Witch Hunt

by Ian Rankin

Genres: Traditional Mysteries; Mystery

Synopsis

Interpol have tried and failed to find the terrorist, Witch. Now the combined forces of Scotland Yard and MI5 must try the impossible to prevent a major international incident.

Dominic Elder carries her autograph wherever he goes. Witch is his passion, his obsession. And being retired is no bar to his willingness to restart the hunt. MI5 know that the man who wrote the Witch file is the key to catching their quarry. But the truth isn't easy to spot. And it is only when an MI5 novice and his French counterpart piece together the smallest of clues, that Witch suddenly looks vulnerable...

Read by Nicola Walker

(p) 2002 Orion Publishing Group

Release date: December 1, 2005

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

Monday 1 June

IT WAS A PLEASURE BOAT.

At least, that’s how owner and skipper George Crane would have described it. It had been bought for pleasure back in the late 1980s when business was thriving, money both plentiful and cheap. He’d bought it to indulge himself. His wife had nagged about the waste of money, but then she suffered from chronic seasickness and wouldn’t set foot on it. She wouldn’t set foot on it, but there were plenty of women who would. Plenty of women for George Crane and his friends. There was Liza, for example, who liked to stand on deck clad only in her bikini bottom, waving at passing vessels. God, Liza, Siren of the South Coast. Where was she now? And all the others: Gail, Tracy, Debbie, Francesca . . . He smiled at the memories: of routes to France, Portugal, Spain; of trips taken around the treacherous British Isles. Trips taken with women aboard, or with women picked up en route. Wine and good food and perhaps a few lines of coke at the end of the evening. Good days, good memories. Memories of the pleasure boat Cassandra Christa.

But no pleasure tonight, the boat gliding across a calm British Channel. This was a business trip, the client below decks. Crane hadn’t caught much more than a glimpse of her as she’d clambered aboard with her rucksack. Brian had gone to help her, but she hadn’t needed any. She was tall, he was certain of that. Dark maybe, as in dark-haired, not dark-skinned. European? He couldn’t say. Brian hadn’t been able to add much either.

“Just asked if she could go below. Better down there than up here getting in the way.”

“She said that?”

Brian shook his head. “All she said was ‘I’m going below.’ Not even a question, more like an order.”

“Did she sound English?”

Brian shrugged. He was a good and honest soul, unburdened by intellect. Still, he would keep his mouth shut about tonight’s work. And he came cheap, since he was already one of George Crane’s employees, one of that dwindling band. The business had overextended itself, that was the problem. Too big a loan to push the business into new areas, areas drying up just as George Crane arrived. More loans to cover the earlier loan . . . It was bad luck. Still, the business would weather it.

Cassandra Christa, however, might not. He’d put word out that she was for sale, and an ad had been placed in a couple of newspapers: one quality Sunday, one daily. There had been just the one phone call so far but it was early days, besides which maybe he wouldn’t have to sell after all. He glanced at his watch. Five minutes short of three in the morning. Crane stifled a yawn.

“Want me to check the cargo?” Brian asked. Crane smiled.

“You stay where you are, you randy little sod. The cargo can look after itself.”

Crane had been told—had been ordered—not to be interested, not to be nosy. No chitchat, no questions. It was just a delivery, that was all. He didn’t know quite what he’d expected. Some chisel-chinned IRA bastard or ex-pat felon. He certainly hadn’t expected a young woman. Young? Well, she moved like a young woman. He had to admit he was intrigued, despite the warning. The worst part would be coming up soon: the landing on the coast. But she spoke English, so that shouldn’t pose any problem even if they were stopped. A midnight cruise, take the boat out, breathe in the ozone, that sort of thing. A nod and a wink to Customs or whoever. They understood these things. The pleasure of making love on the deck of a boat, sky above, water all around. He shivered slightly. It had been a long time. The good days seemed an awful long time ago. But maybe they’d return. A few more runs like this wouldn’t go amiss. Easy money. And to think he’d worried about it for weeks. Shame, really, that he was selling the boat. But if he did a good job, a smooth job of work, they might employ his talents again. Another job or two would save the Cassandra Christa. Another couple of jobs like this one and he’d be home and dry.

“Shoreline, Skip.”

“I told you I don’t like ‘Skip.’ Skipper’s okay.”

“Sorry, Skipper.”

