Witch Hunt Read Online Free Page A

Now here was the Old Man himself, the Chief, the Boss, here was Commander Bill Trilling summoning him into the office which smelt perpetually of peppermint.
    ‘Sit down, John. Mint?’
    ‘No thanks, sir.’
    Trilling took out a sweet and slipped it into his mouth. It was seven months since he’d given up smoking and he was up to four packs of mints a day. His teeth were in ruins and he’d gained half a stone - half a stone he could ill afford. Seated in his chair, with its high armrests, it looked as though it would take a crowbar to get him out again. There was a sheet of paper on the notoriously tidy desk in front of him but no sign of Greenleaf’s report. He picked up the paper.
    ‘Bit of a job for you, John. May be something or nothing. A sinking off Folkestone. We’ve been asked to look into it. Happened a couple of days ago. Can’t say I saw anything about it.’
    It was well known that Trilling only ever looked at two newspapers, the Financial Times and the Sporting Life. He was a betting man, sometimes putting his money on a sure-fire stock or share, sometimes a horse or dog. Nobody really knew how successful he was since he didn’t share information, even when goaded by Doyle.
    ‘I think I read about it in my paper, sir.’
    ‘Did you? Good, well ...’ Trilling handed over the sheet. ‘Report back when you’ve got anything.’
    ‘How far do I take it, sir?’
    ‘As far as a day trip to Folkestone. Better liaise with Doyle.’
    ‘Doyle, sir?’
    ‘I’ve put him onto the French end.’ Greenleaf looked puzzled. ‘Didn’t I say? Another boat sank the same night off Calais. We’re to look for a connection. Doyle speaks passable French apparently.’
    A day out in Calais for Doyle, an afternoon in Folkestone for Greenleaf. Typical.
    ‘As I say, liaise with Doyle. You might even consider travelling down together. But see what you can do by telephone first. We don’t want expensive outings on office time if we can avoid it, not with them counting how many paper-clips we use. Like the man says, John, value for money. Maybe you should write a letter rather than use the phone.’
    The Commander was smiling. This was how people knew he’d made a joke.

Thursday 4 June
    His first ‘liaison’ with Doyle was at eleven the next morning.
    ‘Bring your chair over,’ Doyle said, thereby seizing the initiative: the meeting would take place at Doyle’s desk, in Doyle’s territory. Greenleaf lifted his heavy metal-framed chair with both hands, first resting his notes on the seat of the chair itself. But as he was placing it in front of Doyle’s desk, the notes slewed floorwards. Doyle affected not to notice. His own notes, Greenleaf noticed, were neatly word-processed: not because he’d laboured hard, but because he had a ‘close friend’ in the typing pool. No doubt she’d ignored more important work this morning so she could prepare these sheets for Doyle. It all looked efficient, a single paper-clip holding the whole lot together. Doyle now slid the paper-clip from the corner of the sheets and let it fall to the floor. He spread the sheets in front of him.
    ‘Right,’ he said, ‘what have you got?’
    ‘A small touring boat,’ Greenleaf said from memory. ‘Must have sunk about two miles off the coast, just south of Folkestone. There was an automatic alarm system on board which alerted the coastguard. The system only operates in two situations: when set off by a crew member or when it’s exposed to water. No sign of the boat itself, just some debris and oil and the two bodies.’
    ‘Post-mortems?’
    ‘I’m waiting for the reports.’
    ‘What time did all this happen?’
    ‘The alarm went off at three twenty-seven.’
    ‘The French boat sank around three,’ Doyle added. ‘So who was on board?’
    ‘Two men, George Crane and Brian Perch.’
    ‘Crane and Perch?’ Greenleaf nodded, and Doyle produced a gust of laughter. ‘Were they out fishing?’
    ‘Not fishing. If anything, the boat