Witch Hunt

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Idres Salaam-Khan — known to everyone simply as Khan — had a good life. Khan knew it, and Khan’s chauffeur-cum-bodyguard knew it. A good life. As a senior official (though not a director) of a small, anonymous bank, his salary was kept undisclosed. It managed to bury itself amid still larger figures on the yearly accounting sheet. But whatever it was, it was enough to bring to Khan the simple and not so simple pleasures of life, such as his Belgravia mews house (a converted stables) and his country house in Scotland, his BMW 7-Series (so much less conspicuous than a Rolls-Royce) and, for when conspicuousness was the whole point, his Ferrari. These days, though, he did not use the Ferrari much, since there wasn’t really room in it for his bodyguard. These were uncomfortable times, against which luxury proved a flimsy barrier. A bodyguard was some comfort. But Khan did not look upon Henrik as a luxury; he looked upon him as a necessity.

The small anonymous bank’s small anonymous headquarters (Europe) was in London. The clients came to it precisely because it was small and anonymous. It was discreet, and it was generous in its interest rates. High players only, though: there were no sterling accounts of less than six figures. Few of the customers using the bank in the UK actually ever borrowed from it. They tended to be depositors. The borrowers were elsewhere. In truth, the largest depositors were elsewhere, too, but none of this bothered the UK operation.

Certainly, none of it bothered Khan, whose role at the bank was, to many, such a mystery. He seemed to spend three days there each week — Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday — with Friday to Monday being spent elsewhere, most often these days in Scotland. He liked Scotland, finding it, like the bank, small and anonymous. The only thing missing, really, was nightlife. Which was why he’d decided, this trip, to bring his own nightlife with him. She was called either Shari or Sherri, he’d never really worked it out. She seemed to respond to both names as easily as she responded to questions like “More champagne?” “More smoked salmon?” and “Another line?”

Khan had effortless access to the most exotic drugs. There were those in the London clubs who would have given their eyeteeth for his contacts. But Khan merely smiled with lips tightly shut, heightening the mystique around him. To have answered “diplomatic baggage” would have burst the bubble after all, wouldn’t it?

In the clubs he frequented, Khan was always “Khan the banker.” Few knew more about his life than that simple three-word statement. He always either brought with him, or else ended the evening with, the most beautiful woman around. He always ordered either Krug or Roederer Cristal. And he always paid in cash. Cash was his currency, crisp new Bank of England notes, and because of this, he found favor with every club owner and restaurateur.

He was an acknowledged creature of the night. There were stories of champagne at dawn in Hyde Park, of designer dresses being delivered out of the blue to Kensington flats — and fitting the recipient perfectly. There were gold taps in his Belgravia house, and breakfast was actually delivered from a nearby five-star hotel. But Shari or Sherri was the first person to take the trip to Scotland with him. She was an agency model, with no bookings all week. She was, with a name like that, naturally American — from Cincinnati. Her skin was soft and very lightly tanned, and she just loved what Khan did to her in bed.

There was a problem, though. It was a long and tiring drive to the Scottish residence, situated just outside Auchterarder and not a ten-minute drive from Gleneagles Hotel. Henrik and Khan had driven it in the past, but recently Khan had opted for the bank’s private twelve-seater plane, which was kept at an airfield to the southwest of London. It could be flown to a small airfield adjoining Edinburgh Airport, from where it was an hour by hired car to Auchterarder. The plane usually stood idle anyway, with a pilot on permanent contract, and Khan reckoned all he was costing his employers was some fuel and the pilot’s expenses in Edinburgh. But this week the plane was booked. Two of the bank’s Southeast Asia personnel were in Britain, and the plane was required for trips to Manchester, Newcastle, and Glasgow.

However, the airfield’s owner, recognizing a valuable customer, asked if he might be of assistance to Khan. There was an eight-seater available which could be hired for fifteen hundred pounds a day, the fee to include a pilot’s services. The airfield owner stressed that fifteen hundred was cheap these days, and Khan knew this to be the case. All the same. He would be charged per day, and staying in Scotland from Friday through Monday...

“Would the pilot be willing to fly us up there, then bring the plane back the same day, and return to Edinburgh to collect us on the Monday?” Khan listened to the silence on the other end of his car phone. The airfield owner was considering this proposition.

“I suppose that’d be all right,” the man answered at last.

“And the charge would be for the two days only?”

“I don’t know about that, Mr. Khan. See, if he’s got to pick you up on the Monday, that means he’s tied up. He can’t take any other work.”

