‘A lock-up?’
‘You know, a garage. I used to live in a block of flats, we all had a garage down near the road. And we all opened our garages with a key like this.’
Elder examined it more closely. ‘It’s British, by the look of it. You think he’s got a flat then?’
‘No, or he’d have a key for it, too. I think he’s rented a garage. Maybe he’s been holing up in it, maybe he’s just using it for storage while he lives elsewhere.’
‘Storage ... now what would he be storing in a garage?’ Elder looked up. ‘I’m glad you came, John.’
Greenleaf shrugged. ‘Doyle would’ve told you the same thing.’
‘But he didn’t. You did.’
There wasn’t much else of interest: a one-day travelcard, a tube-map, and two pages pulled from an A-Z, showing the centre of London from Bloomsbury to Victoria to the Elephant and Castle to Farringdon.
‘Can’t see any markings,’ said Greenleaf. ‘Can you?’
‘No,’ said Elder. ‘But maybe there are pressure points where a pencil or something’s been pressed against the page. Better get it into a poly bag and let forensics take a look. You know we got some glasses?’
‘Glasses?’
‘And a bottle. Our Dutch friend was nabbed in a wine-bar.’
‘That much I knew.’
‘He’d been drinking with a young woman. The barman’s given us a description.’
‘Witch’s latest incarnation?’
‘Maybe. Anyway, there were two glasses on the table. We’ve got them.’
‘So maybe we’ll end up with Witch’s prints?’
‘If nothing else, yes. Not that we’ve got anything to match them against.’ Elder turned to the desk sergeant. ‘Can we have a poly bag for this map?’
‘Right away, sir.’
Elder turned back to Greenleaf. ‘Give me an educated guess,’ he said. ‘How long to check every lock-up in the London area?’
‘An educated guess?’ Greenleaf did some calculations. ‘About four and a half months.’ Elder smiled. ‘That’s always supposing,’ Greenleaf went on, ‘we were given the manpower, which is doubtful anyway. All the time I’m on Operation Broomstick, the caseload’s just growing higher and higher on my desk. It’s not going to go away.’
‘It’ll soon be over,’ Elder said quietly. ‘One way or the other, it’ll soon be finished.’
The desk sergeant, returning with a clear plastic bag, was chuckling and shaking his head.
‘What’s the joke?’ asked Greenleaf, taking the bag from the desk sergeant. He held it open so Elder could drop the map inside.
‘Oh, nothing really. Just some of the lads. Two would-be muggers, big bastards by the sound of them, they picked on this slip of a girl near Covent Garden. Only, she’d been to self-defence classes. Gave them a terrible pasting the way the lads are telling it.’ He chuckled again, not noticing the fixed way in which Elder and Greenleaf were staring at one another.
‘Did you happen to speak with her?’ Elder asked, calmly.
‘Speak to her? She was here in the station till half an hour ago.’ He saw the look on Dominic Elder’s face. ‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Barclay sat that afternoon at his old desk in his old office. It seemed like an eternity since he’d last been there. He found it hard to believe that in the past he’d been satisfied with just his information base and his computer console. He was itching to be elsewhere, to be in the thick of things. But he knew Joyce Parry wouldn’t let him out of her sight. So he’d spent the morning trying to be professional, trying not to let it worry him or niggle at him or scoop away at his insides. He’d tried. At least he could say he’d tried. He’d handed his report to Joyce Parry first thing. Not that there was anything in it she hadn’t heard on the trip back last night. He hadn’t left anything out: bugging Separt’s apartment, Dominique disguising herself and going to see the Australian, wearing a wire which Barclay had made for her. And then the journey to Germany, and Dominique’s revelation that nothing they’d done had been sanctioned.
He felt like a shit as he typed it all in, felt he was somehow letting Dominique down. But she was probably doing exactly the same thing, thinking much the same thoughts. Neither of them wanted to lose a good job. Besides, doubtless Joyce Parry would cross-check Barclay’s testimony against that given by Dominique. If he left anything out, anything she’d admitted to ... well, that would only count against him.
