[Jack Harvey Novels 01] Witch Hunt

by Ian Rankin

  'So,' said Barclay quietly, 'did you find anything interesting in my room?'

  A tinge of red came to her cheekbones and stayed there. She found that she could speak English after all. 'I did not mean to ... I thought I would wait there for you. Then I changed my mind.'

  'But we bumped into one another on the stairs. Why not introduce yourself then?'

  She shrugged. 'It did not seem the right moment.'

  Witch Hunt

  He nodded. 'Because I would know you'd been to my room?'

  'It was the book, yes?' She needed no affirmation. 'Yes, the book was stupid. I thought it would .. . pass time.'

  'It was clumsy certainly.' His beer arrived. He waited till the hotelier had returned once again to the bar before asking, 'How much did you give him?'

  'Nothing.' She dug into the pocket of her blouson. 'I had only to show him some identification.' She handed him a small laminated card, carrying a photograph of her with her hair longer and permed into tight curls. Her name was Dominique Herault. As she handed the card to him, he checked her fingers. She wore four ornate but cheap-looking rings; there was no ring on her wedding-finger.

  'DST,' he read from the card, and nodded to himself. Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, the French

  equivalent of MI 5. Parry had warned him that once DST knew a British agent was on his way to France (and she would have to inform them -

  it was a matter of protocol) they would almost certainly send one of their agents to 'assist' him. He handed back her card. 'You're not quite what I had in mind,' he said.

  'You were expecting perhaps Peter Sellers?'

  He smiled. 'No, no, I was just expecting someone more ... mature.' She raised an eyebrow. 'I mean,' he went on, 'someone older.'

  'Ah,' she said. 'No, Mr Barclay, you are not senior enough to merit someone . .. older.'

  'louche,' he murmured, raising his glass to his lips.

  Now it was Dominique Herault's turn to smile.

  'So,' he went on, having swallowed the ice-cold beer, 'now that you've ransacked my room, I suppose that puts us on a footing of mutual trust and cooperation.'

  'I was only—'

  'Waiting for me. Yes, you said. Forgive me, but in Britain we normally wait outside a person's room. We don't break and enter.'

  'Break? Nothing was broken. Besides, MI5 is famous for its breaking and entering, isn't it so?'

  'Once upon a time,' Barclay replied coolly. 'But we draw the line at sinking Greenpeace ships.'

  'That was the DGSE, not the DST,' she said, rather too quickly. 'And it too was a long time ago. What do you say .. . water under the bridge?'

  'Ironic under the circumstances, but yes, that's what we say. Your English is good.'

  'Better than your French, I think. I saw the grammar book in your room.

  It is for children, no?'

  He shifted a little, saying nothing.

  Her finger drew a circle on the table-top. 'And do you think,' she said, 'you can find anything in Calais which we might have overlooked ourselves?'

  'I didn't know you were interested.'

  'French people were killed, Mr Barclay. Killed by a bomb, a terrorist bomb, we think. Naturally we are interested.'

  'Yes, I didn't mean—'

  'So now you will answer my question: do you think you can find anything we might have overlooked?'

  He shook his head.

  'No,' she agreed. 'And let me make some guesses. You have been talking to ... sailors. Just as the Special Branch agent did. You have been interviewing all the people he interviewed. You have read the local police report. You have been concentrating on the boat, on the people who died on it, on people who might have seen it. Yes?'

  'Basically correct.'

  'Yes. We made the same mistake. Not me, I was not involved at the beginning. But now I am here to ...'

  'Assist?' he offered.

  'Assist, yes, I am to assist you. So, what I say to you is . ..' She leaned forward and lowered her voice. 'You are not thinking about this the right way.'

  'I'm not?' He tried to keep the acid out of his voice. She was shaking her head, deaf to nuance.

  'No. The way to work is backwards, backwards from the departure of the boat.'

  'Yes, that's what I've been—'

  'Further back. Much further.'

  'I'm not sure I understand.'

  'I will tell you.' She checked her watch. 'You are dressed to go out.

  You're eating out?'