“I see,” said Khan. “I’ll get back to you.” And he terminated the call. He considered for a moment, then placed another call, this time to the Edinburgh airfield. “It’s Mr. Khan here. Would it be possible to hire a small plane, a six-seater would suffice, to bring some people back from Edinburgh to London on Monday?” He listened to the answer. “And how much would it cost?” he asked. “Two thousand? Yes, thank you. That’s a definite booking. It’s Khan. K-h-a-n. I’ll be arriving in Edinburgh this afternoon. I can pay the deposit then, if that’s all right. I don’t suppose there would be a cash discount?”

As he said this, he tried to make it sound like a joke. But it was certainly not taken as a joke at the other end of the line. There was an agreement. A ten percent discount for cash, and no receipts issued. Khan rang off, and rang the English airfield again. “I’ll take the plane and pilot for today only. One way. Fifteen hundred pounds as agreed.” Again, he terminated the call and sat back in his seat. The BMW was entering Jermyn Street. Khan needed some shirts.

Rich people are often those who are most canny with their money. At least, the people who stay rich are, and Khan had every intention of both him and his bank remaining wealthy. He was a born haggler, but only when it mattered. It was not, for example, worth asking for a cash discount on a bottle of Krug or a club membership. This would merely make one look cheap. But in business, haggling was an ancient and honorable adjunct. He didn’t really understand the British reserve in this matter. He enjoyed the London markets, where stall holders would cajole people into buying by adding another bunch of bananas to the box they were already holding. And another bunch... and another... until suddenly some invisible, unspoken point was reached, and several hands shot out holding money. Of course, only one of them was chosen.

Londoners, native Londoners, working-class Londoners, were excellent hagglers. Often it was trained out of them, but many retained the habit and the skill. Just look at the City, at the young brokers who were just as likely to come from the East End as from Eton. These people were a pleasure to do business with. Khan totted up that he had just saved £2,300, either for the bank or for himself (depending on how it swung). He was pleased. But then, what was £2,300? The cost of a single bottle of Petrus at some wine merchants. The cost of an adequate vintage in several London restaurants. The cost of thirty shirts: a scant month’s worth. Of course, because the Edinburgh end of the deal involved no receipts, there could be no allowances against tax either... but then Khan and his bank were not worried by UK taxation laws.

“The parking looks difficult,” Henrik called from the driver’s seat. “Shall I drop you off and drive around the block?”

“Okay. I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

The car stopped, blocking the narrow street. Behind it, a taxi sounded its horn. Khan stepped slowly from the back of the BMW and gave the taxi driver a cool gaze. The sidewalks were wet, but drying fast. The summer shower was over, and the sun had appeared again. Steam rose into the sky. Khan walked on leather soles and heels through the steam and into the shop. The shop was another saving. He had found that, due to his “regular shape,” tailored shirts fitted him no better than a decent ready-made. There were four customers in the shop, each busy with an assistant.

“With you in a moment, sir,” someone said to Khan, who bowed his head in acknowledgment. He was in no hurry. He slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and examined the collar sizes on the rows of wooden shelves. The hand in his left pocket touched something small and cold: an alarm. If he pressed its round red button, Henrik would arrive with all speed. This, too, Khan did not perceive as a luxury.

They flew up to Scotland over the west coast. The plane’s interior was cramped yet somehow comfortable. There was something reassuring about the closeness of proximity. Henrik shifted seats half a dozen times, when he was not dispensing drinks. There was a cool box on board, in which had been placed two bottles of champagne, several rounds of smoked salmon sandwiches, and small cocktail packets of pistachios and almonds. Plastic cups for the champagne, though: an obvious oversight. Khan handed two cups to Henrik.

“Ask the pilot if he’d like one.”

“Yes, sir.”

The pilot could be seen, there being no curtain between cockpit and passenger deck. This annoyed Khan, too, though it could hardly be said to be the pilot’s fault. Henrik returned with the two cups. He was grinning.

“Not while he’s driving, Mr. Khan, but he thanks you for the thought.”

Khan nodded. Sensible, really, but then some of the pilots he’d had in the past were not what one would call top-flight. They were getting old and getting fat. Fat pilots worried Khan. They should be full of nervous energy, wiry as a result. He’d waited until well into the flight before offering the champagne, just to see if the pilot’s will would crack. It hadn’t.

