Brian Freemantle - The Predators

The delay of transcribing and then copying the second tape gave time for Rosetti and Volker to arrive from the hotel. Both men made contributions to an investigation far beyond their individual disciplines, but observing her know thyself dictum Claudine acknowledged a determination to present something that would turn the entire investigation on its head to both Hugo Rosetti and Peter Blake. She at once confronted the self-examination. It wasn’t immaturity, although maybe there was a small, disturbing element. It was, instead, the far deeper need after John Norris’s suicide to prove herself not just to two men to whom she felt emotionally attracted but to everyone else as well. Including herself. She wanted to stage a performance, almost literally, in front of them all. Gain their plaudits. She didn’t like the awareness. It was good – cathartic – that she’d diagnosed it but she had to rid herself of it.

They used the CIA quarters, which meant Lance Rampling had to be included. Because of the possible political consequences Claudine had considered including the ambassador as well, and there was no doubt his larger office would have been far more comfortable. However, she decided it was unnecessary as well as wrong to cause McBride and his wife any more distress. Hopefully Burt Harrison could assess the political repercussions far more dispassionately.

Belatedly trying to minimize the stage-like appearance, Claudine did not actually sit behind Rampling’s desk but perched casually on its side edge. Even so, as Rosetti and Volker finally entered, Sanglier said testily: ‘I hope you can justify all this mystery: we’re supposed to be working with the Belgians, not against them.’

Claudine decided she could not have sought a better cue. ‘As they’re supposed to be working with us. But someone isn’t.’

‘What?’ That was Harrison.

‘The people who’ve got Mary are aware of every word we’ve spoken and every move we’ve considered making against them, virtually from the start of this investigation.’

The stunned, disbelieving reaction came from Harding. ‘How in the name of Christ can you know that?’

Instead of replying Claudine depressed the play button on the machine beside her. Into the room echoed her previous day’s exchange.

I want McBride. The woman.

I’m speaking on his behalf. Claudine.

The wife?

No.

Ah, the clever little mind-reader!

Claudine stopped the tape, looked expectantly – hopefully – towards the men ranged in front of her. Rosetti had his head to one side, frowning in what she thought was half-awareness. Blake’s face was blank. So were those of Sanglier and Harding. Harrison was looking to them for guidance. Rampling was still hunched over the transcript from which he’d followed the replay. There was a half-smile on the face of the always laterally thinking Volker.

Claudine minimally rewound the tape for just one sentence.

Ah, the clever little mind-reader!

‘It’s wrong!’ declared Claudine urgently. ‘She doesn’t get McBride, whom she expects. Mrs McBride is an outside possibility, whom she doesn’t get either. And when I deny it’s Mrs McBride there’s an immediate recognition: Ah, the clever little mind-reader! Not “Who are you?” Not “Put me on to McBride, he’s the only one I want to talk to.” No threats. No arguments, until much too late. She was waiting for me…’ Claudine started the tape again.

We want to negotiate.

Of course you do.

Tell me about Mary.

Demanding!

‘But she doesn’t demand in return,’ insisted Claudine. ‘She should have done – had every reason to do so – but she doesn’t because she knows who I am! There’d been no public announcement of my being here: whether I was male or female. There’s no way she could have known unless someone at the very highest level – at our level – told her.’ She started the tape again, continuing the conversation. ‘She accepts me, without question! Plays word games about names, needing to show me how clever she is: wanting to be cleverer than me. Having to regain control.’

‘There is an acceptance, from the beginning,’ said Volker.

‘I’m not so sure,’ disputed Blake.

Claudine rejected the first tape, fumbling in her eagerness to replace it with the second. She began it at the wrong section, fast forwarded to where she wanted to be.

The clever psychologist, imagining you know my mind! echoed into the room. Claudine said: ‘There’s been no public reference anywhere to a psychologist being part of the investigation. And I said exactly that at one of our meetings: that I was getting to know her mind.’

‘“And how’s the clever lady today? I know you’re there, Claudine,”’ challenged Rampling, reading from the transcript. He looked up. ‘It was obvious you’d listen in. Just as it’s obvious there’d have been a trained negotiator from the beginning. Hostage or kidnap negotiators are invariably psychologists. It’s all intelligent reasoning.’

‘It’s not intelligent reasoning that the negotiator would be female,’ persisted Claudine. ‘The more likely reasoning, from a woman, would be that a negotiator would be male.’

‘I don’t think that’s logical,’ said Rosetti.

‘How many other women are there in this room?’ demanded Claudine. Going to Sanglier, then Harding, and finally Rampling, she said: ‘How many female psychologists are there in Europol? Or the FBI? Or the CIA?’ Why wasn’t it as obvious to them as it was to her?

‘You’re being sexist, we aren’t,’ said Sanglier inadequately. He didn’t want her to be right: didn’t want to become embroiled in the alternative that she was suggesting. It was too fraught with personal difficulties.

‘Listen to today’s conversation, in full!’ pleaded Claudine ‘Really listen!’

Total silence enclosed the room and Claudine didn’t speak for several moments after the tape had finished. Finally she said: ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You’re antagonizing her,’ Harrison suggested fatuously.

Claudine refused the bait. ‘She challenged me, at the very beginning: announced that she knew I’d be listening in. But hear how she loses control – the last thing she wanted to do: total anathema to her – when I tell her I know her mind better than she does.’

‘What’s the significance of that?’ queried Sanglier. She couldn’t be right. It wasn’t possible. Yet…

‘At this morning’s conference I said she was mad, in layman’s terms,’ Claudine reminded him. ‘Someone suffering from her psychopathy will never accept that they are mentally deranged: everyone else is mad, not them. Today’s call wasn’t to taunt the ambassador or announce a ransom. It was to argue with me: prove to me that she wasn’t mad.’

‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Volker.

‘Me too,’ agreed Rampling.

‘But for someone in the group to be involved would be…’ Blake began.

‘… inconceivable,’ finished Claudine. ‘But why? Paedophiles – perhaps more than any other criminal category – come from across the widest spectrum of society. More often than not they’re from the professional class. Look how clever they’ve been, with e-mail and now mobile phones… that points to an executive expertise.’

‘They abandoned their e-mail approach, switched to telephones, the moment I traced their route to Menen. Which only our group knew I’d done,’ Volker pointed out. Heavily he added: ‘And they haven’t used it since.’

‘How many in the control group could be involved?’ demanded Rampling.

‘Eight,’ replied Harding at once. ‘Poncellet and Smet. Or any one of the six clerks who’ve been keeping records on a rotational basis.’

‘Three are women, two of them blond,’ remembered Blake.