Witch Hunt

Tuesday 16 June

Barclay was at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre almost before it had opened for the day. But the foyer was already buzzing with security and the media. Everyone was handed a sheet detailing the day’s itinerary. Supposedly, this had been held back until the day itself for “security reasons.” But in fact most of the delegations, in pre-summit chats with the press, had given away the details anyway. A large section of the Conference Centre had been set aside for representatives of the media, and they wouldn’t be allowed to linger in the foyer. A restless young woman was already weaving through the bodies, seeking out media-colored ribbons. She looked at Barclay, seemed to think he must be a reporter, and was about to tell him that breakfast was available in the... But then she saw that he was wearing a security-colored red-and-blue ribbon, so she veered away at the last moment.

Some German security personnel were sharing a German joke. One of them, seeing the color of Barclay’s ribbon, nodded a greeting towards him. Barclay nodded back. His cheeks were tingling: he wondered if the joke was the one about the British secret agent and the German terrorist. A couple of the Germans kept placing a hand against their chests and running it down the front of their buttoned suit jackets. It was clear to Barclay that they were armed. In fact, as more security personnel appeared, he began to wonder if he alone was unarmed. Still there was no sign of Dominique. He read through the itinerary again, already knowing it by heart. The first session was to be short, a sort of official welcome. A couple of speeches, then a photo shoot. The real business would begin in the afternoon, after an “informal” lunch at Buckingham Palace. He wondered how informal “informal” was. Not very, he thought.

“Morning, Michael.”

It was Elder. He had heavy bags under his eyes, which were red at their corners. Having spoken, he stifled a yawn.

“Good morning, sir.” Barclay examined Elder’s suit for bulges, and found none. Well, at least someone else around here wasn’t toting a gun.

“Bright and early, eh?”

“Well, early anyway.”

Elder nodded, stifling another yawn. “I could do with some coffee,” he said at last. A room had been set aside for the British security contingent, and in it sat a steaming coffee machine. Elder made straight for a large polyethylene bag full of cups, tipped some “creamer” into one, then poured himself coffee. Barclay refused. “Creamer,” muttered Elder. “What in God’s name’s that?”

“Something with no milk products in it,” guessed Barclay. Elder shuddered, but drank the drink anyway, screwing shut his eyes for the first couple of gulps.

He exhaled noisily. “Hit the spot,” he said. “Now listen, we’ve had some more news.”

“Oh?”

“A civil servant called Christine Jones. She’s missing. We think Witch has abducted her and is using her identity.”

Barclay whistled. “Where does she work?”

“One-nineteen Victoria Street.”

Barclay nodded. “Makes sense.”

“So today, and every day if it comes to it, Victoria Street’s our priority.”

“When did you find all this out?”

“Last night.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when I phoned?”

“Michael, you were overheated as it was. I didn’t want you to explode. Besides, we know a lot, but we still don’t know who Witch’s target is.”

“So you don’t think my idea about The Times is a lost cause?”

“Absolutely not.” Elder, having finished the coffee, poured himself another cup, not bothering to add creamer this time. “Absolutely not,” he repeated. “I want you and Dominique to follow it up.”

“Speaking of which... I should be in the lobby in case she arrives.”

“Fine, I’ll come with you. I’m going to take another wander along Victoria Street.” He finished the second cup.

“Feel better for that, sir?”

Elder nodded, stifling yet another yawn.

“You obviously didn’t get much sleep last night,” said Barclay solicitously.

“No,” said Elder with a smile. “Not much.”

Barclay saw that the smile was in memory of something. It didn’t take him long to work out what that memory might be.

Dominique, entering the foyer unaccompanied, was yawning, too. She looked like she’d had a heavy night of it. Barclay, who’d just been thinking about Elder and Joyce Parry, didn’t want to consider what Dominique had been doing.

“Dominique,” he said, approaching.

She raised a hand to her forehead. “Michael, please, I am dying. English beer... how do you manage to drink it?”

Barclay smiled. “Dominique, this is your near-namesake, Dominic Elder.”

She tried to brighten a little. She looked very pale, and hadn’t bothered with the morning chore of makeup. But her eyes sparkled as she smiled. “Monsieur Elder, I am pleased to meet you.” She put out a small red-gloved hand for Elder to take. “The famous author of the Witch file.”

Elder swallowed another yawn and made a noncommittal sound.

“Listen, Dominique,” said Barclay, “something’s come up. It might be a clue to Witch’s intended victim.”

“Oh yes?” She just failed to sound interested.

“Remember the Australian anarchist? His flat?”

She rolled her eyes. “Monsieur Wrightson and his apartment. Ugh, how could I forget?”

“There was a copy of The Times there.”

“Yes.” She seemed puzzled now, but her interest was growing.

“With the crossword done.”

“Yes.”

“And remember what Bandorff said... Witch liked to do crosswords.”

She nodded slowly. “So you add one to the other,” she said, “and you assume the crossword was done by Witch and not by Mr. Wrightson?”

Barclay shrugged. “It’s a theory.”

She considered this, acknowledged with a shrug of her own that it was possible. “So what?” she said.

“The thing is,” Elder broke in, “there was a page torn out of that newspaper, according to Mr. Barclay here.”

Another shrug. “A page, maybe several pages. Used for toilet paper, according to —”

“Perhaps Witch tore the page out,” continued Elder.

“You see,” said Barclay, warming to the subject, “it could be some clue to her chosen victim, a profile of them or something.”

“Oh, yes, I see.”

“So can you remember which day’s Times it was?”

She laughed. “I cannot even remember which month it was.” She saw that they looked crestfallen. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be,” said Elder. But Barclay’s dejection moved her to remember.

“There was a photograph,” she said. “A large black-and-white picture on one of the inside pages. I recall it because it attracted me. A photograph of New York from the air, and lots of ballons.”

“Balloons?” said Elder.

“Yes, the big ones with baskets beneath them.”

“Hot-air balloons?”

“Yes, lots of those, rising over New York.”

“The Picture Editor’s got to know when that one appeared,” said Barclay, brightening again.

Elder was nodding. “Off you go,” he said. “And be lucky.”

Barclay looked to Dominique. “Coming?”

She looked undecided. “I should... my colleagues... I am supposed to be the expert, you know.” Then she made up her mind. “Oh God, yes, of course I am coming.”

A broad smile spread across Barclay’s face. “Good,” he said.

Elder watched them leave. A nice young couple, but he wouldn’t want to have to depend on them. He patted his chest, and let his hand slide down the front of his suit. Then he walked outside. The morning was overcast, threatening rain. The forecast for the rest of the week was even worse. Wet weather seemed to exacerbate his back problem. God knows, after last night he felt achy enough as it was.

“You look rough,” said a voice to his left. It was Doyle, accompanied by Greenleaf.

“Maybe fragile is a better word,” Elder admitted.

Doyle laughed, and patted his jacket ostentatiously. “Well, don’t worry about a thing, Mr. Elder, we’ll look after you.” His voice fell to a dramatic whisper. “Tooled up.”

Elder stared at the bulging jacket. “I’d never have guessed.”

“It makes me nervous,” said Greenleaf. He looked nervous, wriggling at the unaccustomed weight strapped to his side, beneath his left arm. Neither Special Branch man wore a suit really fitted for carrying a gun. Not like Elder’s suit, which was unfashionably roomy to start with. Elder many years before had given the suit to a tailor in Shoreditch who had eased it out a little to the left-hand side. The result was that he could have worn a.44 Magnum without any hint of a bulge, never mind his favored pistol.

“I picked up itineraries for you,” said Elder. He took from his pocket two folded sheets of A4-sized paper, and gave one to each of them. Doyle glanced down the list.

“Not much here we didn’t know already. When d’you think she’ll make the hit? Lunchtime?”

Elder nodded. “That would be my guess. After this morning’s handshakes and champagne. The cars are supposed to leave for Buck House at noon, but I suppose it depends on how long the photo opportunity takes.”

“They won’t keep Her Maj’ waiting,” said Doyle knowledgeably.

“You’re probably right,” said Elder.

“Speaking of photo opportunities...” Greenleaf reached into the plastic carrier bag he was holding and came out with a xeroxed sheet. “We’ve had these distributed to everyone.” On the sheet was a picture of Christine Jones and a description. The picture wasn’t terribly good.

“I got it last night,” Doyle said proudly. “Went back to the house. There weren’t many snaps to choose from. We had to crop that one as it was.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “Here’s the original.”

Elder studied the photo. It showed Christine Jones and a female friend posing on a beach. Christine was wearing a one-piece swimsuit, her friend a very brief bikini.

“Mmm,” said Elder. He looked up at Doyle, who was looking at the photo, then he glanced towards Greenleaf, who smiled. Yes, they both had their ideas as to why Doyle had chosen this particular photograph.

“And,” added Greenleaf meaningfully, “there are extra men on guard inside one-nineteen.”

“Not inside the other buildings?”

“We couldn’t stretch to it.”

“No way,” said Doyle, retrieving the picture. “We’re like india-rubber men as it is.”

Greenleaf was rummaging in the bag again. “We thought these might come in handy.” He lifted a walkie-talkie out of the bag and handed it to Elder. It was heavier than it looked. “They’ve not got much range, but...” Another walkie-talkie was handed to Doyle. When Greenleaf lifted out the third, the bag was empty. He crumpled it and stuffed it into his pocket.

“Not exactly unobtrusive,” commented Elder.

“True,” said Doyle. “Carry one of these and every bugger knows what your game is.”

Greenleaf said nothing but looked slighted. Elder guessed the walkie-talkies had been his idea. “I’m sure they’ll be invaluable,” Elder said.

“Here they come,” said Doyle. Which was, in a sense, true. Cordons had been hastily erected, traffic stopped. Uniformed policemen were suddenly in greater evidence than ever. Motorbikes arrived with their indicators flashing, the drivers had a word with someone, then they turned and headed back the way they’d come.

“Yes,” said Doyle, “here they come.”

The three men stood well out of the way as they watched the delegations arrive. Doyle was not impressed. “Why do they need all these cars and all this razzamatazz? Be a lot cheaper if they just flew the big cheeses in — first-class, natch — and had them all sit around a table. Look at all these bloody hangers-on.”

“I believe,” said Elder, smiling, “the term is ‘aides.’”

“Hangers-on,” Doyle insisted.

One car deposited the Home Secretary and his private secretary. Jonathan Barker fastened a button on his suit jacket as he emerged, smiling for the cameras. A gust caught the parting in his hair, and he swept the stray locks back into place. He glanced towards where Elder and the others stood, and frowned slightly, bowing his head so the newsmen wouldn’t catch the look.

“‘Shagger’ Barker we call him,” said Doyle from the side of his mouth. Elder laughed, quite loudly, further discomfiting the Home Secretary. The private secretary scowled openly at the trio as he followed his minister into the building.

“Why ‘Shagger’?”

Doyle shrugged. “He just looks the type, doesn’t he?”

