Brian Freemantle: The Predators

‘Take me back to Brussels immediately!’ demanded Mary again, in English, giving the woman no indication of her language comprehension.

Felicite managed to pat Mary’s leg, before the child pulled away. ‘Don’t be a silly girl.’

‘You’ll get into dreadful trouble, both of you.’

Cool took the Beveren road, better to bypass Antwerp, but too abruptly. The tyres screeched, the rear of the car sliding slightly. Felicite said: ‘Almost there now.’ To the man at the wheel, whose eyes were more often in the rearview mirror than on the road in front, she said: ‘I told you to slow down!’

‘Do something! Get us out of this!’ said Cool. His voice was cracked.

‘I make the decisions. You do the driving. So drive.’

‘What’s your name?’ Mary demanded of the woman at the opposite end of the seat.

Felicite laughed. ‘I know yours but you can’t know mine. It’s my secret.’

‘I know what you are! What you’re going to do!’ This was an adventure. Much better than riding the Metro.

‘Do you?’ smiled Felicite, aware of Henri’s startled reflection.

‘My father will pay. He’s very rich.’

The woman’s smile widened; the child’s remark chimed with the idea that had already occurred to her. ‘Of course he’ll pay for someone as pretty as you.’

‘So you understand?’ demanded the child.

‘Totally.’

‘I meant what I said, about no one slapping me.’

‘I’m sure you did.’

‘So don’t forget!’ Abruptly, reading the signpost as they passed, she said: ‘Antwerp. Is that where we’re going?’

‘To a big house on the river. You’ll like it.’

‘I won’t.’

‘We’ll see.’

The child looked away, to stare out of the car. The rain had started almost as soon as they left Brussels and the clouds were thicker, heavier, nearer the coast, ushering in the night-time darkness. Felicite lounged back, as far away on the seat as she could get, studying the girl’s mirrored image in the window glass. It was a good idea: would be an experience she hadn’t enjoyed before but had to savour now she’d thought of it, as she had to taste every forbidden fruit. The others probably wouldn’t like it – they’d be frightened, like Henri – but they’d do as they were told, as they always did. She’d have to rearrange things with the estate agent in Namur. And speak to Eindhoven and Lille to tell them everything was postponed. Simple reorganization. She was good at organization. That’s why everyone had been so happy – relieved – for her to take over, after Marcel’s death. Yes! Felicite decided. She’d definitely do it.

Cool was forced to slow by the volume of traffic on his back-street negotiation around Antwerp but it wasn’t until he was almost clear of the city that he was brought to a positive halt at traffic lights. Felicite didn’t move when Mary snatched for the door handle, exaggerating her laugh at the child’s helpless yanking on the useless, unconnected lever. The woman did react, though, when Mary opened her mouth to scream. Sure of not being seen from the outside, rain-sodden gloom, she lashed out, hard, before the cry was formed, catching the unsuspecting girl fully in the face to strangle the sound into a whimpering gasp, as much of astonishment as of pain.

‘I told you I’d slap you, didn’t I?’ said Felicite casually, as the flat grey ribbon of the sluggish Schelde river broke occasionally to their left through the vast skeletal forest of cranes and container rigs of the port. ‘You’ve got lessons to learn. Rules to obey.’

Mary glared malevolently across at her, lips tight against any blood leaking from the split inside her lip and cheek.

‘You’re still not going to cry, are you?’ demanded Felicite hopefully.

‘No,’ Mary allowed herself, tongue against the cut. The blood tasted nasty: metallic.

‘I’m going to enjoy you,’ said the woman. ‘Enjoy you a lot.’

Mary didn’t understand the remark and couldn’t think of anything to say, although she wanted to, so she tightened her mouth again. She was very proud of not crying, despite the pain in her mouth where the brace had cut. She didn’t have anything really to cry about: be frightened of. Dad would pay. And he’d punish them. He had men to do that: men with things like hearing aids in their ears and sometimes little knobs pinned to their jacket lapels that they talked into. She’d have to be careful not to miss anything out, when she got back to school. It really would be difficult for the rest of the class to believe.

The beach house wasn’t really on a beach, although there was a shoreline and shingle and a bathing hut collapsing from neglect and the constant battering from North Sea winds. The main building was just short of the Dutch border where the river fanned out into the Westerschelde, isolated by at least two kilometres from its nearest neighbour, a major consideration for its use. Its basement encompassed and utilized, with specific modifications, the impregnable blockhouse constructed by the Nazis in the Second World War to protect such an essential waterway.

The North Sea gale was driving the rain horizontally by the time the Mercedes reached the three-storey, shutter-protected house in front of which three other cars, all Mercedes, already stood. Henri Cool had to stand against the rear door to hold it open to release Felicite and the child. As she got out, Mary was caught by the force of the wind and became entangled in the straps of her backpack; she would have fallen completely if the woman hadn’t grabbed her. Wide-armed and protective, Cool propelled them towards the house.

In its lee the wind was only slightly less fierce, and still more than enough to defeat the sudden dash that Mary had intended. She didn’t even try, allowing herself instead to be shepherded through the unlocked door into the vaulted, high-ceilinged entrance hall. The relief was abrupt and disorientating – Felicite and Mary staggered afresh without the need to brace themselves against the storm – although the wind continued to hammer at the closed shutters as if trying to get at them.

Felicite still clutched Mary, a hand on each of the child’s shoulders. She hurried her across the hall, not giving her the chance to recover. Alongside, Cool had the basement door already open. Mary was gasping, finding it difficult to breathe, when they got to the bottom of the stairs.

She stood there, trembling from the cold wetness but still, she told herself, not from fear. She felt, instead, bewilderment and she did her best to hide that too, not wanting the woman who had hit her to misunderstand: not wanting to give her any satisfaction.

It was a huge room extending the length and width of the house, which was in effect a lid put over the entire original German bunker. Its metre-thick concrete, concealed now behind lighter wood panelling than that in the upstairs hall, totally silenced the outside tempest. More important, it contained any sound from what now regularly occurred inside, making its remoteness from neighbours unnecessary. The floor was thickly carpeted, too, except for the very centre where there was a cleared wooden circle, for dancing. The ceiling was entirely glassed. There were lounging divans around three walls. Dominating the fourth was a huge television or movie screen. On either side there were five separate doors. All were closed. Two were solid, their only break an eye-level sliding metal viewing strip. Both were shuttered. In the furthest corner was an array of music-playing equipment, incongruously surrounded by disco and strobe lights. It was very warm – almost too hot – and there was a cloying, perfumed smell.

Mary shivered, for the first time positively uncertain. Quickly she said: ‘I’m cold. My clothes are wet.’