Joyce Parry had listened to him in silence mostly, with only the occasional shake of the head or disbelieving gasp. And she accepted the report from him with a slight nod of the head and no words. So now he had to wait. He had to sit at his desk and wait to see if his resignation would be asked for, or a demotion agreed, or whatever. Maybe he’d end up sweeping the corridors. He hadn’t felt as nervous as this since he’d been a schoolboy, caught playing truant and left waiting outside the headmaster’s door. What he’d dreaded then was a letter home to his parents. The guilt and shame of having been caught. But now, uneasy as he was, he was pleased too. He’d had a few days of real adventure, and if he could go back, he’d do the same again. He allowed himself a private smile. Maybe Mrs Parry was right, maybe Dominic Elder was the kind of person who used those around him then tossed them away. It didn’t bother Barclay.
He’d tried phoning Dominique three times this morning, with no reply. The international operator couldn’t help. He wondered if the phone was off the hook, and if so why. He’d also forwarded a copy of his report to Profiling, as Joyce Parry had told him to do. See what the mind doctors could make of it. Something was niggling him, something he knew he’d been going either to tell Joyce Parry or to ask her. It had been at the back of his mind for several days - before Germany, maybe even before Paris. As a result, it had now slipped from his mind altogether. Something he’d been going to say. But what?
He shook it away. If he left well alone, it would come back to him. He stared at the wall above his desk: the venomous Valentine, the Fire Drill, and the quotation he’d pinned there on a piece of memo paper - this fluke called life.
He plunged a hand into his full in-tray. Reports to be read, classified, passed on. His daily bread. He’d been given a sod of a job, collating ‘trigger words’. It was a little known fact that the technology existed not only to monitor telephone calls but to zero in on calls containing certain words - trigger words. It was a miracle of computer technology, but also highly fallible. The word ‘assassination’ for example was unlikely to crop up in a conversation between two terrorists, whereas it might in a chat between two gossipy neighbours. And the word ‘summit’ posed problems too, being a homonym shared with the abbreviated form of ‘something’. Yes, highly fallible but potentially invaluable.
Currently, specifically, there was another problem, in that ‘Witch’ sounded like ‘which’ ... and people on the telephone said ‘which’ an awful lot of times. Dominic Elder had requested that Witch become a trigger word, clutching at yet another straw.
Barclay’s task was to deal with the information handed on to him by the trigger system, which meant checking the details of callers who had used a trigger word. It was a lot of work, but he was not alone. Others, too, were feeding telephone numbers into computers, seeing whether any of the callers were known terrorist sympathisers or suspect aliens, or even just suspect. A lot of work and a lot of futile effort. Somehow, from what he knew of her, Barclay couldn’t imagine Witch picking up a receiver and saying, ‘Hello, Witch here. It’s about that assassination I’m carrying out at the summit ...’ He started to tap the first set of details into his computer.
‘Barclay.’
It was Parry’s voice. By the time he turned, she’d already retreated back into her office. Ah well, this was it then. He took a deep breath and got to his feet, surprised to find his legs so steady beneath him. He walked to her office doorway and knocked once on the door. She motioned him in. She was reading something on her desk, one
of many reports that would pass through her hands that day, as every day. She took off her glasses before speaking.
‘Mr Elder wants you down at the Conference Centre,’ she said casually.
‘What? Why?’
‘His argument runs that you know as much about Witch as anyone, so why waste your - talents - here when you could be helping him.’ She made the word ‘talents’ sound like it was something rotten on her tongue. ‘Let me make one thing clear.’ She looked up at last. ‘You’re not off the hook. Neither of you is off the hook. This is strictly a short-term reprieve, and it can be terminated at a moment’s notice.’
‘Understood, ma’am.’
She nodded, slipped her glasses back on, and returned to her report. ‘What are you waiting for then?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Joyce Parry waited a full sixty seconds after he’d gone before she allowed herself a smile.
