A bus arrived and she took it, for no other reason than that she had some thinking still to do, and time to kill before evening. She climbed to the top deck and found a seat to herself near the front. Two things bothered her, both out of her hands now. One was that she had given the police Christine Jones’s name and address. It had seemed prudent at the time. They only had to look in her handbag or at the label on her satchel to know who she was supposed to be. But now they had the Dutchman, and if they connected him to the assault in the alley, they would have a name and an address.
The second thing, well, the second thing wasn’t nearly so important. Even so, she couldn’t help wondering, with the Dutchman in custody, would anyone be feeding and watering Christine Jones?
Elder was nursing a mug of tea and chatting to CID when Greenleaf arrived.
“Hello, John.”
“Sorry I’m late,” said Greenleaf. “Couldn’t track down Doyle.”
“Then we’ll just have to do without him, won’t we? Let’s call it, using our own initiative. Now, using your initiative, John, did you manage to get in touch with Mr. McKillip?”
Greenleaf nodded. “I said we’d send a car to fetch him, but he’d rather make it up here under his own steam. His train gets into Victoria Station.”
“Handy for the Yard, then.”
“Which is why I said I’d meet him there.”
“What time does he get in?”
“Five-ish.”
“So, by six we’ll have a witness that our Dutch friend met with George Crane in Folkestone.”
“Hopefully. Speaking of the Dutchman...”
“He’s in a holding cell. They’ll bring him to an interview room when we’re ready.” Elder looked at Greenleaf above the rim of his mug. “Can I take it we’re ready?”
Greenleaf nodded. “Good and ready.”
So the Dutchman was brought up to one of the interview rooms. He was complaining all the time: he was a tourist, was this how they treated visitors to their country? He demanded to contact his consulate, his embassy, anyone. He was just a tourist... they’d no right.
“No right at all, treating me like a criminal.”
Elder and Greenleaf, seated impassively at the small metal-framed table, let him have his say. From the way his eyes refused to meet theirs, they knew he knew they were trouble. They both liked that. For a few moments more, they thrived on his discomfort.
“Look,” he said, “look!” And he raised a shoe in the air, the tongue of leather flapping loose where the shoelaces had been removed. “They take away my shoelaces, my trouser belt, my necktie. In case I injure myself, they say. Why in God’s name should I injure myself? I am a tourist. I don’t...”
Elder reached into a large manila envelope which he’d brought with him. He drew out a black-and-white photograph and threw it onto the desk, so that it faced the Dutchman who glanced at it, then looked away again, addressing his words to the police officers behind him, all four of them, standing massively between him and the door.
“I am treated like a common criminal... British justice, law and order, a farce, I tell you! A farce! We in the Netherlands have more respect for the...”
Another photograph landed on the desk, then another. They were the photographs supplied to Commander Trilling by SIS, the ones which had accompanied the slides. The Dutchman saw himself again and again, in different places, different situations, in conversation with different people, and all during different operations.
Then Elder spoke.
“We want to know what she’s planning, and we want to know where she is. We want to know quickly.”
The Dutchman met Elder’s eyes for a dull second.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “I’m a tourist.”
“No, you’re not. We both know what you are. The authorities in several countries would like to speak with you. Most of them are less law-abiding than we are. They wouldn’t hesitate to use... well, whatever means they see fit, to pry information from you.” Elder paused to let this sink in. “If you don’t tell us where she is and what she’s intending to do, I’ll see to it that you’re handed over to the least... the least hesitant country possible. Speak to us now, and you’ll be kept here in the UK. Do you understand?”
“I demand my rights. I demand a lawyer, I demand to see someone from the Dutch Embassy. This is illegal.”
“Under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, very little is illegal. But then, I’d have thought you’d have read up on that particular document.”
Elder rose to his feet, had a word with the guards, and left the room. Greenleaf followed him in silence. The guards stayed.
“Will anyone give me a cigarette, please?” asked the Dutchman.
“We don’t smoke,” said one policeman.
Outside, Elder was talking in an undertone. “We’ll have him transferred to Paddington Green. The security here isn’t good enough.”
“You think they may try to spring him?”
Elder shook his head. “Not spring him, no. He’s a gofer, a go-between. It’s late on in the operation now. He’s probably expendable. But they may try to kill him.”
“What?”
Elder nodded. “He won’t know much in any case, but these people, whoever it is who’s hired Witch, I shouldn’t think they like loose ends. And that’s what we need to play on.”
“Get him scared?”
“Right, not scared of us, scared of his bosses — present and past. So that we become his only protection.”
Greenleaf was impressed. “You sound like you’ve done this sort of thing before.”
Elder smiled. “That’s because I have, John. We sweat him, then, if he hasn’t told us anything, we tell him we’re going to put out an announcement that he’s singing like a bird. Singing in return for his freedom. We tell him the announcement’s gone out, then we say we’re —”
“Letting him go.”
Elder nodded. “Funny, they never want to go, given the chance. They’d rather stay. But the price of staying, the price of protection, is that they tell us everything anyway.”
“Nice.”
Elder shrugged. “He’s been around. He may not fall for it. We may actually have to issue the announcement. And it all takes time.”
“Time we may not have.”
“Exactly. So let’s get him over to Paddy Green straightaway, before Witch learns we’ve got him.”
“One thing, Dominic.” Greenleaf only called him Dominic when Doyle wasn’t around. “What did he have on him in the wine bar?”
“Good point. Let’s take a look.”
The Dutchman’s possessions were in an envelope in the desk sergeant’s locked drawer. The desk sergeant himself tipped the contents onto the surface of his desk.
“Not much,” he said.
No, not much. Cash... just under a hundred pounds in notes, plus some small change. The notes were crisp and clean.