Witch Hunt

by Ian Rankin

  All the same, Mr Barclay had questions for Herr Grunner.

  ‘Has Bandorff had any visitors lately?’

  ‘Visitors are kept to a minimum.’

  ‘Lately though?’

  Herr Grunner looked as though he might become difficult, then relented. He pressed two digits on his telephone and repeated Barclay’s question in German, then waited. After a moment he began to scribble on a notepad, then gave a grunt of acknowledgement and put down the receiver.

  ‘His mother and his sister.’

  ‘On the same day?’

  ‘No, on different days.’

  ‘When did the sister visit?’

  ‘March the twentieth,’ Herr Grunner looked up from the notepad, ‘at ten o’clock.’

  ‘I take it you check the identities of visitors?’

  ‘Of course.’ Herr Grunner looked at his watch. ‘Now, if we are ready ... ?’

  They were ready.

  Bandorff’s cell was large, more like a hospital room than part of a prison. Bandorff was allowed, as Herr Grunner had explained, a lot of his own things: books, tapes, a cassette-player, his own clothes even. There was a typewriter and plenty of writing paper, and even a portable colour TV. The walls had been painted sunflower gold, and then decorated with maps and posters, including a smiling photograph of the Pope.

  Two warders entered the cell first, and would remain there throughout. Wolf Bandorff was watching television. He lay on his bed, hands behind his head, legs stretched out, feet crossed at the ankles. He seemed to be watching a quiz show. Herr Grunner bowed towards Bandorff - who nodded his head slightly in response - then left for his office. Two chairs had been placed on the same side of a small desk, both the chairs facing Bandorff. It did not look as though the terrorist was about to shift either his body or his gaze.

  But as Dominique sat down, she saw Bandorff’s eyes move to just below the level of the desk. He was staring at her legs. Instinctively, she tugged her skirt down a little further. He looked up at her, light glinting from his round wire-framed spectacles, saw that her wriggling was his doing, and grinned. He was in his early fifties, his hair long and silvered and swept back. Had it been thicker, it might have been described as a ‘mane’, but it was thin and unwashed. He was thinner than the photos - those old photos in the Witch file - had intimated. He no doubt kept in shape in the prison gymnasium. He was a good-looking man who had not gone to seed.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he told Dominique in German.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said crisply in English.

  ‘You’re French?’ he asked her in French.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, still in English.

  ‘But you want to conduct this interview in English,’ he said, nodding. He turned his attention to Barclay. ‘Therefore I take it you, my friend, are either American or British?’

  ‘I’m English,’ said Barclay.

  ‘And I,’ said Bandorff, ‘am German.’ He began watching the quiz show again. ‘And this,’ he said, waving a hand towards the TV, ‘is as good a theory of terrorism as I’ve ever seen.’ His hand curled into a fist, index finger extended like a pistol barrel. The hand bucked, an imaginary bullet finding the all-too-real target.

  ‘You miss guns, Herr Bandorff?’

  Bandorff didn’t reply. Barclay looked at Dominique. He was trying hard to phrase another question, but his mind was not cooperating; all it could think of was the bombshell Dominique had dropped as they were leaving Herr Grunner’s office.

  ‘Michael,’ she’d said to him in an undertone, ’you know there was something I wanted to tell you last night? Well, it’s this. None of this is sanctioned by my superiors.’

  He’d almost passed out. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not authorised to be here. I telephoned a colleague and got him to give me the prison details and phone number. I didn’t tell my superiors I was coming.’

  His walk had slowed. If he moved any faster, he felt his legs would buckle under him. ‘Why not?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have let me. This is a big job. And I’m not that big. Remember, I told you back in Calais: you weren’t important enough to merit someone more senior. My superiors don’t know anything about anything ... not yet. They think I’ve been following you these past days while you made your investigations. I haven’t told them anything more.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why tell me now?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe because now you can’t back down and leave me all by myself ...’

  ‘You seem engrossed.’