Khan looked across to Henrik. He, too, was showing signs of the good, easy life. He was paid well for his services, and those services so far had not exactly taxed him, either physically or mentally. When Khan had hired him, Henrik had been muscular; almost muscle-bound. Working weights and hoping to turn pro, paying his way by acting as a bouncer for a West End club owner. Khan had asked the club owner’s permission before approaching Henrik with an offer of a job. The chauffeur’s role hadn’t appealed to the Dane, but he’d taken the job anyway. He was not stupid. He knew that as bodyguard, he would have to accompany Khan just about everywhere: everywhere glamorous, everywhere expensive, everywhere that was Somewhere.

But too many hours in the driver’s seat were taking their toll. Henrik was still big, still strong, but there was excess flesh now, too. Khan, who worked out each day, appreciated Henrik’s problem; it was one of mental application. The Dane was no longer hungry. Look at him, champagne in both hands, sipping from one cup then from the other, gazing out of the window down on to the visible landscape. Khan was aware that Henrik might have to go. There might be a termination of contract, the hiring of someone new, someone strong but hungry. Would he perhaps keep Henrik on as driver? He was a good, safe driver after all. But no, that would be to denigrate the man, to humble him. More important, it might well make Henrik bitter. And a bitter man was an enemy. It didn’t do to employ potential spies, potential adversaries. No, Henrik would have to go. Soon. There was that new doorman at the Dorica Club...

“This is great, really great.” Shari or Sherri slumped her head against Khan’s shoulder. She was dressed well. He’d been relieved when they’d stopped the car outside her block and she’d opened the door and started down the steps, smiling, waving, carrying two large holdalls... and above all dressed well. Discreetly sensual. Not too much makeup, not too much perfume. A clinging red dress which just met her knees. Her tanned legs did not need covering. Her shoes were red, too. She knew how well her blond hair and high cheekbones suited red.

“You’re very special,” he told her now, rubbing one smooth knee. It was true: they were all very special.

“Touching down in ten minutes,” called the pilot. One bottle of champagne was still unopened, the sandwiches barely touched.

“You’re special, too, Khan,” said Shari or Sherri.

“Thank you, my dear.” He patted the back of her hand, which lay on his right thigh. “I’m sure we’re going to have a wonderful time.”

“Yes,” she said. “Me too.”

Across the aisle from them, Henrik drained first one cup and then the other. His chin dropped against his neck as he stifled a belch.

A wonderful time. Well, yes, at first it was. But it struck Khan that there was something not quite right. The time was wonderful but not perfect. It wasn’t that he was worrying about bank business. The bank was always in and on his mind, even on these trips north. Scotland was not a refuge. There were computers and modems and faxes and telephones in his house. A call might come on his portable phone during lunch or dinner, or to his bedside telephone in the middle of the night. New York might call to warn of an incoming fax, for his eyes only. Seoul might need information. Karachi, Lahore, Patna, Bombay, Bangkok, George Town, Shanghai... not everyone appreciated what the local hour was when they called. If it was the middle or the beginning or the end of their banking day, then it was Khan’s banking day, too.

But no, it was nothing to do with business. Business was not a problem. Was the problem Shari or Sherri? Ah, yes, maybe. Maybe that was it. She did love what he did to her in bed... and elsewhere in and out of the house. Her American accent grated, but only a little. She was not overtalkative, which was a relief to him. And she looked good all the time. She made herself presentable. What then?

Well... There came a time when, sated, he liked his women to open themselves up a little to him, to tell him about their lives. Normally, he was uninterested in pasts, but there was something about the aftermath of the sexual act. He liked to listen to their stories then, and file them away. So that he could assure himself he had been fucking someone’s history, a real flesh-and-blood human, and not just a beautiful dummy.

And it was here that Shari or Sherri had disappointed him. She had disappointed him by being at first vague, and then by making obvious mistakes. For instance, she told him about a childhood incident when a boy neighbor had lifted up her skirt and slipped his hot little hand inside her pants. She told the story twice, and the first time the boy’s hand had gone down the front of her pants, the second time the back. Khan hadn’t commented, but it had made him wonder. He made her work harder, recalling more and more of her past for him. He got her to go over the same story twice, once at breakfast and once over dinner, checking for mistakes in the retelling. There were one or two, not significant in themselves.

He remembered how he met her. In a club. She’d been with a friend, a male friend, an admirer perhaps. She’d caught Khan’s eye several times, and he’d held her glances, until eye contact between them became more prolonged and meaningful. He was a sucker for this kind of conquest, the kind where he almost literally tore a woman from another man’s arms. By the end of the evening, she was at his table and the other suitor had vanished. It had been easy, and she’d been ravishing, and he’d felt the sweet, warm glow of success.

