Elder nodded. “Yes, that’s probably what I’d do. What about you, Joyce?”
“An abortion, yes, if she’d agree to it.”
“Ah...” Elder raised his index finger. “If she’d agree to it. What if she wouldn’t?”
“Tell her it’s finished between us?” suggested Barclay.
“That would break her heart, Michael,” said Elder. “She loves you. She’d do anything but leave you. It would turn her against you if you spurned her. She might go to anybody with her story, the papers, the TV, anybody.”
“Then we’re back to square one,” said Joyce Parry.
“If she loves this man,” said Dominique, “surely she will agree eventually to the termination, no?”
“Yes,” said Elder. “Yes, she’d agree all right. The question is: would she go through with it?”
Dominique gave a big shrug. “We cannot ask her, she is dead... isn’t she?”
“Oh yes, she’s dead all right.”
“Then who can we ask? I do not understand.”
“It’s not as though we’ve got a crystal ball,” said Barclay.
“Michael,” said Elder, turning to him and slapping a hand down onto his knee, “but that’s precisely what we have got. And that’s exactly what we’ll use...”
With Trilling’s blessing, Greenleaf took a breather long enough for him to visit Doyle in hospital. Doyle’s head had been bandaged, and his face was bruised. He was awake but kept his eyes tightly shut for most of the short visit and complained of a thumping headache. A nurse had warned Greenleaf of this, and he had been told not to spend too long “with your friend.”
Walking towards the bed, Greenleaf wondered about that word “friend.” Were Doyle and he friends? Certainly they were closer than they had been a scant fortnight before. They worked well enough together, but that was only because they were so utterly different in outlook and temperament. The shortcomings of each were made up by the other.
The hospital was hectic. Victoria Street victims, being treated for cuts and shock. In some operating theater, they were working on what remained of Traynor’s leg. But Doyle’s ward was quiet enough. He was lying with his head propped on a single white pillow. They’d changed him out of his suit and into regulation pajamas, thick cotton with vertical stripes the color of uncooked liver. The nurse had asked Greenleaf what they should do with Mr. Doyle’s handgun. Greenleaf carried it with him now, inside a rolled-up white carrier. Doyle’s shoulder holster was in there, too.
Greenleaf still hadn’t handed in his own gun. Somehow he was getting used to it, nestling beneath his jacket there.
“Hello, Doyle.” He dragged a chair over to the bedside. The cabinet was empty save for a jug of water and a plastic cup. Greenleaf placed the carrier beside the water jug. Doyle opened his eyes long enough to watch this happening.
“Is that my gun in there?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God for that. Thought maybe I’d lost the bloody thing. Bet they’d have taken it out of my wages.”
“There’s these, too.” Greenleaf produced a packet of mints. “From Commander Trilling.”
“It’s the thought that counts, so they say.”
Greenleaf smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“Chipper. Can you get me out of here?”
“They’re holding you overnight.”
Doyle groaned. “I was seeing my bird tonight.”
“Give me her number and I’ll send your apologies.”
Doyle grinned, showing stained teeth. “I’ll bet you would, John-boy. No, it’s all right, let her sweat. She’ll be all the keener tomorrow. Have we caught that bitch yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Leading us a merry dance, isn’t she?”
“Have you heard about Barker?”
“Yeah, couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke. What does she want with him?”
Greenleaf shrugged. “Nobody seems to know.”
“We were set up, weren’t we?”
“It looks like she set everybody up, Doyle.”
“Yeah, everybody. What does Elder say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know much, do you, pal? Where is he?”
“Back in his office, I suppose.”
Doyle tried to sit up, though the effort cost him dear. He gritted his teeth and levered himself onto his elbows. Greenleaf rose from his chair to help, but Doyle growled the offer aside. “Listen,” he said, “stick close to Elder, John. He knows something we don’t, believe me. If anyone catches her, it’s going to be him. Stick close, and we’ll get a pop at her, too. Savvy?”
Greenleaf nodded, then saw that Doyle’s eyes were closed again. “I savvy,” he said. Doyle nodded back at him, and let his head fall back on to the pillow.
Greenleaf was remembering... remembering the note Witch had left for Elder. What special bond was there between them? Maybe Doyle had a point.
“Last time I had a head like this,” Doyle said, “was the morning after that party in the boxing club. Remember it?”
“I remember it.”
Doyle smiled faintly. “Good night that, wasn’t it? Knew back then that you were a good man, John. Knew it even back then.” Doyle’s voice grew slurred and faint. “I’ve still got that French booze. When I get out we’ll have a bit of a party. Good man...”
Greenleaf waited till he was asleep, the breathing regular, then he got up, moved the chair away, and lifted the carrier bag from the bedside cabinet. He touched Doyle’s shoulder lightly, smiling down on the sleeping figure.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” he said quietly, almost too quietly to be heard.
Barclay’s car had been brought back from Calais, so they drove south in that. Barclay did the driving, while Dominique sat beside him thumping his leg and demanding that he go faster.
“Either that or we swap places. And turn off that noise.”
“Noise?” Barclay bristled. “That’s Verdi.”
Elder sat alone in the backseat. He wasn’t in a mood for conversation, so he stared from the window and kept his responses brief whenever a question was asked of him, until both Barclay and Dominique seemed to take the hint.
He had seen it suddenly, crystal clear. Barker’s second wife, so recently deceased, had been a spiritualist. When Elder had visited the fairground, the palm reader had been too direct in her denial of having seen Witch. It had jarred at the time, but there’d seemed no real connection until now. His back was burning, and he had to sit forwards in his seat so as not to graze it against the car’s rough fabric. Have patience, Susanne, he thought to himself. Have patience. He knew he was addressing not his daughter but himself.
This time when they reached Brighton he knew exactly where to go. A few of the bigger rides had already been packed away and transported elsewhere. He still had Ted’s list in his diary, all the other fairs taking place in the region.
As they headed for The Level, he sat right forwards, his head between Dominique’s and Barclay’s. “Now listen,” he said, “hopefully I’m going to have a word with a ball-gazer. If she’s still around, that is. I want you two to take a look around... a good look around.”
“You think Witch may be here?”
“It’s possible.”
“Shouldn’t we have some backup?”
“Does she know what you look like?”
“No.”
“Then why do we need backup? Anyway, there’ll be backup. Turn left here.”
Barclay turned left. It was early evening and the fair was doing some business, but not much. A late-afternoon downpour had drenched the spirits of the holidaymakers. Elder knew where Gypsy Rose’s caravan was. It was near the ghost train. Only the ghost train had gone, and in its place was a stall of some kind. But the palmist’s caravan was still there, hooked up to a station wagon. He could see it from the road. “Drop me here,” Elder ordered. The car slowed to a stop, and he got out. “Park at the end of the road and walk back. Remember, you’re on holiday. You’re just having a look. Don’t go behaving like snoopers or coppers or anything else. Just behave... naturally.” The door closed, and Elder watched the car move off. Dominique seemed to put her hand to Barclay’s hair, ruffling it. He watched a moment longer before walking across the grass towards Gypsy Rose Pellengro’s caravan.