Witch Hunt (36 page)

The schnapps before bed was probably not necessary. Barclay would have slept on a street of broken glass, never mind between the clean white sheets provided by the Gasthof Hirschen. It had been a hell of a drive. Dominique was of the let’s-press-on school of travel, so that stops were few and far between, and what stops they made were perfunctory. Then a tyre went on the 2CV and the spare turned out to be in a distressed condition. And when a new tyre had been found and fitted, at what seemed to both of them major expense (whether converted into francs or sterling), a small red light had come on on the dashboard, and wouldn’t go off, despite Dominique’s attempts at tapping it into submission with her finger.

‘What is it?’

‘Just a warning light,’ said Dominique.

‘What’s it warning us
of ?’

‘I don’t know. The owner’s manual is under your seat.’

Barclay flicked through it, but his French wasn’t up to the task. So Dominique pulled over and snatched the book from him.

‘You’re welcome,’ Barclay muttered, but she ignored the jibe. He was dying for a cup of tea, and for the simple pleasures of Saturday in London: shopping for clothes and new classical CDs, reading a book or the newspaper with the CD playing on the hi-fi, preparing for a dinner party or drinks...

‘Oil,’ Dominique said.

‘Let’s take a look then,’ said Barclay, getting out of the car. But the bonnet was almost impossible to open and he had to wait for Dominique, who was in no hurry to assist, to come and unhook the thing for him. There was less to the motor than he’d imagined.

‘Do you have a rag or something?’

She shook her head.

‘Fine.’ He tugged a handkerchief from his pocket, pulled out the dipstick, wiped it, pushed it back into place again, and lifted it out again. Dominique consulted the owner’s manual.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The oil level is low.’

‘Practically non-existent.’ Barclay’s voice was furiously calm. ‘And do we have a can of oil with us?’

She looked at him as if he were mad even to ask.

‘Fine,’ he said again.

They were parked by the side of the autobahn. The road itself looked, to Barclay, like some old airstrip, short, pitted concrete sections with joins every few yards. The sound of the 2CV rumbling over each join had become monotonous and infuriating, but even that was preferable to this.

Then it started to rain.

They sat together in the front of the car, not even bothering with the windscreen-wipers. Drops of rain thudded down on the vinyl roof, trickling in at a few places where the vinyl had either perished or been breached. Inside the damp car, not a word was exchanged for several minutes.

‘Well?’ Barclay said at last. ‘Maybe we could make it to the next petrol station.’

‘The last sign was a couple of kilometres back. The next station is sixty kilometres away. We wouldn’t make it, the engine would seize.’

Barclay did not want the engine to seize. ‘So what do you suggest?’

Dominique did not reply. A car was slowing to a stop behind them. A man hurried out and started urinating on to the verge. Dominique watched in her wing-mirror and, when he was finished, dashed out and ran towards him, asking in German whether the man by chance had any spare oil.

‘Ja, natürlich,’
Barclay heard the man reply. He opened the boot of his car and brought out a large can and a plastic funnel. And even though this man was their saviour, Barclay saw why it was that some people disliked the Germans. Their efficiency in the face of one’s own shortcomings merely intensified those shortcomings. And nobody liked to be shown up like that. Nobody.

‘What a nice man,’ said Dominique, cheered by the encounter. She turned the ignition. The red light came on but then went off again. She signalled out into the autobahn and drove off, sounding her horn at the man still parked by the side of the road. She was chatty after that, and eventually succeeded in talking Barclay out of his sullenness. The rain stopped, the clouds cracked open, and there was the sun, where it had been hiding all the time. They rolled back the vinyl roof and, only thirty or forty kilometres further on, stopped in a town for a good hour, grabbing a bite at a café and then simply walking around.

