The Predators Part 15

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 emba.s.sy'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 prost.i.tution 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sets 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 Was.h.i.+ngton contingent. 'Jesus H Christ!' exploded the Texan. 'Where the f.u.c.k does the a.s.shole 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 sonofab.i.t.c.h 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 f.u.c.king 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.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

It would probably have occurred to each of them, at some stage, but it was Peter Blake who suggested it first so the credit went to him and in Claudine's opinion more than made up for any earlier oversight. It was admittedly prompted by the appearance of Kurt Volker in the main operational room just as Johan Rompuy and Rene Lunckner re-entered with the police artist, but it was still Blake's idea. Most encouragingly of all, Paul Harding at once acknowledged it as such.

They'd had to promise Poncellet and the Justice Ministry lawyer a full profile and copies of the artist's drawings by the end of the day before either of them accepted that Claudine and the detectives needed to work through the information, and even then the reluctant Jean Smet had tried to argue his right to remain.

'Videofit!' declared Blake.

It was Volker who responded, spurred by the word. 'Of what?'

'The man and the woman who s.n.a.t.c.hed Mary,' announced Blake. He smiled, sure of his proposal and pleased with it. Quickly, almost too staccato, he recounted the physical description given by the two motorists and offered the sketches.

Volker said, casually: 'Easiest computer graphic in the world. I can draw the faces as they appeared to both witnesses and then enhance them three-dimensionally. It'll be counter-productive if either of them has any obvious facial disfigurement but gambling that they don't I can make a right and a left profile and a full frontal.' He smiled. 'We established our own web site with the serial killing. We can post the images on our own home page and then advertise, through the main providers. Include a digitalized picture of Mary, too ...' He hesitated, nodding back to his communications set-up. 'It'll start a fresh avalanche. The first one's dwindled, incidentally, down to a trickle.'

'Do we want to start it up again?' wondered Harding. 'Both our witnesses think it's a Belgian car: Brussels maybe. Here's where the concentration needs to be, not worldwide.'

Claudine wished the Belgian motorists weren't hearing a conversation they might later repeat. 'There won't be any facial disfigurement: Mary wouldn't have got so readily into the car if there had been. And we need to emphasize it worldwide. It'll feed their power need but at the same time it will be the beginning of the pressure I want to impose.' To Volker she said: 'The graphics could be shown on television, couldn't they?'

'Of course. In colour and actually moving, from profile to full face.'

'That's how we'll guarantee the saturation here in Brussels.'

According priority to the computer graphics Claudine and the two detectives concentrated upon the physical descriptions of the man and woman to accompany Volker's drawing, which the German began from the artist's impressions and built up from the prompting of the two motorists blocked by the kidnap Mercedes. Volker had already created the three-dimensional portrait of the woman by the time Claudine delivered her suggested statistics with the undertaking for more, specifically the estimated height of both.

It was Blake again who suggested a way of calculating that from the known seat height of Mercedes up to and including the 300 range and the rough approximation of where Mary's head came, against the woman's shoulder, from Mary's known height.

'We're learning what they look like,' said Blake. 'You getting to know what's in their minds?'

Claudine nodded. 'There's no doubt that it began as a cla.s.sic paedophile s.n.a.t.c.h, with a woman to allay the child's fear. The woman's the key, possibly the ringleader. And she's recklessly arrogant, sitting casually, not hurrying, even when they'd caused a traffic block. The man was anxious, hurrying people by and even using his indicators when he pulled away, trying to minimize the inconvenience he'd caused by stopping as suddenly as he had at what I'd guess to be the woman's command when she saw Mary walking by herself. The woman's very quick, mentally. Mary's scowling was at having an adventure spoiled. She was expecting a car and must have said something the woman was able to pick up on. She got Mary into the car and was able at first, at least to control her verbally. The most obvious way would have been by pretending to be the back-up car taking her where she expected to go. Physically to have touched Mary would have frightened her so she's a practised child abuser. She's probably taken kids this way before so we've got to go carefully through those previous case histories Poncellet is a.s.sembling. There is money. The jewellery description sounds like a Cartier set: I know because I've got the same. It's called Constellation. So she likes expensive jewellery. That coupled with the reckless arrogance tells me she's vain, overly sure of herself. The way she dresses her hair supports that: everything in place, controlled. When Kurt and Rompuy are happy with the computer compilation we should blanket hairdressing and beauty salons with it.' She paused, searching for anything she needed to add. 'And I've very little doubt that it was the woman who created the Mary, Mary Quite Contrary message: arrogance again. If it was her, it confirms her as the person in charge.'