He knew she worked as a model. Well, he knew she said she worked as a model. He’d once picked her up outside a prestigious model agency off Oxford Street, but then, when his car had arrived, she’d already been waiting on the sidewalk, hadn’t she? How was he to know that she’d ever actually been inside the building? What really did he know about her? Precious little, it suddenly seemed to him. He’d liked that in the past, had preferred it. Keeping things casual, no hint of a more meaningful, a more lasting, relationship. But now... Suddenly he wanted to know more about her. What was her last name? Kazowski? Kaprinski? Something East European. She told him she’d changed it to Capri for modeling purposes. Shari Capri or Sherri Capri. Stupid name. Stupid names.

And another thing, wasn’t she overfriendly towards Henrik? With her “Thank you, Henrik” whenever she stepped into or out of the car. Her smiles to him. The way she lightly touched his arm if she wanted to ask him something. Checking that she was in the bath, Khan strode quickly to his study, unlocked the door (he was never so foolish, so trusting, as to leave it unlocked, but then, locks were easy to pick, weren’t they?), and made for his desk. He glanced at it, looking for signs that things had been moved, pages turned over. Nothing. He checked his computer for a certain phone number, then picked up the telephone and dialed London. An 081 number, Outer London. There was a young firm used by the bank sometimes. They were dynamic, and they got results. Nobody wanted to know how they got results, but they got them. There was no one in the office, but as he’d expected, a recording gave him another phone number where he could reach one of the partners. He entered this number onto his computer for future reference, then dialed it. The call was answered almost immediately.

“Hello, is that Mr. Allison? It’s Khan here. I’m calling from Scotland. There’s a job I’d like done. Private, not on the bank’s account. I want you to check on a Miss Sherri S-h-e-r-r-i or Shari S-h-a-r-i Capri C-a-p-r-i. I’ll give you her home address and where she says she works. I want anything on her you can find. Oh, and Mr. Allison, she’s up here with me, so there should be no problems. I mean, you won’t bump into her should you happen to... well, you know what I mean. Her home address? Yes, of course...”

Afterwards, he felt a little relieved. Allison was extremely capable, ex-CID. And his partner Crichton had a pedigree which took in both the Parachute Regiment and the Special Air Service. Yes, a trouble shared was a trouble halved. Khan felt better. So much so that he was able to put his troubles out of his mind for a quarter of an hour, time spent in the bathroom with a wet and so very slippery Shari or Sherri Capri...

On their last evening, they dined in. There was a local chef who, on days off, could occasionally be persuaded to cook for Khan and his guests.

Usually, Khan reserved this treat for larger dinner parties. But on Sunday morning, news came through of a spectacular deal which had been concluded by the Southeast Asia personnel during their whistlestop tour of the British Isles. A great deal of money would be traveling from the UK to the bank’s Southeast Asia office, and it would travel via the London office where a certain amount, as always, would be held back in the name of handling fees. A sum slightly in excess of one million sterling.

It was a job well done, and Khan, who had played no part in it, felt a little of its success rub off on him. A quick call to the chef, Gordon Sinclair, had secured his services, and when all was said and done, it was practically as cheap as eating out, since this way Khan would drink champagne, wine, and spirits from his own well-stocked cellar. And at the end of the evening, it was always pleasant to share a malt with Gordon and talk about food and the appreciation of food. Gordon knew that Khan had contacts in London, that he had eaten in all the top restaurants and was on first-name terms with many of the restaurateurs and chefs — not merely in London but, it seemed, all over. And Khan knew that Gordon had itchy feet, that the only thing tying him to Scotland was his Scottishness. He would have to flee soon if he were really to start — the term came to Khan with a smile — “cooking”: a quality London restaurant, where he could make a name for himself, and then his own restaurant under his own name. That was the route to success.

They would talk about these things and more. Perhaps Shari would be listening, or perhaps she would have retired for the night, to be joined by Khan later.

Yes, it was Shari, not Sherri. Shari Capri. Allison had phoned with this information, and with a few other snippets. But as he pointed out, weekends weren’t the best time to track down information, especially not from places of employment. Come Monday, he could work on the model agency, but not before. It was half in Khan’s mind to ask if he’d considered breaking and entering, but such a question would have been in considerable bad taste, besides which, if his phone was bugged, he could be accused of incitement to commit a criminal act. That would never do. So he had to accept what scant information Allison had gleaned and wait until Monday. By Monday he would be back in London, he would have said good-bye to Shari, with promises of phone calls and meetings for dinner — promises he seldom kept as a rule. But it might be that he’d have to keep tabs on her for a little while longer, just until he knew the truth.

“More wine, Shari?”

