Brian Freemantle - The Predators

‘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.

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 snatched 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 classic paedophile snatch, 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 assembling. 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 sexual 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.