“He was happily married until a couple of months ago.”

“Yeah, to his secretary. Says a lot about him, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?”

When the last delegation had entered the Conference Centre, Greenleaf expelled a long whistle of air between his teeth.

“The collective sigh of relief,” said Elder. The police and other security people all looked a bit easier now that everyone was safely inside.

“To think,” said Greenleaf, “we’re going to be doing this at least twice a day for the rest of the week.”

“Well, let’s hope we are,” said Elder. “I’d rather breathe a sigh of relief than a gasp of panic.”

Doyle chuckled. “I wish I could say clever things like that.”

“I take that as a compliment, Doyle, coming from the man who invented ‘Shagger’ Barker.”

Doyle made a little bow. “Now what?” he asked.

“Victoria Street,” said Elder. “Fun’s over here. Let’s see how security’s shaping up.”

Witch had been in the Victoria area since daybreak. Just after midnight, she’d stolen a car. It was her second car theft of the night, her first being a four-year-old Peugeot 305. For the second, she wanted something similar — fast but unshowy — and finally settled on a three-year-old Alfa Romeo. She’d gone outside London to accomplish this. A car stolen in London and then driven around London could be spotted by police. A car stolen in East Croydon and driven around central London might not. She had brought the first car, the Peugeot, back into the city and parked it on the corner of her chosen cul-de-sac off the King’s Road. Then she’d returned to East Croydon by the late train, a train full of drunk commuters and even drunker youths, and found the Alfa Romeo. Back in London, she had driven one particular route three times, with slight detours and amendments, memorizing the final chosen route until she felt she could drive it blindfolded.

Then she’d slept for an hour or two in an all-night car park, slouched in the front seat of the Alfa, awaking to a tingling feeling in her gut, a feeling that told her it was time. Time to put theory into practice. Time for the final day.

She’d watched the various entourages arrive at the Conference Centre, headphones clamped to her head. Her personal hi-fi’s radio news told her that the morning session would be short. Yes, because they were going to lunch at Buckingham Palace; she’d read that in one of the briefs prepared by the Dutchman.

The Dutchman was another unreliable factor, now that Elder had his hands on him. That was why she was here early, just to check what extra security precautions they’d taken.

As the sleek black cars had arrived, while she was listening to her radio, she’d been watching Dominic Elder. No chance of his spotting her of course. She was just one of a crowd who had stopped on their way to work to watch, from behind the metal barriers, the famous people arriving. She’d tucked herself in between two large men. And she watched Elder, watched him talking to two other men — they looked like police to her, probably Special Branch, MI5’s dogsbodies. One of them made a big show of the fact that he was armed. The other was quiet, almost sleepy in comparison. Elder looked tired and alert at the same time. Like her, he wouldn’t have been getting much sleep recently. Like her, he’d been waiting for this day. Beneath the shabby suit he would be carrying his own gun, the Browning. It was typical of him to buy British. Typical of him to keep faith with something which had failed him before...

She’d watched for a few moments and she’d looked up occasionally to spot the marksmen, armed only with binoculars thus far, as they examined the scene from their lofty heights. Then she drifted away. Her car was parked outside a mansion block in a street behind Westminster Cathedral, tickets on the windshield showing she’d paid for three hours’ parking. Three hours was the limit. She’d toyed with the idea of breaking into another car and taking a resident’s parking permit to stick on the Alfa’s windscreen. But any traffic warden worth the name would pause to compare license plate details.

She was playing a cassette on her personal hi-fi: an Ohm mantra repeated over the sound of a human heartbeat. It calmed her as she walked back to the car, got into it, and rummaged beneath the passenger seat for her civil service satchel and a green Harrods carrier bag. She glanced around her before opening the satchel and peering inside, seeming happy with what she found there. Her own choice of pistol was an Italian-made Beretta 9-millimeter 92F, a link to her days in Bologna as a member of Croix Jaune. She’d first handled a Beretta during the Gibson kidnapping. Christ, she’d been the only one of them who knew how to handle a gun. She’d practically had to teach them. Still, despite the clumsy trap laid for them, they’d all managed to escape with the ransom money. It had come in useful, that money...

She slipped the gun out of her satchel and into her jacket. She’d stitched a special pocket into it, hanging loose from the jacket by two straps. It was funny how often the authorities would want to search your baggage, but not your clothes. She had a feeling this might be one of those days at the DTI.

She closed the satchel again and got out of the car, this time taking satchel and carrier bag with her. She had a little time to kill. She noticed as she passed that there were men hanging around outside some of the buildings on Victoria Street itself, and especially outside the DTI Headquarters. It was only to be expected. She walked to a small supermarket and bought two large fresh chickens, two packs of fresh sandwiches, and a catering-sized tin of cheap instant coffee, then retreated to Victoria Station and locked herself in a toilet cubicle, where she did what she had to do. An attendant knocked eventually and asked if everything was all right.

“Everything’s fine,” Witch called back. “Bad curry last night, that’s all.”

The attendant chuckled and moved away. Witch flushed the toilet and came out. The attendant, a small brown-skinned woman, was waiting.

“Sorry,” the woman said, “it’s just that you’ve got to be careful. We get all kinds coming in... injecting themselves, that sort of thing.”

“I understand,” said Witch, washing her hands. “Like you say, you’ve got to be careful.”

She walked around the back of Victoria Street, to where her car was, and from there to the back entrance of 45 Victoria Street. There was a guard with a dog outside the door. The dog barked as she approached, rearing up on hind legs, causing the guard to rein it in on its leash.

“It’s all right,” he told her.

“I’ve some chickens here,” she said.

“That’ll be it then, not that he doesn’t get fed enough.”

She walked past him. She wasn’t concerned, there was nothing for her to be concerned about. She was a government employee, she made this trip every day. Nothing to worry about. She entered the building and showed her security pass to the guard who stood in front of his desk. He looked at it a bit more carefully than usual, and thanked her.

“I don’t often forget a pretty face,” he said.

“I usually come in the front way,” she explained, “but it’s pandemonium out there.”

“I’ll bet.”

Witch slipped the pass back into her handbag. She had altered the name on Christine Jones’s card to Caroline James, knowing they would be on the lookout for poor starving Christine. She made to move past him.

“Sorry, miss, I need to check all bags today.”

“Yes, of course.”

“It’s pandemonium in here, too.” He looked through her handbag first, then her official bag. “I’m on my own. They’ve sent my partner up the road to Number One.”

“Really?” She allowed herself a small smile.

He was looking at her shopping.

“Chicken’s on special offer at Safeway,” she said.

“Really? I like a bit of leg myself.” And he gave her a wink, to which she responded with her most winning smile. He glanced towards the other items: it was obviously her turn to provide the office coffee, and lunch today consisted of nothing more than a sandwich.

In her Harrods bag were some clothes, a pair of shoes.

“Partying tonight, eh?”

“That’s the plan,” said Witch.

“Thank you, miss,” the guard said.

“You’re welcome.”

She walked to the lifts, pressed the button and waited.

The lift arrived. She got in and pressed the button for the third floor. On the way up, she did not blink. She just stared ahead, even when the lift stopped at the ground floor and some people got in. There were guards pacing the space outside the lifts. They did not look at her. She looked through them. Then the lift was ascending again. She got out at the third floor and made for the Conference Room. God, wouldn’t it just be her luck to bump into that slimeball from yesterday, Blishen, Mr. Folded-arms? But she didn’t. She looked up and down the corridor, saw that no one was paying her any attention, and opened the door of the Conference Room.

Inside, she worked quickly. She took out both chickens and reached inside them, where the plastic bags of giblets had been until she’d flushed them down the toilet in Victoria Station. Now the hollow chickens housed small soft packages wrapped in gray polyethylene and black tape. She dumped the chickens in the wastepaper bin, and reopened the packs of sandwiches, which she had closed herself using tiny strips of clear tape. Inside were thin coils of copper wire and small connectors, plus a tiny screwdriver. She joined the two packages by runs of wire, working quickly and calmly. She held one foot wedged up against the door, preventing anyone from opening it while she worked.

At last she was satisfied. Time for a break, she thought. She lifted out the large tin of coffee and pried off its lid. The toilet at Victoria had taken a lot of punishment: giblets, sandwich fillings, and an awful lot of instant granules. The blond wig inside the tin still smelled of bitter coffee. She shook it free of brown specks, then dumped the tin in the basket beside the chickens.

She lifted the clothes and shoes from her bag, stripped and changed. With lipstick and the aid of a hand mirror she turned her lips vermilion. Makeup is the beginning of disguise. She’d learned that early in life at the fairground: she could be virgin or whore to order, twelve or sixteen, above or below the age of consent. She could smile and be unhappy; or weep while she was overjoyed. She’d been playing a game of dressing-up with her life until the Irishman had come...

She looked at herself now and blinked. A question had framed itself in her mind. Who am I? She shook it away as she brushed out her wig. She knew who she was. She knew what she was. And she knew why she was here.

Wasn’t that more than most people knew?

When she turned the Harrods bag inside out, it was just a plain white cloth bag with green handles. She placed her cassette recorder on the floor near the door, unplugging the headphones. The recorder came with its own built-in speaker, and, more unusually, included automatic rewind and repeat functions. Witch swapped her Ohm and Heartbeat cassette for another tape and switched the machine on.

In the lower ground floor of the building, the guard was tuning his radio to something musical when there were steps on the stairwell. A man appeared. The guard knew him. He was from the police. The police were all over the place, on window ledges and in corridors, patrolling the foyer and the main entrance. He half-expected to see one of them hiding beneath his desk. The policeman was waving something, a notice or leaflet.

“Here, George,” the policeman said, “has anyone given you one of these?”

The guard slipped his spectacles back on. “What is it? No, nobody’s given me nothing.”

“Typical,” said the policeman. “If you want a job doing, do it yourself. Well, you can keep that one anyway.”

A bell sounded once as the lift doors opened. A couple got out, a man in a pinstripe suit and a tall, big-boned woman.

“Back in ten minutes,” the man said.

“Right you are, sir,” said the guard. The policeman watched the couple leave.

“Dirty sods couldn’t wait till knocking-off time, eh?”

The guard was laughing as he turned his attention to the sheet of paper. He recognized the name, he’d been told to look out for it. But now there was a photo, too.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“What’s up, George?”

The guard tapped the photo with a finger yellow from cigarettes smoked to the nub. “I think I’ve seen her this morning, about twenty minutes ago.”

“You sure?”

“Christine Jones, that wasn’t the name on her pass. I’ve been on the lookout for Christine Jones.”

The policeman was already slipping a radio out of his pocket. “This is Traynor,” he said into the mouthpiece. “I’m in number forty-five. Suspect is inside the building. I repeat, suspect is inside the building.”

There was silence, then crackle and a disembodied voice. “It’s Doyle here, Traynor. Secure all exits, and I mean all exits. Start searching the floors. We’re on our way.”

