“No, tonight I have to work. But you are attending the summit, so we will meet.”
“Yes, but —”
There was a sudden tug at his arm. It was Dominic Elder.
“Come on,” Elder said, “things to do.”
“Yes, just a —” But Dominique was waving a farewell as she headed back to the French group.
“That was Doyle on the phone,” insisted Elder, still tugging a reluctant Barclay towards the exit. “They’ve located Breuckner’s hotel. Let’s go take a look.”
“What?” Barclay twisted his neck for a final glimpse of Dominique. She was in conversation with a tall, long-faced man. The man was looking towards Barclay. Dominique was not. “Who’s Doyle?” he said. “Who’s Breuckner?”
“Christ, you are out of touch, aren’t you? Hasn’t Joyce told you anything?”
“No.” They were out of the building now.
“Then I’ll bring you up to date on the way. By the way, was that...?”
“Yes, that was her.”
“Pretty girl,” Elder said, pulling Barclay farther and farther away from her. She reminded him a little of the woman he’d opened the police station door for, the woman he was sure had been Witch. He kept hold of Barclay’s arm. “By the way, you’ve got lipstick on both cheeks.”
The hotel in Bloomsbury was every bit as upmarket as Elder had been expecting, this being the age of expense-account terrorism, of legitimized terrorism. You could bomb a place of worship, strafe a busful of women, then a few months later be sitting down to peace talks with a posse of well-known politicians and negotiators, your photo snapped for front-page posterity and the six o’clock news.
“Very strict about his privacy,” said the manager, leading them upstairs. She had her hair swept into a beehive, revealing large ears and a bulbous forehead. “Only wanted his room cleaned once a week.”
“How long has he been a guest, Mrs. Hawkins?”
“Almost a month now. Prompt with payment, beginning of each week.”
“He paid cash?”
“Yes, cash. Along here.” She led them to the room, and produced a key from the folds of her skirt. “Very quiet man, but secretive. Well, I always try to mind my business...”
“Yes, Mrs. Hawkins, thank you. A policeman will be along shortly to take your statement.”
She nodded with sharp jolts of her head. “Always happy to help the authorities.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hawkins. Leave the key, and we’ll lock up afterwards.”
“Right you are.”
“And remember, nobody else is to enter before the forensics team gets here.”
“Forensics...” She jabbed her head again, then giggled, the tremor running all the way through her large frame. “It’s just like on the television, isn’t it?”
Elder smiled. “Just so, Mrs. Hawkins, just so.”
He pushed Barclay into the room, then followed him, closing the door softly but determinedly on the hotelier. Then he swiveled Barclay around to face him.
“You’ll see her tomorrow,” he said. “Now snap out of it. You’re no good to me like this. I’d be as well sending you back to the bloody office.”
That did it. Barclay straightened up, and his eyes seemed to come into focus.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Okay, now let’s see what we’ve got here. Remember, don’t touch if you don’t need to. We might find some prints when forensics get here — if they ever bother to turn up.”
“Whose prints?”
“Witch’s maybe. Or — outside chance — whoever’s paying her. But that really is an outside chance.” He paused. “You did a good job in that cartoonist’s apartment, let’s see you do it again now.”
Breuckner wasn’t messy. The bedclothes had been pulled back and straightened, his clothes were hanging neatly in the wardrobe, and on the bedside table sat a copy of the previous day’s evening paper, a travel alarm, and a used ticket to Madame Tussaud’s.
“Travels light, doesn’t he?” said Elder. “To say he’s been here a month.”
“For a holidaymaker, he certainly hasn’t collected many souvenirs.” Barclay reached down and lifted a shoe. “Shall I check the heel for a radio transmitter?”
Elder smiled. “Radio transmitters are more your line.”
“You know I left a couple of bugs at the cartoonist’s?”
“Don’t worry, someone’ll take care of them.”
“Really?” The relief in Barclay’s voice was all too evident.
“But don’t tell Joyce I told you. She’ll want you to sweat for a bit.”
“Understood.”
The search continued, throwing up nothing out of the ordinary except the sheer lack of the usual traveler’s detritus: no used travel tickets, used carrier bags, stamps, foreign change, no guidebooks or souvenirs.
Barclay squatted down and angled his head to peer beneath the bed. “Something under here.” He looked around him, then got up and went into the small bathroom adjoining the room. He came back with, of all things, a toilet brush, which he used to maneuver out from under the bed whatever was there.
“No fingers, you said,” he informed Elder, who stood over him smiling.
“I just hope that brush was clean,” said Elder.
Magazines. Glossy magazines. Dutch writing on their covers. There were three of them. Still using the toilet brush, Barclay awkwardly turned some of the pages.
“Yes, I get the gist,” said Elder.
“S and M,” said Barclay, closing the magazines. “Heavy-duty stuff.”
“Really? You have some expertise in this area?”
“I know what’s legal, and this stuff isn’t.”
Elder clapped his hands together. “Bloody good point, Michael. If we nab friend Breuckner for nothing else, we can have him under the Obscene Publications Act. Importation of material likely to offend. Anything else under there?”
Barclay had another look. “Over the other side,” he said. “Looks like a paperback.” He walked around the bed, crouched again, and swept from beneath the bed an A-Z book of London streets.
“I’ll bet the pages for the city center are missing,” said Elder. “He had them in his pocket.”
“There’s a piece of card.” Barclay pointed to where a cardboard edge protruded from the book. Elder took a pen from his pocket and eased it between the pages marked by the card. Then slowly he used the pen to open the book. The piece of card was a one-day travel card, nearly a month old. The pages opened were those showing Hackney, Leyton, and Clapton.
“Interesting,” said Elder. His first thought was of the address given to the police by the woman calling herself Christine Jones. It had been around this area. But no, not quite... her address was just off this particular map, one page back in the book in fact. So, rule that out.
“What do you think, sir?” asked Barclay. They were both crouching now, with the book between them on the floor.
“There was a key in the Dutchman’s pocket.”
“Yes, so you said.”
“Greenleaf —”
“Doyle’s partner?”
Elder nodded. “Greenleaf reckoned it might be the key to a lockup.”
“Plenty of lockups around there,” Barclay said, nodding towards the map.
“Really?”
“Yes. Lots of tower blocks. Well, at least there used to be in Hackney. I had a friend lived on the top floor of one.”
“Well, it’s worth a try. At least it gives us a starting point. I’d better get on to Special Branch and tell Greenleaf. What time is it?” He checked his watch. “No, he’ll still be out at Christine Jones’s address. Not that that’ll take long. My guess is, nobody at that address will even have heard of anyone called Christine Jones. The lockup idea is more interesting, though.”