The message said MARY, MARY QUITE CONTRARY IS MISSING BILLY and at the first combined gathering of the day Claudine stressed that she might have missed the identification without Norris’s complete background on the McBride family. Initially she actually held back, hoping the American himself would isolate what was so glaringly obvious from the ten other possibilities thrown up by Kurt Volker’s fast-track word-recognition selection, but Norris didn’t. He didn’t respond to her praise, either.
The success anyway was more Kurt Volker’s than hers. He’d filleted Norris’s background information of trigger words for his tracer program, which had instantly flagged the only reference to Mary’s pet in any of the incoming e-mail. It also activated a print-out, and timed the duration of the message precisely at sixty seconds – confirming Volker’s earlier estimate – before clearing.
‘What about a trace on the source?’ demanded Norris, hiding any approval he might have felt, which Claudine didn’t think was much.
Volker shook his head. ‘There’s still too much incoming, slowing down any possible response. All the key words – in this case “contrary” “Mary” and “Billy” – spelled with an “ie” as well as with a “y” just in case – had to be matched by my comparison program. It’s like trying to swim against a tide.’
‘Could you get a location if the traffic eases?’ asked Poncellet, responding to Jean Smet’s obvious prompting.
‘Yes,’ said Volker, immediately and confidently.
Poncellet went sideways, to a fresh nudge from the ministry lawyer, before asking in apparent disbelief: ‘In as little as sixty seconds?’
‘I think so.’
Looking invitingly at Norris, Claudine said: ‘They’ve maintained contact!’ Come on, she thought, hopefully: analyse it as you should be able to and show me I haven’t done as much harm as I think I have. Harding, Rampling and Harrison were all looking expectantly at the FBI supervisor.
‘Not properly,’ complained Norris. ‘There should have been a negotiating link established by now. They’ve been frightened off by the publicity.’
‘Don’t you think we might still be in the power stage, their showing us they’re calling the shots?’ she suggested. How could she hope to help this man – treat this man – when saving the child took precedence over everything?
‘They already know that.’
‘But psychologically they need to prove it, to themselves more than to us at the moment. It’s the predictably established formula: your formula,’ said Claudine. By trying too hard to be kind she was coming close to exposing the man’s mental limitation!
‘The longer it goes on, the more dangerous it gets for Mary,’ insisted Norris.
‘I agree,’ said Claudine at once. ‘Today’s message was important.’
‘How?’ demanded Blake. He was the only one in the room aware of how much reconciliation Claudine was attempting with Norris and he was professionally impatient with it. Having operated alone for so long in Ireland Blake was unused to working with or considering the feelings of over-sensitive committees. It was diplomatic bureaucracy and that wasn’t the way to solve crime. He was anxious to start an investigation he wasn’t yet prepared to discuss with anyone, not even Claudine, and he was personally unsettled by the previous evening. He certainly wasn’t prepared to discuss that with her, either. He’d hoped, perhaps stupidly, that the days of having to carry the Beretta in his belt-line, where it was chafing him now, were past, too.
‘It wasn’t composed by the same person who wrote the first Mary, Mary rhyme,’ declared Claudine, grateful for the opportunity Blake created. ‘The first approach was considered, measured: a look-at-me, aren’t-I-clever message. Today’s wasn’t. It was hurried: impatient or nervous. But that’s important. The immediate significance of their knowing the name of Mary’s pet is that they’ve begun mentally to work on her: to confuse her by how they treat her, so that she won’t know what’s going to happen next: what’s right or wrong, real or unreal. They’re talking about her pet: might even have told her the sort of message they were going to send-’
‘And having started to build up a trust, they’ll break it,’ interrupted Norris.
‘That’s the pattern,’ agreed Claudine, pleased. It hadn’t all gone!
‘So what do we do?’ asked the American chief of mission. ‘We’re pretty strong on psychological theory but I don’t see anything practical coming from it, like getting Mary back.’
‘We wait for the next message,’ declared Norris. ‘That’ll take us forward: they’ll give us the link the next time.’
Claudine sighed, sadly disappointed. ‘I don’t think we should wait. I think we need to bring them forward. The ambassador publicly cried yesterday-’
‘And is as embarrassed as hell about it,’ disclosed Harrison.
‘He shouldn’t be,’ insisted Claudine. ‘He did a lot to help Mary, breaking down like that. They reduced an ambassador of the United States of America, the most powerful nation on earth, to helpless tears. The power – their ability – to do that makes Mary very valuable to them. Protects her.’
‘So what should we do?’ persisted Harrison.
‘I think the ambassador should meet the media again: television particularly, to enable Mary’s abductors to see the effect her disappearance is having. With Mrs McBride, too-’
‘I’m not sure either will be prepared to,’ intruded Harrison again.
