Witch Hunt by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page A

from mid-Channel to the English coast.
    As such, the notes might well boast the odd fingerprint. The corpse of George Crane had already been fingerprinted - on Greenleaf’s orders - so that the dead man’s prints could be eliminated. Somehow, Greenleaf didn’t think George Crane would have let Brian Perch near the money, but his body was being fingerprinted too. Best to be rigorous.
    Perch was an employee, a no-questions-asked hired-hand who would, as a fellow worker had put it, ‘go to the end of the earth’ for Crane, so long as there was overtime in it. Why had Crane taken him along? For protection? Because he didn’t trust whomever he was carrying? Maybe just for company on the voyage out to mid-Channel ? Whatever, Brian Perch didn’t really interest Greenleaf, while George Crane did.
    The accountant to the building business wasn’t about to say that Crane’s company was in terminal trouble, but he agreed that times were hard and that the company was ‘overstretched financially’. Which meant there were bigger loan repayments than there were cheques from satisfied and solvent customers. For example, a larger than usual contract had gone unfinished and unpaid when the company employing Crane’s firm had themselves gone broke. Crane just managed to hold his head above water. Well, in the financial sense anyway. He still had the big house outside Folkestone with the swimming pool and sauna. He still had a Porsche. He still had his boat. But Greenleaf knew that often the more prosperous a man tried to look, the deeper he was sinking.
    He’d considered an insurance scam. Take the boat out at dead of night and blow it up, then claim the money. But it didn’t add up. Why not just sell the boat? One reason might be that no one was buying. Okay, so why did he have to die too? A miscalculation with the timer or the amount of explosive used? Possible. But Greenleaf still didn’t rate it. Why take someone else along? And besides, there was the French sinking to consider. It had to be tied in with the British sinking; too much of a coincidence otherwise.
    Bringing him back to murder.
    Crane’s wife didn’t know anything about anything. She knew nothing about her husband’s movements that night, nothing about his business affairs, nothing about any of his meetings. All she knew was that she should wear black and deserve sympathy. She seemed to find his questions in particularly bad taste. Crane’s secretary, when tracked down, had been no more forthcoming. No, no meetings with strangers. No sudden ‘appointments’ out of the office which couldn’t be squared with his diary. No mysterious telephone calls.
    So what was Greenleaf left with? A man in debt, needing a few thousand (well, fifteen or so actually) to see him back on dry land. Personal financial affairs which had yet to be disentangled (it seemed Crane had been a bit naughty, stashing his cash in several accounts kept hidden from the prying taxman). A midnight boat trip which ends with him two grand in pocket but not in any position to spend it. It all came back to smuggling, didn’t it? Just as Doyle had said. Arms or dope or someone creeping back into the country unannounced. Well, hardly unannounced. Whatever it was, it had cost six lives so far, which was too high a price to pay, whatever the payoff.
    Most of these thoughts Greenleaf kept to himself. On paper, he stuck to the facts and the procedures followed. It still looked like a tidy bit of work, scrupulous and unstinting. He began to feel quite pleased with himself. He’d get it to Trilling before lunchtime. Definite. When would Doyle file his findings? Not before tomorrow. He was due back tomorrow morning. Say tomorrow afternoon then. Giving Greenleaf over a day clear, a day during which he’d be ahead of his nemesis. He breathed deeply and decided to pause for another cup of coffee.
    When he got back from the machine, his phone was ringing. He almost spilled hot coffee all down his shirt as he