Witch Hunt (5 page)

Barclay smiled and started on the second sheet.

‘Investigation undertaken by Japanese and South Korean authorities. No further evidence uncovered up to date of this report. However, there was talk in Pusan of a young woman who had been seen talking with the boat’s owner in a bar a few days prior to the final voyage. She is described as being tall with short dark hair, probably speaking English.

‘From 18-20 May, International Conference for World Peace (ICWP) based at various locations in Hiroshima, Japan. Conference attended by 240 delegates from forty-six countries, supplemented by invited guests (e.g.: from Japanese universities, media) and, to some events, general public. World media invited to attend. Four intelligence agents among those accepting. (See file no. CI/46377/J/DE.) Six keynote speeches given prominence during conference. Other activities included film shows, art exhibition, theatre events, and concert by Music for Peace (the latter with its HQ in London, investigated 1984: see file no. UK/0/223660/L/JP).’

JP: Joyce Parry’s initials. Barclay was beginning to sense what this was all about. His hands grew clammy, sticking to the sheet as he read on.

‘On closing day, 20 May, final keynote address was to be given by international peace activist Jerome Hassan (CI/38225/USP/DG). However, Mr Hassan was taken ill with suspected food poisoning and his speech (much abbreviated - Hassan was known to work by improvisation) was delivered by a colleague, Dr Danielle Brecht.

‘Mr Hassan died in hospital on evening of 20 May, just as live telecast at closing concert was beaming messages by pop and film luminaries into Japan.

‘Post mortem was carried out on morning of 21 May, with Mr Hassan’s hotel (and over 100 diners from the previous day) keenly awaiting findings. Laboratory analysis showed atropine poisoning. (Atropine is an alkaline found in Deadly Nightshade. From the Greek
atropos,
“the Fate that cuts the thread of life”.)

‘While still conscious, but thought to be delirious, Hassan spoke of a girl, a student probably. He spoke of her “beauty and generosity”. Hotel staff when interviewed acknowledged that on the night of 19 May, a young woman had accompanied Mr Hassan to his room. No one saw her leave, despite a twenty-four-hour reception area. Descriptions given varied. One assessed her height at nearly six foot, another at only five foot six. One said black hair, another brown. Hair was probably cropped short, and woman was fair-skinned though tanned. European perhaps, or Asian. No one heard her speak. She had crossed the lobby with Mr Hassan and entered the lift with him. She was dressed in black denims, light T-shirt, light-coloured jacket. Mr Hassan was carrying a plastic carrier bag, weighted down with books. Reception staff got the impression the bag belonged to the woman.

‘Woman has never been traced. Hassan’s previous sexual history questioned. (Widow not forthcoming.) As a footnote, woman’s entry to the country was clumsy, creating immediate suspicion. And her use of atropine, or at least the dosage used, was also clumsy, since it allowed the victim time to talk before dying. Pity is, he did not say anything useful.

‘See: WITCH file.

‘Final footnote: Susa is c. fifty miles from Hiroshima.’

Barclay turned to the third and final sheet, expecting more. But all he read were edited newspaper reports of Jerome Hassan’s murder, mentioning poison and the mysterious young woman. A jealous lover was hinted at. He looked up and saw that Joyce Parry was immersed in the contents of one of the Elder files. He glanced through his own sheets again, quite liking Elder’s tone - the explanation of the word atropine; the mention of the final night’s rock concert; that nice late mention that Hassan was a married man.

‘You see the coincidence,’ Parry said without warning. She was looking at him now. ‘An assassin is dropped off on the Japanese mainland and then destroys the boat which landed her. Now, six years later, something similar occurs.’

Barclay considered this. ‘Special Branch are thinking more along the lines of drugs or arms.’

‘Exactly. And that’s why I’d rather you hadn’t alerted them this early on. They may be off on half a dozen wild goose chases. Then, if we approach them with new information, they’ll wonder why we didn’t come up with it sooner. Do you see what I mean?’ Her glasses glinted. Barclay was nodding.

‘It makes us look bad.’

‘It makes
me
look bad.’ She wet two fingers with the tip of her tongue and turned a page.