Claudine decided it wouldn’t be difficult to become thoroughly pissed off by the overbearing, opinionated diplomat. Restraining the temptation verbally to push the man back into his box, she said: ‘Why don’t we explain the purpose – which is to prove just how helpless we are and how much in command they are – and give them the chance to make up their own minds? If Mrs McBride cries, even better.’
‘Mrs McBride doesn’t cry,’ said Harrison simply.
‘Any emotion the McBrides publicly display will help,’ insisted Claudine. ‘We’ve got to establish a two-way dialogue as quickly and as effectively as possible. And the way to do that is for the ambassador to announce verbally, in public, that there has been another message
…’ she stopped, not wanting any misunderstanding ‘… but not, in any circumstances, saying what mat message was. Not, even, that it arrived by e-mail. That goes way beyond keeping the computer route into the embassy as free as possible. We’re inviting them – conceding that they rule our world – to take that one step forward and begin a dialogue.’
‘From a position of weakness,’ challenged Norris at once.
Momentarily Claudine didn’t reply, looking away from all of them but focusing on nothing. Like so many doctors able to adjust the Hippocratic oath she’d favoured euthanasia long before helplessly watching the mother she’d adored physically eroded by cancer, just a few months earlier. But, incredibly she now realized, she’d never extended that image of physical erosion and that necessary release to include a mental illness. At that moment she did. Strictly obeying her know thyself creed Claudine fully recognized that her overweening professional confidence – the central core around which her life revolved – was what motivated her entire existence. As horrifying and as humiliating and as agonizing as her mother’s physical decline had been, Claudine decided that for her personally to lose her analytical psychological competence – to lose her mind, in fact, as John Norris appeared to have lost his – equally justified the quick release of self-destruction. In her case perhaps more so than an irreversible physical condition. At once there came an unsettling unanswerable question. Did she really feel so strongly about euthanasia because of her mother’s death? Or did her conviction come from what she couldn’t fulfil with Hugo Rosetti because of the permanent, irreversible coma in which his wife existed? Claudine forced herself on, refusing even to attempt an answer, frightened of what it might be.
‘John,’ she said gently. ‘That’s exactly what it is, a position of weakness. We know it. They know it. They’ve got a public forum in which they want everyone else to know it too. We can’t change that position until we get into a negotiating stance. You wrote that, in the text books: lectured on it at Quantico.’
Norris frowned, seemingly unable to remember. He didn’t argue. Harding, alongside, frowned too towards Rampling but it was an entirely different expression for entirely different reasons. There was a long, unfilled silence.
‘John?’ prompted Harrison.
‘It means exposing the ambassador.’ The man tried to recover.
‘Which is better than exposing his daughter,’ said Blake shortly, and Claudine wished he hadn’t.
Harrison said: ‘I could suggest it. I understand the reasoning.’
Smet leaned sideways, whispering to the commissioner. At once the portly, uniform-encased man said: ‘We have some positive sightings of Mary minutes before she disappeared.’
‘Walking? Or getting into a vehicle?’ demanded Blake.
‘Both,’ said Poncellet.
‘Walking first,’ dictated Blake, eager to establish the sequence. ‘How many positive identifications?’
Poncellet hesitated at the intensity of the Englishman’s demands. Claudine withdrew, giving way to a different expertise, interested in watching Blake operate.
Poncellet consulted a folder already set out in front of him. ‘Three.’
‘Absolutely no doubt it was Mary?’
‘A positive identification, every time.’
‘Was she by herself? Or with someone?’
‘By herself.’
‘Anyone close?’
Poncellet hesitated again. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘The question wasn’t asked,’ decided Blake briskly. ‘I’ll need to go back to each witness myself, today. Can we get them in here now?’
‘We could try.’ Poncellet turned at once to the three-clerk secretariat that had arrived with him and Smet. One immediately left the office.
‘How was she behaving?’ came in Paul Harding. ‘Walking normally? Slow? Fast? Agitated? Calm?’
Claudine was alert for any reaction from Norris to the local FBI man’s intrusion and suspected that Harding was, too. There was a faint smile on Norris’s face, the expression of a master watching inexpert pupils attempting to prove themselves. But nothing else.
‘You’ll have to ask them that,’ said Poncellet. He was beginning to colour and his breathing was becoming difficult.
‘How close to the school was the first sighting?’ persisted Harding.
‘Quite close, I think.’
‘Any evidence of a car near her?’ asked Blake.
‘Not that I’ve been told.’
‘Was she seen talking to anyone?’
‘I haven’t any reports of her doing so.’
‘How reliable are these witnesses?’ demanded Harding. ‘Believable or questionable?’
‘I think you should decide that yourselves.’