The men stared at Dominique. During the drive, she had become ugly to him, but now Barclay saw her again, petite and full of life, the sort of woman who got noticed even when there were taller, more elegant or more glamorous women around: not that there were many of those in the town. Refreshed, the rest of the drive was a bit easier on the nerves if not on the body. The Gasthof Hirschen, when they’d stumbled upon it, looked just the place to Barclay, more than adequate for an overnight stop. Dominique wasn’t so sure. She’d thought maybe they could press on a little further... But Barclay had insisted. They were only fifty kilometres, if that, from Burgwede. Fifty kilometres from Wolf Bandorff. It was close enough for Barclay. The manager had asked if they would want just the one room. No, they wanted two. And dinner? Oh yes, they definitely wanted dinner.

But first Barclay had taken a bath, lying in it until Dominique had come thumping at his door, trying the doorhandle.

‘I’m starving!’ she called. So Barclay got dressed and met her in the restaurant. After half a bottle of wine, his eyes had started to feel heavy. Then he’d decided to take a schnapps to his room. He’d telephoned Dominic Elder’s London hotel, knowing Elder expected to be back there sometime today. But he wasn’t around, so Barclay left a message and his telephone number. Then he’d fallen asleep ...

The first thing he was aware of was a weight on him. The sheets were tight around him, constricting him. He tried to tug them free, but weight was holding them down. What? Someone sitting on the edge of the bed, halfway down. He tried to sit up, but the weight held him fast. He struggled for the lamp, switched it on. It was Dominique. She was wearing only a long pink T-shirt. It fell, seated as she was, to just above her knees.

‘What is it?’ he said. He was thinking. That door was locked. She’s brought her lockpick’s tools with her. Then he looked at his watch. It was one-fifteen.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. She rose from the bed, padded barefoot to the room’s only chair, and sat down quite primly, knees together and the T-shirt clamped between them. ‘I thought maybe we could talk about Bandorff.’

‘We’ve talked about him.’ Barclay sat up, wedging a pillow between him and the headboard.

‘I know, but I’m ...’

‘Nervous? So am I.’

‘Really?’

He laughed. ‘Yes, really.’

She smiled for a moment, staring at the carpet. ‘I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or not.’

‘Dominique, don’t worry. Like you say, either we find out something or we don’t. Is it me? Are you worried about my superiors finding out?
I’m
not worried,’ he lied, ‘so it’s stupid for
you
to be.’

‘Stupid?’

‘Well, no, not stupid. I mean, it’s very... I’m glad you worry about me. It’s nice of you to worry, but you shouldn’t.’

She came over to the side of the bed and knelt down in front of it. Barclay shifted uneasily beneath the sheets. She stared hard at him.

‘Michael,’ she said, ‘there’s something I want to tell you.’ She paused. The spell seemed to break, and she shifted her gaze to the headboard. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow will be time enough.’ She got back to her feet. ‘I’m sorry I woke you up.’ She smiled again and bent down to kiss his forehead. ‘Try to sleep.’ After the view he’d just had down the front of her T-shirt, he doubted he would.

Then she padded to the door and was gone. Just like that. Barclay didn’t move for a couple of minutes, and then when he did move it was merely to sit up a little higher against the headboard. He drew his knees up in front of him and rested his arms on them. He stared at the bedroom door, willing Dominique to walk back through it. She didn’t. Eventually, he slid back down beneath the sheets and turned off the bedside lamp. Etched on the insides of his eyelids were supple shadowy bodies, hanging breasts, shapes concave and convex. His forehead tingled where she’d kissed him. The birds were starting to sing as he eventually drifted off to sleep.

Sunday 14 June

There was a big meeting at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. Central London was deserted except for the tourists, the security people, and some of the 2,500 media representatives who would cover the summit. Before the meeting, there was a photo session. Most of the security people, for obvious reasons, didn’t want to become involved in the photo shoot, which seemed to suit the Home Secretary just fine. Jonathan Barker had been Home Secretary for just under a year, his political career having been steady rather than meteoric. There had been a rough few months at the beginning, with calls for his resignation after several prison escapes, a mainland terrorist attack, and a police scandal. But for the moment he could do little wrong, his second wife, Marion, having died two months back. She had been a tireless worker for charity, especially children’s charities, as all the obituaries had pointed out. And it was as if some of her polish had rubbed off on her handsome widower.