Traynor made for the stairs, then paused. “You heard him, George. No one in or out of here, okay? Anyone wants out, send them to the ground floor.” He turned, then stopped again, turned back. “George, what was she wearing?”

“Mmm... blue jacket, dark blue... white blouse, dark skirt.”

“Right.” This time Traynor started climbing the stairs. George switched his radio back on and began fiddling with the dial again. He looked out of the window, but the pinstripe man and lipstick woman had gone. Ah, Radio Two, he’d found it at last. Manuel and his Music of the Mountains, lovely. George settled back in his chair.

Doyle and Greenleaf put together reinforcements and brought them into the building. They were both a little breathless, but ready for anything. The news had been circulated, more men would be on their way.

“Any sign?” Doyle asked Traynor.

“Not yet. She’s dressed in a dark-colored two-piece and white blouse, but then so are half the women in the place.”

“Which floor was she headed for?”

Traynor shook his head.

“We’ve just got to be methodical,” said Greenleaf.

Doyle looked at him. “Methodical, right. How long have we got before the bigwigs go to lunch?”

Greenleaf checked his watch. “Quarter of an hour.”

“Right then,” said Doyle, “we can afford to be methodical for about five minutes. After that, we start screaming and kicking down doors.”

“Progress report, gentlemen.” This was said in brisk, clipped tones by Commander Trilling, almost at marching-pace as he entered the foyer and joined them.

“She’s in here somewhere, sir,” said Doyle.

“But we don’t know where,” admitted Greenleaf.

“Well, I’ll tell you one place she’s not — she’s not standing here with us!” Trilling tossed a mint into his mouth. “Let’s start from the roof down. Snipers like height, don’t they?”

“Yes, sir.” Doyle turned to Traynor. “What are you waiting for? Roof and the top floor down!”

“Yes, sir.” Traynor started giving orders to his unit.

“You start at the top, Doyle,” said Greenleaf, “I’ll start at the bottom. Keep in touch by walkie-talkie and we’ll meet halfway.”

“Right,” said Doyle.

“Where’s Elder?” asked Trilling. Greenleaf shrugged.

“I think he was headed for the lower ground floor.”

“Let’s try to keep him there, eh? He’ll only get in the way.”

Doyle grinned at this, so Greenleaf swallowed back a defense.

“Right, sir,” he said instead, heading for the stairs. The last thing he heard Doyle saying was: “And check the lift shaft, too. Remember that film with the cannibal...”

Doyle stood outside the third-floor conference room. Traynor was with him. So was a civil servant who worked on the third floor.

“It’s usually open,” she said. “I can’t think why it would be locked.” She was young and blond and chewing gum.

Doyle nodded, then put a finger to his lips and tried the door handle quietly, trying to turn it one way and then the other. It was definitely locked. He put his ear to the door and listened. Silence. Then a shuffling sound. He thought about knocking, then thought better of it. He motioned for them to follow him farther down the corridor.

“I’m lost,” he whispered. “Is this the front of the building or the back?”

“The front, sir,” Traynor whispered back.

“Can we get someone on the ledge to take a peek inside?”

“I’ll go check.” And off Traynor tiptoed.

“Back to your office,” Doyle whispered to the girl. “It’s too dangerous here.”

He thought she was going to swallow her gum. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze in his and nodded along the corridor. Off she walked, on silent tiptoe. Doyle went back to the door and listened again. Silence. He put his eye to the keyhole, but it was the wrong type. He couldn’t see into the room. There was a gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. He lay down, but again could not see into the room. Traynor was coming back.

“No can do,” he said when they’d moved away from the door. “The ledge isn’t wide enough or something.”

“What about across the road? Can anyone see anything from across there?”

“I’ll radio and check.”

“And get some more men up here. We may have to storm the place.”

“Don’t we have the SAS to do that sort of thing?”

“Don’t be stupid, Traynor. It’s only a hardwood door, not the Iranian bloody embassy.”

Greenleaf appeared. A distance behind him, Doyle could see Trilling.

“Is she in there?” Greenleaf hissed.

Doyle shrugged and nodded towards the Commander. “Do me a favor,” he whispered to Greenleaf, “keep the old man away from here. He’ll only be in the bloody way, and you know he can’t keep his voice down.”

Greenleaf nodded, moved back along the corridor, and stopped in front of Commander Trilling, talking to him softly.

Elder was questioning the guard called George. He was beginning to get a sour feeling in his stomach about all of this, the whole setup.

“I’m not even sure it was her,” George was saying now. “I mean, it’s hard to tell with some women, isn’t it?”

“Well, has there been anyone else, anyone new to you?”

The guard shook his head. From Elder’s walkie-talkie came information that the procession of cars was leaving the Conference Centre, moving in slow convoy past the building he was standing in. He felt like screaming.

“Look,” said the guard, “I’ve got to get back to work.” He walked over to the outside door, where a police officer was stopping a man in a pinstriped suit from entering the building.

“He’s all right,” said the guard to the policeman. “It’s Mr. Connaught from the third floor.”

“I only went out to get these,” Mr. Connaught was explaining, waving some documents. “I’d left them in my boot.”

The policeman looked to Elder, who nodded assent. The officer moved aside, letting Connaught into the building.

“What’s going on?”

“Security,” the guard explained. “Some woman they’re after.” This reminded him of something. “Who was that blond lady you were with?”

Connaught shook his head. “Met her at the lift. Don’t know who she was exactly.”

“Oh, Christ!” said Elder, making for the stairs.

There was that shuffling sound again, like someone who was seated moving their feet on the floor. Doyle took a deep breath and knocked, keeping his back hard against the wall to the side of the door, rapping with his fist and then removing it from any line of fire. Silence.

He knocked again, a little harder. “Anyone in there? We’ve got a meeting starting in five minutes. Hello, anyone there?”

Silence. From their distance, Greenleaf and Trilling were watching him. When Greenleaf spoke, he spoke in an undertone which Doyle couldn’t catch. Trilling’s idea of an undertone, however, would not have gone unheard in a football stadium.

“I see... Yes, of course... As you see fit...” Then a message came over Greenleaf’s radio (Doyle had switched his off: it sat on the ground beside him). Greenleaf listened and mumbled something into the radio.

Doyle licked his lips. No use pretending any longer; no time left in which to pretend. Traynor was returning, pushing past Greenleaf and Trilling. He had four men with him.

“Net curtains are in the way,” Traynor whispered. “Nobody across the street can see anything. No movement at all.”

Doyle nodded. “I can hear somebody, though.” Patches of sweat were spreading from beneath his arms. And now Greenleaf was creeping forwards.

“They’re passing the building right this second.”

“Can’t hang around any longer then,” said Doyle. He withdrew his pistol, raising it high above him, gripped in both hands and pointed ceilingwards. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Right,” he said to the men around him. “We’re going in.” They were all withdrawing their weapons now, a series of quiet snicks as safety catches were slipped off. Doyle looked at Traynor. “You keen to kick down that door?” Traynor nodded. “Okay, two of you behind me, two of you other side of the door. Soon as the door opens, we’re in. My side low, other side aiming over our heads. Take the diagonals. Got that?”

They nodded, assumed their positions. Doyle, back to the wall, crouched low. Traynor stood in front of the door, took a moment to size it up. Greenleaf, who had gone back along the corridor to let Trilling know the score, had withdrawn his own weapon and was now advancing again, walkie-talkie gripped in his free hand, watched by Trilling. Doyle gave Traynor the nod. Traynor took a step back, both hands around the butt of his gun, aiming it straight at whatever was behind the door. He raised his right knee, so that the sole of his shoe faced the door, just below the handle. And took a deep breath.

Dominic Elder ran up the stairs, across the reception area, and out of the glass doors on to Victoria Street. He ran into a crush of people, waving, some of them cheering, held back by metal-grilled barriers from the road. There was a dull slow roar from the motorcycle escorts. And then there was glitter in the sky, and a net curtain, blown out from its window and wafting in the breeze.

And then there was the explosion.

A dull boom. Not a large explosion by any means, but enough to panic the crowds. The motorbikes suddenly speeded up, as did the cars. Front fenders dented back fenders as the cars behind put their foot down. They were speeding away from the scene, and the security men on the street had guns in their hands and were trying to see what had happened. But it was raining glass. That was what was happening. Large and small shards and splinters, landing at velocity. And the screams were no longer solely of fear.

“What happened?” he yelled into his walkie-talkie. “John, what the hell happened?” He was jostled by people fleeing the scene. Doors were kicked open as people attempted to find shelter. Anywhere but on the street. Barriers clattered to the ground as people scrambled over them.

The walkie-talkie crackled. He struggled to hear it. “Bomb inside the door. Hair-trigger.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Traynor, leg blown off. Doyle...”

“What about Doyle?”

“Concussion.”

“The room, John... is there anyone in the room?”

A pause. “Negative, Dominic. The room’s empty. Repeat, the room is empty.” Then: “Jesus Christ.”

“What is it?”

“Chickens, two supermarket chickens.”

They’d walked straight into a bloody trap! If Witch had left nothing else, she’d left yet another warped calling card. Which meant what? That the real attempt would take place elsewhere? Up ahead maybe? The motorcade was moving off in disarray. Christ, a trap... he couldn’t believe... couldn’t take it in. Why? What was the point? Suddenly, a hand gripped his arm. He reached inside his jacket, turning towards the — But it was only Barclay.

“Jesus, you gave me a fright.” His grip on the pistol relaxed. Barclay saw what had been about to happen.

“Sorry,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Elder nodded upwards, where the curtain still fluttered like a flag. It didn’t look like a flag, though; it looked like a shroud. “Bomb,” he said. “Witch led us into a trap.”

Sirens were nearing, ambulances. Uniformed police officers were attempting to comfort the prone and wounded bodies. A helicopter surveyed the pandemonium from on high. The convoy had disappeared from view. Barclay was yelling something above the noise.

“What?” Elder yelled back.

“I said we know who she’s —”

The ambulances were drawing to a squealing halt in front of them. Barclay put his hand out towards Dominique, palm upwards, only to find that she wasn’t there. She was ten feet away, tending to a woman’s cuts. He walked over, opened the flap of her shoulder bag, and took something from it, then came back to Elder, handing him a folded page from The Times. Elder looked at it. A full-page advert for British Aerospace.

“Other side,” yelled Barclay. Elder turned the page over. The obituaries column. There were four, a couple of churchmen, head of an Oxford college, and... Marion Barker, the Home Secretary’s wife.

Elder’s face creased into a huge frown. He looked at Barclay, who was nodding. Dominique, looking paler than ever, was coming back to join them. An ambulanceman had taken over from her. She watched as he worked on the woman. The woman caught Dominique’s eye and smiled at her, mouthing “thank you.”

“You think her target’s the —”

“The Home Secretary,” said Barclay. He shrugged. “Unless you think it’s the Oxford don’s widow.”

A police sergeant was approaching, his arms stretched out like a barrier. “Clear the area, please. Please clear the area.”