  Barclay snapped out of it. Bandorff was talking to him. He became aware that he’d been staring at the TV screen. He took a deep breath. ‘My name is Michael Barclay, Herr Bandorff. This is Mademoiselle Herault. We’d like to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Do I win any prizes?’

  Barclay just smiled. He took a photograph from his pocket, got up and walked over to Bandorff. The warders looked bored. Barclay stopped a foot or so from Bandorff’s bed and held the photograph towards him.

  ‘She’s beautiful too, Herr Bandorff.’

  Bandorff peered short-sightedly at the photo. ‘I can’t ... my eyes aren’t what they were.’

  One of the warders said something in German.

  ‘He says Herr Bandorff can see fine,’ translated Dominique.

  Barclay held his ground. The hand holding the photo was remarkably steady. Well, after all, what had he to lose? He was here because Dominique had played a trick on him. They’d run fast and loose, ignoring all the laws of the game. Rugby had been invented that way, but careers had come to a speedy end that way too. What had he got to lose?

  ‘The photo was taken some time ago. It shows you and a young woman. For want of her real name, we in the security service call her Witch.’

  ‘Witch?’

  ‘Die Hexe,’ translated Dominique. Bandorff glanced towards her.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said crisply, ‘I do know what the word means.’ He paused, watching for her reaction, then chuckled. ‘Witch. I like the name.’

  ‘The photo,’ Barclay went on, ‘shows you with a young woman, Herr Bandorff. You’re in a crowd in the city of Edinburgh. You’re watching the Pope.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘We’re interested in the woman.’

  ‘Why?’ Bandorff was still staring at the photo.

  ‘She’s become a very proficient terrorist over the years. I believe she gained her earliest training at your hands?’

  ‘Oh no, not her earliest training.’

  A breakthrough! He’d acknowledged he knew her. Barclay had to press on. ‘Do you know much about her early life?’

  ‘Nothing at all, my friend. She came, she stayed, she left. I knew less about her when she left than I did when she arrived. While she, on the other hand, knew quite a lot about me.’ He took a deep breath, sighed. Barclay could smell pork sausage, garlic, caries. ‘Ah, the good old days. I’d like to know what happened to her. Can you tell me?’

  ‘I thought maybe you could tell me. She visited you quite recently, didn’t she?’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Posing as your sister. Witch is good at disguise, it wouldn’t have been difficult. What did you talk about?’

  Wolf Bandorff stared into Barclay’s eyes and laughed. ‘So young and yet so wise.’ Then he turned back to the TV. Barclay stood his ground. From this close, he could see the musculature beneath Bandorff’s grey T-shirt, the veins and tendons in his arms.

  ‘She needed help, didn’t she? You must have been surprised to see her after all this time.’

  Bandorff spoke quietly, his words evenly spaced. ‘Do you know how long they intend keeping me here?’ Barclay waited for him to answer his own question. ‘Another sixteen years, my friend. Another sixteen years of books, music, magazines.’ He nodded towards the TV. ‘When I am released, I shall make my fortune by appearing on general knowledge quiz programmes, always supposing my memory holds up.’ H
e paused, his eyes fixed on the photograph.

  ‘I must thank you for showing me this,’ he said. ‘It has reinforced one of my memories.’ He looked past Barclay to Dominique. ‘She is beautiful, isn’t she?’

  Barclay didn’t think he meant Dominique. ‘She was,’ he said.

  ‘She still is, believe me. You never forget those eyes.’

  ‘What did she want?’

  Bandorff shrugged and returned to the TV.

  ‘She needed help,’ Barclay replied, ‘and you gave it. You were able to introduce her to two people in Paris who could help her.’

  Bandorff looked back to Barclay and smiled. He smiled back. ‘I’m fed up calling her Witch,’ he said. ‘What did you call her?’

  Now Bandorff was chuckling. Barclay went back to his chair and sat down. He caught Dominique’s eye. She seemed to be urging him on.

  ‘Can you leave me that photograph?’ Bandorff asked casually.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Barclay. But he slipped the photo back into his pocket.

  ‘Shall I tell you something, my friend?’ Barclay waited.

