Authors: Ian Rankin
‘Could you get in touch with her? Is she at her mum’s in Doncaster? Maybe if you gave me the phone number ...?’
‘She didn’t leave one.’
‘That’s not like—’
‘She was a bit distraught. She’s not in Doncaster anyway. The aunt lived somewhere in Liverpool.’
‘Yes, I see.’ Liverpool? Christine hadn’t mentioned an aunt in Liverpool.
‘Shall I get her to call you?’
‘Yes, please, Tessa. I really need to know about Dobson’s and about the MTD meeting.’
‘Hold on, I’ll write that down. Dobson’s ...’
‘And the MTD meeting. Management Training Directive. Just tell her MTD, she’ll know what it is.’
‘Okay.’
‘And if you do hear from her, please tell her I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, thank you, I will.’
‘Oh, and Tessa?’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you got a cold or something? Your voice sounds hoarse.’
‘Must be the anabolic steroids. ‘Bye, Judy.’
“Bye, Tessa,’ said Judy, putting down the phone. She sighed. Oh, hell. No Christine till Thursday. No one to steer the ship for the next three days. Three days off for a bereavement. She wondered how Mrs Pyle in personnel would react to that. She didn’t like you taking off three consecutive days for major surgery, never mind a funeral. Liverpool? An aunt in Liverpool? Oh well, it came to us all, didn’t it? Maybe she’d phone Christine’s house tonight ... talk to Tessa again, see if Christine had been in touch.
Then again, maybe she wouldn’t. Derek was supposed to be taking her out to the pictures. That was typical of him, choosing Monday night. He knew the cinemas were half-price on a Monday ...
‘There goes another one,’ said her colleague Martin, coming into the room.
‘What?’
‘A motorcade.’ He walked to the window. She joined him, peering down. Four growling motorbikes preceded the slow-moving convoy of long black cars.
‘Wonder who it is this time?’ she said.
‘I can’t see. Usually there’s a flag on the front of the chiefs car. Can you see one?’
She craned her neck. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Me neither.’
‘I feel we should be throwing down confetti or something.’
He laughed. ‘You mean tickertape. Except these days, we’d have to use the leftovers from the paper-shredder instead.’
She laughed at this, at the idea of tipping a binful of shredded documents out of the window. Martin could be really funny at times. If he took off his glasses, he wasn’t bad-looking either. Nice bum, too. He seemed to sense what she was thinking and turned towards her, taking off his glasses to wipe them with his hankie. There were red marks either side of his nose where the frames pinched.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what are you doing tonight, Judy?’
She thought for a moment, swallowed, and said: ‘Nothing.’
Witch put down the receiver. Shit, merde, scheisse. Trust her to end up speaking to someone who knew Tessa. A girl called Judy ... who sounded concerned about Christine Jones. Concerned enough to pick up the phone and make some enquiries? Concerned enough to telephone the
real
Tessa this evening? Witch bit her bottom lip. Dispose of the girl Judy? No, it would be too suspicious. Two people disappearing from the same office ... a laughable idea. No, this would have to be one of those rare occasions where she was forced to trust to luck. That’s all there was to it. Maybe she should read her tarot again, see what it had planned for her. Maybe she shouldn’t. What good would it do if the news were bad? She’d still have to go through with it. Too late to back out now.
She had time to kill. Her meeting with the Dutchman wasn’t till lunchtime. She took her hand-mirror out of her shoulder-bag and looked at herself. She’d cut and dyed her hair, plucked her eyebrows, dusted her cheeks. She felt she resembled the photo of Christine Jones on her security pass almost
more
than Christine Jones herself did. After all, the photo had been taken some time ago. Christine’s hair had grown out since it was taken. But Witch’s was just the right length. And Christine had let her eyebrows grow out, too. Sensible woman. It was an unnecessary and painful chore. All to attract the male ...
She placed the mirror back in her shoulder-bag. She was also carrying Christine’s office-issue satchel, containing a few of her files but also some bits and pieces which were specifically, unquestionably Witch’s own. She came out of the phone-booth and, in less than ten steps, was back on Victoria Street. Just in time to see the tail-end of the convoy. A policeman, who had been holding back traffic at the intersection, now told pedestrians they could cross the road.
