Ian Rankin: Witch Hunt

“My office.”

Oh hell, now what? His last big job had been putting together a report on aspects of security at the forthcoming London summit. It had taken him a fortnight, working weekends and nights. He’d been proud of the finished result, but no one had commented on it — yet. Now here was the Old Man himself, the Chief, the Boss, here was Commander Bill Trilling, summoning him into the office which smelled perpetually of peppermint.

“Sit down, John. Mint?”

“No thanks, sir.”

Trilling took out a sweet and slipped it into his mouth. It was seven months since he’d given up smoking and he was up to four packs of mints a day. His teeth were in ruins and he’d gained half a stone — half a stone he could ill afford. Seated in his chair, with its high armrests, he looked as though it would take a crowbar to get him out again. There was a sheet of paper on the notoriously tidy desk in front of him but no sign of Greenleaf’s report. He picked up the paper.

“Bit of a job for you, John. May be something or nothing. A sinking off Folkestone. We’ve been asked to look into it. Happened a couple of days ago. Can’t say I saw anything about it.”

It was well known that Trilling only ever looked at two newspapers, the Financial Times and the Sporting Life. He was a betting man, sometimes putting his money on a surefire stock or share, sometimes a horse or dog. Nobody really knew how successful he was, since he didn’t share information, even when goaded by Doyle.

“I think I read about it in my paper, sir.”

“Did you? Good, well...” Trilling handed over the sheet. “Report back when you’ve got anything.”

“How far do I take it, sir?”

“As far as a day trip to Folkestone. Better liaise with Doyle.”

“Doyle, sir?”

“I’ve put him onto the French end.” Greenleaf looked puzzled. “Didn’t I say? Another boat sank the same night off Calais. We’re to look for a connection. Doyle speaks passable French apparently.”

A day out in Calais for Doyle, an afternoon in Folkestone for Greenleaf. Typical.

“As I say, liaise with Doyle. You might even consider traveling down together. But see what you can do by telephone first. We don’t want expensive outings on office time if we can avoid it, not with them counting how many paper clips we use. Like the man says, John, value for money. Maybe you should write a letter rather than use the phone.”

The Commander was smiling. This was how people knew he’d made a joke.

His first “liaison” with Doyle was at eleven the next morning.

“Bring your chair over,” Doyle said, thereby seizing the initiative: the meeting would take place at Doyle’s desk, in Doyle’s territory. Greenleaf lifted his heavy metal-framed chair with both hands, first resting his notes on the seat of the chair itself. But as he was placing it in front of Doyle’s desk, the notes slewed floorwards. Doyle affected not to notice. His own notes, Greenleaf noticed, were neatly word processed: not because he’d labored hard, but because he had a “close friend” in the typing pool. No doubt she’d ignored more important work this morning so she could prepare these sheets for Doyle. It all looked efficient, a single paper clip holding the whole lot together. Doyle now slid the paper clip from the corner of the sheets and let it fall to the floor. He spread the sheets in front of him.

“Right,” he said, “what have you got?”

“A small touring boat,” Greenleaf said from memory. “Must have sunk about two miles off the coast, just south of Folkestone. There was an automatic alarm system on board which alerted the coast guard. The system only operates in two situations: when set off by a crew member or when it’s exposed to water. No sign of the boat itself, just some debris and oil and the two bodies.”

“Postmortems?”

“I’m waiting for the reports.”

“What time did all this happen?”

“The alarm went off at three-twenty-seven.”

“The French boat sank around three,” Doyle added. “So who was on board?”

“Two men. George Crane and Brian Perch.”

“Crane and Perch?” Greenleaf nodded, and Doyle produced a gust of laughter. “Were they out fishing?”

“Not fishing. If anything, the boat was a pleasure cruiser. You know, a sort of motorized yacht. I don’t know much about sailing, but that’s what they tell me.”

“So what were they doing out at that time of night?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Where had they been?”

Greenleaf shook his head. “Crane’s widow didn’t even know he was taking the boat out. He told her he was going for a drive. He suffered from insomnia, she says. All Perch’s family know is that he was doing a job for Crane. The boat’s mooring is along the coast from Folkestone, a place called Sandgate.”

“But the boat itself was nearer Folkestone when it went down?”

“Other side of Folkestone from Sandgate.”

Doyle tapped his fingers against the edge of the desk. His suit looked crumpled but comfortable. Greenleaf, on the other hand, felt as if he was wearing a restraint of some kind. Time to buy a new jacket or start a diet. “What did Crane do?” Doyle asked.

“Had his own building firm.”

Doyle stopped tapping and reached into his jacket, scratching slowly. “Figures with a name like that. Do you know why the boat sank?”

“They’re going to try to recover it this afternoon, for what it’s worth.”

Doyle brought his hand out of his jacket. “I can tell you what they’ll find.”

“What?”

Doyle smiled and looked down at the sheets spread across the desk in front of him. Eventually he looked up. “They’re a bit quicker off the mark than us across the Channel. They haven’t quite got the boat up yet, but the postmortem’s been done. I spoke to the pathologiste this morning.” He smiled again. Greenleaf hated him for the way he’d dropped the French pronunciation into his speech. “Docteur Lagarde had some interesting things to say. Incidentally, they reckon there were four on board the vessel. It was a fishing boat, registered in Calais.”

“So what does the doctor say?”

Doyle smiled at Greenleaf’s impatience. “Well, for a start, the bodies suffered some puncture wounds.”

“What sort?”

“Splinters of wood, metal, glass. Lagarde took a nine-incher out of some poor sod. Embedded itself in the stomach and punctured the heart.”

“Meaning there was force behind it?”

“Oh, yes, there was force all right. Upwards force. And burn marks, too. One of the bodies in particular was badly scorched.”

“An explosion,” Greenleaf commented.

“Absolutely.”

“Anything else?”

“Only what they found floating around in the surface oil. Hundred-dollar bills. Fifteen of them, not in very good nick. They got a couple of serial numbers. The Americans are checking.”

“Fifteen hundred dollars. What do you reckon, drugs?”

“Drugs or arms, but probably drugs.”

“You think the two boats met mid-Channel?”

“It’s an idea. There’s only one way to tell for sure. We need the PM results from Folkestone. Want me to give you a lift?”

“What?”

Doyle leaned down behind his desk and raised a bulging holdall high. “I’m off to Calais on the evening ferry. Spending the night there, do a bit of sniffing tomorrow, then hit the hypermarché before heading back. I got the nod from Trilling an hour ago.”

“The luck of the Irish.”

Doyle’s face darkened a little. What had he said? Ah, Doyle was very touchy about his name’s Irishness, was he? Got you, thought Greenleaf, got you!