‘I think we should,’ said Harding, pointedly dismissive. He looked without needing to ask the question to Blake, who nodded.
‘What about the car sightings?’ said Blake.
‘Two, of her getting into a vehicle.’
‘What sort of vehicle?’
‘A Mercedes.’
‘No doubt about that?’ pressed Harding.
Poncellet shook his head. ‘Both are Mercedes drivers themselves.’
‘Registration?’ asked Harding.
‘No.’
‘Belgian or foreign designation?’
‘I’ve no record of that.’
‘Model?’ demanded the American.
‘I don’t have the complete report.’
‘Colour?’ said Blake.
‘Black, according to one,’ said Poncellet, relieved at last to be able to reply positively. ‘Blue, according to the other.’
‘What about occupants?’ said Harding.
‘You really do need to speak to them yourselves,’ Poncellet finally capitulated.
‘We most certainly do,’ said Harding. He needed to discover what the fuck was wrong with the FBI superstar sitting silently beside him, too. The Iceman seemed to be frozen into unresponsive inactivity, unaware of or uninterested in what was going on around him.
The questioning of witnesses was very much a police function but Claudine included herself, without seeking the approval of Peter Blake or anyone else, just as she visited whenever possible the actual scene of a violent crime and the post-mortem examination of its victim. She didn’t consider it an arrogant refusal to trust the ability of others, which she knew to have been a London criticism before her transfer to Europol. Unless she had reason to doubt their competence, as she now definitely had with John Norris, Claudine never intruded into the assigned roles of those with whom she worked. What she didn’t expect and most certainly didn’t want was for those others to think they could do her job for her. One missed question vital to her from someone not examining a situation from her perspective was the difference between success and failure. Professionally it was better to offend than to fail.
She made a particular point of announcing her intention to re-interview the eye-witnesses, fully expecting Norris to stay as well. He didn’t, saying it was more important he return to the embassy with Burt Harrison to prepare the ambassador for the second press conference. Poncellet and Smet did stay, which she had not anticipated. From the fleeting expressions she intercepted between them it seemed to surprise Blake and Harding, too. When Claudine pointedly remarked it would intimidate witnesses to be confronted by so many people Poncellet dismissed the clerks, despite what she was sure were Smet’s whispered objections.
The first person positively to identify Mary walking away from the school was a 28-year-old mother who took her four-year-old daughter along the rue du Canal at the same time every day to feed whatever birds might be on the nearby waterway: that day there hadn’t been any. She definitely recognized Mary from the published photographs and correctly identified the colour – blue, trimmed with red – of the backpack, a detail that had intentionally been withheld from the media release. Because she was such a regular user of the road at such a regular time she was accustomed to seeing children collected from the school, mostly by car, and was mildly curious at a child walking away unaccompanied. There was no one close or in conversation with Mary, who’d been walking quite normally and not in any obvious hurry and had ignored her and the little girl when she passed.
The accounts of the two other pedestrians – a bookkeeper the end of whose working day coincided with the school dismissal and a hotel waiter who always walked to his evening shift for the exercise – tallied in every respect, even to identifying the rucksack. The book-keeper thought Mary was walking fast, not as if she was trying to get away from someone but as if she was anxious to reach a destination.
All three were quite adamant that the child was showing no signs of distress or uncertainty. The waiter, in fact, had been struck by the confidence with which Mary had been walking, as if it was a regular route she knew well. It was that streetwise assurance that had attracted his attention: it was his regular route to work and he couldn’t remember seeing her before.
Each of the three had been walking in the opposite direction to Mary and had no reason to look round once she had passed, so none had seen a car or the child being accosted.
The breakthrough came with the first car driver. His name was Johan Rompuy and he was a technical translator in English and Italian in the agricultural division of the European Commission. He was a 57-year-old grey-haired, grey-suited bureaucrat who had worked in the governing body of the European Union for eighteen years and thought and talked with the pedantry of a man whose life was governed by detail, order and regularity.
That was why he remembered the incident with Mary so well. He’d been summoned late to a Commission meeting of agricultural ministers and was in a hurry, although obeying the speed limit, which he always did. He’d been following on the inside lane directly behind the black Mercedes when it had suddenly stopped, making him halt just as sharply. The volume of traffic in the outer lane prevented his pulling out to overtake. He’d seen everything because it had happened directly in front of him.
Claudine had positioned herself to the side of the room, giving the encounters over to Blake and Harding, and had the impression of two tensed cats undecided which was to be the first to jump on an unsuspecting mouse: even the timid, grey-featured civil servant fitted the cat and mouse analogy. The local FBI man gave the slightest body movement, conceding to the Englishman.