They were alone in the dining room. The kitchen was a long way away. Henrik, dismissed for the evening, would be in one of the bars in Auchterarder. He’d told Khan about a barmaid with whom he’d become friendly. So it was just Shari and Khan, and, his presence no more than a distant clang of pots and sizzle of fat, Gordon Sinclair. And Gordon’s girlfriend, who had come to help him in the kitchen. She would leave before dessert was served, while Gordon would linger, clearing up a little and loading his excess ingredients back into the boot of his small sports car. Khan hadn’t met the girlfriend before. She was attractive, if a bit red in the cheeks. Very Scottish: shy, elusive even. Plump, too, or at least well rounded. Khan had the idea that Gordon and she might make a go of a restaurant together. Perhaps she was the knot which tied him to the area. Khan was beginning to form an idea about a restaurant, financed by him and run by Gordon and his girlfriend...

“Yes, please,” said Shari. “This is delicious.”

Trout in almonds. Local trout, naturally, with the cream sauce flavored by a little island malt. The sauce succeeded in not overpowering the delicate fish. The julienne of vegetables remained a little overcooked for Khan’s tastes, but he knew Shari liked them soft almost to the point of mush. She retained the annoying American habit of cutting and spooning everything up with the use of just her fork.

“Delicious,” she said again.

He looked at her and smiled. Maybe he was becoming paranoid. Maybe there was nothing to worry about. Look at her — beautiful, fragile. Everything about her was surface. She couldn’t possibly be hiding anything from him. No, he was being stupid. He should forget everything and just enjoy this final night with her.

“Yes, it is delicious, isn’t it?” he said, pouring a little more Meursault. Meursault was a little rich for trout on its own, but the sauce both deserved and could cope with it. He knew Gordon liked to surprise him, but Khan guessed some prime beef would be next (albeit in a sauce of exotic provenance), followed by an Orkney cheese and for dessert, a traditional Scottish crannachan, freshly made. And the beauty was that all the mess in the kitchen and the plates and things in the dining room could be left just as they were. Mrs. MacArthur would come in on Monday afternoon and tidy the lot up.

Before he’d employed her, and again twice since, Khan had had Mrs. MacArthur checked over by a detective agency in Dundee. The agency reckoned that not only was she clean, she was practically unbribable. So Khan didn’t mind that she held a set of keys to the house and to the alarm system. Besides, she never entered the study, which was kept on a separate alarm circuit anyway (to which Khan and the local police held the only keys).

“Delicious,” he said, raising his glass as if in a toast.

It was one of those special pubs where on weekends after closing time the lights are turned off and the regulars drink on in darkness. But not on a Sunday. Some traditions held fast on a Sunday, and the pub closed at ten-thirty sharp. Which suited Henrik really, since he’d offered to drive Nessa home and she had laughingly accepted.

“Though it’s only a five-minute walk,” she’d added.

“Well, we can always drive home the long way.”

She’d said nothing at that. He’d been waiting outside in the rented Ford Scorpio, the stereo playing, engine running. She said good night to the barman, who was locking up, then walked quickly to the edge of the curb. Henrik was already out of the car so he could hold the passenger door open for her. She gave him a funny look.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she said.

He got back into the driver’s seat. “Where to?” he asked her.

“Home, of course.”

“Straight home?”

She gave him the look again. “Not necessarily.”

They stopped by a field just off the highway to the south of the town, and stayed there half an hour or so, chatting, kissing. They were as clumsy as teenagers, even with the seats tilted back. Eventually she laughed again and loosed herself from him.

“I’d better get back. My mum’ll be getting worried.”

He nodded. “Okay.” They drove more or less in silence after that, except for her few directions. Until eventually they arrived at the stone bungalow.

“This is it. Thanks for the lift.”

“I’ll be back again next week probably. What about dinner?”

“Dinner?”

“At the hotel if you like.”

“Depends on my shifts really.”

“Maybe I can phone you at the pub?”

She thought this over. “Yes, okay,” she said. “Do that.”

“Good night, Nessa.” He pulled her to him for a final kiss, but she wriggled free and glanced out of the window.

“My mother might be watching. ’Night, Henrik.” And she relented, pecking him on the cheek. He watched her as she opened and closed her gate, gave him a final wave, and climbed the steps to her front door. He thought he saw a curtain twitch in one of the unlit windows. The hall light was on. She closed the door softly behind her. Henrik slipped the gear lever into the drive position and started off. At the end of her road, he ejected Barry Manilow from the tape player and pushed home some heavy metal, turning the volume all the way up. He drove through Auchterarder’s dark, deserted streets for some time with the driver’s window down, grinning to himself. Then he headed home. No doubt he would have to lie in bed and put up with all that squealing and squawking from Khan’s room, all the grunting and puffing. He wondered if it was a put-on, maybe a recording or something. Was it supposed to impress him? Or did neither party realize he had ears?