“Yes, sergeant, we’re just going,” said Dominic Elder quietly, not really aware of what he was saying. Then his eyes came back into focus. “Come on then,” he said. “Back to the Centre.”

They joined the evacuation of Victoria Street. More ambulances and fire engines were blocked in a traffic jam, the traffic having been halted to allow the motorcade sole access to Victoria Street in the first place. Sirens blared, blue lights circled, but the drivers in front complained that there was nothing they could do till the barriers were moved. One ambulance mounted the pavement, only to find itself firmly wedged between the vehicle in front and a concrete lamppost.

At the Conference Centre, a crowd of people stood on the steps, wondering what had happened. Elder pushed past them and into the foyer. He walked quickly to the reception desk. “The Home Secretary,” he said, “I need to know... did he go to Buckingham Palace with the rest of them?”

“I’ll just check.” The receptionist made an internal call. “Jan, what was Mr. Barker doing this lunchtime?” She listened. “Thank you,” she said, cutting the connection. “He went home,” she said. “Car collected him ten minutes ago.”

“Thank you,” said Elder. Barclay and Dominique were waiting just inside the door. “He’s gone home,” Elder told them. “I know his address.” He was outside again, the young couple following him. He started to descend the steps, looking about him. “What we need now is a car.”

Dominique continued past him and perused the line of cars parked outside the building. “How about this one?” she said. It was a marked Metropolitan Police Rover 2000. “It’s even got the keys in.” She was already opening the driver’s door. “You can direct me, come on.”

Elder got into the back, Barclay into the passenger seat. Dominique had started the ignition, but was now looking at the controls around her.

“What’s the problem?” said Barclay.

“My first time in a right-hand-drive car.” She pulled the big car out of its parking space. “See if you can find the siren, Michael.” After a few false attempts, he did so. People looked at them as they pulled out into the main road. “Which way?” she called back to Elder.

“Keep going along here,” he said. “I’ll tell you when to turn.”

Dominique nodded, shifted up a gear, then thought better of it, shifted down again, and slammed her foot on the accelerator. Barclay was thrown against the back of his seat. He looked around, but Elder didn’t seem at all fazed. He was yelling into his walkie-talkie.

“John? John?”

“Dominic, where are you? I can hardly —” The signal broke up.

“I’m heading towards Jonathan Barker’s home. We think he’s Witch’s target. Over.”

He listened to a lot of crackle and static. Then: “Sorry, Dom... signal’s break... didn’t catch a... please rep—”

“We’re out of range,” said Barclay.

“Yes,” said Elder, throwing the walkie-talkie onto the seat beside him. It bounced off the seat and onto the floor, where it erupted into static before dying. Elder looked out of the window. “Right, here!” Dominique slammed on the brakes and sent the car whipping around the corner. Barclay was desperately trying to fasten his seat belt.

“You don’t trust me, Michael?” she called. “I am a Parisian driver. C’est facile!”

Elder reached between them for the police radio.

Jonathan Barker, Home Secretary, had a town house in Belgravia’s Holbein Place. It was one of his three UK residences, the others being a converted vicarage in Dorset and an old hunting lodge on Speyside. His address in London wasn’t quite public knowledge, but neither was he a low-key minister — he’d given several early morning doorstep interviews to the media during his short time in office. The parking space in front of the house was kept free, courtesy of two bright red traffic cones which sat in the road whenever Barker’s chauffeured car was elsewhere. It was an arrangement which worked, mostly. The most frequent transgressors were workmen and tourists, who would shift the cones onto the pavement so as to have room to park their vans or BMWs.

Today, it was an Alfa Romeo.

The chauffeur swore under his breath and stopped the minister’s car in the road, a little way behind the Alfa, giving the driver room to move it. Always supposing the driver was anywhere around. The chauffeur sounded the car horn, just in case the driver was in one of the houses near the minister’s.

The minister’s bodyguard spotted something from his passenger seat. “There’s somebody still in the car,” he said. And so there was, a woman. She appeared to be consulting a map. The driver sounded his horn again.

“Come on, you dozy bint.”

“She must be deaf.”

“Come on.”

Throughout this exchange, Jonathan Barker sat in the back of the car with his private secretary. They were discussing an afternoon meeting, with the aid of an agenda on which the minister was scratching with a slim gold fountain pen. Suddenly, the minister seemed to realize it was lunchtime. He handed the agenda to his private secretary and slipped the pen into his breast pocket.

“Sort it out, will you?” he said to the men in the front of the car. “I’m going inside.”

And with that, he got out of his car. So did the private secretary. And so, with a muttered, “I’ll sort it out, all right,” did the bodyguard.

And so did the woman. The chauffeur couldn’t believe it. He rested his hand on the horn again and called out: “Come on, darling, you can’t park there!” But she appeared not to have heard him. The bodyguard was just behind her as she bent down, looking as though she was locking her car door. The minister and his private secretary were mounting the sidewalk behind the Alfa Romeo.

“Excuse me, miss, that’s a private parking bay, I’m afraid.” The guard didn’t think she’d heard him. Bloody foreigner. He touched her shoulder.

Witch, crouching, slammed her elbow back into the bodyguard’s groin, then clasped the hand on her shoulder and twisted her whole body, taking the man’s arm with it, turning it all the way around and up his back. He sank to his knees in pain. The butt of the Beretta smashed against the back of his neck. He slumped unconscious to the ground.

Now her gun was on the minister.

“Into the car!”

He hesitated.

“You,” she said to the blanching secretary, “back into the minister’s car. You,” to Jonathan Barker again, “into this car.”

“Now look here...”

But the private secretary was already shuffling back to the Rover, where the driver sat motionless, trying to decide whether to try ramming her or merely blocking her escape or even reversing to a safe distance. She settled his mind for him by swiveling and expertly shooting one front and one rear tire. The driver yelped and ducked beneath the level of the windscreen. The private secretary had fallen to his knees and was crawling on all fours. Witch turned her eyes on Jonathan Barker.

“You’re dead.”

People were looking out of their windows now. A few pedestrians had stopped and were watching from a safe distance. Jonathan Barker decided he’d stalled long enough. She walked around the car towards him. He opened the passenger door.

“No, the back,” she said. Her aim with the pistol looked steady as he opened the car’s rear door and leaned down to get in.

“I think you must be making a—” The sentence went unfinished as Witch flipped the pistol and smashed the butt down on Jonathan Barker’s skull. He fell into the car and she pushed his legs in after him, closing the door and running to the driver’s side. Then she started the car and sent it hurtling out of the parking space. It would be a short drive. Her other car was parked and waiting.

As she drove off, the private secretary opened the Rover’s passenger door.

“A lot of help you were,” he squealed at the chauffeur.

“I didn’t notice you exactly leaping into action.”

“No, but at least I got the license plate. Here, hand me that phone. We’ll have the cunt in five minutes.”

But in five minutes, all they had was a general alert and the arrival of a single police car... which didn’t even contain police.

“Who are you?” asked the private secretary. Neighbors had come out of their houses and were milling around. The bodyguard sat on the edge of the sidewalk, holding his head. A woman was trying to give him an aspirin and some water.

Elder took it all in with a single sweep: the flat car tires, the empty parking space, the sickly looks on the faces of the three men.

“What happened?” he asked, ignoring the private secretary’s question.

“Where are the bloody police?” asked the private secretary, ignoring Elder’s. “I called them.”

“They’re a bit busy at Victoria Street. I suppose all available units have rushed down there.”

The man’s interest was deflected for a moment. “What happened?”

“A bomb. Nothing serious. It was just a...” A what? A flanker? Yes, that’s what it was. A tactic to shift attention solidly and completely onto Victoria Street, so that this could happen. She’d bought herself valuable time. Five minutes already, and still no police had arrived. Too late to go chasing her now, though Elder could see Dominique was keen. She was still sitting in the police car’s driver’s seat, ready for the off. Barclay was getting the story from one of the neighbors who’d seen everything.

“It’s a mess,” Elder said, more to himself than anyone else. “A shambles. She led us all the way up the garden path and in through the front door. Only we were in the wrong house, the wrong garden, the wrong bloody street!”

What he still couldn’t work out was the one simple question: why Jonathan Barker? Why go second division when the premier league were there for the taking?

Why?

The question bothered him, and others, for the rest of the afternoon. He talked it through with Barclay and Dominique. He talked it through with Joyce Parry, and with Trilling and Greenleaf. Doyle was in hospital, though unwillingly. They were keeping him in overnight, if such were possible. Trilling, shaken by the bomb, had developed a stammer, but Greenleaf seemed fine. Certainly, he was up to the task of re-interviewing the Dutchman and informing him of Witch’s devastating double-cross. Would the Dutchman’s employers believe that he didn’t know anything about it? Or would they suspect he must have been in on it with Witch?

Always supposing it was a double-cross. It was. The Dutchman was evidence of that.

The Dutchman was scared. They allowed him to watch the news reports on TV, just so he would know this was no bluff. He did not blink as he watched. And afterwards, with the tape recorders turning, he talked. But he had little enough to say. He told Greenleaf about Crane, told him where to find Christine Jones (they were close to finding her anyway, thirsty and frightened but otherwise unharmed). He wouldn’t say anything about the men who’d employed him in the first place, the men who’d paid him to liaise with Witch. But he did admit to meeting her in Paris, at the Australian’s apartment.

He did not, however, know the answer to the question: why Barker? He kept shaking his head disbelievingly. “They paid her a million,” he kept saying, “a million to kill the U.S. President... and she pulls a stunt like this.” He looked up at Greenleaf. “She must be crazy.”

Greenleaf tended to agree.

The media, of course, had their own ideas. First reaction was that the double blow was the work of the IRA, of at least two active service units, one attacking the motorcade while the other abducted the Home Secretary. This made sense to the reporters: who else but the IRA would go to so much trouble to kidnap the Home Secretary? Then the speculation started, all about IRA “cells” in London and how there might be more of them, about safe houses where the gang (numbering at least a dozen) could be hiding. There was a blackout on the real story, of course. None of Jonathan Barker’s neighbors had been allowed to speak to the media, and those who had had been disbelieved. One woman? No news editor was going to believe that. So the idea of the gang stuck, and Londoners were asked to keep their eyes open for anything suspicious.

London, thought Elder: that’s the last place she’ll be. He was sitting in Joyce Parry’s office. Outside, Barclay was showing Dominique around. It looked as though MI5 had adopted her, which didn’t bother Elder: a friend in the DST camp would no doubt be welcome at the department, and especially one who might rise through the ranks... There had been a potential spot of bother earlier on, when some furious policemen had tried to arrest her for taking their car, but Elder had calmed them.

