by Ian Rankin
‘I checked that,’ snapped Doyle.
Again, Parry ignored him. ‘He went to the local police and asked about vehicles which had been abandoned or destroyed in and around the town. The police came up with two possibilities, and one of these was a car stolen in Paris several days before and found hidden in a patch of woodland. Barclay is now on his way to Paris to ...’ (consciously, she chose Doyle’s own word) ‘... to check the details of the theft. That’s all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen?’
‘Yes,’ said Trilling. He rose to his feet and collected his things together. He too was due in another meeting.
Greenleaf was studying Dominic Elder. An impassive face, not old, certainly not past it despite Doyle’s jibes. The problem with Doyle was, there was too much on the surface. He presented far too much of himself, or his image of himself, to the outside world. Which was dangerous, since it made him easy to ‘read’. Greenleaf was willing to bet Elder could ‘read’ Doyle. Look at how quickly he’d come back over the elder jibe. Anticipation. He wondered just what Elder made of him, especially after that outburst. He didn’t know what had made him do it, but he had a sneaking feeling it was all Shirley’s fault. He’d been trying to concentrate all last night, concentrate on learning his facts. And she’d had the telly on - louder than necessary. He’d pleaded with her to turn it down, and she’d had a go at him.
‘What’s the point of all that swotting? Trying to impress the teachers, is that it, John? Give up, you’re too old. That sort of stuff is for schoolboys. You’re a grown man. Initiative, that’s what impresses people in a grown-up. Memory-men are freaks, the sort of thing you might see at Blackpool or on the telly.’ Then she’d subsided, touching his arm. ‘John, love, you’re not in Special Branch because you’re good at studying. You’re there because you’re good, full stop. Now take a break from that and come and sit with me. Come on.’
It was the most she’d said to him in days, ever since the picnic really. They’d talked themselves hoarse the rest of the evening. God, what a relief it had been. But he’d lain awake long after Shirley had drifted off to sleep. He could hear her words. And he was afraid, afraid that the only thing he was good at was the learning and spouting of facts and figures. He’d been called a ‘copper’s copper’ in the early days. But initiative ... when had he ever really shown any of that? He was a ‘company man’, and initiative was for lone wolves like Doyle, the sort who got into all sorts of trouble but usually ended up with a result along the way. So he’d been sitting there, alternately bursting to recite his facts and desperate to show his initiative. Initiative had won, for a change ... and no one had minded. It sounded like this Barclay character - the one who’d contacted Special Branch in the first place - it sounded like he was showing initiative too ...
As Parry and Trilling left the room - not together but one after the other, with a decent pause between - Doyle handed him a scrap of paper. He unfolded it. It read: ‘What are you looking so fucking smug about?’
He looked back at Doyle and shrugged his shoulders. There was no malice in the note, and no necessity for it. It was a public gesture, meant for Elder. The message to Elder was clear. It was two against one now, Doyle and Greenleaf were a team. Greenleaf didn’t want this. It wouldn’t help to isolate Elder. So, dropping his pen and stooping to retrieve it, he scraped his chair a little further along the table, away from Doyle, making the seating arrangement slightly more triangular. Elder noticed, but his face showed nothing. As the door closed, leaving the three of them together, there was another silence until Doyle broke it, directing his words at Greenleaf.
‘Come on then, Sherlock, you seem to know all about it. What’s the game plan?’
‘We could start by taking a look at the Conference Centre and surrounding area.’
‘Join the queue, you mean? The place is already swarming with Anti-Terrorist Branch, sniffer-dogs, bomb experts ...’
‘Not to mention a few dozen ... delegates from the other countries,’ added Elder.
‘Yes,’ agreed Doyle, ‘we’ve already got security men checking the security men who’re checking security. What more can we do?’
‘I didn’t mean to imply,’ said Elder, ‘that we shouldn’t get involved. Everyone should be notified that Witch may pay a visit.’
‘What, work them up good and proper?’ Doyle was dismissive. ‘They’d start shooting at shadows. The American lot are edgy as it is. Someone sent a threat to their embassy: the President gets it, that sort of thing.’