  'Yes.'

  She was on her feet. 'I know a good restaurant. Not here, out of town a few kilometres. We can take my car.' She called over to the hotelier. 'I've told him to put my drink and yours on your bill.'

  'Thank you. So kind.'

  She stared fixedly at him through narrowed eyes. 'Irony?' she guessed at last.

  'Irony,' he admitted.

  She had a Citroen 2CV, not a recent model. The sides of the car were dented and scraped from years of Parisian lane-discipline. The suspension was like nothing Barclay had ever experienced, and she drove like a demon. The last time he'd been thrown about like this had been on a fairground ride. She yelled to him over the noise from the motor, but he couldn't make out a word. He just nodded, and smiled whenever she glanced towards him. His responses seemed enough.

  By the time they arrived at what looked like someone's cottage, deep in the middle of nowhere, he felt that he would never eat again. But the smells wafting from the kitchen soon changed his mind.

  'My employers' treat,' she said as they took their seats at a cramped table for two. Menus the size of the table's surface were handed to them, and she immediately ordered two Kirs before gazing over her menu at him.

  'Shall I order?' she asked. He nodded his head. Her eyelashes were thick but not long. He was still trying to work out whether she dyed her hair.

  And her age, too, he wondered about. Somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-eight. But why not twenty or twenty-nine? She kept her head hidden behind the menu for a full minute, while he looked around him at the diners occupying every other table in the place. There had been no sign that their table had been reserved, and she'd said nothing to the waiter about a reservation, but he wondered all the same . . .

  At last she put down the menu. 'You eat meat?' she asked.

  'Yes.'

  'Good, here in France we are still a little .. . recidivist about vegetarianism.'

  'Recidivist?'

  She looked appalled. 'That is not the right word?'

  He shrugged. 'No idea,' he told her. 'Not only is your French better than mine, I'm beginning to wonder about your English, too.'

  This remark seemed to cheer her enormously. She straightened her back and gave another red-lipped smile.

  'For that,' she said, 'I order the second cheapest bottle of wine rather than the cheapest.'

  'Your employers are very generous.'

  'No, they are very literal-minded, like security organisations all over the world. Do you enjoy Thomas Pynchon?'

  T don't even understand Thomas Pynchon.'

  Barclay was remembering that, foreign territory or not, he had the ability to charm if nothing else. She was still smiling. He thought she probably was charmed.

  'Do you ever read Conan Doyle?'

  'What, Sherlock Holmes? No, but I've seen the films.'

  'The books, the stories, they are very different to these films. Sherlock Holmes has an exaggerated power of deductive reasoning. He can solve any case by deductive reasoning alone. To some extent, Mr Conan Doyle has a point.' She paused, suddenly thinking of something. 'The Mr Doyle from Special Branch, do you know him? Is he perhaps related to Mr Conan Doyle?'

  'I don't know him, but I shouldn't think so.'

  She nodded at this, but seemed disappointed all the same. 'You know,' she said, 'Mr Conan Doyle was interested in deductive reasoning, yet he also believed deeply in spiritualism.'

  'Really?' said Barclay, for want of anything better to reply. He couldn't see
where any of this was leading.

  'Yes,' she said, 'really. I find that strange.'

  'I suppose it is a little.'

  The waiter had appeared, pad and pen at the ready. To Barclay's mind, it seemed to take a lot of talking for the meal to be ordered. There was much discussion, backtracking, changing of mind. And glances from both Dominique and the waiter towards him; even, at one point, a conspiratorial smile. The waiter bowed at last and retreated, accepting Barclay's unused menu from him with exaggerated courtesy. A new waitress had arrived with two glasses of Kir.

  'Cheers,' said Dominique, lifting hers.

  'Sante,' replied Barclay. He sipped, sounded his appreciation, and put the glass down. A basket of bread now arrived, courtesy of the original waiter. At a nearby table, something sizzling was being- served on to two plates. The diners at surrounding tables looked eagerly, unashamedly, towards the source of the sound, then exchanged remarks about the quality of the dish. When Barclay looked back at her, Dominique was staring at him from behind her tall glass.