  ‘I may be the only man alive who has ploughed his way through Balzac’s Comédie humaine. Yes, all ninety-one volumes. Here’s my advice: don’t bother.’ He smiled to himself, then lowered his head so that he could scratch his nose just beneath his glasses. ‘I shouldn’t think Herr Grunner is happy about your visit,’ he said at last, straightening. ‘He enjoys his Sundays at home. Sunday ... strange choice of day to pay your respects.’

  ‘We’re not going to get anything here,’ Dominique said to Barclay, just loud enough for Bandorff to hear.

  ‘Tell me, Herr Witchfinder,’ said Bandorff, ‘what are you doing here really?’

  ‘Her most recent assassination was in the United Kingdom.’

  Bandorff nodded. ‘The banker, Khan?’ He smiled at the surprise on Dominique’s face. ‘The newspapers here printed the story. I am not clairvoyant, I only read words. Clairvoyants, though, read faces, don’t you think? I knew of Khan. His bank was said to sponsor terrorist groups ... but never mine. We had to find our backers elsewhere. That photograph ... how do you know it is Witch?’

  Barclay shrugged. ‘Personally I don’t.’

  ‘Personally? Personally I? But someone else, eh? Someone who has seen her since, and then saw the photograph, and who made the connection. He would be the Witchfinder General, eh?’

  Barclay tried to think of Dominic Elder in such a role. It fitted all too easily.

  ‘One thing I learned about the woman you call Witch ...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She changes allegiances.’

  ‘That’s hardly news, Herr Bandorff. She’s been involved with several terrorist groups.’

  ‘Still, it was one of the things I learned about her. She might also appreciate being given a sort of codename ... this “Witch” that you call her. She was fascinated by word games and crosswords.’ He tilted his head to one side, remembering. ‘She would lie in bed puzzling over them ... Ah, then there was the third thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sex, Herr Barclay. She didn’t like sex. No sex for Die Hexe.’ A smile.

  ‘That must have disappointed you,’ said Dominique coolly.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Bandorff reflectively. ‘A grave disappointment. But it went further. I felt she didn’t like men.’

  ‘She was a lesbian?’ Dominique sounded disbelieving. Bandorff laughed.

  ‘No, no, all I mean is that she hated men. Now tell me, you’re a woman, why might that be?’

  ‘I can think of a few reasons,’ said Dominique.

  ‘Me, too,’ said Bandorff. ‘I wonder if they’re the same? Perhaps psychoanalysis could explain it.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea where she came from?’ asked Barclay.

  ‘Oh, well, she was passed along the line. One activist passed her to another ... and so on. Each time a little more radical, a little more committed. But all those people are gone now. You won’t trace her history that way. All I knew was that she wanted to change the world. That was good enough for me back then, and good enough for her. When she left, she left without warning. She’d brought no baggage, and she took none, except for her tarot pack and her teddy bear.’ He was reminiscing. It sickened Barclay. ‘She’s become a myth, hasn’t she? Who am I to tamper with myths?’

  He returned to his television. A new quiz show was about to replace the old one. ‘Ah, now this one is my favourite. It contains a nice element of chance.’

  Barclay stood up, followed by Dominique. Was this it? Was this what they’d come so far for? Barclay tried to think of other things to say. He turned to Dominique, who nodded merely. It was time to leave. But Barclay paused, reaching into his pocket again for the photograph. He placed it silently on the desk.

  ‘Thank you, Herr Witchfinder,’ said Bandorff.

  Barclay and Dominique walked back the way they’d come. ‘You were brilliant, Michael,’ she told him. ‘Have you forgiven me yet?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For lying to you ... and then for telling you the truth?’

  He smiled. ‘It was a shock, that’s all.’

  ‘Yes, and look what it did to you.’

  Which was true. Something had galvanised him. He’d actually interviewed Wolf Bandorff and had come away with information on Witch - useless information in itself, but something to be added to the file.

  ‘So what now?’ he asked.

  ‘Back to Paris, I suppose. Then back to London for you.’

