you here?”

Barclay took a deep breath. “To be honest, off the record, no.”

“Me neither. I admit I’m intrigued. Are Special Branch investigating the sinkings?”

“Yes.”

“They’ll probably end up deciding it was an arms shipment. Believable scenario. Strange, if it is Witch...”

“Yes?”

“She’s a quick learner, Mr. Barclay. That’s why she’s survived so long. We haven’t seen hide or hair of her for a couple of years. I thought maybe she’d retired. Yet here she is, announcing herself loud and clear. You see, she didn’t use that particular trick again. She tends not to use the same trick twice, ever. She enters and leaves countries in different ways, using different disguises, different means of killing her victims. Now she seems to have returned to her original calling card. Why?”

“Maybe she’s run out of ideas, gone back to square one.”

“Maybe.”

“Mr. Elder, you say this group... you say she’s an assassin.”

“Yes.”

“For money, or for an ideal?”

“Both. Having an ideal costs money.”

“And what is her ideal?”

Elder shook his head. “If I knew that, I might have caught her by now.” He sat up suddenly. “There are two ways of doing this, the fast and the slow. I’d prefer the slow. Do you have any plans for the evening?”

“No.” This was a lie, but Barclay was intrigued.

“Then I’ll cook some supper. Come on.” He rose to his feet. “Let’s see what needs picking in the garden.”

The evening stayed balmy, and they were able to eat at a picnic table in the back garden. Apart from the immaculate vegetable plot, the garden itself had been left wild. But there was order in the wilderness. The phrase that sprang to Barclay’s mind was “the organization of chaos.”

He didn’t know what to make of Elder. Partly he thought the man intelligent, cautious, impressive; partly he thought him just another old service crank. The story he told seemed harshly at odds with the scenery surrounding them as they sat into the twilight and beyond.

“Hiroshima was the first,” Elder said, almost drowsily. “Except that it wasn’t. That sounds like a riddle, but I’ll explain it as I go along. I filed the report on the Hassan killing.”

“Yes, I read it.”

“But of course, I couldn’t know then... well, nobody could know about Witch. Then there were other incidents, other operations. Most of them terrorist-related. I like to imagine Witch as a pure terrorist.” He smiled. “I’m sure she isn’t, though.” He seemed to be drifting away. Barclay feared the man was about to fall asleep.

“And after Hassan?” he asked.

Elder stirred himself. “After Hassan... well, there was an Italian kidnapping. A British businessman, working for some chemical conglomerate. They took his daughter. I was sent over there to liaise with police. It was an utter farce. The gang got away, and with the ransom.”

“The daughter?”

“Oh, freed. But she’s been a nervous wreck ever since, poor child.”

“You said a gang: not Witch, then?”

“Not just Witch, no. Two men and a woman. You see, this was her training period, a term of probation on the one hand and learning on the other. She didn’t work alone in the early days.”

“And since?”

“Since?” Elder shrugged. “The problem is that there’s so little evidence. Seven armed robberies on the Continent... three assassinations. Many more assassination attempts, either foiled or botched. And always a woman mentioned afterwards, maybe just a passing note in somebody’s report, but always a woman, a tall young woman. The most extraordinary story involves a NATO General.” Elder toyed with his fork. “It was hushed-up at the time, for reasons you will appreciate. He was an American based in Europe, but had to fly out to... let’s just say Asia... as part of a very sensitive delegation. This general, however, had a taste for violent, forced sex. Oh, he was willing to pay. He’d made several pimps and madams very wealthy in his time. He was intrigued by stories of a very special prostitute. The rougher things got, the better she liked it. That was the story.” Elder paused and glanced around his garden, either appraising it or else playing for time, wondering how to phrase what came next. “He was discovered lying naked on a bed with his head severed from its body at the neck. The head had been placed between his legs. In effect, the corpse was giving itself a blow job.”