Ian Rankin - Witch Hunt

“No, thank you, I’ll just leave this...” He reached inside his jacket and brought out a large brown envelope. As he made to place it on the table in front of the woman, she snatched at his wrist and turned his palm upwards.

“Yes,” she said, releasing it after a moment. “I can see you’ve been disappointed in love, but don’t worry. The right woman isn’t so very far away.”

He seemed scandalized that she had dared to touch him. He rubbed at his wrist, standing over her, his black pupils shadowed by his eyebrows. For a moment, violence was very close. But the woman just sat there with her old, stubborn look. Weary, too. There was nothing he could do to her that hadn’t already been done. So instead he turned and, muttering foreign sounds, pushed open the caravan door, slamming it shut behind him so hard that it bounced back open again. Now Gypsy Rose could see out onto the slow procession of fairground visitors, some of whom stared back.

Slowly, she rose from the table, closed and locked the door, and returned to her seat, switching on the television. From time to time she fingered the large brown envelope. Eventually, when enough time had passed, she got up and pulled her shawl around her. She left the lamps burning in the caravan but locked the door behind her when she left. The air was hot, the night sticky. She moved quickly, expertly, through the crowds, occasionally slipping between two stalls and behind the vans and lorries, picking her way over cables, looking behind her to see if anyone was following. Then back between two more stalls and into the crowd again. Her path seemed to lack coordination, so that at one point, she’d almost doubled back to her starting point before striking off in another direction. In all, she walked for nearly fifteen tiring minutes. Fifteen minutes for a journey of less than four hundred yards.

Darkness had fallen, and the atmosphere of the fair had grown darker and more restless, too. The children were home in bed, still excited and not asleep, but safe. Tough-speaking teenagers had taken over the fair now, swilling cheap beer from tins, stopping now and then for passionate kisses or to let off some shots at an unmoving target. Yells broke the nighttime air. No longer the sounds of fun but feral sounds, the sounds of trouble. Gypsy Rose remembered one leather-jacketed boy, cradled in a friend’s arms.

Jesus, missus, he’s been stabbed. He didn’t die, but it was touch-and-go.

Less than four hundred yards from her caravan was the ghost train. On the narrow set of tracks between the two double doors sat the parked carriages. The sign on the kiosk said simply CLOSED. Well, there wouldn’t have been many people using it at this time of night anyway. A chain prevented anyone gaining access to the wooden-slatted running boards in front of the ride. She lifted her skirt and stepped over the chain, winning a cheer and a wolf whistle from somewhere behind her. With a final glance over her shoulder, she pushed open one of the double doors, on which was painted the grinning face of the devil himself, and stepped inside.

She stood for a moment, her eyes adjusting to the newer darkness. The doors muffled much of the sound from outside. Eventually, she felt confident enough to walk on, moving past the spindly mechanisms of ghost and goblin, the wires and pulleys which lowered shreds of raffia onto young heads, the skeleton, at rest now, which would spring to its feet at the approach of a carriage.

It was all so cheap, so obvious. She couldn’t recall ever having been scared of the ghost train, even as a tot. Now she was moving farther into the cramped construction, off the rails, away from the papier-mâché Frankenstein and the strings that were supposed to be cobwebs, until she saw a glimmer of light behind a piece of black cloth. She made for the cloth and pulled it aside, stepping into the soft light of the tiny makeshift room.

The young woman who sat there sucking her thumb and humming to herself looked up. She sat cross-legged on the floor, rocking slightly, in her lap a small armless teddy bear, and spread out on the floor a tarot pack.

“He’s been,” Gypsy Rose said. She fished the envelope out from under her skirt. It was slightly creased from where she had climbed over the chain. “I didn’t open it,” she said.

The thumb slipped wetly out of the mouth. The young woman nodded, then arched back her neck and twisted it to one side slowly, mouth open wide, until a loud sound like breaking twigs was heard. She ran her fingers through her long black hair. There were two streaks of dyed white above her temples. She wasn’t sure about them. She thought they made her look mysterious but old. She didn’t want to look old.

“Sit down,” she said. She nodded towards a low stool, the only seat in the room. Gypsy Rose sat down. The young woman gathered the tarot cards together carefully, edging them off the tarpaulin floor with long nails. She was wearing a long black skirt, tasseled at the hem, and a white open-necked blouse beneath a black waistcoat. She knew she looked mysterious. That was why she was playing with the tarot. She had rolled her sleeping bag into the shape of a log against the far wall. Having gathered up the cards and slipped them back into their box, she tossed the box over towards the sleeping bag and took the envelope from the older woman, slitting it open with one of her fingernails.

“Work,” she said, spilling the contents out onto the ground. There were sheets of typed paper, black-and-white five-by-eight photographs with notes written in pencil on their backs, and the money. The banknotes were held together with two paper rings. She slit them open and fanned the money in front of her. “I’ve got to go away again,” she said.

Gypsy Rose Pellengro, who had seemed mesmerized by the money, now began to protest.

“But I won’t be gone for long this time. A day or two. Will you still be here?”

“We pack up Sunday afternoon.”

“Headed where?”

“Brighton.” A pause. “You’ll take care, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said the young woman. “I’ll take care. I always take care.” She turned one of the photographs towards the woman. “What do you think?”

“He’s nice-looking,” said Gypsy Rose. “An Asian gentleman.”

“Asian, yes.”

“The man who made the delivery was Asian, too.”

Witch nodded, then read through the notes, taking her time. Gypsy Rose sat quite still, not wanting to disturb her, happy just to be there. She looked at the money again. Eventually, the young woman placed everything back in the envelope. She got up and lifted the tarot from where it lay, tossing it into Gypsy Rose Pellengro’s lap.

“Here,” she said, “take the cards.” There was a scream from outside. A girl’s scream. Maybe a fight was starting. It might be the first tonight; it wouldn’t be the last. “Now, Rosa, tell me. Tell me what you see. Tell me about my mother.”

Gypsy Rose stared at the tarot pack, unwilling to lift it. The young woman slipped her thumb into her mouth again and began to hum, rocking backwards and forwards with the teddy bear on her lap. Outside, someone was still screaming. Gypsy Rose touched the box, pushed its flap open with her thumb. Slowly, she eased out the cards.

Greenleaf was in the office early. He’d spent the previous late afternoon and evening in Folkestone, getting in the way, bothering people, not making any friends, but finally gathering all the information he needed, information he just couldn’t get by telephone alone. He’d spoken to George Crane’s widow, Brian Perch’s parents, Crane’s accountants, to people who knew the men, to other boatmen. He’d asked questions of the coast guard, the local police, forensics, and the pathologist. He’d been busy — so busy that he hadn’t left Folkestone until ten o’clock, arriving home in Edmonton at close on midnight, thanks to a jam on the M20 and the Blackwell Tunnel being closed. Shirley was pretending to be asleep with the bedside lamp off but still hot to the touch, and her book pushed under her pillow.