  He nodded. There was nothing keeping him on the Continent any more. Time to head back and confess that he’d come away from France with not a great deal. They were passing Herr Grunner’s office.

  ‘Should we look in and say goodbye?’ asked Barclay.

  ‘He’s probably already gone home,’ said Dominique. But the office door opened and Herr Grunner stood there, gesturing to them.

  ‘Would you be so kind ... ?’ He held the door open and motioned for them to enter. Past him, a man was standing in front of Herr Grunner’s desk, his raincoat still on, arms folded. Dominique gasped.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Barclay.

  ‘Not my boss,’ she said. ‘But his boss!’

  They were at the door now, crossing the threshold, the door closing with a quiet click after them. A figure stood staring from Herr Grunner’s rain-dappled window. It turned around and spoke in a voice which chilled Barclay all the way down to his feet.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Barclay,’ said Joyce Parry.

  The trip back to London was the least comfortable of Barclay’s life. Despite the chauffeured car, the airplane waiting on the tarmac, coffee and biscuits on board. ‘My car’s still in Calais,’ he said. ‘And I’ve some clothes in Paris.’

  ‘They’ll be picked up,’ Parry said coolly. She had her glasses on and was browsing through the big fat Witch file, Dominic Elder’s file. She didn’t seem to be in much of a mood for talking, which worried Barclay all the more. Not much had been said in Herr Grunner’s office. Dominique had been given a few curt words of French and then had followed her superior’s superior out of the room, without so much as a backward glance at Barclay. Barclay had steeled himself for similar treatment from Parry.

  It hadn’t come. She’d thanked Herr Grunner - in fluent German - and they’d left. He saw Dominique being driven away in a large black Citroën, while an official-looking person got into her 2CV, started it, and rolled out of the prison car park.

  ‘Come on,’ said Parry. She led him to a white Rover 2000 where a driver was waiting. He had an embassy look about him which Barclay translated into MI6. ‘Straight to the airport,’ Parry informed the driver.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. Barclay heard humour in his tone, the joke being that Barclay was in for it and he, the driver, was not.

  ‘How did you know?’ Barclay asked Joyce Parry. He was thinking of Dominic Elder. He had tried phoning the hotel again first thing, but they said they couldn’t put th
rough his call. He hadn’t understood at the time. He thought maybe he did now. Parry turned her head towards him.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. How could we not know? I’ve heard of cavalier, but this little stunt ...’ She exhaled noisily. ‘“How did you know?’” she echoed, mockingly. She shook her head slowly. By the time they’d reached the airport, she’d decided to explain it to him anyway. ‘Herr Grunner contacted the BfV, who contacted the DGSE and SIS. What do you think SIS did?’

  ‘Contacted you?’ hazarded Barclay.

  ‘You can imagine my surprise, being told that one of my agents, who had told me he was in Paris, was actually in Germany. Perhaps you can also imagine my humiliation at having to be told your true whereabouts by bloody SIS!’

  Yes, thought Barclay, there was little love lost between MI5 and SIS - the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. The French DGSE was the equivalent of the SIS, an external intelligence service. They’d no doubt contacted the DST. Dominique was no doubt receiving a similar lashing. Dominique ...

  ‘You’re as bad as Dominic bloody Elder,’ said Parry. ‘This is just the sort of stupid trick he’d have played.’ She paused. ‘I know he’s been in touch with you throughout. Tell me, did he tell you to come here?’

  Barclay stayed silent. No point defending himself. It was best just to let her get on with it; let all the anger roll out of her. But in fact she said nothing more until the airport, where they boarded their plane. As she was fastening her seatbelt, she looked up at him.

  ‘Why did you lie?’

  He’d been preparing for this very question. ‘Would you have let me go?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s your answer then. You saw Dom ... Ms Herault. She was going. If I’d called you for permission and you’d turned me down flat, how would that have made me look?’

  ‘It would have made you look like a junior agent who’s still got to be kept on a tight leash. Which is the truth. But I suppose that wouldn’t have done, would it? It would hardly have ... impressed Ms Herault.’