‘We needn’t alarm them,’ said Elder quietly. ‘But they should be informed.’
Greenleaf was about to agree when there was a knock at the door. It opened, and a woman announced that there was a telephone call for Mr Doyle.
‘Won’t be a minute,’ he said, getting up and leaving the room. Only then did Greenleaf notice that the conference room itself contained no telephones. On cue, Elder seemed to read his mind.
‘Phones are receivers,’ he explained. ‘They can be bugged.’
Greenleaf nodded at this. He did not know what he had been expecting of the building. It appeared much the same as any other civil service admin block ... or police admin block come to that. Yet it was, as Doyle had commented on the way there, CDHQ - Cloak & Dagger Headquarters.
‘So,’ said Elder conversationally, ‘whose idea was the name?’
‘The name?’
‘Operation Broomstick.’
‘Oh, that. Commander Trilling.’
Elder nodded. ‘Bill Trilling’s a tough old bull, isn’t he?’
Greenleaf shrugged.
‘When did he stop smoking?’
‘About seven months back.’
‘Remind me to buy some shares in whoever manufactures those mints of his.’
Greenleaf smiled, then checked himself. He didn’t want to appear disloyal. ‘The Commander’s all right,’ he said.
‘I don’t doubt it. Not slow to take offence though, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Unlike Mrs Parry, you mean?’
‘Oh, no, I wasn’t ... never mind.’
There was quite a long pause. Elder had turned to his case-file and was browsing through it.
‘How long have you been retired?’ Greenleaf asked.
‘Two years.’ Elder’s eyes were still on the file.
‘Enjoying it?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘So why are you here?’
Now Elder looked up. ‘Because I’m interested. I wrote the original Hiroshima summary ...’
‘Yes, I know. And you’ve been interested in Witch ever since. If I didn’t know better, I might even say you’re a fan.’
Elder nodded. ‘Oh, I’m a fan all right. Look at the Khan hit. Don’t you find it in some way admirable? I mean, as a professional. There is something to admire in perfection, even when it’s the perfection of the enemy. Somehow, I can’t see Mr Doyle planning and executing anything with the same degree of ... elan.’
‘His bark’s worse than his bite.’
‘I sincerely hope not. If we do locate Witch, his bite will have to be very fierce indeed.’ Elder wagged a finger. ‘And so will yours, Mr Greenleaf. It doesn’t do to ignore the facts of the Khan assassination. Witch is utterly ruthless.’
‘Not so ruthless. She didn’t kill the bodyguard and the girlfriend.’
‘No, quite. I’ve been wondering about that.’
‘Oh?’
‘Leaving the bodyguard alive is the only evidence we have that the assassin was a woman.’
‘You think she wanted us to know? That wouldn’t make sense, would it?’
‘I suppose not. But then blowing up both those boats hardly “makes sense”.’
‘Tying up loose ends? Maybe the crews knew something we don’t.’
‘Possibly.’ Elder didn’t sound enthusiastic.
‘Well,’ said Greenleaf, ‘why does she want us to know she’s here?’
‘Maybe she’s issuing a challenge.’
; ‘To you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You think she knows about you?’
‘Oh, she knows all right, believe me.’
‘How?’
Elder shrugged.
‘Then how can you be so sure?’ Greenleaf persisted.
Another shrug. ‘I just am, Mr Greenleaf. I just am. What you said about the summit being almost too tempting ... there may be something in that.’
Another knock at the door. Someone opened the door from the corridor, and someone else bore in a tray of mugs.
‘Mrs Parry said you’d likely be needing some tea,’ the man announced. He placed the tray on the table. The tea was already in the mugs, but the tray also held a bowl of sugar, jug of milk, and plate of biscuits.
‘Thanks, Derek,’ said Elder. The man smiled.
‘Didn’t think you’d remember me.’
‘Of course I remember you. How’re things?’
‘Not so bad.’ The man lowered his voice a little and wrinkled his nose. ‘It’s not the same these days though,’ he said. ‘Not like it was.’ His partner, waiting in the corridor with his hand still on the door handle, gave an impatient cough. The man winked at Elder. ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ he said, closing the door after him.