'A woman paedophile, targeting a girl?' queried Blake, frowning.

'It's an unusual pattern but not totally unknown,' said Claudine.

'The publicity will be intense when the computer pictures are released,' suggested Harding. 'Won't the physical risk to Mary increase quite apart from the s.e.xual danger if they think we're getting too close?'

'Yes,' agreed Claudine flatly. 'But it's something we can't avoid.'

'Would there be an element of protection in the fact that a woman is involved?' wondered Blake.

Claudine shook her head positively. Even more flatly she said: 'The majority of case histories of women s.e.x perverts show them more physically cruel and deviant than men.'

'Thanks for picking up on the things we missed,' said Harding.

Claudine saw the opening at once. She hadn't expected it to be so easy. 'It's a combined effort now, not a contest any more, isn't it?'

'It certainly is as far as I am concerned,' said the American guardedly. 'And I think today's gone pretty d.a.m.ned well.'

With an aggression that surprised Claudine, Blake said: 'You sure about that, Paul?'

'I don't think I understand that question,' protested the American.

'I thought we'd ironed out the working relations.h.i.+p,' said Blake.

'So did I.'

'It would be unfortunate if it got fouled up again.'

Claudine had imagined she would have to lead this discussion and frowned curiously at her partner. Blake refused to meet the look.

'It won't on my part,' a.s.sured Harding.

'It didn't make sense, John walking out as he did,' said Claudine. It had to be confronted, not allowed to drift into innuendo and misunderstanding. 'I know re-interviewing the eye-witnesses was primarily an investigative procedure but I'd have expected someone as obsessional as John to insist on remaining.'

'I know,' said the American. 'I was as surprised as you.'

Claudine didn't think she could go as far as openly suggesting Norris was suffering a mental problem. 'So what are we going to do about it?'

'He's got a lot of respect, back in Was.h.i.+ngton,' said Harding. What the h.e.l.l was he doing, talking disloyally of a colleague? But Norris was behaving like a horse's a.s.s. Harding was more discomfited by the man's behaviour today than he had been when he received the initial Iceman cable alerting him to Norris's arrival.

'I thought McBride had clout, too,' said Blake.

'I don't have any reason or the authority to question John. If I tried my feet wouldn't touch the ground until I got to Was.h.i.+ngton, probably in protective custody.'

'Which would seem to sum up the problem,' said Claudine.

'Any move is going to have to come from your side,' Harding insisted.

'It would help if we knew when and where to make it,' said Blake.

Harding shook his head despairingly. 'I can't work against my own task force commander!'

'Don't work against us, either,' said Blake.

'I won't,' repeated the American. s.h.i.+t, he thought: what a total f.u.c.k-up!

Blake was about to speak when the telephone sounded. Harding grabbed it, eager for the respite. It was a very brief conversation. To Claudine he said: 'It was Harrison, at the emba.s.sy. The amba.s.sador has asked to see you.'

Claudine went alone to the Boulevard du Regent, leaving the two detectives watching Volker creating a startlingly life-like portrait of a narrow-faced, suntanned blond that both Rompuy and to a lesser extent Lunckner insisted was an amazing re-creation of the woman in the back of the Mercedes. It would, Volker a.s.sured them, be ready by the evening.

James McBride was more composed than Claudine had previously seen him. So was Hillary. Norris was facing them across the desk, legs outstretched in easy relaxation. The chief of mission remained standing.

'The amba.s.sador-' started Harrison, but McBride broke in at once.

'-can talk for himself. I'm not sure this second television appearance is a good idea. John doesn't think so, either.'

Norris smiled and nodded. He looked beyond Claudine, clearly searching for Harding. The smile disappeared.

Claudine realized at once that the amba.s.sador respected her opinion. So she'd impressed the man at their earlier encounter. She didn't think it would be difficult to do it again: inexplicably leaving, as he had, meant Norris was totally ignorant of what they'd achieved with the eye-witnesses. It wasn't going to help the man's mental condition but Claudine wasn't sure anything short of hospitalization would.

She repeated her conviction that the abductors had to be drawn into contact upon Europol's initiative ('the first, unwitting, erosion of their control') and that it should be achieved in the shortest possible time ('it's the fourth day now: Mary mustn't be allowed to think no one is trying to help her and start trusting those who are holding her'). Throughout Norris sat complacently, shaking his head in dismissal to every point.

McBride provided the opportunity for which Claudine was waiting. 'Won't it simply be a repet.i.tion of the appeal I've already made?'