Crane nodded. Brian’s attributes included sharp night vision. Yes, there it was now. The coastline. Hythe and Sandgate probably. Folkestone just a little to the east, their destination. Folkestone was the drop-off, the danger point. Then they’d turn the boat back towards Sandgate, where it had its mooring. More instructions: after depositing the cargo, head back out to sea before making for final mooring. Do not hug the coastline, as this would make them more likely to be spotted.

A silly order really, but he’d been told at the start: you either follow the orders to the letter or you don’t take the job.

“I’ll take the job,” he’d said. But the man had shaken his head.

“Don’t make up your mind so quickly, Mr. Grane.” That was the way he’d said it—“Grane.” He had trouble with consonants. Danish? Something Scandinavian? Or Dutch maybe? “Take your time. You need to be sure for yourself. I’ll telephone you next week. Meantime, happy sailing.”

Happy sailing? Well, plain sailing anyway. Crane didn’t expect trouble. There was no Customs activity to speak of around here these days. Cutbacks. The British coastline was like a net—full of holes through which you could push unseen anything you liked. Crane had been definite about that.

“Not if it’s drugs. I won’t have anything to do with drugs.”

The foreigner had shaken his head slowly. “Nothing like that. It’s just a body.”

“A body?”

“A live body, Mr. Grane. Very much alive. Someone who wants to see England but finds themself stranded on the Continent without a passport.”

“Ah.” Crane had nodded at that. He had his ideas: missing peers, runaways, crooks from the Costa Del Sol who’d decided they’d pay anything for the pleasure of an afternoon in a British boozer. “What about a name then?”

Another shake of the head. “No names, Mr. Grane.”

“So how will I know I’ve got the right person?”

An indulgent smile. “How many people do you think will be in the middle of the English Channel at midnight, waiting to meet a boat?”

Crane had laughed. “Not many, I suppose. Any night in particular?”

“I’ll let you know. I must warn you now, you won’t get much notice, a few hours at most. So make sure you are home every evening. Make sure you remain available. And Mr. Grane . . . ?”

“Yes?”

“Better think up a story to tell your wife.”

His wife! Least of his problems, he’d assured the man. But the man had seemed to know quite a lot about his problems, hadn’t he? The way he’d approached Crane that early morning outside the office, telling him he might have some work for him. But he hadn’t wanted to discuss it in Crane’s office. They’d arranged to meet in a pub instead, that lunchtime.

With nothing to lose but suspecting some kind of trap, Crane had gone along. What he hadn’t told the man was that one of his own men, Mike McKillip, was in the bar too. First sign of trouble, Mike’s orders were to wade in. Mike liked a bit of a dustup, and Crane had slipped him a twenty as drinking money.

But there’d been no dustup, no trap, just a muted conversation, mostly one-way. A business proposition . . . believe you own a boat . . . financial difficulties . . . would like to hire your services. That was the way he’d put it: “I would like to hire your services.” Like George Crane was some tugboat skipper. But then the man had started to talk serious money. He offered £1,000 on acceptance of the contract—he’d called it that too, making it sound like “gontrag”—£2,000 on delivery, and a further and final £2,000 twelve weeks after delivery.

“Three months? How do I know you won’t . . . I mean, I’m not suggesting . . . but all the same.” Crane’s head spun with thoughts of money. He gulped a mouthful of whiskey.

Cue the smile. “You are a businessman, Mr. Grane. Cautious, prudent, and suspicious. You are quite right. But the time lag is so we can assure ourselves of your silence. If we don’t pay, you could go to the police with your story.”

“Hardly! I’d be an accomplice.”

“Nevertheless, you could tell your story. We would rather pay for your silence. Two thousand seems to me a small price to pay for the gift of silence.”

George Crane still wasn’t sure about that. What story could he possibly tell? Still, he’d have done the job for three grand in any case, and three grand was what he’d have by the end of tonight’s little adventure. Three thousand beautiful pounds, a thousand of which had already been lodged in what he called his “Number Four Account,” one of several he’d managed to keep hidden from the Inland Revenue’s sniffer dogs (the same sniffer dogs he’d suspected of laying a trap for him in the first place). There was fifty quid to pay Brian, of course. It didn’t seem much but anything higher and he might start to get suspicious. Fifty was just right for Brian: enough to buy his fidelity but not enough to get him excited.

