Brian Freemantle - The Predators

Claudine said: ‘They wanted McBride to know they’ve got his daughter but didn’t give the man any way of responding. That doesn’t fit a usual kidnap pattern.’

‘What are they doing then?’ demanded Sanglier, needing to catch up. At the same time, like a mantra in his head, he was thinking: What am I doing, sitting here, calmly discussing breaking the law, condoning it, agreeing to it, learning how it’s done?

‘Amusing themselves, taunting McBride,’ said Claudine. She looked briefly at Blake. ‘And it fits how Mary was grabbed in the first place. I think she’s being held by paedophiles.’

‘What!’ demanded Sanglier, incredulous, just ahead of Blake, who said: ‘How the hell do you reach that conclusion?’

Speaking more to the detective than the commissioner, Claudine said: ‘We’ve already decided it didn’t start as a planned abduction. She was snatched by chance, a child looking younger than her age. The message is derived from a child’s nursery rhyme: that’s paedophile thinking, maybe more subconscious than a positive choice. It’s a taunt-’

‘Aren’t you literally reading a lot from very little?’ broke in Blake.

‘That’s what I’m supposed to do,’ Claudine said, unoffended. ‘And I haven’t finished. There are variations of Mary, Mary Quite Contrary recited in continental Europe but it’s really an English nursery song

…’ She paused again, looking at Volker. ‘And the message sent to the embassy was in English?’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed.

‘And although it’s a pretty rotten poem the English was good,’ continued Claudine. ‘One or more of the people holding the child could be English by birth, although I doubt it. I think it’s more likely that they were educated at an expensive private school where English was well taught as a second language: it might be, even, that the person who wrote the message had an English governess or nanny.’

‘So they’ll be rich?’ suggested Blake, prepared for the moment to go along with Claudine’s reasoning.

‘Possibly,’ she agreed. ‘Or were, once.’

‘How does that square with the computer use?’ demanded Blake. He looked at Volker. ‘The contact method might seem simple to you but it’s not to me. To me it’s complicated and technically obscure. Only someone who uses computers all the time would have that level of expertise. How many rich people need to reach that level of computer literacy?’

‘Mary is being held by more than one person,’ said Claudine. ‘Paedophiles usually hunt in packs and take their pleasure in packs. It doesn’t follow that the person who wrote the message was the one who physically sent it.’

Blake switched his attention fully to the German. ‘Now you think you know how they’re going to communicate, will it be possible to trace a source before the thing self-destructs next time?’

‘Maybe,’ said Volker cautiously. ‘I’m ready to go into UNIX the moment another message appears. But don’t forget it literally is the World Wide Web. The next message could originate from somewhere in Belgium – right next door to this building if you like – and ride piggy-back through two or more totally unsuspecting host systems in two or more countries anywhere around the globe before appearing on the embassy screens back here.’

Momentarily there was complete silence as the awareness settled in the room. Blake said: ‘Are you saying we can’t stop them? Or find them?’

Volker said: ‘It’s not going to be easy. They can come from anywhere and close down before we’ve alerted any local police force. And I really mean anywhere in the world.’

‘But at some time there’ll have to be proper contact if they want a physical hand-over of a ransom,’ said Blake.

‘ If they make it a proper kidnap,’ Claudine pointed out. ‘The messages might just be an additional amusement that they’ll tire of…’ She hesitated. ‘And even if they do try to get money they’ll still use Mary in the way they originally snatched her for.’

Volker, who doted on his five children, said: ‘Are you absolutely sure she was originally taken for sex?’

‘That’s my professional opinion,’ said Claudine bluntly.

The German shuddered, very slightly. ‘Would they let her go, afterwards? Exchange her for a ransom, I mean?’

‘There are too many variables for me to give a definite opinion,’ Claudine replied. ‘The most difficult to assess is the Americans and their negotiator, Norris. We’re not on the inside by invitation, remember.’

‘No. We’re inside illegally,’ protested Sanglier. ‘We can’t officially do anything about what we know. We can’t even tell the Belgian police, with whom we’re supposed to be working. Can you imagine how it could affect us: affect Europol?’

Looking directly at the Frenchman, Claudine said pointedly: ‘I can certainly imagine how it could affect a ten-year-old child.’

Sanglier flushed. ‘Don’t misunderstand me.’

No one spoke because no one had to.

Hurriedly, Sanglier said: ‘There can’t be any question of the Americans’ keeping us out?’

Claudine hesitated momentarily, undecided if it was the right time to introduce her concern. Then she said: ‘Whether they do or not, it’s my professional judgement that John Norris is incapable of conducting a proper negotiation even if the opportunity arises.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Sanglier, knowing how the other three had interpreted his concern at legality and hot with self-anger because of it.

In clinical detail – itemizing her indicators against Norris’s attitude and remarks – Claudine recounted that morning’s meeting with the FBI negotiator. ‘People like Norris, on the verge of losing personal control, invariably overcompensate by imposing as much external command as possible on those over whom they believe they have authority,’ she concluded. ‘The operational danger is in their thinking they have authority over those with whom they’re negotiating. That’s the road to disaster for a victim caught between opposing sides each believing they can manipulate the other: quite literally it’s the rock and a hard place syndrome.’

Sanglier, who hated betraying any weakness, felt totally helpless at his inability to think of anything. The other three were actually looking at him expectantly! ‘I think I should meet the ambassador before the conference.’ It sounded positive, but only just.

‘McBride will be guided entirely by Norris,’ Claudine warned him.

Sanglier said: ‘And I can use your opinion as a counterargument. You’re clearly right about a planned kidnap’s being the wrong assumption from which to begin the investigation. If I can make McBride see that – realize Norris’s fallibility – his attitude might change.’

‘I’m sure I’ll get any more e-mail correspondence,’ said Volker. ‘If there’s something as positive as a suggested meeting are we going to hold back from acting upon it?’

Claudine saved Sanglier from having to admit that he didn’t know. She said: ‘Nothing is going to be as positive as an arranged meeting. We’re watching a game that’s only just begun.’

The relief was incomplete and short-lived and ended in bitter ill temper. The combined, disbelieving fury of James and Hillary McBride was the greatest and most easily understandable. When the amateur poem had faded from the computer screens, Hillary had swept in to join the inquest in her husband’s study, shouting for answers that no one had.

‘What the fuck’s going on? I hear from someone who’s got my daughter but doesn’t tell me how to get back to him!’ McBride said.

‘It doesn’t make any sense!’ Hillary added. ‘How can we pay without knowing who or how or when or where?’