‘Anyone would think you’d been retired twenty years,’ Greenleaf said.
‘All the same,’ said Elder, lifting one of the mugs, ‘he’s got a point. I’ve only been back one full day and I’ve noticed changes. More machines and less staff.’
‘You mean computers?’ Greenleaf poured milk into his chosen mug. ‘They’re a boon. All the sifting that Profiling had to do to produce the target list, it only took a few hours.’
‘The problem is that the operatives tend to speed up too, making errors or creating gaps, where patience and plodding really are necessary virtues.’ Elder thought of a comparison Greenleaf could relate to. ‘It’s like running a murder inquiry without the door-to-door. Nothing beats actually talking to someone face-to-face. You get an inkling, don’t you, whether they’re telling the truth or not? I’ve seen people beat lie-detector tests, but I’ve never seen them get past a shrewd interrogator.’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Greenleaf, raising the mug to his lips.
The door burst open. This time it was Doyle. His eyes darted around excitedly, eventually alighting on the last mug of tea.
‘Great,’ he said. He lifted the mug and gulped from it, not bothering with milk or sugar.
‘What is it?’ said Greenleaf, recognising in Doyle the symptoms of some news. But knowing Doyle, it would take an age to extract the actual information.
And indeed, he shook his head as he drank, until he’d finished the tea. He went to his chair and gathered up his papers. Only then did he pause, studying the two seated figures.
‘Come on then,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘You can stay here if you like,’ Doyle said.
‘For Christ’s sake, spit it out, will you?’
Doyle’s eyes twinkled. ‘Say please.’
‘Please,’ said Greenleaf. Somehow, Elder was managing to stay calm and silent, nibbling on a biscuit between sips of milky tea.
Doyle seemed to consider. He even glanced over towards Elder who certainly wasn’t about to say ‘please’. Then he placed his papers back on the desktop and sat down again, but resting on the edge of the chair only.
‘That phone call was Folkestone. They’ve traced a driver who says he gave a lift to a woman.’
Elder put his mug down on the table.
‘Really?’ said Greenleaf. ‘That night? What time?’
There was a scraping sound as Dominic Elder pushed back his chair and stood up, collecting together his own sheaf of paper. ‘Never mind questions,’ he said authoritatively. ‘We can ask those on the way. Come on.’ And with that, he strode to the door and out of the room. Doyle grinned at Greenleaf.
‘Thought that might get him going.’
For one stomach-churning second, Greenleaf thought Doyle had just played some monstrous practical joke. It was a hoax, there was no driver, no sighting. But then Doyle too got to his feet. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he called back to Greenleaf as he made for the door.
Sitting in the police station, smoking his sixteenth cigarette, Bill Moncur was regretting ever opening his mouth. It was like his mate Pat had told him: say nowt at no time to no one. When he was a kid, there’d been a little china ornament on the mantelpiece at home. It was called The Three Wise Monkeys. They sat in a row, one seeing no evil, one hearing no evil, one speaking no evil. But one day Bill had picked the ornament up, and it had slipped out of his hand, smashing on the tiles around the fireplace. When his mother came through from the kitchen, he was standing there, hand clamped to his mouth just like the third monkey, stifling a cry. He thought of that ornament now, for some crazy reason. Maybe the same crazy reason he’d said ‘yes’ to the policeman’s question.
‘Hello, sir. We’re just asking drivers about a woman who might have been hitching along this way a couple of weekends back, late on Sunday the thirty-first or early Monday the first. Don’t suppose you were along this way then, were you?’
Why? Why had he opened his big mouth and said, ‘Yes, I was.’ Why? It was just so ... stunning. He’d never felt important like that before, included like that. He’d been stopped before by similar checkpoints, usually trying to find witnesses to a crash or a hit-and-run. He’d never been able to help in the past. He’d never been able to involve himself. Not until now.
Say nowt at no time to no one.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
‘Yes, I was. I picked up a hitch-hiker, too. Young woman. Would that be her, do you think?’