  'So,' he said, shifting his weight slightly in the solid wooden chair,

  'what were you saying about Conan Doyle?'

  'Not Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes. Deductive reasoning. This is my point.

  We should be working backwards, asking ourselves questions, and deciding on probabilities. Don't you agree?'

  Lateral thinking, following an idea all the way through . . . that was how Dominic Elder had put it. Barclay nodded.

  'So what would you do?'

  She leaned forwards, resting her elbows on the table-top. 'The assassin, we think probably she is a woman, yes?'

  'Agreed.'

  'Now, think of this: how did she come to arrive in Calais?'

  'By train or by road.'

  'Correct. Which is the more probable? Road. Perhaps she came from Paris.

  But trains are very public, aren't they? While assassins are not. So, it is more probable that she arrived by road. Yes?'

  He shrugged. 'If you say so.'

  'Then either she drove or she was driven. She is said to enjoy working alone. An independent woman, self-sufficient,' She paused, waiting for his nodded agreement that she had chosen her words correctly. 'Probably therefore,' she went on, 'she did not have an accomplice. She may have hitch-hiked, or she may have driven to Calais by herself. Yes?'

  'Yes.'

  'Now, the easiest hitch-hiking is by lorry. Lorry drivers will more probably pick up hitch-hikers than will car drivers. I know this from experience.' A flickering smile at this, but she was too busy concentrating on her English for the smile to last. 'So,' she said,

  'this woman probably either hitch-hiked by lorry or else drove here herself.'

  Barclay, slow at first, was picking it up quickly. 'So we shouldn't be talking to fishermen,' he said, 'we should be talking to lorry drivers?'

  'Freight terminals, haulage firms, yes. And also, we should check for abandoned vehicles. Cars left in car

  parks or set fire to in fields, that sort of thing. There is always the chance she arrived here by other means ..." 'But the laws of probability dictate otherwise?' She took a second or two translating this. 'If you say

  so,' she said finally, just as the tureen of soup was arriving.

  Wednesday 10 June

  The fair had yet to open for the day, but the front of Barnaby's Gun Stall had been unlocked and drawn back. The machine-gun had been connected to its compression pump, and it had been loaded with pellets too. Keith was now fixing a three-inch square target (half the size of the usual scorecards) to the heart of the life-size metal figure.

  He glanced back warily to where she was standing, balancing the gun's weight in her hand, finding its fulcrum. Rosa's girl: that's who she'd always been, Rosa's girl. Little was ever said about her. There were shrugs, and the acceptance that she had once been part of the fair.

  Keith couldn't remember that far back. But he knew he fancied her now.

  Which was why he didn't mind opening the gun range for her, even though the locals might complain about the noise this early in the day. She'd even put her two one-pound coins down on the counter.

  'Don't be daft,' he'd said. But she'd shaken her head.

  'Keep it, I'm quite well off at the moment.'

  'Lucky for some.' So Keith had pocketed the money.

  He stuck the last pin into the last corner of the target. She was already lining up the gun. He could feel its sights on him like a weight pressing the back of his head. The compressor was hissing somewhere behind him.

  'Okay,' he cried. 'That's it.' And he stumbled backwards away from the silhouette.

  But still she did not fire. She stood there, her eye trained along the sights, the barrel of the gun barely

  wavering by a millimetre. Then she pulled the trigger. There was furious noise for ten seconds, then blessed silence. Keith stared at where dust was rising from in front of the silhouette figure. The edges of the paper target were still intact, like a window-frame. But everything inside the frame had been reduced to a haze in the air.

  He gave a loud whistle. 'I've never seen shooting like—'

  But when he turned around she had vanished. The machine-gun was lying on its side on the counter. Keith whistled more softly this time, grinning at the target and rubbing his chin. Then he stepped forward and began carefully removing the tacks from the corners of the target.

  He knew exactly what he was going to do with it.