Mind you, she was a particular beauty, this present catch. And the way she looked at Henrik himself... the way she touched him, as though she wanted to assure herself that his build was a fact and not some fantasy. Yes, maybe when Khan had finished with her, maybe there’d be room for Henrik to move in. He knew where she worked in London. He knew where she lived. He might just happen to be passing. He was pretty sure she’d make even more noise with him than she did with Khan. Yes, pretty damned sure. His grin was even wider as he drove through the gates of the walled and detached house.

He locked the high metal gates behind him. The chef would be long gone. There was no sign of another car. A short gravel driveway led to the front of the house. The place looked to be in darkness. It was only ten to twelve. Maybe they’d finished and were asleep. Maybe he wouldn’t have to resort to vodka to send him into oblivion. He left the car at the top of the drive rather than parking it in the small garage. He stood for a moment, leaning against the cooling body of the car, listening to the silence. A rustling of trees, a bird in the distance, maybe even some frogs. But that was all. And it was so dark. So utterly dark, with the stars shining high in the sky. So different from London, so quiet and isolated. Certainly isolated. They’d talked of keeping guard dogs which could prowl the garden around the house, but then who would feed them and look after them? So instead, there was the alarm system, linked to the local station and to Perth constabulary (the latter for times when the former was closed or unmanned).

His eyes having adjusted to the dark, Henrik walked to the front door and opened it, then locked it behind him, using the mortise dead bolt as well as the Yale. The light was on at the far end of the hall, where the central alarm system was contained in a metal box secured to the wall beside the door to the kitchen. He used one key to open the box, and another to turn on the system. The bedrooms upstairs were en suite, so he set the pressure-pad alarm for the whole house. No need for anyone to leave their rooms before morning. In the morning, the first person up would have a minute to deactivate the alarm system before the bells started ringing both outside the house itself and inside the police station.

Now, having turned on the system, he had a minute to get to his room, a minute before it was fully operational. He headed for the stairs. There was a soft buzzing from the alarm box which told him it was working. When the buzzing stopped, the various window devices and movement-sensitive beams and pressure pads woke up for the evening. Silence upstairs, and no light from Khan’s bedroom. Henrik switched off the hall lights and closed his door behind him.

She knows the house almost as well as she knows the surrounding area. In the past two days, she’s been here half a dozen times, and twice at the dead of night, the witching hour.

She’s been on the grounds, and has peered through windows into rooms, through the letter box into the hall. She has seen that the alarm box sits at the end of the hall, attached to the wall. She knows the kind of alarm it will be. She has checked door and window locks. She has even gone so far as to pass an angled mirror on the end of a stick through the letter box, the better to see the locks from the inside. All has proven very satisfactory. The nearest house is half a mile away. There are no alarms in the garden, no infrared beams which, when broken, would turn on floodlights. No lights at all to complicate her approach. No cameras. No dogs. She is especially pleased that there are no dogs.

The gates are high and topped with spikes, but the wall is a pathetic affair with broken bottle-glass cemented to its top. Too pathetic for it to have been Khan’s work. It must already have been in place when he bought the house. The glass has been worn smooth over the years. She won’t even bother to cover it with a blanket before she climbs into the garden.

But first, there is the alarm system. She straps on a special climbing belt — the sort known to every telephone engineer — and attaches spiked soles to her shoes. The spiked soles are for wear by gardeners so they can aerate their lawns. She has modified the spikes only a little. She drove to a garden center outside Perth for the spiked shoes and bought a lot of other stuff as well, stuff she didn’t need, bought solely to disguise this singular purchase. She passed two garden centers before reaching Perth. Police might investigate one or two garden centers, but she doubts they would go much further afield.

She is now standing beside a utility pole in a field across the lane from Khan’s house. She knows this is a dangerous period. She will soon be visible from the house. She checks her watch. Two. The bodyguard locked up two hours ago. They will rise early tomorrow to catch their plane back south. Or rather, if things go as intended, they won’t.

She waits another minute. What moon there is disappears behind a hefty bank of cloud. She ties her belt around the pole as well as herself, grips the pole, hugging herself to it, and begins to climb. Eventually, she knows, twenty-odd feet up, there will be footholds to help her. But for now she has only her own strength. She knows it will be enough. She does not hesitate.