For the briefest of moments Blake hesitated, preparing himself. ‘You’re very important to us and to this investigation,’ he began, and Claudine at once acknowledged the basic psychology of the approach.
Rompuy smiled, a man rarely praised or flattered by superiors. ‘I’m glad to be of help.’
‘And I want you to be as helpful as possible. There are a great many questions we want answering. You’re going to have to be very patient: what might not seem important to you could be of very great importance to us.’
The smile remained. ‘I understand.’
‘You’re sure the car was black?’
‘Yes.’
‘What model?’ asked Harding.
‘A 230, I think.’
‘Was the registration Belgian or foreign?’ said Blake.
‘I didn’t make a note of it, obviously. But I’m sure it was Belgian. If it hadn’t been I might have looked more closely. And I’m sure the country designation was Belgium, too. Again I would have looked more closely if it had been foreign. My job is identifying different nationalities.’
‘Was it a Brussels registration?’ pressed Harding, taking up the questioning.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Was there anything unusual about the car: a badge or a sign in the rear window?’ coaxed the American. ‘Anything inside that you could see – about the car, I mean, we’ll get to the passengers in a minute – like a sticker or a religious medallion or a permanent parking authority or even the sort of decoration people sometimes hang in their vehicles.’
The man made a visible effort to remember. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Was there a radio aerial?’ asked Blake.
‘Yes.’
‘Positioned where?’
‘At the rear.’
‘Was it raised, for the radio to be playing? Or retracted?’
‘Retracted.’
‘What about a telephone aerial?’
‘Yes,’ said the man at once. ‘In the middle of the rear window, at the top by the roof.’
‘A straight aerial or a spiral one?’ persisted the American and Claudine was aware of the quick approving look from Blake. Poncellet and Smet were sitting motionless, an audience to a special performance of experts.
‘Straight, I think,’ said Rompuy doubtfully.
‘Now let’s talk about the people inside,’ encouraged Blake. ‘How many were there?’
‘Two. A man and a woman.’
There was a stir, from the two Belgians, which Claudine at once regretted because Rompuy looked at them and said: ‘There were. I’m sure there were.’
‘We believe you,’ said Harding quickly. ‘How were they sitting?’
‘The man was in the front. The woman in the back.’
‘So you could see the woman better?’
‘Yes.’
Claudine hadn’t moved, not wanting to risk distracting the man again, but there were questions she needed to ask. But the detectives had to finish first.
‘Whereabouts in the back seat was she: to the right or to the left or in the middle?’
‘More to the left, to give the child room to get in.’
‘Was she like that when the car stopped? Or did she move over?’
‘I don’t remember her moving over. I think she was there when the car stopped.’
‘How did the rear door open, then, for Mary to get in?’
Rompuy frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I think the man turned and opened it but I can’t really remember.’
‘Let’s go back to the woman,’ said Blake, wanting to maintain a sequence. ‘What colour hair did she have?’
‘Blond.’
‘Light, yellowy blond or dark blond?’
‘Dark.’
‘You could see her shoulders: part of her back?’
‘Yes.’ The man frowned.
‘How much? Show us on your own body,’ said the American.
Self-consciously Rompuy stretched over his shoulder, with difficulty pushing his hand down roughly to the bottom of his shoulder blade.
‘So you could see what she was wearing?’
Rompuy’s frown remained. ‘It was a jacket, I think. Fawn or maybe a light brown.’
‘Can you describe it?’ demanded Blake.
‘It was just a jacket.’
‘What was the cloth like, rough, smooth? Could it have been suede? Leather?’
‘It was cloth, of some sort. Smooth, I think.’
The questions were building up in Claudine’s mind but still she held back. Momentarily Blake turned his eyes to her and she gave an almost imperceptible nod to show that she wanted to take up when they were satisfied.
‘What about the style of her hair?’ said Harding. ‘Did she wear it loose or tied?’
‘It wasn’t tied, exactly,’ said the man awkwardly. ‘But it was tight against her head, one side sort of folded over the other…’
Blake looked hopefully at Claudine, who in turn looked round the room and then picked up some paper and quickly sketched. ‘Like that?’ Claudine asked.
‘Yes,’ agreed Rompuy at once, pleased at making himself understood.
‘It’s a pleat,’ said Claudine. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? Her hair was pinned into a pleat, so that it made a line down the back of her head?’
‘Exactly,’ said the man, smiling again.
Both men moved to speak at the same time and again Harding deferred to the English detective. Blake said: ‘You’re doing very well. You’re telling us a great deal we need to know. Now you saw the back of the woman’s head, looking from your car into hers. But they’d stopped for Mary, hadn’t they?’
‘As I now know, yes.’
‘Did Mary get in immediately?’
‘No.’
‘What happened?’
‘They talked.’