‘Just a bloody nuisance, this conference,’ muttered one elderly lady, wheeling her shopping-trolley off the pavement and on to the road, making it rattle noisily as she pushed it.
A driver, stuck in line and awaiting permission to move, opened his car door and leaned out.
‘How much longer, guv?’ he called to the policeman.
‘Couple more minutes,’ the policeman called back. He shook his head at Witch. ‘Some people got no patience.’
‘Patience is a virtue,’ she agreed. For some reason, he laughed at this. Witch walked on. She wasn’t headed for 1-19 Victoria Street. She was making for another DTI building closer to Victoria Station. It was a very short walk. Not enough time for her to become nervous. She went to push open the glass door to the building, but a man, just leaving, held it open for her.
‘Thank you,’ she said with a smile. She strode through the lobby, her security pass held out in her hand as she passed the guard-desk. The man on duty looked at her dully, blinked, and returned to his reading. She waited for the lift to descend, and at the same time checked out the ground floor, especially the stairs. Entrances and exits were important. The stairs actually kept on going down. She wondered what was downstairs. In the lift, there was a button marked B for Basement. So she pressed it and headed downwards. The doors shuddered open, and she found herself staring at another entrance lobby - the back entrance to the building - and another guard, who was staring at her. She smiled at him.
‘Pressed the wrong button,’ she called, before pushing the button for level 2. It took a moment longer for the doors to close. She saw two grey-liveried drivers coming into the lobby. Their cars were parked just outside the doors. Now she remembered. She’d walked around the back of this building before. There was a slope down from street-level to the back entrance, and on this slope the chauffeurs left their cars while they waited for their ministers or other ‘important people’ to finish their meetings. So: back entrance, front entrance, two lifts and one set of stairs. She nodded to herself.
At the ground floor, the doors opened and two men in pinstripe suits got in, giving her a moment’s glance, deciding they didn’t know her, and continuing their conversation.
‘Spurrier’s doing a good job,’ said one of them. ‘That office was a shambles ...’
Witch got out at the second floor while the men continued upwards. She was standing in a small entrance area from which led, to left and right, narrow green-carpeted halls. She chose to go right, and passed several offices. Green seemed the predominant colour: she saw lime green chairs in some of the offices, and olive green curtains. In some of the offices stood a single desk and chair. Other rooms were larger, with a staff of secretaries working away on word processors, or clerical-looking people rushing around with sheaves of paper or large manila envelopes under their arms. Telephones did not ring; rather, they buzzed, quite annoyingly. In the corridor ahead, two shirt-sleeved men were having an intense discussion. One stood with arms folded, resting most of his weight on his forward foot. The other had his hands in his pockets. Both wore pale shirts and dark ties. They looked senior. The one with arms folded turned and watched Witch approach.
‘Can I help you?’ he said.
Damn! She was supposed to look as though she belonged here. She swallowed.
‘I’m looking for Mr Spurrier,’ she said.
He grinned.
‘Mrs
Spurrier, you mean.’
‘Oh yes, Mrs Spurrier.’
‘Next floor up,’ said the man. ‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ He was almost purring. His colleague was staring fixedly, nervously, at the tips of his shoes.
She managed a coy smile. ‘No, I work at Number One.’
‘Ah.’ Folded-arms nodded as though this explained everything. ‘Back along here, lift to the next floor, corridor on the left.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, turning away. Another close call. What if he’d said, ‘I’m Spurrier, how can I help you?’ It was bad enough that Spurrier had turned out to be a woman. She was beginning to take risks. The game was becoming difficult. Difficult, but not dangerous. It would turn dangerous if she were forced to take risks ... She took the stairs, not the lift. Just to experience them. At the top of the stairwell, two girls were giggling together.
‘What’s the joke?’ said Witch, conversationally.
They looked around before confiding in her. ‘The hunky policemen,’ one said.
‘We’re wondering which one we’ll get outside our window,’ explained the other.