‘What’s the Witch file?’ Barclay asked.

But she was busy reading, too busy to answer. She seemed to be suppressing an occasional smile, as though reminiscing. Eventually she glanced up at him again.

‘The Witch file doesn’t exist. It was an idea of Mr Elder’s.’

‘So what is Witch?’

She closed the file carefully, and thought for a moment before speaking. ‘I think it would be best if you asked Dominic Elder that, don’t you?’

Once a year, the fairground came to Cliftonville.

Cliftonville liked to think itself the genteel equivalent to next-door neighbour Margate. It attracted coach tours, retired people. The younger holidaymakers usually made for Margate. So did the weekenders, down from London for a spot of seaside mayhem. But Cliftonville was struggling with a different problem, a crisis of identity. Afternoon bingo and a deckchair in front of the promenade organist just weren’t enough. Candy floss and an arcade of one-armed bandits weren’t enough. Too much of the town lingered in the 1950s. Few wanted the squeal and glitter of the 90s, yet without them the town would surely die, just as its clientele was dying.

If the town council had wanted to ask about survival, they might have consulted someone at the travelling fairground. It had changed too. The rides had become a little more ‘daring’ and more expensive. Barnaby’s Gun Stall was a good example. The original Barnaby (whose real name had been Eric) had used rifles which fired air-propelled corks at painted tins. But Barnaby had died in 1978. His brother Randolph had replaced the cork-guns with proper pellet-firing rifles, using circular targets attached to silhouette human figures. But then Randolph had succumbed to alcohol and the charms of a woman who hated the fair, so his son Keith - the present Barnaby - had taken over. Nowadays the Gun Stall boasted
serious
entertainment in the form of an automatic-firing airgun rigged up to a compression pump. This machine gun could fire one hundred large-bore pellets every minute. You just had to keep your finger on the trigger. The young men paid their money gladly, just to feel the sheer exhilaration of that minute’s lethal action. Afterwards, the target would be brought forward. Keith still used cardboard circles marked off from the outer to the small black bullseye, and attached to the heart of a human silhouette. The thing about the automatic was, it couldn’t be said to be accurate. If enough pellets hit the target, the cardboard was reduced to tatters. But more often than not the kids missed, dazed by the recoil and the noise and the speed.

The more dazed they were, the more likely they were to come back for more. It was a living. And yet in other ways the fair was very much an old-fashioned place. It had its ghost train and its waltzers, though this evening the ghost train was closed. There were smells of spun sugar and diesel, and the scratchy sounds of the next-to-latest pop records. Onions, the roar of machinery, and three-balls-for-fifty-pee at the kiddie stalls.

Gypsy Rose Pellengro’s small caravan was still attached to its Volvo estate car, as though she was thinking of heading off. On a board outside the caravan door were letters of thanks from grateful clients. These letters were looking rather frail, and none of them seemed to include the date on which it had been written. Beside them was a scrawled note announcing ‘Gypsy Rose back in an hour’.

The two windows of the caravan were tightly closed, and covered with thick net curtains. Inside, it was much like any holiday caravan. The small sink still held two unwashed plates, and on the table sat not a crystal ball but a portable black and white television, hooked up to the battery of the Volvo estate. The interior was lit by calor gas, the wall-mounted lamps roaring away. A woman was watching TV.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in, sir, please,’ she called, rising to switch off the set. The door was pulled open and a man climbed into the caravan. He was so tall that he had to stoop to avoid the ceiling. He was quite young, very thin, and dark-skinned.

‘How did you know it was a man?’ he asked, taking in the scene around him.

‘I saw you peering in through the window.’

The man smiled at this, and Gypsy Rose Pellengro laughed, showing the four gold teeth in her mouth. ‘What can I do for you, sir? Didn’t you see the notice outside?’

‘Yes. But I really would like my fortune told.’ He paused, stroking a thick black moustache, before adding meaningfully: ‘I think I have a lucky future ahead of me.’

Gypsy Rose nodded, not that she’d been in any doubt. ‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ she said. ‘I’m in the futures market myself. Would you like to sit down?’