‘How long for?’
The man shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A few moments.’
‘Fine,’ said Blake. ‘They’d stopped and the rear door had opened, for Mary to get in. But she didn’t, not at once. Who was she talking to, the man or the woman?’
‘The woman.’
‘So the woman must have looked towards Mary?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the man, as if he was again surprised at the question. ‘That was when she kind of leaned across.’
Neither man showed any impatience at not having already been told that. The tension was palpable to Claudine. Blake said: ‘If she was looking towards Mary, leaning across the car, you must have seen her in profile?’
‘I did.’
There was a brief hesitation from both detectives. The noise of Smet moving in his chair sounded loud. Blake said: ‘Was she full-faced or thin in the face?’
‘Thin, I think. That was the impression I got.’
‘Tanned or light-skinned?’
‘Definitely tanned.’
‘A lot of make-up? Or not very much?’
‘I don’t remember there being a lot of make-up.’
‘You’re looking at her in profile,’ said Blake. ‘Was her nose large or small? Straight or crooked? Describe it to us, in your own words.’
‘Straight,’ said the man, trying hard. ‘And sharp. That’s how I remember her, as a sharp-featured woman.’
At Blake’s pause Harding took up the questioning. ‘You could see part of her front now. What was she wearing under the jacket? A blouse or a sweater?’
‘I don’t remember seeing anything under the jacket.’
‘You say she was thin-faced. What about that much of her body that you could see? Was she big-busted or small?’
The man looked embarrassedly towards Claudine. ‘I don’t think she was very big.’
Claudine smiled at the man and said: ‘Don’t feel awkward. There’s no reason to be. All this is vital to us, so try to help as much as you can.’
‘Quite small-busted. Not noticeable at all, really.’
‘Was she wearing earrings?’ asked Blake, returning to the questioning.
‘Yes. Hoops. I think there were jewels in them.’
‘What colour?’
‘Clear. Like diamonds.’
‘What about her ears? Large? Small? Close to her head?’
‘Quite small. And close to her head.’ The man sat back in his chair and said: ‘Could I have something to drink?’
‘Of course,’ said Blake, looking to the police commissioner.
Poncellet quickly gestured to Smet. The lawyer hesitated, actually turning to where the clerks had sat before realizing they weren’t there any more. He hurried irritably out of the room, a man demeaned by a chore that was beneath his dignity.
Rompuy said: ‘I hope everything is all right.’
‘You’re doing remarkably well,’ replied Blake. ‘I wish every witness could be as helpful.’
‘I want to help,’ said the translator. ‘She must be suffering a lot.’
‘That’s why we want to get her back as quickly as we can,’ said Harding.
‘ Will you get her back?’
The media might discover the man, Claudine thought. As Smet came back into the room, carrying a carafe and glasses, she said: ‘I’m quite sure we will. What you’re telling us adds a lot to what we already know.’
The man drank the water gratefully. Smet leaned close to the police commissioner, who shook his head to whatever the lawyer said.
‘Can you go on now?’ Harding asked the translator.
‘Of course.’
‘You’ve given us a very good description of the woman,’ said Harding. ‘What about the man?’
‘I couldn’t see him so well, in the front.’
‘Did he turn at all, for you to see him in profile?’ asked Blake.
They’d started to hurry, overlooking questions that should have been asked, decided Claudine. The interview had been going on for over an hour, so it was understandable, but she had a vague feeling of disappointment in Peter Blake. It was fortunate she’d held back to allow the two men to finish.
‘I don’t remember him turning, although I suppose he must have done if he opened the rear door.’
‘Was he wearing a jacket?’ asked Blake.
‘Yes. Black.’
‘Like a chauffeur?’
‘I suppose so. My impression was that he stayed looking to the front, as a chauffeur would have done.’
‘Could you see more of his back than you could of the woman’s?’
‘Yes. And I remember he kept his seat belt buckled.’
‘What about his hair?’ asked Harding.
‘Black.’
‘Long? Short?’
‘Short. And he was going bald, at the top…’ Rompuy frowned, putting his hand vaguely to the back of his head. ‘Here, like the way monks have their hair?’
‘At the crown of his head,’ said Blake. ‘A tonsure.’
‘That’s it!’ said the translator. He poured himself more water.
‘What about his ears? Were they flat against his head, like most people’s? Or did they stick out?’
‘I don’t remember anything about his ears.’
‘Could you see his hands, sitting as he was? Was he holding the wheel?’ asked Harding.
‘I think so.’
‘Could you see if he was wearing a ring?’
‘I couldn’t see.’
‘Did he turn the engine off or keep it running?’ asked Blake.
‘He kept it running. And the brake lights were on all the time, so I suppose he was sitting with his foot on the brake.’