There were lights along the coast, welcoming lights. He turned to Brian now. “Better tell her we’re home.”

“I think she already knows.”

And here she was, coming in a crouch through the small doorway and onto deck, pulling her rucksack behind her. She stood up straight, stretching her back. She was tall, five-ten or thereabouts. Tall and thin. Hard to tell much more through the waterproof she was wearing. She had a package with her which she held out to Crane. He accepted it.

“Brian,” he said, “take over here for a sec.”

“Right, Skipper.”

Crane made his way to the side of the boat, nearest to the land. There was enough light to see by. He didn’t want Brian to see how much money was involved. He tore open the package and flipped through the wad of notes. Fifties. Looked like about forty of them. Well, he wasn’t going to stand here counting them out like Shylock. He stuffed them into his inside jacket pocket, creating a comfortable bulge, and returned to the wheel. The woman was looking at him, so he nodded towards her. Only towards her, not at her. It was difficult to meet her eyes, difficult to hold their gaze. It wasn’t that she was beautiful or anything (though she might be in daylight). But she was . . . intense. And almost scowling, like she was spoiling for a fight.

“Around the coast a little way yet, Brian,” Crane said. “Just outside the town, that’s the drop.”

“How much longer?” she asked. Yes, European, thought Crane. Probably British, but she looked as if she’d been away for a while.

“Five minutes,” he said. He produced a hip flask from his pocket and unscrewed the top. “A drop of malt,” he explained. “Care for a tot?”

She shook her head, but as he drank deep she said: “Good health.”

He exhaled noisily. “Thank you. And here’s to yours.” Then he passed the near-depleted flask to Brian, who finished it off in a mouthful.

“We’ve got a dinghy.” Crane announced. It was good policy to look helpful if he wanted future contracts. “We can row you ashore.”

“I’ll swim. Just get me close.”

“The water’s freezing,” Brian protested. “You’ll catch your death.”

But she was shaking her head.

“And what about your bag?”

“It’s waterproof, and so am I.”

“It’ll sink like a —”

She was taking off the waterproof, slipping out of her shoes, undoing her jeans. The two men watched. Underneath, she was wearing a one-piece black bathing suit.

“I must get one of those for the wife,” Crane muttered.

She was stuffing her clothes into the rucksack. “I’ll change back when I reach shore.”

Brian, staring at her long white legs, seemed to be picturing this. Truth be told, Crane was picturing it, too. She might not be beautiful, but she had a body. Christ, she had a body.

“Thanks for the thought,” she said finally with a slight twist of her lips. It was as if she’d been reading their minds.

“It’s been a pleasure,” said Crane. “A pleasure.”

They dropped her off and watched for a few moments as she struck for shore. She swam strongly, dragging the rucksack after her. They were no more than a hundred yards from land. It looked like she’d make it with ease. Then Crane remembered his orders.

“Back out to sea with her, Brian. We’ll come around to Sandgate. Home before dawn with a bit of luck.”

“She was something, wasn’t she, Skip?” Brian was still gazing towards shore.

“Yes, son,” admitted Crane. “She was something.”

She changed quickly. The rucksack contained quite a lot, including several changes of clothes and shoes. It also contained air pockets to help keep it afloat. She deflated these. The rucksack had been heavier early on in the evening. She smiled at the memory. Wrapped in polyethylene in an already waterproofed pocket was a diary, and beside it some odds and ends of makeup. The makeup was like a talisman to her. Makeup was the beginning of disguise. What else was in the rucksack? You could tell a lot about a woman from the contents of her bag. If you tried hard, this rucksack would tell you a lot too. Passport, driver’s license, money. A few small tools. Some packages of what looked like plasticine. A tarot pack. A handgun. That was about it.

She didn’t look out to sea, but she listened to it. The steady clash of waves, the whistling wind. Exhilarating. Her hair, pinned back, was still drying quickly, her scalp chilled by the wind. A sharp salt smell clung to her. Her eyes were closed slightly as she listened. Then, in the distance, she heard a loudish pop, there and then not there. Like the meeting of balloon and pin at a children’s party. She knew she had measured the amount of the charge well, and had placed it well, too, down in the bowels of the boat. The hole blown in the hull would be a couple of yards in diameter. The vessel would sink in seconds, seconds of shock and horror for its crew. And if the explosion didn’t kill the two men outright . . . well, what chance of their reaching land? No chance for the older man, minimal for the younger. Minimal was as much as she liked to leave to chance. But she hung around for a while anyway, just in case anyone did reach shore. There was a certain amount of shelter, so she did not freeze. In fact, the breeze was growing almost warm. Or perhaps she was just getting used to being back.

