Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

She was in her fifties with short grey hair and an air of authority. Her office was an office, not a consulting room. No leather couch, no potted plants. Filing cabinets, charts on the walls, a computer, an expensive but businesslike desk. It looked more like the place of work of a management consultant than a psychologist.

She didn’t have much time, and she let him know it. ‘How can I help you, Mr, er...?’

‘Szczypiorski. I would like to talk to you about Bloomfield Weiss.’

‘I see. Bloomfield Weiss used to be a client of mine. Even though our relationship terminated many years ago, my duty of confidentiality still stands.’

‘I understand,’ said Chris. ‘So perhaps I’ll talk and then you can decide how much you can tell me.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I was recruited by Bloomfield Weiss as a graduate trainee ten years ago. As part of the recruitment process I was given some psychometric tests. I never found out the results, and quite frankly I forgot all about them. But my understanding is that Bloomfield Weiss used these tests to screen for particularly aggressive individuals.’

‘That’s true.’

‘And you were one of the psychologists that they used to conduct the tests?’

‘That’s true also.’

‘What did you think of their approach?’

At last, Dr Horwath smiled, and some of the caginess left her. ‘At first I was intrigued. There has always seemed to me to be some hypocrisy in the way companies claim they are looking for all the noble virtues in their employees. One of the strengths of psychometric testing is that it doesn’t necessarily show that people are good or bad. You don’t pass or fail. Different people have different strengths and weaknesses that mean they are more or less suitable for different roles. Bloomfield Weiss realized that many of the successful people in their organization had traits that were often looked upon negatively by recruiters.’

‘Such as?’

‘If you worked there, I’m sure you saw them. Aggression. The desire to win at any cost. The ability to lie and deceive. The ability to manipulate other people. A certain recklessness. Even a propensity to violence.’

‘Violence?’

‘Many traders are violent people, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Some,’ said Chris.

‘Civilized society sublimates the tendency towards violence in a number of ways. The most obvious is playing sport, or watching it. But trading the financial markets seems to be another way. Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t seen the macho language, the posturing, the desire to dominate on the trading floor?’

‘I suppose I have,’ Chris admitted.

‘Well, that was what we were looking for.’

‘So what went wrong?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’

Dr Horwath looked at Chris neutrally. He could read nothing from her expression.

‘My understanding is that one of the psychologists responsible for the testing, yourself, raised some concerns about some of the trainees you tested. You were afraid they might turn out to be dangerous. Your warnings were ignored and the candidates were recruited anyway. One of these, Steve Matzley, was subsequently convicted of rape. I’m concerned whether there were any others that troubled you.’

‘There may have been,’ said Dr Horwath. ‘But I couldn’t possibly discuss them with you if there were. And I’m not sure what your interest in this is. You don’t still work for Bloomfield Weiss do you?’

‘No, I left two years ago. But I witnessed the death of one of the trainees on my programme, Alex Lubron. He fell off a boat and was drowned. Did you hear about it?’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Dr Horwath. Weren’t the circumstances suspicious?’

Chris had to be cautious here. Dr Horwath owed no duty of confidentiality to him, so he had to be careful not to say anything that could be used against him, or Duncan, or any of them later.

‘I thought the circumstances were straightforward at the time,’ he said. ‘But now I’m not so sure. One of the other trainees on the boat, Lenka Němečková, was murdered in Prague a couple of weeks ago.’ Dr Horwath’s eyebrows shot up at this. ‘I believe there may be some connection with what happened on that boat.’

‘What kind of connection?’

Chris sighed. ‘I don’t know.’

‘So what do you want from me?’

‘If I give you the names of the people on the boat, can you tell me whether you were worried about any of them?’

‘The short answer, Mr, er.... is no. For reasons I have already explained.’

Chris went on regardless. ‘There were seven of us. Myself, Lenka, Alex, Duncan Gemmel, Ian Darwent, Eric Astle and one other woman whom you wouldn’t know.’ Chris listed these names slowly, watching Dr Horwath’s face very closely as he did so. Nothing. Not a blink of an eyelid. ‘Do any of those names ring a bell?’

‘All of those people told me or my associates personal details in the strictest confidence. As did you, yourself. While I didn’t approve of Bloomfield Weiss’s approach to this programme, I do have to respect that confidentiality.’

‘But Dr Horwath. A friend of mine has been killed already. I myself was attacked by a man with a knife last night.’ Chris touched the cut on his face. ‘Please. At least tell me if nothing showed up in the tests of any of us.’

Dr Horwath looked up at the ceiling for a long moment, and then returned her gaze very deliberately to Chris. She said nothing.

‘You can’t tell me that, can you?’

Still nothing.

Chris leaned forward, eager to pin her down. ‘There was something wrong with one of them. Which one? You didn’t have to look the names up in a file. One of them means something to you, doesn’t it? One of them you remember, ten years later.’

Dr Horwath looked at her watch. ‘I do appreciate the seriousness of your enquiry. But I cannot help you. I absolutely cannot. Now, I have an appointment at nine.’

Chris realized that was as much as he was going to get. But he had got something, he was sure of it.

‘Thank you, Dr Horwath. If you do change your mind, here’s my card. And,’ he paused. What he wanted to say was melodramatic, but it needed to be said. ‘If, sometime in the next few weeks, you learn that something has happened to me, please remember this conversation and pass it on.’

Dr Horwath’s eyes flashed at him. He knew he sounded paranoid, but he hoped that she would be able to tell he wasn’t crazy. ‘I’ll do that,’ she said.

Chris left the room and, as he was putting on his coat outside her office, he saw Dr Horwath looking through a drawer of her filing cabinet.

The rented four-wheel drive ground up the hill, the tyres somehow gripping to the compacted snow under the wheels. Chris knew he wasn’t being followed. All he had to do was look behind him down the ravine to the highway two miles behind and several hundred feet below him. He had taken a cab to Newark Airport, hung around International Departures, and then taken the monorail to the terminal for Burlington. So far, no one knew where he was.

There was snow in Vermont. The valley would have looked pretty on a sunny day, but the skies were leaden, the dark clouds hugged the mountainside only a couple of hundred feet above him, and Chris was pushing the four-wheel drive well beyond the limits of a normal car. So far, no skids. Which was fortunate, because there was a hundred-foot drop to his left.

What kept him going were the clear tracks of another vehicle along the road in front of him. Someone else had been along here since it had last snowed. If they had made it, so could he.

About four miles from the highway, he rounded a bend and came to a high meadow. The trees were cleared for about half a mile up a gentle slope to a white-painted house. Near it was a big red barn. Smoke trickled out of a chimney. A four-wheel drive similar to his own stood outside. Relieved that he had arrived intact, Chris parked his vehicle next to it, and got out. After the warmth of the car the cold engulfed him, making him catch his breath. He glanced up at the sky. He was no expert, but it looked to him like snow.