Ian Rankin - Witch Hunt

“Is that my gun in there?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God for that. Thought maybe I’d lost the bloody thing. Bet they’d have taken it out of my wages.”

“There’s these, too.” Greenleaf produced a packet of mints. “From Commander Trilling.”

“It’s the thought that counts, so they say.”

Greenleaf smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Chipper. Can you get me out of here?”

“They’re holding you overnight.”

Doyle groaned. “I was seeing my bird tonight.”

“Give me her number and I’ll send your apologies.”

Doyle grinned, showing stained teeth. “I’ll bet you would, John-boy. No, it’s all right, let her sweat. She’ll be all the keener tomorrow. Have we caught that bitch yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Leading us a merry dance, isn’t she?”

“Have you heard about Barker?”

“Yeah, couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke. What does she want with him?”

Greenleaf shrugged. “Nobody seems to know.”

“We were set up, weren’t we?”

“It looks like she set everybody up, Doyle.”

“Yeah, everybody. What does Elder say?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know much, do you, pal? Where is he?”

“Back in his office, I suppose.”

Doyle tried to sit up, though the effort cost him dear. He gritted his teeth and levered himself onto his elbows. Greenleaf rose from his chair to help, but Doyle growled the offer aside. “Listen,” he said, “stick close to Elder, John. He knows something we don’t, believe me. If anyone catches her, it’s going to be him. Stick close, and we’ll get a pop at her, too. Savvy?”

Greenleaf nodded, then saw that Doyle’s eyes were closed again. “I savvy,” he said. Doyle nodded back at him, and let his head fall back on to the pillow.

Greenleaf was remembering... remembering the note Witch had left for Elder. What special bond was there between them? Maybe Doyle had a point.

“Last time I had a head like this,” Doyle said, “was the morning after that party in the boxing club. Remember it?”

“I remember it.”

Doyle smiled faintly. “Good night that, wasn’t it? Knew back then that you were a good man, John. Knew it even back then.” Doyle’s voice grew slurred and faint. “I’ve still got that French booze. When I get out we’ll have a bit of a party. Good man...”

Greenleaf waited till he was asleep, the breathing regular, then he got up, moved the chair away, and lifted the carrier bag from the bedside cabinet. He touched Doyle’s shoulder lightly, smiling down on the sleeping figure.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he said quietly, almost too quietly to be heard.

Barclay’s car had been brought back from Calais, so they drove south in that. Barclay did the driving, while Dominique sat beside him thumping his leg and demanding that he go faster.

“Either that or we swap places. And turn off that noise.”

“Noise?” Barclay bristled. “That’s Verdi.”

Elder sat alone in the backseat. He wasn’t in a mood for conversation, so he stared from the window and kept his responses brief whenever a question was asked of him, until both Barclay and Dominique seemed to take the hint.

He had seen it suddenly, crystal clear. Barker’s second wife, so recently deceased, had been a spiritualist. When Elder had visited the fairground, the palm reader had been too direct in her denial of having seen Witch. It had jarred at the time, but there’d seemed no real connection until now. His back was burning, and he had to sit forwards in his seat so as not to graze it against the car’s rough fabric. Have patience, Susanne, he thought to himself. Have patience. He knew he was addressing not his daughter but himself.

This time when they reached Brighton he knew exactly where to go. A few of the bigger rides had already been packed away and transported elsewhere. He still had Ted’s list in his diary, all the other fairs taking place in the region.

As they headed for The Level, he sat right forwards, his head between Dominique’s and Barclay’s. “Now listen,” he said, “hopefully I’m going to have a word with a ball-gazer. If she’s still around, that is. I want you two to take a look around... a good look around.”

“You think Witch may be here?”

“It’s possible.”

“Shouldn’t we have some backup?”

“Does she know what you look like?”

“No.”

“Then why do we need backup? Anyway, there’ll be backup. Turn left here.”

Barclay turned left. It was early evening and the fair was doing some business, but not much. A late-afternoon downpour had drenched the spirits of the holidaymakers. Elder knew where Gypsy Rose’s caravan was. It was near the ghost train. Only the ghost train had gone, and in its place was a stall of some kind. But the palmist’s caravan was still there, hooked up to a station wagon. He could see it from the road. “Drop me here,” Elder ordered. The car slowed to a stop, and he got out. “Park at the end of the road and walk back. Remember, you’re on holiday. You’re just having a look. Don’t go behaving like snoopers or coppers or anything else. Just behave... naturally.” The door closed, and Elder watched the car move off. Dominique seemed to put her hand to Barclay’s hair, ruffling it. He watched a moment longer before walking across the grass towards Gypsy Rose Pellengro’s caravan.

“Mr. Elder?”

The man who confronted him was heavy-built, balding. He had his hands deep in the pockets of a windbreaker beneath which he wore a white T-shirt. He looked like a manual worker, maybe a carpenter or builder, but respectable. He was one of Special Branch’s best.

Elder nodded, looking around. “Anything?”

“Quiet as the grave. I don’t know how she affords that Volvo of hers.”

“Her kid has money.”

Late on Sunday night, Joyce Parry had reported to Elder Bandorff’s mentions of tarots, clairvoyance, and psychoanalysis. First thing Monday morning, Elder had briefed the man supplied by Special Branch. Not that he thought Witch would creep back to the fair, but there was always the chance.

Even so, he’d still not been sure of the connection between a gypsy palm reader and a female assassin. Marion Rose, he now knew, was the connection.

“Don’t wander off,” he warned the undercover officer. Then he paused before the caravan door and knocked twice.

“It’s open.”

Elder turned the rickety handle and let himself in.

It took her a moment to recognize him. “I thought you’d be back.”

“Second sight?”

“No, I just got a feeling from you... a bad feeling.”

“You know why I’m here?”

She was seated on a bench at a table, and motioned for him to sit opposite her. A tarot deck lay on the table. She gathered the oversized cards up.

“No,” she said, “I’ve no idea.”

“I don’t know what you call her... what you christened her... but we call her Witch.”

“Witch?” She frowned, shuffling the cards slowly. “Funny name. Nothing to do with your daughter then?”

“You know it’s not.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You knew that day, too. Do you know what she’s done?”

“What?”

He looked around the caravan. There was a small portable TV on the floor in one corner, and a radio on the edge of the sink. “You really don’t know?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Why should I?”

“Surely someone at the fair has said something? ”

“What has she done?” she asked, rather too quickly.

“She’s abducted her father.”

Rose Pellengro flinched. A few of the cards fell from her hands to the table. Elder picked up one of them. It was the High Priestess. He picked up another. It was Strength.