‘What about indicators?’ said Harding. ‘Was there any signal that the car was going to turn in to the side and stop before it did so?’
‘No. That’s how I got stuck behind. It was too quick for me to get round him.’
‘Didn’t that inconvenience you?’ asked Blake.
‘It delayed me a few minutes. And I was in a hurry.’
‘Did you sound your horn?’
‘No.’
‘Did the car move off immediately Mary got into it?’
Take your time, take your time, Claudine thought.
‘Yes,’ said the man.
‘Fast?’ asked Harding.
‘There was too much traffic to drive really fast.’
‘Was it as fast as the traffic would allow?’ insisted Blake. ‘As if he was anxious to get away?’
‘I suppose it was as fast as he could go. I wasn’t really ready and in the gap that opened up someone else overtook and got in front of me.’
‘With another car in the way, were you able to see what was going on inside the car after Mary got in?’ said Harding.
‘Not really.’
‘Which way did it go?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the man lamely. ‘We were moving again and I was late. I’m sorry.’
‘You’ve done remarkably well,’ Blake said, looking first to Harding, who nodded to show he’d finished, and then invitingly to Claudine.
‘Monsieur Rompuy,’ she said at once. ‘I have some different sorts of questions which might seem odd but bear with me. The woman was looking sideways across the car, with Mary still on the pavement? And then she leaned across the car to encourage Mary in?’
‘Yes?’
‘That would have tilted her off balance, unless she supported herself. How did she do that? Was she resting against the seat or was her arm visible, along the seat back where it joins the rear shelf?’
‘Along the back of the seat, all the time.’
‘Throughout the entire time the door was open, for Mary to get in, you could clearly see the woman’s arm along the back of the seat?’
‘Yes.’
Claudine saw Blake and Harding exchange glances, aware of their oversight.
‘Was she wearing a bracelet?’
‘Three gold bands that seemed joined together. I got the impression they matched the earrings.’
‘What about rings on her fingers?’
‘I didn’t see any.’
‘What about her arm? Did she just let it lie there, casually supporting herself? Or did she gesture for the child to get in?’
‘She kept it along the back of the seat.’
‘What about her free hand? Did you see any movement with that?’
‘Not until she reached forward to take the girl’s backpack. The girl took that off before getting into the car.’
Claudine resisted the temptation to take the direction the answer offered. ‘You were stuck behind their car. Were there any other vehicles held up behind you?’
‘One. It was the car that cut in front of me when we started moving again.’
‘That’s our next positive witness,’ intruded Poncellet, imagining he was helping.
Claudine ignored the interruption, wishing the Belgian commissioner hadn’t broken the flow. ‘Had that car sounded its horn?’
‘Several times. It made the child look, which put her fully facing me. That’s why I was able to recognize her from the newspaper and television pictures.’
‘Knowing that they were causing a traffic jam – irritating other drivers – the woman still sat casually with her arm along the seat?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the driver didn’t react, either?’
‘Not that I saw.’
‘Tell me about Mary. Did you see her walking along the pavement, before the car stopped?’
‘I wasn’t conscious of her until the car stopped.’
‘Was she carrying her backpack then? Or wearing it?’
‘Definitely wearing it. I remember her slipping out of the straps to take it off.’
‘She did it herself, quite willingly?’
‘Yes. Then she handed it into the back of the car, to the woman. She wouldn’t have been able to have sat comfortably if she hadn’t.’
‘I understand,’ said Claudine. ‘Because she turned towards the car behind you could see Mary’s face very clearly. What was Mary’s expression? Was she frightened? Upset? Frowning? Laughing? Crying?’
Rompuy shook his head uncomfortably. ‘She wasn’t laughing or crying. It’s difficult but I thought she looked annoyed.’
‘At the driver behind you?’
‘I’m not sure at whom.’
‘What about being frightened?’
‘That wasn’t my impression.’
‘She got quite willingly into the car?’
‘Yes. As if she expected it. She simply handed her backpack through the open door and followed it into the car.’
‘When Mary did that, the woman still had her arm along the back of the seat?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know the car behind you overtook, blocking your view. But that didn’t happen immediately. In those first few seconds Mary was sitting in the seat along the back of which the woman had her arm outstretched?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you see Mary?’
‘Just the top of her head.’
‘What about the woman? Did she bring her arm down, to put it round Mary?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘In those last few seconds, when you could still see the woman and Mary, how were they sitting?’
‘Quite ordinarily. Side by side.’
Claudine stopped, satisfied at the improvement to her profile. She said: ‘You’ve given us a great deal of your time and a great deal of help. For the moment we’re almost through. Having seen the woman as you did, how old would you think she was?’
The two detectives exchanged looks again at another oversight.
