Brian Freemantle - The Predators

Horrified silence enveloped the room: even the three clerks behind Smet came up from their notebooks and recording machines to look at her, shocked. Why, wondered Claudine, was it so difficult for everyone – most of them supposedly trained criminologists – to accept the likeliest outcome of this investigation!

‘I don’t think the ambassador should be told this,’ said the American diplomat, his voice wavering.

‘Neither do I,’ agreed Claudine.

‘Severing the toe was to force the ambassador to talk to her,’ Sanglier reminded them. ‘Can he? Is he up to it?’

‘He says he is,’ replied the US head of mission doubtfully. Again looking directly at Claudine, he added: ‘Should he, in view of what you’ve just said?’

‘Without any question!’ answered Claudine at once. ‘His not doing so would put Mary in enormous danger. There’d certainly be another body part.’

‘What can your involvement be now?’

‘A conference call, with me on an extension alongside McBride,’ replied Claudine. ‘Hopefully I can guide everything he says: avoid the wrong response. Mary’s safety could depend upon something as small as that: one wrong word, one wrong reaction.’

‘Jesus!’ said Harding.

Smet was as staggered as everyone else by the assessment, although for totally different reasons. The psychologist was so close – actually appeared to know – their thoughts.

‘Are you up to it, Dr Carter?’ demanded Harrison pointedly.

‘If I didn’t believe that I was I would have withdrawn,’ responded Claudine at once, conscious of both Poncellet and Jean Smet frowning between her and the American. ‘To have done anything else would have risked Mary’s safe recovery.’

Harrison blinked at the rebuke. Trying to recover, he said in sudden exasperation: ‘All we want to do is pay the money and get her back!’

‘They haven’t specifically asked for money,’ she reminded him. ‘And don’t forget that in my opinion money wasn’t what they took Mary for in the first place.’

‘Can we talk about yesterday’s conversation?’ intruded Smet, anxious to fill the gaps in what he knew. He patted the dossier in front of him. ‘We’ve got a transcript but no interpretation.’

There was a hesitation between Claudine and Harding, who had had a brief telephone conversation that morning to discuss connected aspects of the tape. At Claudine’s gestured invitation Harding said: ‘In the original recording, before our people enhanced it, there was a lot of distortion we didn’t understand. Now we do. She used a mobile phone and drove around all the time: the sound dips and interferences are caused by her going under bridges or through highly built up bad reception areas. Enhanced, it’s easy to detect the noise of traffic in the background.’

‘It lasted a long time: you couldn’t trace it?’ demanded Poncellet.

‘Not yesterday,’ admitted Harding uncomfortably. ‘The equipment we had was to locate a landline approach. Overnight we’ve installed scanners, for both analog and digitalized systems. Our people are hoping it’ll be analog: they’re easier. Unfortunately, most new systems are digital.’

‘Can your technicians guarantee a location?’ asked Smet at once.

‘I’m told it’ll be practically impossible if she keeps moving,’ further conceded Harding. ‘The hope is to get a number, which will be difficult if she’s routing through any of the Iridium or Globalstar satellites.’ To Poncellet he said: ‘Before she’s due to call tonight we have to set up number-trace arrangements through Belgacom and the major mobile phone companies and satellite servers. And have a lot of people on instant-response readiness if we get a fix. Now that the contact method has changed we’re scaling down our e-mail monitor at the embassy, to have most of our Washington people on standby.’ It had been Harding’s first command decision. He’d talked with Claudine before issuing it, and was still uneasy despite her assurance that it was probably safe.

Peter Blake said: ‘A copy of the tape went to Europol’s forensic laboratories last night for positive voice analyses. At the moment Dr Carter is guessing that the woman is a French speaker, not Flemish. The backpack has gone for all the forensic tests, too. I’m not hopeful of anything being found, from people as organized as these.’

‘What about the actual contents of the tape, Dr Carter?’ asked the Belgian lawyer hopefully.

‘More than enough confirmation of the arrogance I’d already suggested,’ said Claudine. ‘The entire tone – virtually every word – is taunting. Take identifying herself as Mercedes, for instance. And there’s very clear reference to sex, in all the remarks about what Mary is learning. The most worrying phrase, particularly after this morning’s backpack find, is when she gloats that she’s not sure she wants to give the child back.’

‘What’s the overall picture?’ queried a subdued Andre Poncellet.

Claudine considered the question for some moments. ‘The woman we’re looking for is suffering an extreme psychosis. She is accustomed to achieving absolute and total control over everyone around her but is, in fact, on the very edge of losing it over herself. And she is, as I’ve already said, capable of extreme violence.’

It was, thought Smet, a superb characterization of Felicite Galan. He said: ‘Would you say she was insane?’

‘Without any doubt very seriously mentally ill,’ agreed Claudine. ‘What a layman would definitely call mad.’

Hugo Rosetti collected Claudine at police headquarters and on the brief journey to the mortuary he said: ‘It’s been difficult to get in touch.’

‘I’ve been very busy.’

‘So you said when you finally called. You sure you’re all right?’

‘A lot’s happened. I’ll tell you about it later.’

‘Happened personally or happened professionally?’ he pressed.

‘Professionally, of course! What else?’ Almost too stridently defensive, she thought.

‘I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you, too. How’s Flavia?’ Why the hell had she said that? It was pointless.

He took some time to answer. ‘The same as always. How’s it worked out with Blake?’

‘He’s very professional.’

‘No personal problems?’

‘None.’

The main autopsy room was obviously unnecessary for such a small article. Instead they used one of the small side laboratories in which immediate tests were carried out during full crime-victim post-mortems and didn’t completely robe up, just putting on protective aprons and gloves.

Claudine had watched the Italian work before – there’d been eight dismembered corpses in the serial killing investigation – and was impressed again by the finesse, even with a body part like this.

Rosetti had a series of pictures taken, a selection against measuring graphs and others under magnification, by a waiting photographer before studying the toe under even greater magnification. He scraped on to separate slides from beneath and on top of the nail before slicing a selection of surface skin on other slides. On to yet more he smeared the invisible result of several swabs. Only after completing all his surface examinations did Rosetti take prints for later comparison with those due to arrive from America later that day. He carefully cleaned away every vestige of dye before finally making a deeper incision for tissue samples within the toe itself. Claudine was conscious of although not offended by the smell.

‘Anything you want me to do?’ he asked without looking at her. On their earlier case she’d sometimes asked for tests beyond his, to help her profile.

‘No,’ said Claudine.

‘Do you have a precise time of what was obviously the threat to do something like this, in the telephone call?’