At the top of the pole, beneath the wires themselves, sits a large junction box containing the thinner wires running back to homes in the area. She thinks Khan’s alarm system works via telephone lines. From what she’s seen of it, it looks just the type. If it doesn’t... Well, she will fall back on other plans, other options. But for now she has to keep busy, working fast while the moon stays hidden. She slips a pencil-thin torch into her mouth, holding it as she would a cigarette, and, by its light, begins to unscrew the front from the junction box.

Terrorists aren’t just people who terrorize. They are people who hunger for knowledge, the knowledge of how things work. In knowing how things work, you discover how society works, and that knowledge can help cripple society. She knows she can disrupt communications, bring transport systems to a halt, generate mayhem by computer. Given the knowledge, anything can be achieved. The junction box holds no surprises for her, only a certain measure of relief. She stares at the confusion of wires for a moment, and knows that she can stay with plan one.

There is a distinct color coding for the wires from Khan’s alarm system. The puzzle is that there seem to be two sets. One for the main house... The other? A room inside the house, perhaps, or a garage or workshop. She decides to take both sets out with her neat rubber-handled wire clippers. It was a good alarm system, but not a great one. A great alarm system would send a constant pulse to the outside world. And if that pulse were interrupted, then the alarm bells would ring. Cutting the wires would cause the alarm to sound in the distant police station. But such systems are unreliable and seldom used. They are nuisances, sounding whenever a fluctuation in current occurs, or a phone line momentarily breaks up. Society demands that alarms not be a nuisance.

There were times when Witch worried about society.

The job done, she slipped slowly back down the pole and untied her harness at the bottom, putting it back in her heavy black holdall along with the spikes and her tools. Now for the wall. She clambered up and sat on the top for a second, studying the windows in the house, then fell into the dark garden. She had climbed the wall precisely twelve feet to the left of the gate, so that she fell onto grass and not into shrubbery. She’d decided to enter the way most burglars would — by the back entrance — not that she was intending to make this look like a burglary. No, this was to be messy. Her employers wanted her to leave a message, a clear statement of their feelings.

The kitchen then, its door bolted top and bottom with a mortise lock beside the handle. The bedrooms are to the front of the house. She can make a certain amount of noise here. Silence, of course, would be best. Silence is the ideal. In her holdall is a carefully measured and cut piece of contact paper, purchased at a department store in Perth. Ghastly pattern and color, though the assistant had praised it as though it were an Impressionist painting. Witch is surprised people still use it. She measured the kitchen windows yesterday and chose the smaller for her purpose. Slowly, carefully, she unpeels the contact paper and presses it against the smaller window, covering it exactly. In the department store, she also purchased some good-quality yellow dusters, while at a small hardware shop, the keen young assistant was only too pleased to sell some garden twine and a hammer to a lady keen to stake out her future vegetable plots.

She takes the hammer from her holdall. She has used some twine to tie a duster around the head. Out of the spare cuts of contact paper she has made some makeshift handles, which she attaches to the sheet of paper stuck to the window. She grips one of these handles as, softly, near soundlessly, she begins to tap away at the glass, which falls away from the window frame but stays attached to the contact paper. Within three minutes she is lifting the whole window out of its frame, laying it on the ground. The alarm is just outside the kitchen door. If she’d set it off, it would probably be buzzing by now. But she can’t hear it. She can’t hear anything, not even her heart.

Upstairs, Henrik is asleep and dreaming in Danish. He’s dreaming of barmaids with pumps attached to their breasts, and of flying champagne bottles, and of winning a bodybuilding contest against Khan and the pre-movie star Schwarzenegger. He drank one glass of neat vodka before retiring and watched ten minutes of the satellite movie on his eighteen-inch television before falling asleep, waking half an hour later just long enough to switch off the television.

He sleeps and he dreams with one hand tight between his legs, something he’s done since childhood. Girlfriends have commented on it, laughed at it, even. If he catches himself doing it, he shoves the hand under a pillow, but it always seems to creep south again of its own volition.

The barmaids are singing. Topless for some reason, and singing in a language he doesn’t understand. His name? His name? Can they possibly be singing... his name?

“Wake up!” A whisper. A woman’s urgent hiss. His eyes open to blackness and he tries to sit up, but a feminine hand pushes at his chest, and he sinks back down again. The hand remains against his chest, rubbing it. A silky-smooth hand.

Shari’s hand.

“What is it?” he hisses back. “What’s the matter, Shari?”

Her face seems very close to him. “It’s Khan. He’s sound asleep... as usual. He just doesn’t... I don’t want to put him down or anything, but he just doesn’t satisfy me.”

