The Eighth Witch (21 page)

He was waiting for him outside the reception area of Kings Cross police station, tapping his foot with ill-concealed impatience as Bailey chained his bicycle to a railing.

“Sorry to keep you, Simon,” Bailey called. “Must do this. Thieving load of buggers around here.”

Crozier glared at him and tapped his watch.

Bailey sighed and shook his head. “So what have you got for me?” he said.

As they walked into the police station Crozier filled him in on the facts.

“And the girl?” Bailey said.

“Her name is Annabel Levy. Nineteen, a student at the City University, reading law. A very bright girl by all accounts. Never been in trouble before. What she did to Martin Impey is so out of character that everyone is quite shocked. Her mother’s here, as is one of her lecturers. We’ll avoid them. The police can deal with that side of things.”

“So why do you need me here?”

“I’m going in to talk to her. I want you to observe. Study her. You can get inside her mind. Find out if she’s telling me the truth or just spinning me a yarn.”

They entered an ante-room, separated from the interview room by a sheet of one-way glass. Bailey pulled up a chair and sat so he could have a clear view. “Pretty little thing,” he said. “Would probably be prettier with hair. And you’re telling me this is the girl who beat Martin to within an inch of his life?”

“They found her standing over him, his blood on her hands and clothes. There was no one else around. And she kept saying over and over, ‘I think I’ve killed him’.”

“Fair enough,” Harry Bailey said. “Go in and talk to her.”

It was warm in the interview room. Crozier glanced up at the window, checking if he could open it to let some air in, but there were no catches or hinges. It looked solid, built in.

Annabel Levy was sitting on a plain wooden chair, her hands resting on the plain wooden table before her. She stole a glance at Crozier as he pulled up another chair and sat, but it was only a glance. As soon as she’d taken him in, she let her gaze drop and went back to staring at her hands.

“Hello, Annabel,” Crozier said.

No response.

“It is Annabel, isn’t it?”

The girl nodded. Her eyes were red from crying, and she had chewed her bottom lip enough to produce a smear of blood.

“Your mother’s here, waiting to take you home. And one of your tutors, a Professor Dawson. They don’t think you did it.” He paused. “I’m Simon Crozier, by the way. I’m just here to ask you a few questions. I’m sure we can get this mess sorted out, don’t you?”

Annabel finally met his eyes. “Please,” she said, and a large tear trickled down her cheek.

In the ante-room Bailey watched through the glass, slightly astonished at the gentleness Simon Crozier was displaying.
He could charm the fleas off a dog’s back,
he thought,
if he really wanted to.

Crozier pulled a crisp, clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She stared at it blankly for a moment, as if wondering if she dared soil it. Crozier nodded encouragingly and she dabbed her eyes.

“Okay, better now?” he said. “Tell me when you first saw Martin.”

“Sorry?”

“The man the police said you attacked.”

“I didn’t attack him,” she said, suddenly vehement. She started screwing the handkerchief into a knot.

“Well he was certainly attacked. He’s in hospital…on life support.”

The last part was a lie, but the girl wasn’t to know that.

She gave a small wail and collapsed back into her seat.

“So, let’s start again. When did you first notice him?”

Annabel took a breath. She was trying hard to get her head around what was happening to her, and failing miserably. All she could see was that a simple trip to the library had ended in a situation that could put an end to her legal career before it had even started. She was close to panic.

“I was sitting outside the library. I’d been there since the morning. I’d met some friends for lunch…we had it in the café…and then they’d left me to my reading. And then I was inside standing over…Martin, is it?… and there was blood on my hands, and on him, and he was barely breathing.”

“When the police arrived you said to them, ‘I think I’ve killed him’. What did you mean by that?”

“I don’t know. I had so many images running through my mind. I saw myself hitting him with my laptop, but I don’t remember actually doing it.”

“So you remember nothing in between sitting outside on the plaza, to being inside and standing over his body?”

She sniffed more tears away. Even to her the story sounded preposterous. She wracked her brains but there was nothing concrete to pinpoint. It was as if, for that period of time, her body had been taken over by something, someone else, and it was they who had attacked that poor man. “I can’t remember anything clearly,” she said. “It’s like looking back through a fog. I get glimpses, but nothing to cling on to, nothing to make real.”

She twisted the handkerchief again. If she told them that someone had invaded her body and made her do those awful things, they’d be sending for the men in white coats. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

“Don’t worry, I believe you.”

The voice sounded in her head. She looked sharply at Simon Crozier, but it hadn’t been his voice she’d heard. The voice in her head was rough, but kind. Reassuring, offering her hope when she’d thought there was none.

There was a tap at the door and Crozier went to answer it. He said a few words to someone standing in the corridor. Annabel craned her neck and looked past Crozier to see who he was talking to. It was another man, tall, gray-haired, with a face that looked as if it had lived two lifetimes. The older man met her eyes for an instant. There was kindness and compassion there and she knew instantly it was his voice she’d heard in her head. Crozier turned and smiled back at her and then stepped outside the room, closing the door behind him.
 

“I’m telling you. It wasn’t her,” Harry Bailey said.

“You’re certain?”
 

“Positive. She’s like an open book. She has no more idea of what happened than we do.” Bailey stared at Annabel through the one-way glass. She was crying again, dabbing at her eyes with Crozier’s handkerchief.

“Shit!” Crozier said. “I hate it when a lead turns to nothing.”

“Hold on. I said she didn’t do it. That doesn’t mean to say I didn’t learn anything from being inside her mind.”