He was calm himself now; well, calmer. Again, they’d come so close and yet were back to square one. For a couple of naive, undisciplined cavaliers, Barclay and Dominique hadn’t done so badly. He took The Times obituary column from his pocket and read it again. Had this started the whole thing rolling in Witch’s mind? Had this somehow persuaded her that instead of fulfilling her objective she should run away with the Home Secretary? It still didn’t make sense. Marion Barker, née Rose. Secretary to Jonathan Barker... then his first wife died and later on he married Marion. Nothing so unusual about that. Tireless worker for various charities and so on. Lifelong interest in spiritualism... What else did he know about her? What did he know about Jonathan Barker? Not much.

“Dominic, sorry I’ve been so long.” Joyce Parry came into the room, went to her desk, and began lifting files out of her briefcase.

“How did it go?”

“PM’s furious, of course. He doesn’t know what’s worse, the scratches on the delegates’ limos or someone buggering off with Jonathan Barker.” She looked down at him. “You got close.”

“Not close enough. If I’d let Barclay go on digging last night instead of sending him off to bed...”

“Don’t blame yourself. I don’t know anyone who’s done more on this.”

“Barclay has. So has Miss Herault.”

“And whose idea was it to involve Barclay in the first place?”

He smiled. “As you know, my motives at the time were not exactly...”

“Honorable?”

He nodded.

“Well, honorable or not, we came bloody close.”

“Is that what you told the PM?”

“Of course. No doubt Commander Trilling will tell him something else entirely, but we’ll see.” She sat down at last, leaning back in her chair, arms falling down over its sides. A brief smile passed between them, a shared memory of the previous night. Then it was back to business. “So what now?”

Elder sat forwards. “Joyce, I need to see the file on Barker. I mean the real file, warts and all.”

She formed her lips into an O. “Absolutely not.”

“Joyce...”

“Do you know how restricted that is? I hardly get access to those files.”

“Joyce, you’ve got to understand. His wife’s obituary set Witch off. The answer’s got to lie somewhere in Barker’s past, or somewhere in his wife’s. Jonathan Barker’s life is at stake here. I think he’d want me to see that file.”

She was shaking her head. She was still shaking it as she sighed and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Now, Joyce, it’s got to be now.”

“Dominic, it’s not that simple.”

“Yes it is. Get the file, Joyce. Please.”

She looked at him, considering. “You always have to take shortcuts, don’t you?”

“Always.”

“You want her badly.”

“Very badly,” he agreed.

Joyce Parry sat for a moment, her eyes on her desk. “I’ll get the file,” she said at last.

Sitting in Joyce Parry’s office a little later, Michael Barclay looked decidedly grumpy. And not without cause. Everything he’d shown Dominique, from his computer to his wastepaper bin, had been received with a shrug and five short words: “We have better in France.” She’d been impressed by none of it. She sat beside him now, one leg crossed over the other, her foot waggling in the air, and looked around the room. Inwardly, she was still crackling. Her drive through the London streets had been exhilarating. They’d come so close to confronting the assassin. And yet in the end, it was reduced to this: sitting around in an office waiting for something to happen. She felt she would explode with the energy inside her. Why didn’t someone do something?

Dominic Elder knew what she was thinking. It was the sort of thing he’d have been thinking twenty-five years ago. Who needs patience? Let’s get out there and hunt. Only just over two years ago, that same instinct had led him straight to retirement and a scar that would never disappear.

“The gang’s all here,” said Joyce Parry, walking through the ever-open door. She paused inside the room, turned, and closed the door behind her. Then she went to her desk and sat down. She did not have a file with her.

“Nobody told me there was going to be a party,” she said to Elder, having first smiled a greeting towards Dominique.

“I thought, after what they’ve been through, Mr. Barclay and Miss Herault deserved not to be left out of anything at this late stage.”

It smacked of a prepared speech. Parry didn’t reply to it. Instead she said, “I’ve changed my mind.”

“Yes, so I see.”

“I’ve read the file, Dominic. There’s a lot in there that isn’t relevant to this case.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I can’t. So instead of reading the file, you can question me. I’ll answer anything. That way, whatever isn’t touched upon isn’t touched upon. It stays secret. Agreed?”

Elder shrugged. “It seems a long-winded way of —”

“Agreed?”

“Agreed,” he said. Barclay and Dominique were paying attention now, their own problems forgotten. Dominique burst in with the first question.

“Is the Home Secretary suspected of being a double agent?”

Joyce Parry smiled. “No,” she said.

“I think you’re on the wrong track,” Elder told Dominique gently. “What we have here is something altogether more... personal.” He turned to Parry. The idea, growing in his mind these past hours, was monstrous, almost unthinkable. Yet it had to be tested. “Did Jonathan Barker have an affair with his secretary?”

“Which secretary?”

“Marion Rose.”

Joyce Parry nodded. “That’s my understanding.”

“This was before his first wife died?”

“Yes.”

“Long before she died?”

“Probably, yes. A number of years.”

Elder nodded thoughtfully. Doyle had known something about it, had heard some rumor. Hence his nickname for Barker. “Did his wife know?”

“I shouldn’t think so. She wasn’t the type to keep that sort of knowledge to herself.”

Now Barclay interrupted. “There’s no suspicion surrounding her death?”

“No, the postmortem was meticulous. She died from natural causes.”

“To wit?”

“Lung cancer. She was a heavy smoker.”

“Yes,” said Elder, “so I seem to remember. What about Barker during this time?”

“What time?”

“The time he was having an affair with Marion Rose. How was his career shaping up?”

“Pretty well. He wasn’t quite in politics then, of course. But he was in the running for a candidacy. He got it, won the seat, and that was him into parliament.”

“At quite a young age.”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Yes, twenty-nine. No children by the first marriage?”

“No.”

“Did the first marriage have its problems then?”

“Not that we know of. Apart from the glaring fact that Barker was having at least one affair.”

“This was his second marriage — Marion’s first?”

“That’s right.”

“A quiet woman?”

“Yes, until recently. I mean, her profile increased.”

“Mmm, the image-men got their hands on her. Charitable good works and so on, but unassuming with it... the model MP’s wife.”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“He didn’t get into parliament at the first attempt, did he?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he lost.”

“Yes, but why did he lose?”

A shrug. “Swing to the —”

“But why, Joyce?”

She paused, swallowed. “There was a rumor he was a bit of a ladies’ man. A localized rumor, but it put enough voters off.”

“But by the second by-election?”

“He was cleaner than clean.”

“And has been since?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s risen and risen.”

“Not exactly meteoric, though.”

“No, slow, meticulous, I agree with you there. And there’ve been no scandals?”

“Not in parliament, no.”

“But outside parliament?”

“Just the one you referred to, and that was never public.”

“What? His fling with Marion? Mmm, wouldn’t have gone down well, though, would it? Wouldn’t go down well even now, even as ancient history — MP sleeping with secretary while wife’s dying of cancer. Bit of a black mark. He was a millionaire?”

“By the time he was twenty-one.”

“Father’s money?”

“Mostly, yes, but he put it to good use.”

“A wise investor.”

“A chain of record shops, actually, just in time to clean up on the Beatles and the Stones.”

“Like I say, a wise investor.” Elder rubbed at his forehead. “To get back to his affair with Marion, what do we know about it?”

“You tell me.”

“All right,” said Elder, “I will. What happened to the child?”

“Child?”

“There was a child, wasn’t there?”

Joyce Parry looked down at the desk. “We don’t know for sure.”

“No? But there were ‘localized rumors,’ yes?”

“Yes.”

“Dear me, a pregnant secretary, a wife dying of cancer, and he’s put himself forward as a constituency candidate. Maybe for the second and potentially the last time. I mean, the last time if he didn’t win.” Elder tutted and turned to Barclay. “What would you do, Michael?”

Barclay started at the mention of his name, then thought for a second. “If I was a millionaire... pay off the secretary. She could go and look after the kid in secret, a monthly allowance or something.”

“Mmm... what about you, Miss Herault?”

“Me?” Dominique looked startled. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I would perhaps persuade my lover to abort.”

Elder nodded. “Yes, that’s probably what I’d do. What about you, Joyce?”

“An abortion, yes, if she’d agree to it.”

“Ah...” Elder raised his index finger. “If she’d agree to it. What if she wouldn’t?”

“Tell her it’s finished between us?” suggested Barclay.

“That would break her heart, Michael,” said Elder. “She loves you. She’d do anything but leave you. It would turn her against you if you spurned her. She might go to anybody with her story, the papers, the TV, anybody.”

“Then we’re back to square one,” said Joyce Parry.

“If she loves this man,” said Dominique, “surely she will agree eventually to the termination, no?”

“Yes,” said Elder. “Yes, she’d agree all right. The question is: would she go through with it?”

Dominique gave a big shrug. “We cannot ask her, she is dead... isn’t she?”

“Oh yes, she’s dead all right.”

“Then who can we ask? I do not understand.”

“It’s not as though we’ve got a crystal ball,” said Barclay.

“Michael,” said Elder, turning to him and slapping a hand down onto his knee, “but that’s precisely what we have got. And that’s exactly what we’ll use...”

With Trilling’s blessing, Greenleaf took a breather long enough for him to visit Doyle in hospital. Doyle’s head had been bandaged, and his face was bruised. He was awake but kept his eyes tightly shut for most of the short visit and complained of a thumping headache. A nurse had warned Greenleaf of this, and he had been told not to spend too long “with your friend.”

Walking towards the bed, Greenleaf wondered about that word “friend.” Were Doyle and he friends? Certainly they were closer than they had been a scant fortnight before. They worked well enough together, but that was only because they were so utterly different in outlook and temperament. The shortcomings of each were made up by the other.

The hospital was hectic. Victoria Street victims, being treated for cuts and shock. In some operating theater, they were working on what remained of Traynor’s leg. But Doyle’s ward was quiet enough. He was lying with his head propped on a single white pillow. They’d changed him out of his suit and into regulation pajamas, thick cotton with vertical stripes the color of uncooked liver. The nurse had asked Greenleaf what they should do with Mr. Doyle’s handgun. Greenleaf carried it with him now, inside a rolled-up white carrier. Doyle’s shoulder holster was in there, too.

Greenleaf still hadn’t handed in his own gun. Somehow he was getting used to it, nestling beneath his jacket there.

“Hello, Doyle.” He dragged a chair over to the bedside. The cabinet was empty save for a jug of water and a plastic cup. Greenleaf placed the carrier beside the water jug. Doyle opened his eyes long enough to watch this happening.

“Is that my gun in there?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God for that. Thought maybe I’d lost the bloody thing. Bet they’d have taken it out of my wages.”

“There’s these, too.” Greenleaf produced a packet of mints. “From Commander Trilling.”

“It’s the thought that counts, so they say.”

Greenleaf smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Chipper. Can you get me out of here?”

“They’re holding you overnight.”

Doyle groaned. “I was seeing my bird tonight.”

“Give me her number and I’ll send your apologies.”

Doyle grinned, showing stained teeth. “I’ll bet you would, John-boy. No, it’s all right, let her sweat. She’ll be all the keener tomorrow. Have we caught that bitch yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Leading us a merry dance, isn’t she?”

“Have you heard about Barker?”

