Yes, Charlie Giltrap. Elder owed Charlie rather a large drink for that.
Greenleaf was still talking. “Is Barclay your... is he some kind of protégé?”
“Not exactly. Meantime, the key is being copied tonight. Inspector Whitlock is going to coordinate the search.”
“Whitlock?”
“Stationed in Hackney. I’m told he’s a good man for this sort of job.”
“So the Dutchman grabbed Christine Jones...”
“And now Witch has assumed her identity. I hear McKillip was able to identify our Dutch friend.”
“Pointed straight to him.”
“Good, we can hold him a bit longer, then. Bit late all the same. His part in the operation has almost certainly finished.”
“You think she’ll try a hit from this building in Victoria Street?”
“Yes, one-nineteen Victoria Street.” Elder paused. “Or maybe one of the other DTI buildings along the route.”
“There are details already assigned to every one of them.”
“Yes, and she’ll no doubt realize that.”
“But you still think she’ll try? It’s suicide.”
“I know, I can’t really understand what she’s playing at.”
“How do you mean?”
Elder sighed. “Oh, nothing probably. It just seems... she’s just making too many mistakes, John.”
“Maybe she’s getting old, eh?”
Elder smiled in the darkness. “Maybe.” There were sounds at the other end of the line. A clinking of china. A muffled “Thanks, love, won’t be long,” presumably from Greenleaf to his wife. Elder felt cold and empty, he felt a longing for something he daren’t quite put into words.
“We’ll place guards on the doors,” Greenleaf was saying.
“And inside the buildings,” suggested Elder.
“I don’t know, Dominic, we’re stretched as it is.”
“Just a suggestion,” said Elder, hoping Greenleaf would take his meaning: It may be just a suggestion, but I’ve made it and so that puts it in your hands. If you don’t put men inside the buildings and she does succeed in killing someone, my conscience is clear... how about yours? It was just like his warning to Joyce Parry, the one she in turn had passed on to the PM, bypassing the Home Secretary.
“I’ll see what Commander Trilling says,” Greenleaf said after a long pause. Yes, he’d taken Elder’s meaning, and he would pass the buck along.
“Every security man on that route,” Elder went on, screwing up his eyes with effort, “must have a recent description of Witch and a photograph of Christine Jones. All passes must be checked. It’s obvious that Witch now looks like Miss Jones; it’s just as obvious she’ll use Miss Jones’s pass to get past DTI’s own security.”
“Even though she knows we know?” Greenleaf persisted.
“It sounds crazy, but I’ve got a feeling she’ll try. We’ll have to be ready for her, which means we’d all better get some rest tonight.”
“I could do with it. You sound like you could, too.”
“Me?” said Elder. “I’m just about to go for my evening run. A quick sprint around Hyde Park.”
Greenleaf laughed tiredly. “Give me five minutes and I’ll join you there. See you in the morning, Dominic.”
“Good-night, John.”
With eyes still closed, Elder managed to place the receiver back in its cradle. It rang again almost immediately. He groaned and groped for the still-warm receiver.
“Elder here.”
“Mr. Elder, it’s Barclay.” The young man sounded frantic, or maybe just frustrated. “I’ve hunted all over... restaurants, bars, clubs... no sign of her. All anyone at the embassy said was she’s out on the town with the other new arrivals. But at last they’ve come up with the name of her hotel. Do you think I should —”
“Michael,” said Elder gently, “I think you should go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning will be time enough.”
“Yes, but if I find her tonight I could take her to The Times offices and —”
“Michael, answer me one question.”
Barclay’s breathing was fast and ragged. From the background noise — drunken yells, music blaring, teeming life, car horns — he was calling from a phone booth somewhere in the West End. “Sure,” he said, “go ahead.”
“Why do you want to find Dominique so urgently? Is it maybe because you feel left out of her life all of a sudden?”
There was a long silence. “That’s two questions,” Barclay said at last.
“Rhetorical questions, too, I think. Go home, get some rest, and be at the Conference Centre early. We know Dominique will be there.”
“Yes.” Barclay sounded as if all the air had been let out of him. “Yes, okay.”
“Good night, then.”
Elder hung up the phone. It rang again. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He picked it up. “Elder,” he snapped.
“Dominic?” It was Joyce Parry. “Are you all right?”
He softened his voice. “Oh, hello, Joyce. Yes, yes, I’m fine. Sorry about that.”
“Been a long day, huh?”
“Yes,” he agreed, “it’s been a long day.”
“And a successful day, too, by all accounts. Congratulations.”
“Premature, I’d say. You know we actually had Witch inside a police station?”
“And she got away, yes. Hardly your fault, Dominic. And we do have the Dutchman. People on the Continent are very pleased about that.”
“Good for them.”
Joyce Parry laughed. “It helps us with SIS. After Barclay’s German escapade, we need it.”
“But will it help mend the rift between you and the Home Secretary?”
“Who knows. He can be a spiteful little sod.” She paused. “How about a nightcap? I thought we could have a drink at the —”
“That’s sweet of you, Joyce, and any other time, I’d be...”
“But tonight you’re whacked? Fair enough. How did Barclay bear up today?”
“More than adequately.”
“Really? You’re not just covering for him?”
“He’s just called me. He’s still busy working.”
“I am impressed. He’s always been first out of the office here, soon as five-thirty comes.”
“Maybe he’s changed.”
“Maybe. Just so long as you haven’t taught him too many of your tricks.”
He smiled. “Joyce, about that drink. Might room service be available?”
She considered her answer. “It might.”
“On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Bring some acetaminophen as well. Either that or massage oil.”
“Alcohol, drugs, and baby oil... sounds just like the old days.”
Elder laughed. “I think the relevant word there is ‘old,’ Joyce. Definitely old.”
He put the receiver down again and counted to ten. No more calls came. He knew he should get up, tidy the room a bit, and tidy himself, too. But still he lay, the arm across his eyes, thinking of an encounter he knew must come, and come soon. Just like Operation Silverfish. He wriggled on the bed, rubbing the itch in his back. Silverfish. You should have been a priest. Maybe she had a point. Finally, he got up and turned on the bedside lamp, squinting into the light as he opened the wardrobe and took out his case. There was a shirt in the bottom, rolled up. It was torn and tattered, and stained a dull brown, almost the color of rust. It was the shirt he had worn... And wrapped up inside it was a gun, a Browning 9-millimeter pistol. He lifted out the gun and put the shirt back in the case. The pistol felt icy and unnatural in his hand, but the longer he held it, the warmer it became and the more natural it felt, until he was hardly aware of it there at all.