Brian Freemantle - The Predators

‘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?’