‘I’m glad you’ve called,” Michael Barclay said into the receiver.
“And who was that delightful French lady?” Dominic Elder asked.
“My colleague’s mother.” Just then Dominique herself came into the hall and handed Barclay a glass of cold beer, with which he toasted her. It had been another long day.
“Since you’re glad I called,” Elder went on, “I take it you’re either in trouble or you’re onto something.”
“Maybe both,” said Barclay. “When I bugged Separt’s apartment, I copied some of his computer disks.”
“Clever boy.”
“I bet Mrs. Parry would say something different. Anyway, we’ve been reading through them. Mostly ideas for cartoon strips, but there’s a lot of personal correspondence, too, including a couple of letters to Wolf Bandorff.”
“Well well.”
“Discussing some project of Separt’s, a cartoon book about Bandorff’s career.”
“The world is a strange place, Michael. So what does this tell us?”
“It connects Separt to Witch’s old teacher.”
“It does indeed. It’s almost as if she’s living her life again backwards.”
“Sorry?” Barclay had finished the beer. He held the cold glass against his face, like a second telephone receiver.
“She started her life in Britain, but early on joined Bandorff’s gang. The link seems still to be there.”
Barclay still wasn’t sure what Elder was getting at. “You told me,” he said, “always work the idea all the way through.”
There was a pause. “You’re thinking of taking another trip?”
“Yes. Do you think I could get it past Mrs. Parry?”
Elder considered this. “To be frank, almost certainly not. It’s getting too far out of our territory.” He paused. “Then again, maybe there’s just a chance.”
“How?”
Elder’s voice seemed to have faded slightly. “You’ve lied to her before, haven’t you...?”
Dominique had already made her necessary telephone calls, and now all Barclay had to do, before taking her to dinner, was make one call himself. To Joyce Parry.
Elder was right, he’d lied to her before. Well, he’d been economical with the truth, say. But this time he was going to deliver a whopper. He went over his story two or three times in his head, Dominique goading him into making the call right now and getting it over and done with. At last he picked up the phone.
“Joyce Parry speaking.”
“It’s Michael Barclay here.”
“Ah, Michael, I wondered where you’d gotten to.”
“Well, there’s a bit of a lull here.”
“You’re on your way home, then?”
“Ah... not exactly. Any progress?”
“Special Branch and Mr. Elder are still in Cliftonville. A lorry driver picked up a hitchhiker and dropped her there, did you know? Anyway, it seems a note was left for Mr. Elder at a pub in the town.”
“A note?”
“Vaguely threatening, signed with the initial W.”
“God, that must have shaken him up a bit.” He swallowed. He’d almost said, He didn’t tell me.
“He seemed very calm when I spoke to him. Now then, what about you?”
He swallowed again. “DST are keeping watch on a couple of men. One of them, the one who had his car stolen, he’s a left-wing sympathizer. He didn’t report the car stolen until after the explosions on the two boats. DST think that’s suspicious, and I tend to agree with them.”
“Go on.”
“This man has made contact with an anarchist. We... that is, DST... think the anarchist may know Witch. They think maybe the anarchist persuaded the other man to turn a blind eye while his car was taken.”
“Not to say anything, you mean?”
“Yes, until after Witch was home and dry... so to speak.”
“You sound tired, Michael. Are they treating you all right?”
He almost laughed. “Oh yes, no complaints.”
“So what now?”
“As I say, they’re keeping a watch on both men. I thought I’d give it until Monday, see if anything happens.”
“A weekend in Paris, eh?”
“A working weekend, ma’am.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Her tone was good-humored. Barclay hated himself for what he was doing. But it had to be done. No way would she sanction a trip to Germany, especially when explaining the trip would mean explaining how he’d come upon Separt’s correspondence and Wrightson’s leaflets.
“Okay, take the weekend,” Joyce Parry was saying. “But be back here Monday. The summit begins Tuesday, and I want you in London. God knows, we’ll be stretched as it is.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And let me know the minute you learn anything.”
“Of course.”
“And Michael...?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You’ve already proved a point. You found something Special Branch missed. Okay?”
“Yes, thank you, ma’am. Good-bye.”
He noticed that his hand was shaking as he replaced the receiver.
“Well?” asked Dominique. Barclay wiped a line of perspiration from his forehead.
“I can stay on till Monday.”
Dominique grinned. Somehow, Barclay didn’t share her enthusiasm. “Good,” she said, “we can start for Germany in the morning. The interview is arranged for two o’clock on Sunday.” She noticed his pallor. “What’s wrong, Michael?”
“I don’t know... It’s not every day I put my career on the line.”
“How will your boss find out? She won’t. If we find nothing,we say nothing. But if we find something, then we are the heroes, yes?”
“I suppose so.”
“Cheer up. You are taking me to dinner, remember?”
He gave a weak smile. “Of course. Listen, any chance that I can wash these clothes?” He picked at his shirt. “Remember, I only brought the one change with me.”
She smiled. “Of course. We will put them in the machine. They will be dry by morning. All right?”
He nodded.
“Good, now I will get changed. You, too.” She skipped down the hall to her room, calling back after her: “Rendezvous in twenty minutes!”
After a moment, Barclay walked slowly back to his own room, his feet barely rising from the floor. Behind Dominique’s door, he could hear her humming a tune, the sound of a zipper being unfastened, of something being thrown on to the bed or a chair. In his own room, he fell onto the bed and stared at the dusty ceiling, focusing on one of its dark cobwebbed corners.
How did I talk myself into this?
Perhaps Witch had been in touch with Bandorff recently. But why should Bandorff admit it or say anything to them about it? Although he knew what he was doing, and knew that Dominique and he were making the decisions, he couldn’t help feeling that Dominic Elder was an influence, too, and not entirely a benign one. He wished he knew more about the man. He knew almost nothing about him, did he? All he knew was that Elder had pulled him into this obsession — an obsession Barclay himself had recently termed a psychosis.
“I’m mad,” he said to the ceiling.
But if he was, Dominique was mad, too. She’d been the first to phone her office, securing clearance for herself and Barclay to go to Germany. He’d missed most of that call actually: he’d been busy in the toilet. He’d emerged again as she was dialing Germany, dialing direct to the Burgwede Maximum Security Prison, just north of Hanover.
“It’s fixed,” she said after dialing, waiting for an answer. “My office has given me clearance. I just have to...”