Ian Rankin - Witch Hunt

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 U.S. 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 neighbors had been allowed to speak to the media, and those who had had been disbelieved. One woman? No news 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, née 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...”

“Honorable?”

He nodded.

“Well, honorable 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 O. “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.”