No sign of the two men. She waited seventy-five minutes, then unpinned her long hair, letting it fall forwards over her face. A simple trick, but one which reduced her age by several years, especially when she was not wearing makeup. She thought of the boat a final time. It would be a mere oil slick now. Perhaps banknotes were floating on the tide. Useless things anyway.

She made her way to the main road and began to walk. Hitching along the south coast. Going to visit a friend in Margate. (Or Cliftonville: dare she say Cliftonville?) Didn’t get a lift out of Folkestone, so spent the night there, sleeping rough by the roadside . . .

That was the story she would tell to whichever motorist picked her up. Someone would pick her up. Some man, most probably. She was a single woman, young. They might lecture her about the dangers of hitching alone. She would listen. She was a good listener. A lorry driver might even go out of his way and take her to Margate or Cliftonville in a single run. Of course, he would expect a favor in return, something more than her good ear. Her good mouth maybe. But that was all right. That wasn’t a problem for her. She was someone else after all, wasn’t she? And tomorrow she would be someone else again . . .

Tuesday 2 June

EVERYONE IN THE COLLATOR’S OFFICE had what might be termed a “clerical mind.” Which is to say that they were scrupulous in their filing. They were, in fact, a kind of pre-information technology production line, feeding data into the central computer. This was their purpose in the Collator’s Office. It was up to the computer to decide whether some news item or other might be important. The computer was capable of taking a petrol station holdup in Kelso, the abduction of a girl in Doncaster, and the finding of a body in rural Wales, and making of them a pattern.

But most of the time it didn’t. Most of the time it just sat wherever it sat, a glutton’s bottomless stomach, ingesting story after story, item after item, without excreting anything in return. A lot of false roads were taken, a lot of palpable nonsense spewed up by the computer. And occasionally a nugget of truth, but not often. No, not very often.

There were times when Collator’s Assistant Jack Constant thought that the only things keeping him sane were the editions of French newspapers which he brought into work with him. Constant thought he’d plumbed the depths of boredom and futility during his yearlong stint as clerical assistant in the office of Her Majesty’s Collector of Taxes. He’d spent the year sending out demands and reminders and final notices, noting payments and passing the nonpayers on to his boss. A year of ledgers, producing in him a ledger mentality. But then computerization had “saved” him by taking over his most onerous tasks, and a series of shuffles between departments had seen him dropped finally into the Collator’s Office. The pit.

“So how goes the Font of All Knowledge?” asked Cynthia Crockett, a fellow CA. Each day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes after the lunch break, she asked this question with the same quizzical smile. Maybe she thought it was funny.

“Foak knows,” replied Constant, FOAK being the Font of All Knowledge, the central computer. Another CA, Jim Wilson, had another name for it. He called it the Fat Controller or, when in a bad temper, even the Fat Bastard. He’d once come into work wearing a T-shirt printed with the legend WHO’S THAT FAT BASTARD? Mr. Grayson, the office head, had summoned him into the inner sanctum for a quiet, disciplined word about dress code.

Afterwards, Wilson had not been mollified. “Wants us wearing suits and bloody ties. I mean, it’s not like we’re dealing with the public, is it? We never see anyone. Nobody except old Grayskull himself.”

But he hadn’t worn the T-shirt again.

Constant suffered his colleagues, even “old Grayskull” of the shiny head and tweed-knit ties, drifting towards his pension. Mr. Grayson’s wife packed him exactly two salmon sandwiches, one apple, and one small chocolate biscuit for his lunch every day. Yvette would never do that. It would be a fresh baguette and some Camembert, maybe with pickles or a small salad with vinaigrette. The French took their food seriously, and Yvette, Constant’s girlfriend, was French. She lived in Le Mans, which meant that they met only for holidays and occasional frantic weekends (trips barely sustainable on a CA’s salary, not when his phone bill was so big). Yvette was still studying, but would soon come to England for good. She’d get a job as French assistant in some school. They would be together.