The constable had said something like, ‘Just wait there, sir,’ and then had retreated, off to have a word with his superior. Right then, right at that precise moment, Bill Moncur knew he’d said the wrong thing. He’d a load to deliver to Margate, and after that he’d to head for Whitstable and Canterbury before home. A busy schedule. Why hadn’t he just shaken his head and driven on? Another van, which had been stopped in front of him, now started off again. His boss would give him hell for this. Why didn’t you just keep your trap shut, Bill? His van was still revving. He could scarper while the copper was out of sight. But not even Bill Moncur was that stupid. They were looking for a young woman. Maybe she’d gone missing, been raped. Couldn’t have been the woman he picked up, could it? Must be somebody else. Oh Christ, but what if it was her? What if she’d been found dead in a ditch somewhere, and here he was saying he’d given her a lift. He’d be a suspect, the sort you heard about on the news. A man is helping police with their inquiries. Well, that’s what he was trying to do, but out of public-spiritedness, not because he had anything to confess or anything to be guilty about. Okay, so he skimmed a bit off his company. He might use the van for a bit of business at nights and weekends, but never anything outrageous. Not like Pat, who’d taken his van over the Channel one weekend and used it for smuggling back porn mags, videos, fags and booze. It was like one of those old mobile shops in the back of Pat’s van, but he’d shifted the lot before Monday morning, and with four hundred quid clear profit in his pocket. But Jesus, if he’d been caught ... caught using the firm’s van ...
‘Hello, sir.’ There were two of them standing there, the constable he’d spoken to before and now this plain-clothes man, reeking of ciggies and CID. ‘My colleague tells me you may have some information for us?’
‘Yeah, that’s right, but I’m a bit pushed just now, see. Deliveries to make. Maybe I could come into the station later on, like. Tomorrow morning, eh?’
The CID man was gesturing with his arm, as if he hadn’t heard a word Bill had been saying. ‘You can park just over there, sir. In the lay-by, other side of the police car. We’ll have a little chat then, eh? Don’t want to hold up the vehicles behind.’
So that was that. He’d shoved first gear home and
started off. Even as he moved slowly forwards, he thought: I could still run for it. He shook the thought aside. He had absolutely nothing to hide. It wouldn’t take him five minutes to tell them his story, and after that he could bugger off again. Maybe they’d take his name and address, maybe they’d get back to him later, but for today he’d be back on the road. With luck, he could push the speedo to 70 or 80 on some stretches, make up the time easy. Wouldn’t it be funny if he got stopped for speeding? Sorry, officer, I was helping your colleagues with their inquiries and I sort of got behind on my deliveries.
He pulled into the lay-by at quarter to eleven. Now, as he sat in the police station and lit his seventeenth cigarette - seventeenth of the day - it was quarter past one. They’d brought him a filled roll, egg mayonnaise, disgusting, and a packet of spring onion crisps. By dint of putting the crisps in the roll, he managed to force it all down. He thought, not for the first time: On a normal run I’d be in the Feathers by now, supping a pint and tucking into one of that big bird Julie’s home-made stews. Full of succulent carrots and little bits of onion. No gristle on the meat either. Beautiful. Egg mayonnaise and bloody crisps. Bill Moncur and his big bloody mouth.
They’d let him call the office. That hadn’t been much fun, even though the CID man had explained that everything was all right, that he wasn’t in any trouble or anything, but that he’d have to stay at the station for a little while longer. The firm were sending someone else out, some relief driver (it might even be Pat). The van keys were at the desk. The relief would pick them up and do the run for him. The relief driver would stop at the Feathers to chat up Julie and watch the way she pulled a pint with her manicured, painted fingernails on the pump.
How much fucking longer? he said to himself. There were four empty polystyrene cups in front of him as well as the empty crisp packet, cellophane from the roll, brimming ashtray, ciggies and lighter. He used the tip of his finger to pick up a few crumbs of crisp from the desktop, transferring them to his mouth. They’d be along in a minute to ask him if he wanted more coffee. He’d tell them then: ‘I’m not waiting any fucking longer. You can’t keep me here. If you want me, you know where to look. I’m in the phone book.’
