“Mr. Elder?”
The man who confronted him was heavy-built, balding. He had his hands deep in the pockets of a windbreaker beneath which he wore a white T-shirt. He looked like a manual worker, maybe a carpenter or builder, but respectable. He was one of Special Branch’s best.
Elder nodded, looking around. “Anything?”
“Quiet as the grave. I don’t know how she affords that Volvo of hers.”
“Her kid has money.”
Late on Sunday night, Joyce Parry had reported to Elder Bandorff’s mentions of tarots, clairvoyance, and psychoanalysis. First thing Monday morning, Elder had briefed the man supplied by Special Branch. Not that he thought Witch would creep back to the fair, but there was always the chance.
Even so, he’d still not been sure of the connection between a gypsy palm reader and a female assassin. Marion Rose, he now knew, was the connection.
“Don’t wander off,” he warned the undercover officer. Then he paused before the caravan door and knocked twice.
“It’s open.”
Elder turned the rickety handle and let himself in.
It took her a moment to recognize him. “I thought you’d be back.”
“Second sight?”
“No, I just got a feeling from you... a bad feeling.”
“You know why I’m here?”
She was seated on a bench at a table, and motioned for him to sit opposite her. A tarot deck lay on the table. She gathered the oversized cards up.
“No,” she said, “I’ve no idea.”
“I don’t know what you call her... what you christened her... but we call her Witch.”
“Witch?” She frowned, shuffling the cards slowly. “Funny name. Nothing to do with your daughter then?”
“You know it’s not.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You knew that day, too. Do you know what she’s done?”
“What?”
He looked around the caravan. There was a small portable TV on the floor in one corner, and a radio on the edge of the sink. “You really don’t know?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Why should I?”
“Surely someone at the fair has said something?”
“What has she done?” she asked, rather too quickly.
“She’s abducted her father.”
Rose Pellengro flinched. A few of the cards fell from her hands to the table. Elder picked up one of them. It was the High Priestess. He picked up another. It was Strength.
“Linking the Abyss to the Centre,” Rose Pellengro murmured, looking at the two cards. She paused. “Abducted? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I thought I was talking to someone with vision,” said Elder disappointedly. “Very well, I’ll make it a bit clearer. She has kidnapped Jonathan Barker.”
The cards fell to the table in a heap. The woman’s cheeks reddened.
“Was Marion Rose one of your... clients?” Elder asked softly.
Rose Pellengro seemed deep in thought. Then she nodded. “Oh yes, she was a regular. We seemed to have an affinity. She’d travel miles to come and see me.”
Elder nodded. “This affinity, she felt it, too, didn’t she? So much so that she confided in you.”
Pellengro smiled. “This was in the days after priests but before psychiatrists. Yes, she told me all about her... her problems.”
“One particular problem, I think.”
“Ah yes, one problem. A large one.”
“She was pregnant by Jonathan Barker, and he wanted her to get rid of the child.”
Rose Pellengro eyed him shrewdly. “You know a lot.”
“But not all of it.”
She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said. “His career had to come first. He twisted her around.”
“What happened?”
“Marion didn’t want to lose the child. She was very religious in her own way. She was a believer. I decided to help her.”
“You took the child, fostered it?”
“As far as Barker was concerned, Marion had gone to a clinic. Actually, she stayed here with me. When the baby was born, I kept it.”
Elder released a long-held breath. This was what he had suspected, the truth of Witch’s identity. “Did she... did the mother keep in touch?”
“Oh yes.” Pellengro sifted through the cards. “At first she kept in touch all the time. I thought maybe Barker would become suspicious, but not him.” She tapped her head. “He was too stupid, his mind only on himself.”
“Then what?”
“Then?” A shrug. “Marion started visiting less and less. By that time, Barker’s wife had died. They were to be married. More children arrived... born in wedlock. Proper children. She stopped coming altogether. She never came again.”
“And the child? The girl?”
A faint smile. “You call her Witch, but to me she’s Brigid Anastasia. Brigid, the Celtic goddess of fire, Anastasia, resurrection. Brigid Anastasia... A real mouthful, isn’t it? I always used to call her Biddy. I brought her up, mister. I educated her as best I could. She was always wild. Wild like fire.” Her eyes were glistening. “She once stabbed a boy who was bothering her. Then at fourteen she ran off with an Irishman. He’d been hanging around the fair for weeks. We were in Liverpool. When she went, I thought he’d killed her or something. But she sent me a letter from Ireland. She sent a lot of letters in the early days. Then she didn’t send any at all. Instead, she’d just turn up at my door. I never even recognized her half the time.”
“But this time... this trip... it was different?”
“Different, yes. Because she’d found out who her mother was.”
“How?”
The woman shrugged again. “She had vague memories of a lady visiting her when she was a toddler, picking her up and hugging her and crying and making her cry, too.” A tear slid down Rose Pellengro’s left cheek. “And when she was a bit older, I told her a little. Not much, but enough.” She sniffed. “Enough so that when she read the death notice... One of the papers had a photo of Marion. Biddy wasn’t daft. She remembered all right. And she knew now who her father was and what he’d done.”
She reached into the cuff of her cardigan and tugged out a small lace handkerchief with which to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
“Did she tell you what she was going to do?”
Pellengro shook her head. “Oh no, nothing like that. She just said she wanted to hear the story. Well, she’s old enough, isn’t she? So I told her the whole thing. I thought maybe she’d... well, I didn’t think she’d... Oh God, what does she want him for?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me, what do you think she’s been doing all these years?”
“She’s never said.”
“And you’ve no idea?”
“I thought maybe a prostitute?”
Elder shook his head.
“What then?”
“Never mind. Where will she take him?”
“God in heaven, how would I know that?”