“Won’t be a minute,” he said, getting up and leaving the room. Only then did Greenleaf notice that the conference room itself contained no telephones. On cue, Elder seemed to read his mind.
“Phones are receivers,” he explained. “They can be bugged.”
Greenleaf nodded at this. He did not know what he had been expecting of the building. It appeared much the same as any other civil service admin block... or police admin block come to that. Yet it was, as Doyle had commented on the way there, CDHQ — Cloak and Dagger Headquarters.
“So,” said Elder conversationally, “whose idea was the name?”
“The name?”
“Operation Broomstick.”
“Oh, that. Commander Trilling.”
Elder nodded. “Bill Trilling’s a tough old bull, isn’t he?”
Greenleaf shrugged.
“When did he stop smoking?”
“About seven months back.”
“Remind me to buy some shares in whoever manufactures those mints of his.”
Greenleaf smiled, then checked himself. He didn’t want to appear disloyal. “The Commander’s all right,” he said.
“I don’t doubt it. Not slow to take offense, though, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Unlike Mrs. Parry, you mean?”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t... never mind.”
There was quite a long pause. Elder had turned to his case file and was browsing through it.
“How long have you been retired?” Greenleaf asked.
“Two years.” Elder’s eyes were still on the file.
“Enjoying it?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“So why are you here?”
Now Elder looked up. “Because I’m interested. I wrote the original Hiroshima summary...”
“Yes, I know. And you’ve been interested in Witch ever since. If I didn’t know better, I might even say you’re a fan.”
Elder nodded. “Oh, I’m a fan all right. Look at the Khan hit. Don’t you find it in some way admirable? I mean, as a professional. There is something to admire in perfection, even when it’s the perfection of the enemy. Somehow, I can’t see Mr. Doyle planning and executing anything with the same degree of... élan.”
“His bark’s worse than his bite.”
“I sincerely hope not. If we do locate Witch, his bite will have to be very fierce indeed.” Elder wagged a finger. “And so will yours, Mr. Greenleaf. It doesn’t do to ignore the facts of the Khan assassination. Witch is utterly ruthless.”
“Not so ruthless. She didn’t kill the bodyguard and the girlfriend.”
“No, quite. I’ve been wondering about that.”
“Oh?”
“Leaving the bodyguard alive is the only evidence we have that the assassin was a woman.”
“You think she wanted us to know? That wouldn’t make sense, would it?”
“I suppose not. But then, blowing up both those boats hardly ‘makes sense.’”
“Tying up loose ends? Maybe the crews knew something we don’t.”
“Possibly.” Elder didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“Well,” said Greenleaf, “why does she want us to know she’s here?”
“Maybe she’s issuing a challenge.”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
“You think she knows about you?”
“Oh, she knows, all right, believe me.”
“How?”
Elder shrugged.
“Then how can you be so sure?” Greenleaf persisted.
Another shrug. “I just am, Mr. Greenleaf. I just am. What you said about the summit being almost too tempting... there may be something in that.”
Another knock at the door. Someone opened the door from the corridor, and someone else bore in a tray of mugs.
“Mrs. Parry said you’d likely be needing some tea,” the man announced. He placed the tray on the table. The tea was already in the mugs, but the tray also held a bowl of sugar, jug of milk, and plate of biscuits.
“Thanks, Derek,” said Elder. The man smiled.
“Didn’t think you’d remember me.”
“Of course I remember you. How’re things?”
“Not so bad.” The man lowered his voice a little and wrinkled his nose. “It’s not the same these days, though,” he said. “Not like it was.” His partner, waiting in the corridor with his hand still on the door handle, gave an impatient cough. The man winked at Elder. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said, closing the door after him.
“Anyone would think you’d been retired twenty years,” Greenleaf said.
“All the same,” said Elder, lifting one of the mugs, “he’s got a point. I’ve only been back one full day and I’ve noticed changes. More machines and less staff.”
“You mean computers?” Greenleaf poured milk into his chosen mug. “They’re a boon. All the sifting that Profiling had to do to produce the target list, it only took a few hours.”
“The problem is that the operatives tend to speed up too, making errors or creating gaps, where patience and plodding really are necessary virtues.” Elder thought of a comparison Greenleaf could relate to: “It’s like running a murder inquiry without the door-to-door. Nothing beats actually talking to someone face-to-face. You get an inkling, don’t you, whether they’re telling the truth or not? I’ve seen people beat lie-detector tests, but I’ve never seen them get past a shrewd interrogator.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Greenleaf, raising the mug to his lips.
The door burst open. This time it was Doyle. His eyes darted around excitedly, eventually alighting on the last mug of tea.
“Great,” he said. He lifted the mug and gulped from it, not bothering with milk or sugar.
“What is it?” said Greenleaf, recognizing in Doyle the symptoms of some news. But knowing Doyle, it would take an age to extract the actual information.
And indeed, he shook his head as he drank, until he’d finished the tea. He went to his chair and gathered up his papers. Only then did he pause, studying the two seated figures.
“Come on, then,” he said.
“Where?”
“You can stay here if you like,” Doyle said.
“For Christ’s sake, spit it out, will you?”
Doyle’s eyes twinkled. “Say please.”
“Please,” said Greenleaf. Somehow, Elder was managing to stay calm and silent, nibbling on a biscuit between sips of milky tea.
Doyle seemed to consider. He even glanced over towards Elder, who certainly wasn’t about to say “please.” Then he placed his papers back on the desktop and sat down again, but resting on the edge of the chair only.
“That phone call was Folkestone. They’ve traced a driver who says he gave a lift to a woman.”
Elder put his mug down on the table.
“Really?” said Greenleaf. “That night? What time?”
There was a scraping sound as Dominic Elder pushed back his chair and stood up, collecting together his own sheaf of paper. “Never mind questions,” he said authoritatively. “We can ask those on the way. Come on.” And with that, he strode to the door and out of the room. Doyle grinned at Greenleaf.
“Thought that might get him going.”
For one stomach-churning second, Greenleaf thought Doyle had just played some monstrous practical joke. It was a hoax, there was no driver, no sighting. But then Doyle, too, got to his feet. “What are you waiting for?” he called back to Greenleaf as he made for the door.
Sitting in the police station, smoking his sixteenth cigarette, Bill Moncur was regretting ever opening his mouth. It was like his mate Pat had told him: say nowt at no time to no one. When he was a kid, there’d been a little china ornament on the mantelpiece at home. It was called The Three Wise Monkeys. They sat in a row, one seeing no evil, one hearing no evil, one speaking no evil. But one day Bill had picked the ornament up, and it had slipped out of his hand, smashing on the tiles around the fireplace. When his mother came through from the kitchen, he was standing there, hand clamped to his mouth just like the third monkey, stifling a cry.