Watching the photo opportunity take its course, Elder smiled. Only one of the obituaries had mentioned Marion Barker’s crankier side, her belief in spiritualism. And no one had mentioned how she’d been Barker’s secretary while he’d still been married to his first wife. There had been gossip about that at the time. Then the first wife had died, and slowly, without unseemly haste, Marion and Jonathan had begun to appear together in public.

It wasn’t even close to a scandal. Nothing of the sort. Yet Elder wondered how significantly it had slowed Barker’s political progress. He wondered as he watched the Home Secretary smiling again, this time shaking hands with yet another dignitary. They all stood in a line off-camera, all the people who still had to have their photo taken. They preened, straightened ties, flicked a stray hair back behind an ear. They were all men. An underling gave them instructions, sending them on their way when each photo was taken. It was a real production line. And all for half a dozen photographers. The media wasn’t really interested, not yet. The real scrum would begin when the summit got underway. This was a day of dress rehearsals and final checks. That was why the Home Secretary was on the scene, to give a very public thumbs-up to the security arrangements.

‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ the underling said at last to the photographers, who had already turned away and were winding back rolls of film, chatting in huddles. Elder stood in another huddle, a huddle of security chiefs. Trilling was there, and was in whispered conversation with an American. There were two Germans, a tall and dapper Frenchman, a Canadian, and many more... a real United Nations of secret agents and policemen. Elder had been introduced to them all, but they were names to him, little more. They were simply in his way.

But then he, of course, shouldn’t be here at all. Joyce had only sent him because there was no one else available at such short notice. Her fury the previous evening had been tempered only by the arrival of her chauffeur. She’d still managed to make known her views. Elder was not to speak to Barclay ‘under any circumstances’. In fact, he wasn’t to do anything at all. But then she’d remembered this meeting...

The Home Secretary, sweeping back his hair as he walked, was approaching. His underling was telling him something, to which Jonathan Barker did not appear to be listening. He stuck out a hand towards Trilling.

‘Commander, nice to see you.’ They shook hands. Barker smiled and half-nodded towards Elder, as if to say ‘I know you’, when in fact he couldn’t even be sure of Elder’s nationality.

‘Mr Elder,’ explained the underling, ‘is here as Mrs Parry’s representative.’

‘Ah,’ said Barker, nodding and frowning at the same time. ‘Thought I didn’t see her.’ His tone, to Elder’s ears, was slightly ominous.

‘Mrs Parry sends her apologies,’ said Elder. ‘Something came up last night, very last-minute, very important.’

Barker looked as though he might have something to say about this, but he was already being introduced to the Canadian, to the Germans... Elder had to give the underling his due: the guy knew all the names and faces. Trilling’s voice was a peppermint murmur beside him.

‘What’s Joyce up to?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Barker didn’t sound too pleased.’

Elder nodded slowly. Not too pleased at all... Well, he wasn’t in such a good mood himself. If Barker wanted to pick a fight, that was fine by Elder. He’d spent a sleepless night in his room, a piece of paper by his telephone. On the paper was a note of Barclay’s phone number in Germany. Joyce had warned him not to speak to Barclay. And hadn’t Barclay let himself in for it? Elder had requested that no calls be put through to his room.

But this morning he’d cracked. He’d placed a call to the Gasthof Hirschen, only to be informed that Herr Barclay had already checked out. Well, that was that.

‘If you’ll come this way, gentlemen,’ said the Home Secretary, taking charge. Introductions over, they were on their way into the Conference Centre proper.

‘First stop,’ said the Home Secretary, ‘screening unit.’ They had stopped in front of a doorway the edges of which were thick metal, painted bright orange. Two guards stood this side of the doorway, two the other. This was the start of the tour which, conducted by the Home Secretary, was supposed to reassure everyone that the security precautions were, well, more than adequate. Elder believed it; he knew they were more than adequate. He still wasn’t impressed.