‘I’m not very good at guessing ages.’
‘Give it your best try.’
‘Fortyish. Early forties.’
‘One final question. Could you work with a police artist to create a sketch of the woman you saw lure Mary into the car?’
‘I could try,’ agreed the man.
Claudine thought, uncritically, that by the end of Johan Rompuy’s interview – which had begun so well – Blake and Harding had no longer been able to think with total objectivity, which in both their circumstances was totally understandable.
For a long time – she didn’t know how long – Peter Blake had not been an investigator, needing to pick and prise the information from others. He had, in fact, been the infiltrated eye-witness assembling the evidence and facts for others to accept and assimilate: the giver, not the hopeful taker.
And an embassy posting, like Paul Harding’s, was again different. In a foreign country it was scarcely operational. At best it was a liaison function with in-country law enforcement, with as much unadmitted but tacitly acknowledged intelligence-gathering as possible. It was too much to expect an instant adjustment from a man literally thrust back into the field, as Harding had been.
It was the most basic of all psychological mistakes, even from professionals, to imagine that because a person had been an eye-witness – had been there, watching everything, seeing everything – they would possess the unprompted gift of total recall. No one did. A hundred people, standing side by side, would give a hundred different accounts of something happening literally in front of them, depending upon their age, attitudes, feelings and personalities: it wasn’t human nature – it wasn’t humanly possible – for two people to see the same thing the same way.
The commonest failing was investing a situation with a logical progression. There was no such thing as a logic to human interaction. There was even a recognized psychological term, the phenomenon of closure. Nothing was logical – nothing should have happened in the way it appeared to have happened – in the disappearance of Mary Beth McBride. So it couldn’t be investigated logically. The questioning by the two detectives had been copy-book, a building block attempt to perform their function. And Johan Rompuy had been a deceptive one-in-a-million witness: because he had been so good – so observant – he’d lulled them into carelessness. It was incredible, after learning so much, that neither had suggested Rompuy work with a police artist to create a visual impression of the woman: obvious by not being obvious.
Both men looked sheepishly at her as the second motorist came into the room and Harding said: ‘Do you want to join in as we go along?’
‘Let’s stay as we are,’ said Claudine, hoping they did not infer disapproval.
Rene Lunckner was an air traffic controller at Zaventem airport and like Rompuy had been late for his afternoon shift. He hadn’t known at first why the cars in front had suddenly stopped and only just managed to avoid colliding with Rompuy’s vehicle. He thought he’d sounded his horn three or four times before slightly reversing to swing round the car in front of him. It was then he’d seen Mary Beth McBride, seeming to look directly at him. The driver of the Mercedes had his window down and was gesturing for him to pass but oncoming traffic was too heavy for him to pull out as far as he needed: for a few moments he had, in fact, caused greater traffic congestion than already existed. The driver had signalled with his hand and his indicator that he was pulling away from the kerb. Lunckner was adamant the car into which Mary got was dark blue, top of the range – ‘definitely larger than a 230’ – and that it had a Brussels registration. ‘I couldn’t believe someone who knew the city would stop like that and block the traffic.’
‘Stuck out in the road as you were, could you see the driver?’ demanded Harding.
‘Not very well. He was going bald and he wore spectacles; I think they had heavy black frames. And he had a beaked nose. That’s the best I can do.’
‘A thin man? Or fat?’
‘Quite heavily built.’
‘Did you see enough of him to help a police artist create a picture?’ asked Blake, avoiding their earlier oversight.
The man shook his head. ‘I really don’t think so. I don’t want to mislead.’
‘We’d really like you to try,’ urged Blake. ‘We’ll keep your reservations in mind.’
‘All right.’
‘How old would you say the man was?’ said Harding, also avoiding the earlier omission.
‘Again, I don’t want to mislead. Late forties, early fifties. I can’t get any closer than that.’
‘What about the woman?’ asked Blake.
‘I hardly saw her at all: I was looking at the front of their car, trying to judge the distance to get by.’
‘But you didn’t get by,’ reminded Harding. ‘You had to pull in behind.’
‘Blond. Hair very tightly pinned at the back. I didn’t see her face at all. I wasn’t really interested: it was a mother picking up her daughter, as far as I was concerned. All I wanted to do was get by and get to work.’
‘Is that the impression you had?’ asked Claudine quickly, not wanting to miss the moment. ‘That it was a mother picking up her child?’
‘I drive along the road all the time. I know the school’s there and I’m used to seeing the kids picked up. That usually causes jams, too. I try to beat them by coming along earlier but that day I didn’t make it.’
‘Was there anything other than your knowing there was a school that made you think it was mother and daughter? Anything unusual about the way the child was behaving?’
