Ian Rankin - Witch Hunt

“Keep going along here,” he said. “I’ll tell you when to turn.”

Dominique nodded, shifted up a gear, then thought better of it, shifted down again, and slammed her foot on the accelerator. Barclay was thrown against the back of his seat. He looked around, but Elder didn’t seem at all fazed. He was yelling into his walkie-talkie.

“John? John?”

“Dominic, where are you? I can hardly —” The signal broke up.

“I’m heading towards Jonathan Barker’s home. We think he’s Witch’s target. Over.”

He listened to a lot of crackle and static. Then: “Sorry, Dom... signal’s break... didn’t catch a... please rep—”

“We’re out of range,” said Barclay.

“Yes,” said Elder, throwing the walkie-talkie onto the seat beside him. It bounced off the seat and onto the floor, where it erupted into static before dying. Elder looked out of the window. “Right, here!” Dominique slammed on the brakes and sent the car whipping around the corner. Barclay was desperately trying to fasten his seat belt.

“You don’t trust me, Michael?” she called. “I am a Parisian driver. C’est facile! ”

Elder reached between them for the police radio.

Jonathan Barker, Home Secretary, had a town house in Belgravia’s Holbein Place. It was one of his three UK residences, the others being a converted vicarage in Dorset and an old hunting lodge on Speyside. His address in London wasn’t quite public knowledge, but neither was he a low-key minister — he’d given several early morning doorstep interviews to the media during his short time in office. The parking space in front of the house was kept free, courtesy of two bright red traffic cones which sat in the road whenever Barker’s chauffeured car was elsewhere. It was an arrangement which worked, mostly. The most frequent transgressors were workmen and tourists, who would shift the cones onto the pavement so as to have room to park their vans or BMWs.

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 realize it was lunchtime. 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 sidewalk 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 around 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 swiveling and expertly shooting one front and one rear tire. 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 license 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. Neighbors had come out of their houses and were milling around. The bodyguard sat on the edge of the sidewalk, 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 tires, 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 onto 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 driver’s seat, ready for the off. Barclay was getting the story from one of the neighbors 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?