‘No, thank you. I’ll just leave this ...’ He reached inside his jacket and brought out a large brown envelope. As he made to place it on the table in front of the woman, she snatched at his wrist and turned his hand palm upwards.

‘Yes,’ she said, releasing it after a moment. ‘I can see you’ve been disappointed in love, but don’t worry. The right woman isn’t so very far away.’

He seemed scandalised that she had dared to touch him. He rubbed at his wrist, standing over her, his black pupils shadowed by his eyebrows. For a moment, violence was very close. But the woman just sat there with her old, stubborn look. Weary, too. There was nothing he could do to her that hadn’t already been done. So instead he turned and, muttering foreign sounds, pushed open the caravan door, slamming it shut behind him so hard that it bounced back open again. Now Gypsy Rose could see out onto the slow procession of fairground visitors, some of whom stared back.

Slowly, she rose from the table, closed and locked the door, and returned to her seat, switching on the television. From time to time she fingered the large brown envelope. Eventually, when enough time had passed, she got up and pulled her shawl around her. She left the lamps burning in the caravan, but locked the door behind her when she left. The air was hot, the night sticky. She moved quickly, expertly, through the crowds, occasionally slipping between two stalls and behind the vans and the lorries, picking her way over cables, looking behind her to see if anyone was following. Then back between two more stalls and into the crowd again. Her path seemed to lack coordination, so that at one point she’d almost doubled back to her starting point before striking off in another direction. In all, she walked for nearly fifteen tiring minutes. Fifteen minutes for a journey of less than four hundred yards.

Darkness had fallen, and the atmosphere of the fair had grown darker and more restless, too. The children were home in bed, still excited and not asleep, but safe. Tough-speaking teenagers had taken over the fair now, swilling cheap beer from tins, stopping now and then for passionate kisses or to let off some shots at an unmoving target. Yells broke the night-time air. No longer the sounds of fun but feral sounds, the sounds of trouble. Gypsy Rose remembered one leather-jacketed boy, cradled in a friend’s arms.

Jesus, missus, he’s been stabbed.
He didn’t die, but it was touch and go.

Less than four hundred yards from her caravan was the ghost train. On the narrow set of tracks between the two double-doors sat the parked carriages. The sign on the kiosk said simply CLOSED. Well, there wouldn’t have been many people using it at this time of night anyway. A chain prevented anyone gaining access to the woodenslatted running boards in front of the ride. She lifted her skirt and stepped over the chain, winning a cheer and a wolf whistle from somewhere behind her. With a final glance over her shoulder, she pushed open one of the double-doors, on which was painted the grinning face of the devil himself, and stepped inside.

She stood for a moment, her eyes adjusting to the newer darkness. The doors muffled much of the sound from outside. Eventually, she felt confident enough to walk on, moving past the spindly mechanisms of ghost and goblin, the wires and pulleys which lowered shreds of raffia onto young heads, the skeleton, at rest now, which would spring to its feet at the approach of a carriage.

It was all so cheap, so obvious. She couldn’t recall ever having been scared of the ghost train, even as a tot. Now she was moving further into the cramped construction, off the rails, away from the papier mâché Frankenstein and the strings that were supposed to be cobwebs, until she saw a glimmer of light behind a piece of black cloth. She made for the cloth and pulled it aside, stepping into the soft light of the tiny makeshift room.

The young woman who sat there, sucking her thumb and humming to herself, looked up. She sat crosslegged on the floor, rocking slightly, in her lap a small armless teddy bear, and spread out on the floor a tarot pack.

‘He’s been,’ Gypsy Rose said. She fished the envelope out from under her skirt. It was slightly creased from where she had climbed over the chain. ‘I didn’t open it,’ she said.

The thumb slipped wetly out of the mouth. The young woman nodded, then arched back her neck and twisted it to one side slowly, mouth open wide, until a loud sound like breaking twigs was heard. She ran her fingers through her long black hair. There were two streaks of dyed white above her temples. She wasn’t sure about them. She thought they made her look mysterious but old. She didn’t want to look old.