Elder was waiting for him in the Conference Centre foyer. ‘Come on,’ he said, moving away as Barclay approached. ‘Let’s get you some official ID.’
Elder moved briskly. He seemed very different to the person Barclay had met in a Welsh cottage garden. He looked like a man who’d discovered his purpose in life ... or, perhaps, rediscovered it. He was a little disappointed though. He’d been expecting more of a welcome. Hadn’t they worked together throughout the French adventure? And hadn’t they both received dressings down for it?
They went to a small room where forms had to be filled in. A glowering woman then asked a few questions before transferring the details from the forms on to a card, typing the details quickly but meticulously. Then Barclay had to sign the card before moving to a booth where his photograph was taken.
‘It’s just like matriculation,’ he said to Elder. But Elder, leaning against a desk, said nothing in reply. At last, the camera disgorged a small plastic-coated card containing the typed details, Barclay’s signature, and a tiny photograph of him. Elder handed him a red and blue striped ribbon attached to a clip at one end and a safety-pin at the other.
‘Clip it on to your lapel,’ he ordered.
Barclay did so. ‘Why the ribbon?’
‘Red and blue means security. There are different ones for media, general staff, delegates ...’
‘You’ve seen my report?’
At last Elder gave a grim smile. ‘Joyce gave me the highlights over the phone.’
Barclay swallowed. ‘And?’
‘And what?’
Barclay waited. ‘Nothing,’ he said.
Elder looked at him. ‘Look, number one, I wouldn’t have got caught. Number two ...’
‘Yes?’
‘Never mind. Come on.’
Elder led the young man back through the corridors. He’d ‘sprung’ Barclay to keep him out of Joyce Parry’s way. She was angry, and with good reason. But then Elder had done her a favour, taking the force of Jonathan Barker’s heat and spending a long Sunday in a fuggy room talking about defending the indefensible. So she was letting Elder have Barclay. He knew he was in a strong position anyway; he could always shuffle back to Wales. But he was also in a very weak position, because he wanted very much to stay put. Joyce was allowing him a lot of rope, more even than he’d expected.
After all, if the shit really did hit the fan, Joyce would be closest.
He saw that Barclay was bursting to talk to him. That was why it wasn’t a good time for them to talk. He’d wait till the young man calmed a little. He knew that Barclay’s career was hanging by a thread, but that had been Barclay’s decision, not his. All the same ... It was true that Elder would have done exactly the same as Barclay all along the line. He’d done as much before. And as for never getting caught ... well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Several times he’d come close to disaster; closer than he liked to admit ...
A message on the already-overworked Tannoy system.
‘Call for Mr Elder. Call for Mr Dominic Elder.’
They made for reception. The place was chaotic. Flowers were being delivered, and nobody seemed to know where they were to go. One-day security passes were being made up for half a dozen sweating florists. The switchboard was jammed with incoming calls, and someone had arrived to fix the malfunctioning baggage X-ray machine. Tomorrow, the summit would begin, and on the surface all would be placid. But underneath they’d be kicking like hell.
‘I’m Dominic Elder,’ he said to a receptionist.
‘What?’ she said, cocking a hand to her ear.
‘Dominic Elder,’ he said, more loudly. ‘There’s a call for me.’
‘Yes, hold on.’ She picked up a receiver and handed it across the desk to him, then flipped a switch. ‘You’re through.’
Elder listened for a moment. ‘Can’t hear a thing,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘It’s pandemonium here. Can you speak up?’
He listened again. Barclay, standing behind him, looked around the foyer. Some people were just entering the building. Instinctively, he knew they were French: their clothes, their gestures, the way they moved. There were two women, one a tall redhead and the other shorter, wearing a red beret and round sunglasses. As she entered the dim interior, she slipped off the sunglasses.
Barclay nearly collapsed. It was Dominique. She saw him, pointed, and laughed. Then she bounced over and kissed him right cheek, left cheek, right and left again.
‘Hello, Michael. What are you doing here?’
‘Never mind me, what are you doing here?’
Elder turned around. ‘Keep the noise down!’