Crozier regarded him patiently. “So, are you going to tell me what you learned, or are you just going to play the sphinx and keep me in the dark?”

“First we get the police to release Annabel. The poor kid’s been through the wringer. She’s studying to be a lawyer and she thinks this has just ruined her chances of a future in law.”

Crozier stared through the glass at the shaven-headed girl and something moved inside him. “Yes,” he said decisively. “You’re right. I’ll have a word with the chief superintendent.”

“They’re not going to like it, releasing their only suspect. It will go against the grain.”

“Frankly, Harry, I don’t give a tinker’s cuss if it upsets them or not. Apart from a smattering of circumstantial evidence they haven’t got a case against her. Wait for me outside.”

Less than ten minutes later, as Bailey was unchaining his bicycle, the door to the police station opened and Annabel Levy stepped out into the evening air, flanked by her tearful mother and a young man Bailey took to be Professor Dawson. They walked down the steps and had almost reached the bottom when Annabel stopped and looked round at Bailey. They held each other’s gaze for a moment and something passed between them. She ran across to him and pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know how you did it, but thank you.”
 

On the street her mother had hailed a taxi. “Annabel,” she called.

“Go on,” Bailey said. “The taxi’s waiting.”

She looked up at him as if wanting to say more.
 

“Oh, and you’re going to make a fine lawyer,” he said.

“You know that?”

“You have all the tools. It’s up to you. But one word of advice.”

“What?”

“Grow the hair. Otherwise you’ll just intimidate your prospective clients.”

She smiled and rubbed her hand self-consciously across her scalp. Then she turned and ran down the steps to the waiting taxi.

“Very touching,” Crozier said as he emerged from the police station. He pulled on a pair of black calf-skin gloves. “There’s a chill to the air. Otherwise it’s a pleasant evening.”

“Are you going back to the office?” Bailey said. “We have a fair bit to talk about.”

“The hospital first,” Crozier said. “I want to have a word with Emilie. She should be there about now. You can follow on that bone shaker.”

Harry Bailey watched his boss walk off down the street to his waiting car and shook his head.
 

Sometimes Simon Crozier was the most unpredictable person he knew.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Emilie was sitting at Martin’s bedside, holding his hand. Her other hand clutched a tear-soaked tissue.

Crozier tapped at the door and pushed it open, entering the room, followed closely by Harry Bailey. “How’s he doing?”

Emilie let go of Martin’s hand, stood and walked around the bed.
 

“He hasn’t come round, and they can’t say when he will,” she said, an edge of fury to her voice. Without warning she swung her arm and caught Crozier a stinging slap across the cheek.

Bailey moved between them and caught her arms, pinning them to her sides. “Hey, Em, settle down. This wasn’t Simon’s fault.”

But Emilie’s temper was fired up. “Of course it was his fault. Martin’s no field agent. Computers, databases, research. That’s his field. That’s what he knows about. He shouldn’t be out there risking his life.”

Crozier rubbed his cheek. “He wasn’t on an assignment, Emilie. He was simply doing his job, researching a case. We don’t know who attacked him, or why.”

“But the police have someone in custody. The policeman here told me that.”

“Then he was speaking out of turn,” Crozier said. “The girl they were holding was released a short time ago without charge.”

For a moment anger flared again in Emilie’s eyes, but then it subsided and she returned to her bedside vigil, taking Martin’s limp hand in hers and squeezing it tightly.

Crozier pulled up a chair next to hers and sat.

“I’m sorry, Emilie. We’re doing all we can to get to the bottom of all this. We believe it’s related to a case Robert Carter’s working on in Yorkshire. Harry’s going up there in the morning to see if he can get to the bottom of what’s going on. I’ll keep you informed of his progress.” All the while he was talking, he was watching Harry Bailey who was leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes closed. He hoped Emilie hadn’t noticed. He doubted she had. Her eyes were fixed on Martin’s face and her lips were set in a thin, grim line. He couldn’t even say for sure whether or not she’d heard a word he’d said.

He sat there for a few moments more, then stood and walked to the door. “We’ll leave you in peace,” he said, grabbed Harry Bailey’s arm and steered him out of the room.

As they walked along the corridor Bailey said, “What the hell was that about?”

“What?”

“You never said anything to me about going up to Yorkshire. And what makes you so sure the attack on Martin’s related to Carter’s investigation?”

Crozier reached inside his coat. “Superintendent Branch at Kings Cross gave this to me as I was leaving. Impey was clutching this to his chest when they found him. So tightly, I might add, that his fingers have made indentations in the cover.” He handed Bailey a slim, hardcover book. “Bedtime reading for you.”

Harry Bailey read the cover.
The Yardley Sisters—First Family of Witchcraft in the North of England
.
 

“That was the book Impey was reading at the library when he was attacked. Elinor Yardley was a name given to him by Carter. Ergo, there’s a link.” He changed the subject abruptly. “What did you get from Impey? I saw you scanning him.”

Bailey shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Martin’s in there somewhere, but I’m buggered if I could find him. It’s like a wall has gone up in his mind, and I couldn’t breach it. And I sent out some pretty fierce surges of energy. They just rebounded back at me.”

“So he’s protecting himself psychically? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Either that, or he’s being protected. I couldn’t tell. Have you put Carter in the picture about all this? Have you let him know Martin’s in hospital?”

“You can tell him when you make contact with him tomorrow, once you get to Ravensbridge.”

“I don’t even know where he’s staying.”

“I’ll give you his phone number. You can call him when you get there.”

“Or you could call him tonight and let him know I’m coming.”

“What, and spoil the surprise?”