“Yeah, couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke. What does she want with him?”

Greenleaf shrugged. “Nobody seems to know.”

“We were set up, weren’t we?”

“It looks like she set everybody up, Doyle.”

“Yeah, everybody. What does Elder say?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know much, do you, pal? Where is he?”

“Back in his office, I suppose.”

Doyle tried to sit up, though the effort cost him dear. He gritted his teeth and levered himself onto his elbows. Greenleaf rose from his chair to help, but Doyle growled the offer aside. “Listen,” he said, “stick close to Elder, John. He knows something we don’t, believe me. If anyone catches her, it’s going to be him. Stick close, and we’ll get a pop at her, too. Savvy?”

Greenleaf nodded, then saw that Doyle’s eyes were closed again. “I savvy,” he said. Doyle nodded back at him, and let his head fall back on to the pillow.

Greenleaf was remembering... remembering the note Witch had left for Elder. What special bond was there between them? Maybe Doyle had a point.

“Last time I had a head like this,” Doyle said, “was the morning after that party in the boxing club. Remember it?”

“I remember it.”

Doyle smiled faintly. “Good night that, wasn’t it? Knew back then that you were a good man, John. Knew it even back then.” Doyle’s voice grew slurred and faint. “I’ve still got that French booze. When I get out we’ll have a bit of a party. Good man...”

Greenleaf waited till he was asleep, the breathing regular, then he got up, moved the chair away, and lifted the carrier bag from the bedside cabinet. He touched Doyle’s shoulder lightly, smiling down on the sleeping figure.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he said quietly, almost too quietly to be heard.

Barclay’s car had been brought back from Calais, so they drove south in that. Barclay did the driving, while Dominique sat beside him thumping his leg and demanding that he go faster.

“Either that or we swap places. And turn off that noise.”

“Noise?” Barclay bristled. “That’s Verdi.”

Elder sat alone in the backseat. He wasn’t in a mood for conversation, so he stared from the window and kept his responses brief whenever a question was asked of him, until both Barclay and Dominique seemed to take the hint.

He had seen it suddenly, crystal clear. Barker’s second wife, so recently deceased, had been a spiritualist. When Elder had visited the fairground, the palm reader had been too direct in her denial of having seen Witch. It had jarred at the time, but there’d seemed no real connection until now. His back was burning, and he had to sit forwards in his seat so as not to graze it against the car’s rough fabric. Have patience, Susanne, he thought to himself. Have patience. He knew he was addressing not his daughter but himself.

This time when they reached Brighton he knew exactly where to go. A few of the bigger rides had already been packed away and transported elsewhere. He still had Ted’s list in his diary, all the other fairs taking place in the region.

As they headed for The Level, he sat right forwards, his head between Dominique’s and Barclay’s. “Now listen,” he said, “hopefully I’m going to have a word with a ball-gazer. If she’s still around, that is. I want you two to take a look around... a good look around.”

“You think Witch may be here?”

“It’s possible.”

“Shouldn’t we have some backup?”

“Does she know what you look like?”

“No.”

“Then why do we need backup? Anyway, there’ll be backup. Turn left here.”

Barclay turned left. It was early evening and the fair was doing some business, but not much. A late-afternoon downpour had drenched the spirits of the holidaymakers. Elder knew where Gypsy Rose’s caravan was. It was near the ghost train. Only the ghost train had gone, and in its place was a stall of some kind. But the palmist’s caravan was still there, hooked up to a station wagon. He could see it from the road. “Drop me here,” Elder ordered. The car slowed to a stop, and he got out. “Park at the end of the road and walk back. Remember, you’re on holiday. You’re just having a look. Don’t go behaving like snoopers or coppers or anything else. Just behave... naturally.” The door closed, and Elder watched the car move off. Dominique seemed to put her hand to Barclay’s hair, ruffling it. He watched a moment longer before walking across the grass towards Gypsy Rose Pellengro’s caravan.

“Mr. Elder?”

The man who confronted him was heavy-built, balding. He had his hands deep in the pockets of a windbreaker beneath which he wore a white T-shirt. He looked like a manual worker, maybe a carpenter or builder, but respectable. He was one of Special Branch’s best.

Elder nodded, looking around. “Anything?”

“Quiet as the grave. I don’t know how she affords that Volvo of hers.”

“Her kid has money.”

Late on Sunday night, Joyce Parry had reported to Elder Bandorff’s mentions of tarots, clairvoyance, and psychoanalysis. First thing Monday morning, Elder had briefed the man supplied by Special Branch. Not that he thought Witch would creep back to the fair, but there was always the chance.

Even so, he’d still not been sure of the connection between a gypsy palm reader and a female assassin. Marion Rose, he now knew, was the connection.

“Don’t wander off,” he warned the undercover officer. Then he paused before the caravan door and knocked twice.

“It’s open.”

Elder turned the rickety handle and let himself in.

It took her a moment to recognize him. “I thought you’d be back.”

“Second sight?”

“No, I just got a feeling from you... a bad feeling.”

“You know why I’m here?”

She was seated on a bench at a table, and motioned for him to sit opposite her. A tarot deck lay on the table. She gathered the oversized cards up.

“No,” she said, “I’ve no idea.”

“I don’t know what you call her... what you christened her... but we call her Witch.”

“Witch?” She frowned, shuffling the cards slowly. “Funny name. Nothing to do with your daughter then?”

“You know it’s not.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You knew that day, too. Do you know what she’s done?”

“What?”

He looked around the caravan. There was a small portable TV on the floor in one corner, and a radio on the edge of the sink. “You really don’t know?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Why should I?”

“Surely someone at the fair has said something?”

“What has she done?” she asked, rather too quickly.

“She’s abducted her father.”

Rose Pellengro flinched. A few of the cards fell from her hands to the table. Elder picked up one of them. It was the High Priestess. He picked up another. It was Strength.

“Linking the Abyss to the Centre,” Rose Pellengro murmured, looking at the two cards. She paused. “Abducted? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I thought I was talking to someone with vision,” said Elder disappointedly. “Very well, I’ll make it a bit clearer. She has kidnapped Jonathan Barker.”

The cards fell to the table in a heap. The woman’s cheeks reddened.

“Was Marion Rose one of your... clients?” Elder asked softly.

Rose Pellengro seemed deep in thought. Then she nodded. “Oh yes, she was a regular. We seemed to have an affinity. She’d travel miles to come and see me.”

Elder nodded. “This affinity, she felt it, too, didn’t she? So much so that she confided in you.”

Pellengro smiled. “This was in the days after priests but before psychiatrists. Yes, she told me all about her... her problems.”

“One particular problem, I think.”

“Ah yes, one problem. A large one.”

“She was pregnant by Jonathan Barker, and he wanted her to get rid of the child.”

Rose Pellengro eyed him shrewdly. “You know a lot.”

“But not all of it.”

She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said. “His career had to come first. He twisted her around.”

“What happened?”

“Marion didn’t want to lose the child. She was very religious in her own way. She was a believer. I decided to help her.”

“You took the child, fostered it?”

“As far as Barker was concerned, Marion had gone to a clinic. Actually, she stayed here with me. When the baby was born, I kept it.”

Elder released a long-held breath. This was what he had suspected, the truth of Witch’s identity. “Did she... did the mother keep in touch?”

“Oh yes.” Pellengro sifted through the cards. “At first she kept in touch all the time. I thought maybe Barker would become suspicious, but not him.” She tapped her head. “He was too stupid, his mind only on himself.”

“Then what?”

“Then?” A shrug. “Marion started visiting less and less. By that time, Barker’s wife had died. They were to be married. More children arrived... born in wedlock. Proper children. She stopped coming altogether. She never came again.”

“And the child? The girl?”

A faint smile. “You call her Witch, but to me she’s Brigid Anastasia. Brigid, the Celtic goddess of fire, Anastasia, resurrection. Brigid Anastasia... A real mouthful, isn’t it? I always used to call her Biddy. I brought her up, mister. I educated her as best I could. She was always wild. Wild like fire.” Her eyes were glistening. “She once stabbed a boy who was bothering her. Then at fourteen she ran off with an Irishman. He’d been hanging around the fair for weeks. We were in Liverpool. When she went, I thought he’d killed her or something. But she sent me a letter from Ireland. She sent a lot of letters in the early days. Then she didn’t send any at all. Instead, she’d just turn up at my door. I never even recognized her half the time.”

“But this time... this trip... it was different?”

“Different, yes. Because she’d found out who her mother was.”

“How?”

The woman shrugged again. “She had vague memories of a lady visiting her when she was a toddler, picking her up and hugging her and crying and making her cry, too.” A tear slid down Rose Pellengro’s left cheek. “And when she was a bit older, I told her a little. Not much, but enough.” She sniffed. “Enough so that when she read the death notice... One of the papers had a photo of Marion. Biddy wasn’t daft. She remembered all right. And she knew now who her father was and what he’d done.”

She reached into the cuff of her cardigan and tugged out a small lace handkerchief with which to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

“Did she tell you what she was going to do?”

Pellengro shook her head. “Oh no, nothing like that. She just said she wanted to hear the story. Well, she’s old enough, isn’t she? So I told her the whole thing. I thought maybe she’d... well, I didn’t think she’d... Oh God, what does she want him for?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me, what do you think she’s been doing all these years?”

“She’s never said.”

“And you’ve no idea?”

“I thought maybe a prostitute?”

Elder shook his head.

“What then?”

“Never mind. Where will she take him?”

“God in heaven, how would I know that?”

“We’ve got to find her, you know that, don’t you? If we’re too late, she may be charged with murder.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t kill him, would she? Little Biddy? I know she’s been a bit wild in her time, but she’s a woman now.”

He gripped her hands in his own. “Rosa, tell me what you told her. Tell me everything you told her.”

She stared at him wide-eyed. “Who are you? What are you? Are you the police?”

“I’m a father,” he said.

She blew her nose again, staring at him. Then she began to gather up the tarot, and as she did so, she started to speak.

Almost half an hour later, he made his way out into the evening air. His legs were stiff, and he rubbed them. He gestured to the Special Branch man, who came over to him.

“Stick around,” Elder ordered. “She might come back.”

There was no sign of Barclay and Dominique. He had choices now, several choices, and he was keen to get away from this place. He passed Barnaby’s Gun Stall.

“Here, guv, have a go?” cried the young man. He didn’t recognize Elder. The wooden cut-out was still there, the target destroyed with such accuracy. A young lady... The whole fair was Witch’s cover, because she was part of it and always had been.

Where were they? Then he heard a shriek, and he saw them. Dominique was on the dodgems, Barclay watching from the sidelines and smiling. She shrieked again and tried to avoid a collision, but too late. Elder could not help but be affected by the scene. He stood, leaning against a rail, and watched. Barclay saw him at last and joined him.

“Sorry, sir,” he said.

“No need to apologize, Michael. Let’s call it necessary R and R. Listen, there’s something I want to get from the car. Just point me in the general direction and give me the keys.”