Barclay took Dominique’s arm and led her away from the reception desk. He was trembling and couldn’t control it.
‘I’m here with the French delegation,’ said Dominique.
‘I was expecting you to be in chains in the Bastille.’
She laughed again. ‘There is no Bastille, not for a long time.’
‘Well, you know what I—’
‘Yes, but your superior, the woman ...’
‘Joyce Parry?’
‘Parry, yes. She told Monsieur Roche all about the threat posed by Witch. Our own President could be her target. So now Monsieur Roche is worried. And guess who is the French expert on Witch?’
Barclay nodded, understanding.
‘There may be a punishment for me when I go back to Paris, but for now ...’ She opened her arms wide. ‘Here I am!’
One of her crowd called to her.
‘Oui,’ she called back, ‘j’arrive!‘ She turned back to Barclay. ‘I must go with them.’
‘Yes, but where are you staying? When can I see you? What about tonight?’
‘No, tonight I have to work. But you are attending the summit, so we will meet.’
‘Yes, but—’
There was a sudden tug at his arm. It was Dominic Elder.
‘Come on,’ Elder said, ‘things to do.’
‘Yes, just a—’ But Dominique was waving a farewell as she headed back to the French group.
‘That was Doyle on the phone,’ insisted Elder, still tugging a reluctant Barclay towards the exit. ‘They’ve located Breuckner’s hotel. Let’s go take a look.’
‘What?’ Barclay twisted his neck for a final glimpse of Dominique. She was in conversation with a tall, long-faced man. The man was looking towards Barclay. Dominique was not. ‘Who’s Doyle?’ he said. ‘Who’s Breuckner?’
‘Christ, you are out of touch, aren’t you? Hasn’t Joyce told you anything?’
‘No.’ They were out of the building now.
‘Then I’ll bring you up to date on the way. By the way, was that ... ?’
‘Yes, that was her.’
‘Pretty girl,’ Elder said, pulling Barclay further and further away from her. She reminded him a little of the woman he’d opened the police station door for, the woman he was sure had been Witch. He kept hold of Barclay’s arm. ‘By the way, you’ve got lipstick on both cheeks.’
The hotel in Bloomsbury was every bit as upmarket as Elder had been expecting, this bein
g the age of expense-account terrorism, of legitimised terrorism. You could bomb a place of worship, strafe a busful of women, then a few months later be sitting down to peace talks with a posse of well-known politicians and negotiators, your photo snapped for front-page posterity and the six o’clock news. ‘Very strict about his privacy,’ said the manageress, leading them upstairs. She had her hair swept into a beehive, revealing large ears and a bulbous forehead. ‘Only wanted his room cleaned once a week.’
‘How long has he been a guest, Mrs Hawkins?’
‘Almost a month now. Prompt with payment, beginning of each week.’
‘He paid cash?’
‘Yes, cash. Along here.’ She led them to the room, and produced a key from the folds of her skirt. ‘Very quiet man, but secretive. Well, I always try to mind my business ...’
‘Yes, Mrs Hawkins, thank you. A policeman will be along shortly to take your statement.’
She nodded with sharp jolts of her head. ‘Always happy to help the authorities.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hawkins. Leave the key, and we’ll lock up afterwards.’
‘Right you are.’
‘And remember, nobody else is to enter before the forensics team gets here.’
‘Forensics ...’ She jabbed her head again, then giggled, the tremor running all the way through her large frame. ‘It’s just like on the television, isn’t it?’
Elder smiled. ‘Just so, Mrs Hawkins, just so.’
He pushed Barclay into the room then followed him, closing the door softly but determinedly on the hotelier. Then he swivelled Barclay round to face him.
‘You’ll see her tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Now snap out of it. You’re no good to me like this. I’d be as well sending you back to the bloody office.’
That did it. Barclay straightened up, and his eyes seemed to come into focus.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Okay, now let’s see what we’ve got here. Remember, don’t touch if you don’t need to. We might find some prints when forensics get here—if they ever bother to turn up.’