Lunckner shook his head. ‘She was scowling, as if she was annoyed.’
‘Annoyed?’ persisted Claudine. ‘Not frightened?’
‘Annoyed,’ insisted the man. ‘I thought it was because her mother was late and had made her walk. Or that she was being told off.’
‘When you were driving behind them did you see the woman drop her arm, to put it round the child, which would have been a natural thing to do if she’d been late and her daughter was upset?’
‘It wouldn’t have been comfortable,’ the man pointed out. ‘She was too small against the woman in the back seat. If she’d put her arm down it would have been round the child’s neck, not round her shoulders or her back.’
‘And the woman definitely didn’t do that, reach down to hold Mary?’
‘Not that I saw.’
‘While they were in your view, did you get any impression that Mary didn’t want to be there? Any indication of their arguing or Mary fighting: trying to get out?’
‘Not at all.’
‘How long were they in your view?’
‘Only a few minutes. At the rue de Laeken they turned left and I turned right.’
‘This is very important,’ warned Claudine. ‘You could see Mary’s head, above the top of the seat.’
‘Just.’
‘The whole of her head, down to her neck? Or just the top: her hair?’
‘Not much more than her hair.’
‘How far up the woman’s arm was the top of Mary’s head?’
The man put the flat of his hand virtually at his shoulder. ‘About there.’
Poncellet summoned an aide to take Lunckner to a police artist, waiting for the man to leave the room before saying: ‘I think that was very good.’ He spoke as if he were personally responsible for the success.
‘I agree,’ said Claudine. ‘We’ve got a lot to work from.’
‘I think so, too,’ said Harding. ‘Rompuy particularly: I prefer his recall to the other guy’s. Rompuy’s drawing will be important.’
‘But will it really take us that much further forward?’ asked Jean Smet, coming into the discussion for the first time.
‘Very much,’ predicted Claudine. ‘I’m getting to know who it is I’m up against.’
‘Well?’ asked Norris impatiently. He was leaning forward intently over Paul Harding’s desk in the embassy’s FBI office.
‘Nothing much so far,’ apologized Duncan McCulloch uncomfortably. A towering, raw-boned man, he was a Texas descendant of a Scottish immigrant whose given name he disdained in favour of Duke. ‘Quite a lot of newspaper cuttings about her involvement in some serial killings a few months back: Chinese gangs terrorizing illegal immigrants into prostitution and drugs. There was a failed hit on her. It was at a railway station. A knife attack. She caught it in the arm but the Chinese went under a train.’
‘What about personal stuff?’ insisted Norris. That was where he’d find the lead to her association with the kidnappers.
Robert Ritchie said: ‘She’s described as a widow in some of the cuttings. Apparently she was Britain’s lead profiler before she transferred here.’
‘Anything between her and Blake?’
‘It doesn’t look like it,’ said McCulloch.
‘You lying down on this?’ demanded Norris, abruptly accusing.
‘For Christ’s sake, John! We’ve only just started!’ protested Ritchie.
‘I don’t like being sworn at. And I don’t like being told there’s nothing dirty when I know there is.’
‘What is it?’ demanded McCulloch. ‘If you’ve got a lead give it to us to follow.’
‘I’m talking instinct. I’ve given you the job of finding it. You fixed a wire?’
‘Yes,’ said McCulloch. ‘Nothing.’
‘We got her personal Europol file?’
Each man waited for the other to respond. Finally Ritchie said: ‘We haven’t got any assets inside Europol, which would be our only chance. Getting hold of a personal Europol file cold, from outside, would be as impossible as getting any of our stuff out of Pennsylvania Avenue. Which you know as well as I do can’t be done.’
Norris patted the table at which he sat. ‘You think Paul might have a contact inside?’
McCulloch shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. But I thought this was a sealed operation?’
‘It was,’ said Norris. ‘Now maybe you guys need help.’
McCulloch managed to restrain himself until they reached the rue Guimard and the bar to which Harding had introduced the FBI’s Washington contingent. ‘Jesus H Christ!’ exploded the Texan. ‘Where the fuck does the asshole think he’s coming from!’
Ritchie, a laid-back survivor of California’s flower power era, was as angry but better controlled. ‘I don’t think the sonofabitch knows where he’s coming from. You ever hear of James Angleton?’
‘The CIA’s master spycatcher,’ remembered McCulloch. ‘Internal counter-intelligence. Only he never caught a single fucking traitor in the Agency – although they were there – broke every law there ever was and ended up a paranoid basket case.’
‘I think we’ve got ourselves the son of Angleton.’
‘The story is that Angleton destroyed as many people as Stalin if it just crossed his mind that they weren’t on his side.’
‘And Norris has just started to have doubts about us,’ declared Ritchie.