Barclay dug the keys out of his pocket. “The car’s parked on Islingword Road. Top of Richmond Terrace and turn right.”

Elder nodded. “Thanks,” he said, turning away.

“You’re coming back, aren’t you, sir?”

Elder nodded again. He wanted to say, It’s not your fight, it’s not worth the risk. Instead, he glanced towards Dominique. She made up his mind for him.

He wondered what they would do. Maybe a train back to London. Or stay the night in Brighton. Elder had never seen himself as a matchmaker. He didn’t see himself as one now. All he knew was that he had to do this alone. The young couple represented too much baggage, too much of a responsibility. And besides, there was a score he had to settle. Silverfish.

Wolf Bandorff had said Witch hated men. In fact, she hated only the one man. Aged thirteen, she had asked Rose Pellengro about her parents. Rose had told her some of the story, enough to fuel hatred but not enough to identify the people involved. Witch had pressed, but Rose Pellengro would say no more. But the obituary of Marion Barker had struck a chord, and this time, confronted with the name, Rose had admitted the truth. The man who had forced Witch’s mother into discarding her was Jonathan Barker. Suddenly, there was someone for her to focus her vague, long-held hatred on. The Home Secretary.

The young Brigid Anastasia had run away with an Irishman. It was a short sea crossing from Liverpool to Ireland. Maybe the man himself was a terrorist, or maybe she had drifted into the company of terrorists afterwards. Female and a teenager, she would have proved useful to the IRA, running cross-border errands. Perhaps they had even sent her as far as Germany to liaise with Wolfgang Bandorff and his group. From Germany, she’d drifted south to Italy. In a sense, she’d been drifting ever since. She had no cause, no real set of ideals. All she’d had was anger, an anger she could do little to assuage. Until now.

Elder didn’t doubt that she had taken on the London job before discovering her father’s identity. But when she did discover his identity from the newspaper in the Australian’s apartment, she had come to a decision. Instead of going ahead with the assassination, she would carry out a stunning double bluff, fooling both her employers and the security forces. It was no mistake that she’d made such a noisy and messy entry into the country. She’d wanted them to know she was there. And while security had been tightened around the summit, while all that effort and manpower had been focused on the gathering of world leaders, Witch’s real target had gone unnoticed and underprotected. She’d taken her employers’ money, doubtless with thoughts of retirement and disappearance after this last task: dealing with her father.

The Alfa Romeo had been found abandoned off the King’s Road. No doubt she’d switched cars. The Alfa had been stolen the previous night in Croydon. There was no way of knowing from where the second car had been stolen, or what make it was. Police were now on the lookout for any one of forty-six reported stolen vehicles from in and around the London area. Elder had the list with him. Roadblocks had been set up, but only on major roads, a stupid and wasteful procedure only set in motion because it would mean the police were doing something to stop her getting away with it.

Well, Elder was doing something, too. From his talk with Rose Pellengro, he had noted six possible locations, six places where Witch might take her father before... before what? Killing him? Would that be enough for her? Whatever, Elder knew she would not linger over her task, so he dare not linger over his.

Joyce Parry was in a meeting in her office when the telephone buzzed. She picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Parry? Barclay here.”

“Michael, are you still in Brighton?”

“Well... yes, actually.”

She knew from his tone that something was wrong. She sat forwards in her seat. “What is it?”

“It’s Mr. Elder. He’s gone off in my car.”

“Gone off where?”

“We don’t know. He said he had to go and fetch something...”

Joyce Parry rose to her feet, taking the telephone apparatus with her, holding the body of the telephone in one hand, the receiver in the other.

“Has he talked to the palm reader?”

“Yes.”

“What did he find out?”

“He didn’t say.”

Parry let out a sharp hiss of breath.

“Sorry,” said Barclay, sounding despondent.

“Michael, go talk to the palm reader, find out what she told him.” She looked at her visitor, as though only now remembering that he was there. “Hold on a second,” she said into the receiver, before muffling the mouthpiece against her shoulder. “Elder,” she said. “He’s gone haring off in Barclay’s car.”

Greenleaf got up from his chair. “We need a description of the car.” He came to the desk and took a notebook and pen from his pocket.

“Michael?” Parry said into the mouthpiece. “What kind of car is it?” She listened. “White Ford Fiesta, okay. And registration number?” Barclay gave it to her, and she repeated it for Greenleaf. “Right,” she said. “Go talk to Madame Whatever-her-name, and call me straight back.”

“Will do,” said Barclay’s voice. “Just the one thing. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. It’s just come back to me. What was Operation Silver—”

But Joyce Parry was already severing the connection. Greenleaf took the receiver from her and pressed some numbers home, pausing for his call to be answered.

“Inspector Greenleaf here,” he said. “I’ve got a car needs tracing. Notify every force in the country. As soon as anyone sees it, I want to be the first to know. Understood?”

Joyce Parry slumped back down onto her chair and rubbed her face with her hand. Dominic, Dominic. Where the hell are you? And why don’t you ever learn?

He drove first to Salisbury, where, according to Marion Rose, Jonathan Barker had first held her hand, first planted a kiss on her cheek. He had done so as they came out of the cathedral after attending a choral concert. Elder drove up to the cathedral, got out, walked around, got back into the car, cruised around the town for twenty minutes, then headed off. Second stop: a hotel in Henley-on-Thames. Pellengro told him this was where Marion and Barker had first made love. The fortune teller even recalled the hotel’s name.

“In my business, a good memory helps. You sometimes get a client coming back after two or three years. Helps if you can remember what you said to them last time.”

He parked in the hotel car park, and checked the other parked cars for any on the stolen list. None. The hotel itself was busy, but there was no sign of Witch. Tired, he stopped at a burger drive-in and bought coffee, then bought more later when he filled the car with petrol. He was headed north, doing this because, as with the roadblocks, there was nothing else to do. He had no leads, no real ideas. He didn’t have anything.

And no one would thank him for any of this anyway. Running off on his own, just like in the old days. Barclay would tell Joyce, and Joyce would not be pleased. She would not be pleased at all. Last night, she had massaged his back.

“It hasn’t healed,” she said. “I thought by now it would have.”

“Sometimes it clears up, then it starts again.”

She had traced the outline with her finger. “Is it sore?”

“More itchy than sore, but then if I scratch it... yes, it’s sore. And I know what you’re thinking: serves me right. Which is true. I learned my lesson.”

“Did you, Dominic? I wonder. I wonder if Silverfish taught you anything.”

Silverfish, stupid name for a stupid operation. A terrorist cell in London. Kept under surveillance. The mention of a meeting to take place in the city between senior members of four European terrorist organizations. But the whole thing had been botched, the terrorists escaping. Including a woman, a woman Elder thought he knew. There was an immediate clampdown: checks on airports, ferry terminals, fishing ports. One of the terrorists, a Spaniard, was arrested at Glasgow Airport. Then came Charlie Giltrap’s phone call.

“Might be something or nothing, Mr. Elder, just that there’s this woman been sleeping rough in an empty lot near all that building work in Docklands. She don’t talk, and she don’t look right, if you know what I mean. I mean, she don’t fit in.”

Which had been enough to send Elder down to Docklands, to an area of scrapyards, building sites, and derelict wastes. It was late evening, and he hadn’t told anyone he was going. He’d just do a recce, and if backup was needed, he’d phone for it.

Besides, he had his Browning in his pocket.

After half an hour’s hunting, he saw a crouched figure beside what remained of a warehouse wall. It was eating sliced white bread from a bag, but scurried off mouselike at his approach. So he followed.

“I only want a word,” he called. “I’m not going to move you on or anything. I just want to talk.”

He cornered her in the shell of another building. It had no roof left, just four walls, a gaping doorway, and windows without glass. She was crouched again, and her eyes were fearful, cowed. But her clothes weren’t quite ragged enough, were they? He came closer.

“I just want to talk.”

And then he was close enough to stare into her eyes, and he knew. He knew it was all pretense. She wasn’t fearful or cowed or anything like that. She was Witch. And she saw that he knew.

And she was fast. The kick hit his kneecap, almost shattering it. He stumbled, and the flat edge of her fist chopped into his throat. He was gagging, but managed somehow to get the gun out of his pocket.

“I know you,” she said, kicking the gun cleanly out of his hand. “You’re called Elder. You’ve got a nice thick file on me, haven’t you?” Her next kick connected her heel to his temple. Fresh pain flared through him. “You call me Witch.” Her voice was calm, almost ethereal. A kick to the ribs. Christ, what kind of shoes was she wearing? They were like weapons. “You’re called Dominic Elder. Even we have our sources, Mr. Elder.” Then she chuckled, crouching in front of him, lifting his head. It was dark, he couldn’t make out... “Dominic Elder. A priest’s name. You should have been a priest.”

Then she rose and he heard her footsteps crunch over gravel and glass. She stopped, picked up his pistol. He heard her emptying the bullets from it. “Browning,” she mused. “Not great.” Then the gun hit the ground again. And now she was coming back towards him. “Will you put this in your file, Mr. Elder? Or will you be too ashamed? How long have you been tracking me?”

She was lifting his arms behind him, slipping off his jacket.

“Years,” he mumbled. He needed a few moments. A few moments to recover. If she’d give him a few more moments, then he’d...

“Years? You must be my biggest fan.” She chuckled again, and tore his shirt with a single tug, tore it all the way up his back. He felt his sweat begin to chill. Christ, what was...? Then her hand came to within an inch of his face and lifted a piece of broken glass. She stood up, and he thought she was moving away again. He swallowed and began to speak.

“I want to ask you something. It’s important to me.”

Too late, he felt her foot swinging towards him. The blow connected with his jaw, sending him spinning out of pain and into darkness.

“No interviews,” she was saying. “But I’d better give my biggest fan an autograph, hadn’t I?”

And then, with Elder unconscious, she had carved a huge letter W into his back, and had left him bleeding to death. But Charlie Giltrap had decided Elder might need help. It was a rough area down there; a man like Mr. Elder... well, he might need a translator if nothing else. Charlie had found him. Charlie had called for the ambulance. Charlie had saved Elder’s life.

One hundred and eighty-five stitches they gave him. And he lay on his front in a hospital bed feeling each and every one of them tightly knitting his skin. His hearing had been affected by one of her kicks — affected temporarily, but it gave him little to do but think. Think about how fast she’d been, how slow he’d been in response. Think of the mistake he’d made going there in the first place. Think maybe it was time for an easier life.

But, really, life hadn’t been easier since. In some ways it had been harder. This time he’d shoot first. Then maybe his back would heal, maybe the huge scar wouldn’t itch anymore.

His next stop was another hotel, this time near Kenilworth Castle, the probable site of Witch’s conception. Barker, usually so cautious, had one night drunk too many whiskeys, and wouldn’t let his secretary say no later on, after closing time, up in their shared room. The hotel was locked and silent for the night. There were only two cars in the car park and neither was on the stolen list. Three more to go: York, Lancaster, and Berwick. If he pushed on, he could have them all checked by late morning. If he pushed on.