‘Ah,’ said Witch, nodding. Yes, she’d been wondering about that. Police marksmen on the roofs along Victoria Street: it was bound to happen. There would be times when all the heads of state would be driving along Victoria Street towards Buckingham Palace. Police marksmen on the roofs ... and in the buildings? There were ledges outside the windows of this building. Witch had spent a long time in her several disguises checking the look of the DTI buildings on Victoria Street. Staring up at them ... sometimes taking a photograph. Just a tourist, eating her burger lunch or killing time. The marksmen would be sited on the ledges. But did they ... ?
‘Do you ever get the chance to talk to them?’ she asked. The girls giggled again.
‘Not enough,’ said one.
‘Not
nearly
enough,’ said the other.
‘God, there was one ... when was it? Back in April.’
‘March,’ her friend corrected.
‘March was it? Yes, when that whassisname was in town. He visited just along the road. They had policemen on the ledges then. The one outside our office ...’
‘God, what a hunk!’
Witch laughed with them, asked them to describe the man. They did, then they all laughed again. The two girls hugged their files to their chests.
‘I hope we get him again.’
‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you,’ said Witch. ‘How do they get out on to the ledges?’
‘Oh, some of the windows open. You know, like in the minister’s office. You can get out that way.’
‘I’ve never been in the minister’s office,’ Witch admitted.
‘No? We’re in there all the time, aren’t we, Shelley?’
‘All the time,’ she agreed. ‘He’s got his own telly and everything in there.’
‘Drinks cabinet,
all
the papers, and paintings on the wall, supposed to be really valuable.’
‘Yes?’ said Witch.
‘Oh yes,’ said Shelley. ‘And if he doesn’t like them, they fetch him some more.’
‘I don’t know about paintings. Give me a big poster of that police hunk any day!’
Witch left them to their giggles and walked along the third-floor corridor. She was keeping an eye out for Folded-arms. Maybe he’d follow her, try another chat-up line. She did not want him directing her personally to Mrs Spurrier’s office.
She came to a solid wooden door with a plate reading Conference Room. Pinned to the door was a sheet of typed paper with dates, times and names on it. Presumably bookings for use of the room. There was no booking for just now. She turned the doorhandle. The door, though it had a lock, was open. She slipped inside and closed the door again. The room had a stuffy, unused smell. There was a plain oval table, five lime green chairs, a single uninspired painting on one wall. Two glass ashtrays sat on the table, and on the floor by the window sat an empty metal wastebasket.
Utilitarian; Witch quite liked it. She went to the window and stared out, resting her hands on the inner sill. The window was not the opening kind. It was swathed in yards of off-white gauze curtaining, the kind popular in public offices because, the popular wisdom went, the curtains would catch shards of glass exploding inwards after a blast. Witch’s blurred view was of the traffic and the pedestrians below in Victoria Street. The hold-up for the VIP convoy had led to frayed tempers and congestion. She thought for a moment of the drive she was going to take tomorrow or Wednesday. She had to get her routes right. She had to find a car tonight and make a test-run. She had to find two cars tonight. There was so much still to do. The ledge, she noted with pleasure, was hardly wide enough to accommodate a man. The ledges on the next floor down, she knew, were wide enough. What was more, the ledge outside her window had crumbled a little, rendering it unsafe. Good. Very good. She examined the face of the building across the road, then spent a little time looking down on to the road itself, her lips pursed thoughtfully.
Back at the door, she examined the keyhole. An uncomplicated affair, as easy to lock as it would be to unlock. Better and better. She opened the door again and stepped out into the corridor, closed it behind her and checked the list on the door. There were no scheduled meetings tomorrow at all, and only two on Wednesday, one at 10 and the other at 4.15. A nice gap between. Excellent. Witch was in no doubt. At last, she’d found her bolt-hole, her assassin’s perch. Sometimes it happened like that, you just wandered into a place or up to a place and you saw it straight away, the perfect position. Other times, you had to search and scour and scratch your head and maybe even make other plans, look at other sites. She’d lost weeks of her life changing initial plans, executing - apt word - new ones. But today it had come easy. Perhaps her luck was changing. She turned around and saw, coming towards her, Folded-arms. Only his arms weren’t folded any more. They were spread out, palms towards her.