Meantime, he had his newspapers. Usually Le Monde but occasionally one of the others. He read them to improve his French, and also because Yvette didn’t seem so far away while he was reading. So, whenever a break was due, Jack would reach into his desk drawer and bring out his French newspaper, something to digest with the unspeakable coffee.

He read the snippet of news again. It was squeezed onto the front page below a much longer story about forest fires in the Mediterranean. A boat had sunk in the Channel, barely twenty kilometers from its home port of Calais. There were no survivors. Four sailors dead. The story jogged Jack Constant’s memory. He’d filed a story earlier in the day, something about a boat sinking off the south coast of England. Coincidence? He wondered if he should mention it to someone. He looked up from the paper and saw that Mr. Grayson had appeared from his inner sanctum. He was looking around as though bewildered to find himself there. He saw Constant looking at him and decided to approach for a conversation. Another day, someone else would suffer. Past the computer screens and the brown file cases and the newspaper cuttings and the printouts and the fax sheets he came. Past the clack of keyboards and the sizzle of disk memories. Towards Jack Constant.

“Jack.”

Constant confirmed this with a nod.

“Everything quiet?”

“Quiet as it gets, sir.”

Grayson nodded seriously. “Good.” His breath smelled of salmon. With a sad half-smile, he began to turn away.

Why not? thought Constant. It might pep the old bugger up a bit. “Oh, sir?” he said. “I’ve got a story here might be of interest.”

Mr. Grayson seemed to doubt this. To be honest, Constant was doubting it, too.

Wednesday 3 June

IN THE SERVICE, THERE WAS always someone above you. But the information ladder could splinter— a missing rung. The information ladder depended on people like Jack Constant reporting something to someone like Mr. Grayson. And it depended on Grayson’s instinct or “nose,” his ability to weed out what was interesting from what really was mere coincidence. The information was then passed up the ladder to his superior, who might make further inquiries before either filing the piece or passing it on to someone more senior yet.

These were lofty heights now. Working from his own small office, Grayson had never met his superior’s superior. He’d once received an inquiry from that person. The inquiry had been dealt with as a priority. Mr. Grayson’s office had never had to deal with inquiries from yet higher officials.

The item, the bare comparison of two sinkings on a single night, was passed quickly from rung to rung until it reached an office somewhere in central London where a twenty-five-year-old man, only two years older than Jack Constant himself, read it. He was humming an aria and chewing a pencil and had his legs stretched out in front of him, one foot crossed over the other. He had pushed his seat out from his desk to facilitate this, his legs being too long to stretch beneath the desk itself. There was a wall immediately in front of the desk, with memos and postcards and fire instructions pinned to it.

He read the item through three times. Spotted in Le Monde of all places. Either somebody was on the ball or this man . . . what was the name, Grayson? Yes, this man Grayson ran a tight ship. Poor metaphor under the circumstances. The item had grown unwieldy by now, attached as it was to notes from the various offices through which it had passed. But though unwieldy, it was also irritatingly flimsy, constructed from thin sheets of fax paper. It had been faxed (standard practice) by the last office to see it. The real thing would turn up here eventually, but the fax was supposed to save valuable time. Michael Barclay did not like faxes. For a start, no matter how often the Engineering Section explained it to him, he couldn’t see how they were safe from a tap. Tap into a fax line with your own fax, and you’d get a copy of anything sent to the original machine. Codes could be decoded, scramblers unscrambled. As he’d told his colleagues from Engineering, “If you can make something, you can unmake it.” To prove his point, he’d rigged up his own interception device. It had worked, just, proving his point if nothing else. After all, Government Communications made a living from information intercepts, as did the listening posts dotted around the UK. If anything, there was an intelligence overload these days. Too much information to assimilate.

Assimilate? There was too much to sift, never mind taking any of it in. Which was why this little story interested him. It was a fluke that it had come this far. The image that popped into his head was of a particular sperm breaching an egg. A fluke. This fluke called life: those very words were printed on a memo above his desk.

Well, this particular fluke did have its curiosity aspect. It would bear investigation. There was only one thing for it. Barclay would have to show it to his superior.

Michael Barclay did not think of himself as a spy. Nor would he even say he belonged to the secret service or the security service—though he’d agree security was at the root of much of his work. If pressed, he might nod towards the word “Intelligence.” He liked the word. It meant knowing a lot. And “Intelligence” meant knowing at least as much as and preferably more than anyone else. This was the problem with the word “spy.” It belonged to the old days, the Cold War days and before. Breaking and entering, sleeping with the enemy, microfilm and microphones in ties and tunnels under embassies.

