Ian Rankin - Witch Hunt

Greenleaf holstered his gun. “We call them ‘domestics’ on the force,” he said. “Family fallings-out...”

“That’s what this was, then,” said Elder, letting the body go and rising slowly to his feet. “A domestic.”

Joyce Parry slipped her arm around his waist. Her fingers spread out across his back. His back had no feeling at all.

Doyle kept his head bandaged for a few days, even though the doctors had told him he needn’t bother. But he said he liked the way it made him look, and so did his girlfriend.

“She says I look like a war hero.”

“Or a lobotomy patient,” added Greenleaf.

Elder laughed. They were standing in the East End boxing club, which again had been hired for one of Doyle’s by now notorious parties. The French lager was piled high in cardboard boxes of forty-eight bottles per box. The punching bags were in use, as were the parallel bars.

“He’s sharp, isn’t he, Dom?” said Doyle, nodding towards Greenleaf.

Elder nodded. “But how do you feel really, Doyle?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Just a spot of amnesia.”

“Oh?”

“I seem to have forgotten all my character defects. Ay-ay, here comes lover boy.”

They turned towards the door. Barclay was walking tall, having just arranged by phone with Dominique that he’d be spending next weekend in Paris with her.

“Mama’s idea,” she’d said, but he hadn’t believed it.

Doyle had turned away from Barclay and towards the table. When he turned around again, he was holding a bottle of beer.

“There you go, Mikey. You don’t need a bottle opener, just twist the top.”

“Right, cheers,” said Barclay. Greenleaf knew what was coming. As Barclay twisted the bottle top, a welt of foam burst from the bottle and sprayed his shirt.

Doyle tutted. “Still a bit lively from the trip.”

Later, while discussion raged as to which curry house should receive the party’s late-night custom, the one they’d used last time having said never again, Elder slipped away. He was going to hunt down a black taxi, but saw in the distance a seedily lit cab office, so started walking towards it.

“Stealing my car again?”

He turned and saw Barclay following him. And when he looked, he was indeed standing next to the white Ford Fiesta. Barclay unlocked the passenger door.

“Hop in, I’ll give you a lift.”

“You don’t know where I’m headed.”

“I’ll give you a lift there anyway.”

The trip took the best part of half an hour. At the end of it, Joyce would be waiting for him. Like last night and the night before. Tonight was their final night together: Tommy Bridges was going off on holiday and Elder’s garden needed him. But Joyce had some holiday time owing, too, and she was making plans to visit before the month was out. They’d see how it went. Now that Witch was behind him, maybe Dominic could relax a little. Maybe.

“A penny for them,” said Barclay.

“I’m wondering whether to envy you or not.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s hard to put into words without an overload of clichés.”

“Try anyway.”

“You’re just beginning, Michael.” Elder stopped abruptly. He couldn’t say it. Barclay nodded anyway.

“I get the message,” he said.

Elder smiled. “I hope so.”

“By the way, how’s the patient?”

How indeed. Earlier today Elder had traveled to the hospital in Leeds. Witch was on a life-support system, her brain activity still sluggish. Without the machines... The doctor had shrugged. He couldn’t see the point of keeping a killer alive.

Elder could... well, sometimes he could. He sat by her bed for half an hour, alternately staring at her face, at the tubes running from nose to mouth, and at the machinery itself with its constant bleep and the slow hiss of pumped air.

“You never did answer me,” he said quietly. He turned from her, the better to examine the workings of the machines around them. He followed the snaking line the cables took to the electrical sockets at the bottom of the cream-painted wall. He glanced now and then at the plugs, at the machinery’s several on/off switches, so clearly marked.

So, so clearly marked.

And finally, he rose to his feet, quietly, softly, so as not to disturb. There was a flutter from her eyelashes, movement behind the eyelids themselves: REM, they called it, rapid eye movement. She was dreaming. He wondered what she was dreaming of. He touched her bare arm, feeling its delicate warmth. Her face was ghostly pale, her lips almost colorless. Elder leaned down over her and planted a kiss on her forehead. The machine gave a sudden double blip, as though somewhere inside her the kiss had registered. Elder smiled and stepped away from the bed, placing the chair back against the wall, and finally standing in front of the machines themselves, his fingertips just touching the cool painted metal.