Dominique booked them into the hotel, pretending that Barclay also was French and could speak no English. The receptionist looked disapproving.

“Any luggage?” she sniffed.

“No luggage,” said Dominique, barely suppressing a giggle. The woman stared at her from over the top of her half-moon glasses. Dominique looked back over her shoulder to where Barclay stood just inside the hotel door. She motioned for him to join her, but he shook his head, causing her to giggle again before calling to him: “I need some money!”

So at last, reluctantly, he came towards the desk. He was worried about Dominic Elder. He’d argued that they should go back to London, but Dominique, pragmatic as ever, had asked what good that would do? So instead they’d had a few drinks and eaten fish and chips out of paper. And they’d played some of the machines in the pier’s amusement arcade.

“This is a family hotel,” warned the receptionist.

They both nodded towards her, assuring her of their agreement. So she gave them a key and took their money and had them sign their names in the register. When Barclay signed himself Jean-Claude Separt, Dominique nearly collapsed. But upstairs, suddenly alone together in the small room with its smells of air freshener and old carpet, they were shy. They calmed. They grew sober together, lying dressed on the top of the bed, kissing, hugging.

“I wonder where Elder is,” Barclay said at last.

“Me, too,” murmured Dominique drowsily.

He continued to stroke her hair as she slept, and he turned his head towards the large window, through which seeped the light and the noises of nighttime. He thought of Susanne Elder, and of Dominique’s father. He hoped Dominic Elder would get an answer to his question. Later still, he closed his own eyes and prayed for restful dreams...

It wasn’t quite dawn when Elder reached York. The streets were deserted. This was where Marion had told Barker she was pregnant, and where he’d insisted she have an abortion. Poor Marion, she’d chosen the time and the place to tell him. She’d chosen them carefully and, no doubt to her mind, well. A weekend in York, a sunny Sunday morning. A stroll along the city walls. Radiant, bursting to tell him her news. Poor Marion. What had she thought? Had she thought he’d be pleased? She’d been disappointed. But where on the city wall had she told him? Pellengro hadn’t known, so neither would Witch. Elder, many years ago, had walked the circuit of York’s protective city wall. He knew it could take him an hour or more. He parked near Goodramgate, a large stone archway. There was a flight of steps to the side of the “gate” itself leading up on to the ramparts. A small locked gate stood in his way, but he climbed over it. It struck him that Witch would have trouble dragging a prone body over such a gate. But on second thoughts, he couldn’t imagine the Home Secretary would have much trouble climbing over it with a gun pointing at his back.

Parts of the wall were floodlit, and the street lighting was adequate for his needs. The sky was clear and the night cold. He could see his breath in the air in front of him as he walked. He could only walk so far in this direction before the wall ended. It started again, he knew, a little farther on. He retraced his steps and crossed Goodramgate, this time walking along the wall in the direction of York Minster itself. He hadn’t gone ten yards when he saw the body. It was propped against the wall, legs straight out in front of it. He bent down and saw that it was Jonathan Barker. He’d been shot once through the temple. Elder touched Barker’s skin. It was cool, slightly damp. The limbs were still mobile however. He hadn’t been dead long. Elder stood up and looked around him. Nobody, obviously, had heard the shot. There were houses in the vicinity, and pubs and hotels. It surprised him that no one had heard anything. A single shot to the temple: execution-style. Well, at least it had been quick.

There was a sudden noise of impact near him, and dust flew from the wall.

A bullet!

He flattened himself on the wall, his legs lying across Barker’s. He took his pistol from its shoulder holster and slipped off the safety. Where had the shot come from? He looked around. He was vulnerable up here, like a duck on a fairground shooting range. He had to get back to the steps. She was using a silencer. That’s why nobody had heard anything. A silencer would limit her gun’s range and accuracy, so probably she wasn’t that close. If she’d been close, she wouldn’t have missed. She was somewhere below, in the streets. He decided to run for it, moving in an awkward crouch, pistol aimed at the space in front of him, in case she should appear. She did not. He scrambled back down the steps and over the gate. The city was silent. Outside the walls, a single car rumbled past. He knew he’d never reach it in time. His own car was less than fifty yards away in any case. But he’d no intention of returning to it. He had come this far. He wasn’t going to run.

A sound of heels on cobblestones. Where? In front of him, and fading. He headed into the narrow streets of the old city, following the sound. The streets were like a maze. He’d been lost in them before, unable to believe afterwards that there were so few of them... just as those lost in a maze cannot believe it’s not bigger than it is.

He couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. He stood for a moment, turning his head, listening intently. Then he moved on. The streets grew, if anything, narrower, then widened again. A square. Then more streets. Christ, it was dark. Backup. He needed backup. Was there a police station anywhere nearby? Noise, voices... coming into the square. Three teenagers, two girls and one boy. They looked drunk, happy, heading home slowly. He hid his gun in its holster and ran up to them.

“Have you seen a woman?”

“Don’t need to, I’ve got two here.” The boy gave the two girls a squeeze.

Elder attempted a sane man’s smile. “Is there a police station?”

“No idea.”

“Are you in trouble?” asked one of the girls. Elder shook his head.

“Just looking for my... my wife. She’s tall, younger than me. We managed to get separated, and...”

“On holiday are you? Thought so.”

“Here, we did see that woman... where was she? Stonebow?”

There were shrugs.

“Down that way,” said the girl, pointing.

“Thanks,” said Elder. As he moved off, he heard the boy say “Silly sod” quite loudly. The girls giggled.

Down this way. Hold on, though... He stopped again. What was he doing? Witch had already taken a shot at him. She knew he was here. So why not let her find him? Was she behind him, following, watching patiently as he ran himself ragged? That would be typical of her, biding her time until he was exhausted, then catching him off guard. Yes, he could run this maze for hours and never find her. Not unless she wanted to be found. He walked back the way he’d come, glancing behind him. What he needed was a dead end, and he found one: an alleyway leading from The Shambles. He staggered into it, tipping over a litter bin, and leaned against the wall, breathing hoarsely, coughing. One hand was against the wall, supporting him, the other was inside his jacket, as though holding his ribs or rubbing away a stitch. Whenever he paused in his loud breathing, there was silence around him, almost oppressively heavy. And inside him, a pounding of blood.

“Hey, priest.” Her voice was quiet. He had not heard her approach. He turned his head slowly towards the mouth of the alley. It was dark in the alley itself, but the street was illuminated. He knew he could see her better than she could see him. But she knew it, too. Perhaps that’s why she was standing to one side of the alley’s mouth, partly hidden by the corner of the wall. She was aiming a pistol at him.

She looked different. Not just physically different — that was to be expected — but somehow calmer, at peace.

“Are you satisfied now?” he asked between intakes of breath. “Now that your father’s dead?”

“Ooh, Mr. Elder, and there I was thinking age had slowed you down. Yes, I’m satisfied.” She paused. “Just about.” The gun was steady in her hand. She had made no attempt to enter the alley itself. Why should she? It was a dead end. He was not going to escape.

“What now? Retirement?” he asked. “Your Dutch friend tells us you were paid a million dollars for the assassination.”

“A million, yes. Enough to buy a lot of retirement. What about you, Mr. Elder? I thought you were retired, too.”

“I was, but how could I turn down the chance of finding you?”

He saw her smile. “Finding me again,” she corrected. “Tell me, Mr. Elder, how’s your back?”

“Good as new.”

“Really?” She was still smiling. “You must be ready for another autograph, then. Something a bit more permanent.”

“Do you remember,” he said, “in Docklands, just before you gave me that final kick...?”

“You started to ask me a question.”

“That’s right. I want to ask it now. It’s important to me.” He paused. “It’s the reason I’ve been hunting you so long.”

“Go ahead and ask.”

He swallowed drily, licked his lips. His mouth felt coated with bad coffee.

“Paris, eight years ago, in June. A bomb went off in a shopping arcade. Was it you?”

She was silent for a tantalizing moment. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“No, it was either you or it wasn’t.”

“No interviews allowed.” Her finger began to squeeze the trigger.

Elder called out: “Biddy, no!”

The use of her real name froze her for a second. A second was all Elder needed. The hand inside his jacket was already gripped around the Browning’s butt. He swung and fired, diving farther back into the darkness as he did so. He fired off three shots, stumbling backwards all the time, seeking safety in the shadows and the dustbins and the stacks of empty boxes. Three shots. None of them returned. He waited, listening. Some dogs had been startled awake and were barking in the distance. A window opened somewhere nearby.

“What the hell was that?” he heard a voice say. “Sounded like guns. Call the police, love.”

Yes, call the police. Slowly, Elder got to his feet and walked to the mouth of the alley, keeping close to the wall, his gun hand hanging at his side. Then he stuck his head out into the street.

And the cold metal mouth of a pistol touched his forehead.

Witch was standing there, smiling unsteadily. Her grip on the gun wasn’t steady either. She was wounded. He daren’t take his eyes off hers, but he could see a dark stain spreading across her right side. She placed the palm of her hand against it, then lifted the hand away, her fingers rubbing slickly against each other. Elder could smell the blood.

“Biddy,” he said, “you don’t hate me.” His whole head felt numb from the touch of the pistol against his brow. He felt dizzy, giddy. Witch’s smile grew wider.

“Hate you? Of course I don’t hate you. It’s just that I don’t want to...” she swallowed “...to disappoint you.” She fell against the shopfront, her gun arm dropping to her side. Elder took hold of her and eased her down so that she was sitting on the ground, legs in front of her, back resting against the shopfront, the same rag-doll posture in which she’d left her father. Only then did he remove the pistol from her hand. From the lack of resistance in her fingers he knew she was dying, if not already dead. He heard feet running, several pairs of feet, and calls.

“Down this way?”

“No, down here.”

“The car’s parked at Goodramgate.”

“Try The Shambles.”

“Take that street there...”

And then someone was standing in front of him.

“Found him!” the voice called. It belonged to a uniformed constable. The constable looked young, still in his teens. He stared in horror at the bloody bundle nestling against Dominic Elder.

“Is she...?”

And now more footsteps. “Dominic! Are you all right?”

Joyce crouched down in front of him, her eyes finding a level with his. He nodded.

“I’m fine, Joyce. Really.” He looked up. Greenleaf was standing there, too, now, pistol in his hand, not looking at Elder but at Witch.

“Here she is, John,” said Elder, still holding the unmoving body. “Here’s what all the fuss was about. A kid who didn’t like her dad.”

“Her dad?”

“Jonathan Barker. He’s on the wall between Goodramgate and the Minster.”

“Not alive, I presume?”

“Not alive, no.” Elder looked down at Witch again. She looked like Christine Jones. Now, she would always look like Christine Jones in his mind, just as for two years she’d looked like a down-and-out. He wondered what she looked like really. He wondered if even she knew.

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

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

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