Brian Freemantle - The Predators

‘Any guidance, for a new boy?’ Blake was examining Claudine as intently as she was studying him. Class, he decided. The simple jewellery – the single-strand gold choker and black-stoned gold ring – looked real and the black dress expensive. It was too loose for him to decide about her figure but she was obviously slim. Good legs, too.

‘Proud of the legend attached to his name, obviously. He’ll take advantage if he’s shown too much deference, but he expects a certain amount.’

‘You like him?’

‘We worked together well enough.’

Blake seized on this at once. ‘So you don’t like him?’ He stood back for her to leave the elevator ahead of him.

‘Like or dislike doesn’t come into it,’ Claudine said evasively, unhappy at having been backed into a conversational corner. ‘He keeps things strictly professional, as they should be kept.’ She hurried along the corridor, hoping Blake recognized he’d been given a ground rule by which she intended to operate.

The difficulty of how a European FBI should operate had been tentatively resolved by forming a ruling commission of senior police representatives from each of the fifteen countries, with each commissioner acting as chairman on a monthly rotating basis and one of them acting as the task force commander for each fully fledged investigation. Claudine decided it had to be nothing more than coincidence that Sanglier was again to lead whatever assignment they were on their way to be given: just as it was a fluke that her father, at the time chief archivist at Interpol in Lyon, had twenty years earlier assembled the wartime material upon Sanglier’s father for its entry into the National Archives in Paris.

It was, in any case, an intrusive reflection. To cloud her mind with unnecessary reexamination of their previous association would be not just ridiculous but totally unprofessional. And the basis of Claudine’s ‘know thyself’ creed was at all times and in every circumstance to be absolutely professional. After the personal disaster of England and the confused mess of what little private life existed here in The Hague her unquestioned professionalism was the only thing of which she felt sure.

Sanglier’s matronly personal assistant ushered them immediately into the man’s presence. The French commissioner was in his preferred position at the far end of the room, confronting any visitor with the intimidating approach that Claudine had several times endured. From the beginning she’d mentally listed the long march – and the overly large desk – among several peculiarities hinting at an inferiority complex clinically possible in someone carrying the name of a French national hero. She wasn’t overpowered by the charade and from the easy way he was walking beside her – strolling was the word that came to her mind – Claudine didn’t think Blake was, either.

There was still some way to go when Sanglier rose politely to greet them, an extremely tall, outwardly courteous man with only the slightest suggestion of grey in the thick black hair. He was, as always, immaculately dressed, the suit a muted light grey check, the black handkerchief in his breast pocket matching the black, hand-knitted tie worn over a deep blue shirt.

Claudine had anticipated a larger meeting, but there were only two chairs set out in readiness.

Sanglier steepled his hands in front of him, elbows on the desk. ‘The daughter of the American ambassador to Belgium has disappeared.’

‘How old?’ demanded Blake.

Sanglier consulted the single sheet of paper before him. ‘Ten.’

‘Any history of running away?’ asked Claudine, impressed by the immediate, no-unnecessary-questions atttitude of the fair-haired man beside her.

‘Not that we’ve been told.’

‘Ransom demand?’ asked Blake.

‘Not yet. But the Belgians favour kidnap.’

‘Why, if there hasn’t been a demand?’ persisted Blake.

Sanglier shrugged. ‘There’s no indication, from what we’ve been sent so far.’

‘When was she last seen?’

‘Leaving school yesterday. There was some mix-up over transportation. Some classmates saw her walking away by herself.’

‘And there’s been no contact from anyone?’ pressed Claudine.

‘Not according to what we’ve been told.’

‘So the Belgian police are pushing a kidnap theory because that’s what’s been suggested to them by the Americans, who’ll want to believe it because it’s a lesser horror than what else could have happened to her,’ predicted Claudine. Her job as a criminal psychologist was to examine clues left at crime scenes – invariably violent crime scenes – to create a physical and mental picture of the faceless perpetrator. She had never been involved in a kidnap and was unsure what value she had at this early stage.

‘The embassy will have its in-house security,’ said Blake. ‘Intelligence personnel, as well. And probably there are a lot more in the air already on their way to Brussels.’

Sanglier had collapsed his steeple and lounged back in his encompassing chair, making his own assessments. If his transition from policeman to politician was to go as he intended it was essential that these two were the best available in Europol. He’d made a mistake with Claudine Carter on their first assignment, he now acknowledged: behaved stupidly in the belief that from her father she might know something damaging to the Sanglier legend, which he himself doubted. Nevertheless, she had performed brilliantly. It was important that Peter Blake was equally good. Their success would become his success.

Sanglier’s initial impression was of a man verging on over-confidence, but he accepted that Blake would have had to be to have done half of what his personnel file listed in Northern Ireland. That file was specially designated, recommending that Blake be armed at all times. His responses so far showed an operational intelligence that had probably got him to Ireland in the first place, and in addition to whatever weapon he carried, kept him alive while he was there. And further, again listed in the file, was the degree in criminal law showing he was as strong on theory as he unquestionably was in practice. Physically bigger than Sanglier had imagined, although there were photographs and statistics on his record. It also said that Blake was a bachelor and Sanglier wondered if there would be any sexual attraction between the man and Claudine. The thought was an uneasy reminder of one of those stupid mistakes, introducing Claudine to his predatory wife. He said: ‘It’s going to be a minefield, diplomatically and operationally.’

The beginning of the walk-on-eggs lecture about in-country jurisdiction and diplomatic protocol, Claudine recognized. Only half listening, she went back to studying Blake, as determined as Sanglier against being burdened by someone of doubtful ability: so despised was Europol by national forces that it was all too frequently used as a graveyard for dying police elephants.

Blake was sitting attentively and slightly forward in his chair, but she suspected he’d heard it all before: it really was the standard, day one induction speech that came before directions to the cafeteria or the lavatories. If there were any psychological scars from what Blake had endured in Ireland she would have expected tell-tale signs, however slight, at the moment of being briefed to go back into the field.

When the commissioner had finished Blake looked briefly sideways at Claudine. ‘Just the two of us?’

‘We don’t know what we are investigating at the moment,’ Sanglier reminded him. ‘Until we do we can’t decide what manpower is needed. When we do every provision will be made.’

Claudine said: ‘Kidnapping is more an American than a European crime. Over half end with the child being killed.’