Topless barmaids... breasts. Henrik gives a groggy half-smile in the dark. He reaches a hand to where he imagines her chest is. He’s not sure whether he finds it or not. She’s wearing her clothes... maybe some sort of nightdress, baby dolls or something.

“I knew you’d come,” he whispers. “I was going to call on you when we got back to London. Khan’s a shit, he’ll dump you the minute the plane lands.”

“I know.” Her hand rubbing him, rubbing in wider circles, taking in shoulders and down over his stomach. Feels good. “He doesn’t understand how I like it.”

“Like it?”

“Sex.” A low guttural sound, more moan than whisper. “I love it.” Still rubbing, smooth hand. “I like it tied up. Khan doesn’t like that, but it’s such a turn-on. What about you, huh? Is it a turn-on for you?”

“Sure.” He’s waking up now. Tied up?

“Want to try? I’ve got some of Khan’s ties. Want to try it with his ties?”

“Why not?” Her hand is insistent on him now. She moves one of his arms, then the other, until his hands are behind him, grasping at the bedposts. He realizes now that she wants to tie him up... not what he had in mind, but all the same... And in fact she’s already busy. It’s easy for her to slip the ties around his wrists.

“Not too tight are they?”

“No.” Lying. His wrists feel like the circulation’s been cut.

And around his feet, too, so he is splayed and naked on the bed. He knows he’s in good shape, but sucks his gut in a little anyway. He’s stiff as a beer-pump himself now. Damn, he’ll make her bells ring, little Shari’s bells ring. Oh, Christ, but if she calls out... what if Khan hears? He’s a pretty light sleeper, what if he bursts in while he’s lying here all trussed...

Bells... make her bells ring...

How come she hasn’t set off the alarm system?

He’s forming the question when he hears tape being torn, and next thing her hand is over his face, wrapping tape around his mouth, around the back of his head, mouth again, and again, and again. Jesus fucking Christ! He grunts, struggles. But then he hears a cli-chick, and another, and another, and another. Four. And he’s not being held by ties anymore. Something cold instead. And then the light goes on.

It takes his eyes a second or two to deal with the difference. He sees himself naked, and the handcuffs around his ankles. They’re around his wrists, too, pinning him to the bedposts top and bottom. No problem. He can contract himself and snap the goddamned bedposts off if he has to. Idiot that he was in the first place. Khan’ll kill him for this. But who is the woman? The woman dressed in black who’s standing there at the foot of the bed. He hasn’t been able to focus on her yet, but now she’s stepping forward and

Thwock!

One blow to the right temple with her hammer and it’s back to the barmaids for Henrik. Witch looks down on him and smiles. Well, what’s the point of working if you can’t have a little fun?

Across the corridor and down the hall, two people are asleep in a large rumpled bed. The whole room smells of perfume and bath soap and sex. Their clothes are distributed across the floor without any discernible pattern or progress. The man is naked and lies on his side without any covering. The woman lies on her front, hair tangled across the pillow. She is covered by a white sheet, and her left arm hangs limply down from the edge of the bed, fingernails grazing the carpet. No fun and games here. Now the work begins in earnest. The arm is actually a bonus, lying bulging-veined like that. She uses the pencil-thin torch to help her prepare and test the syringe, which she then jabs home into one of Shari Capri’s veins, just where the forearm meets the elbow. Not merely asleep now but unconscious. An explosion wouldn’t wake her. Gunshots would cause no flickering of her eyelids. She’ll wake up in the morning, gluey-mouthed, thirsty, with a sore head most probably.

Those will be the least of her problems.

Now only Khan remains. He seems to be sleeping peacefully. She wonders what he’s dreaming of. What do you dream of when you have everything? You dream of more. Or else the terror of losing everything you’ve got. Either would be appropriate, considering what is about to happen, and why it’s about to happen. Witch squats on the floor, her face in line with Khan’s. She’s not six feet from him — not quite close enough for him to take a waking, desperate lunge at her, but close enough so that she can study him. And studying him, he becomes less human to her, and less human still. He becomes a motive, a deal, a set of crooked figures on an accounting sheet. He becomes her payoff.

“Mr. Khan,” she says softly. “Mr. Khan.” An eye opens to a slit. Her voice is as casual as any nurse’s would be to the patient who’s come out of the operating theater. “Time to wake up now, Mr. Khan.”

The difference being, of course, that now Khan is awake, the operating theater waits for him. Witch, smiling, already has the good sharp knife in her hand. It flashes through her mind that she has been in Britain exactly a week.

Happy anniversary.