These days, there was no black and white: everyone spied on everyone else. This was no revelation; it had always been the case, but it was more open now. More open and more closed. Spy satellites were toys only the very rich and paranoid could play with. The spying community had grown larger, all-encompassing, but it had also grown smaller, forming itself into an elite. All change.

He’d actually used the word “paranoid” in one of his selection board interviews. A calculated risk. If the service didn’t want to think of itself as paranoid, it would have to recruit those who suspected it of paranoia. Well, he’d passed the exams and the tests and the interviews. He’d passed the initiation and the regular assessments. He’d begun his own slow crawl up the ladder. And he’d seen that the world was changing.

No spies anymore. Now there were only the technicians. Take telemetry for example. Who the hell knew what all that garble of information meant? Who knew how to ungarble it? Only the technicians. Machines might talk to machines, but it took a wonderful human mind to listen in and comprehend. Barclay had done his bit. He’d studied electronic engineering. He’d been a dab hand with a few microchips and LEDs ever since his early teens, when he’d constructed his own digital clock. At sixteen he’d been building loudspeakers and amplifiers. And at seventeen he’d bugged the girls’ showers at his school.

At university he’d been “noticed”: that was the way they’d phrased it. His work on long-range surveillance had been noticed. His grasp of geostationary satellite technology had been noticed. His special project on miniaturization had been noticed. Fortunately, nobody noticed that he’d cribbed a lot of the project from early R&D done by Japanese hi-fi companies. A career path lay ahead of him, full of interest and variety and opportunities for further learning. A career in Intelligence.

Michael Barclay, Intelligence Technician. Except that he’d ended up here instead.

He didn’t need to knock at Joyce Parry’s door. It was kept wide open. There was some argument in the office as to why. Was it to keep an eye on them? Or to show solidarity with them? Or to show them how hard she worked? Most of the theories bubbled to the surface on Friday evenings in the Bull by the Horns, the frankly dreadful pub across the road from the office block. The Bull was a 1960s creation which looked no better for its 1980s refitting. In the ’80s, refitting had meant a lot of fake wood, eccentric ornaments, and books by the yard. The effect was kitsch Edwardian Steptoe and Son, with sad beer and sad graffiti in the gents’. But on the occasional Friday night, they managed somehow to turn the Bull into a cozy local, full of laughter and color. It was amazing what a few drinks could do.

Joyce Parry’s door was closed.

Unexpected refusal at first hurdle. Barclay, who had rolled the fax sheets into a scroll the better to brandish them, now tapped the scroll against his chin. Well, no matter. She was in conference perhaps. Or out of the office. (That was one thing: when Mrs. Parry wasn’t at home, her office door stayed firmly locked.) Barclay might do a little work meantime, so he could present her with not only the original item but with his notes and additions. Yes, why not show he was willing?

John Greenleaf had the feeling that somewhere in the world, every second of the day, someone was having a laugh at his expense. It stood to reason, didn’t it? He’d seen it happen with jokes. You made up a joke, told it to someone in a pub, and three months later while on holiday in Ecuador, some native told the joke back to you. Because all it took was one person to tell two or three people, and for them to tell their friends. Like chain letters, or was it chain mail? All it took was that first person, that someone who might say: “I know a man called Greenleaf. Guess who he works for? Special Branch! Greenleaf of the Branch!” Three months later they were laughing about it in Ecuador.

Inspector John Greenleaf, ex-Met and now—but for how long?—working for Special Branch. So what? There were plenty of butchers called Lamb. It shouldn’t bother him. He knows Greenleaf is a nice name, women keep telling him so. But he can’t shift the memory of last weekend out of his mind. Doyle’s party. If you could call twenty men, two hundred pints of beer, and a stripper a “party.” Greenleaf had debated skipping it altogether, then had decided he’d only get a slagging from Doyle if he didn’t go. So along he went, along to a gym and boxing school in the East End. That was typical of Hardman Doyle, who fancied himself with the fists. Raw animal smell to the place, and the beer piled high on a trestle table. No food: a curry house was booked for afterwards. There had been five or six of them in front of the table, and others spread