  Thinking back on the evening, running the dialogue through his head, Barclay saw that there had been a great deal of competitiveness during the meal. Which wasn't to say that it hadn't been fun.

  He was breakfasting - milky coffee and croissants in the hotel bar -

  while he waited for Dominique. She'd driven him back last night with beady determination. She was probably half his weight, yet she'd drunk the same as him during dinner. She'd dropped him off outside the hotel, waving and sounding her horn as she sped off. And he'd stood there for a moment, searching for his door-key and wondering if he should have said something more to her, should have attempted a kiss.

  'Not on a first date,' he'd muttered before dragging the key out of his pocket.

  A shower before breakfast, and he felt fine. Ready for the day ahead.

  He even noticed how a Frenchman, eating breakfast standing at the bar, dunked his croissant into his coffee. So when Barclay's croissants arrived

  without butter, he knew just what to do with them, and felt unduly pleased with himself as he ate.

  The door opened and in breezed Dominique. Having met the hotelier yesterday, she was now on hailing terms with him, and uttered a loud

  'Bonjour' as she settled into the booth.

  'Good morning,' she said.

  'Hello.'

  She looked as though she'd been up for hours. She had clipped a red woollen head-square around her throat with a gold-coloured brooch. The scarf matched her lipstick, and made her mouth seem more glistening than ever. White T-shirt, brown leather shoulder-bag, faded blue denims turned up at bared ankles, and those same sensible laced shoes. Barclay drank her in as he broke off a corner of croissant.

  'Thank you for last night,' he said. He had rehearsed a longer speech, but didn't feel the need to make it. She shrugged.

  'Come on,' she said, looking down meaningfully at his cup, which was still half full. 'We've got a lot of work ahead of us.'

  'Okay, okay.'

  'Now listen, I've been thinking.' She took a deep breath before continuing. 'I'm looking for my sister. That's the story I will tell to the drivers. She has ran away from home and I think maybe she is heading for England.'

  'That's good, we'll get their sympathy if nothing else.'

  'Exactly, and they may like the idea of two sisters. It may make them remember something.'

  'You're speaking from experience?' She narrowed her eyes and he nodded.

  'Yes,' he admitted, 'irony, sort of.'

  'Well, anyway, it's true.'

>   'And what role do I play?'

  'You are like The Who's Tommy: deaf and dumb.'

  'And blind?'

  'No, but just let me do all the talking. Yes?'

  'Fine by me.'

  'Now hurry up.' And to help, she seized the last piece of croissant, drowned it in his cup, then manoeuvred the whole dripping concoction across the tabletop and into her mouth.

  'Shall we take my car?' he suggested.

  I'm from Paris,' she snapped. 'Why would I be driving a British car?'

  'I won't say another word,' he said, following her to the cafe door.

  It was every bit as tiring and frustrating as the previous day, but with the bonus that she was doing all the work while he loitered in the background. Dominique took the freight-men's comments and double entendres in good part, even though Barclay himself felt like smashing some of them in the mouth. But though she listened, there didn't seem much to learn. No driver knew anything. If she had a photograph of her sister, perhaps, a picture they could keep .. . ? Maybe something of the both of them in their swimming costumes . .. ?

  General laughter and guttural speech, slangy, spoken at furious speed.

  Barclay caught about a quarter of it and understood less than that.

  They ate at the French equivalent of a greasy spoon: a dingy bar which, hazy with smoke, still served up a more than passable five-course meal.

  Barclay ate three courses, pleading that he was still full from the previous evening. From a booth in the post office in town, Dominique made several telephone calls, paying the counter staff afterwards and asking for a receipt.

  Then there were more firms to check, more fake questions to ask, always to more shakes of the head and shrugs of the shoulders. He saw her spirits flag, and suddenly he knew her. He knew her for what she was. She was young and hungry like him, keen to succeed, keen to show up the flaws and weaknesses of others before her. She wasn't here to 'assist' him: she was here to make her mark, so that she could climb the rungs of the promotion ladder. Watching her work, he saw an emptiness at his own core. Watching her fail to get results, he became more determined that they shouldn't give up.