The Last Witness

know how that sits with you, Sergeant Crowley — but it sits very badly with me. In fact it makes my flesh crawl thinking that in the end Lorena might have to go back to Ryall. So please tell me some good news.’

‘I don’t know. In a way what Dr Lowndes says is right, and things run pretty much the same here as Canada — there’s at least a couple of similar cases that I can recall. But that by no means makes it an impossible or hopeless case — just that the odds of successful prosecution might only be thirty percent or so. If we could get anything else, say like Mikaya Ryall coming forward. Some extra testimony that wasn’t purely gained under hypnosis — that could increase the chances.’

‘My husband went to see her.’ Elena sighed heavily. ‘She was a stone wall, didn’t want to even talk about it. And she might be just the same a Lorena — doesn’t recall anything while awake.’

‘True.’ Crowley was at the same time filling in some of his own gaps: he’d been curious what had happened at Gordon Waldren’s meeting with Mikaya. ‘But an official visit from us and some extra pressure might just open her up. It’s worth a try.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ It felt strange having run like a crazed rabbit from the police these past days to suddenly now have them on the same side, calmly discussing how they might work together to nail Ryall.

Crowley felt guilty building up her hopes, but then she’d asked for good news and that was probably the best he could give. With the abduction their chances were probably far less than thirty-percent, and with odds so low it was doubtful the CPS would even take it on. But he didn’t have the heart to tell her that, make everything appear so hopeless at the first strike.

And also he didn’t want to have to face that himself. She’d only just played the tape and broke the news, but already he felt his blood boiling. It was bad enough that Ryall was molesting the girl, but he’d been so arrogant and condescending with pushing them to trace her. Crowley recalled the way Ryall had spoken to him, and he felt like putting Ryall on a spit roast. But how? From what Elena Waldren had told him, without doubt it looked like Ryall was going to walk.

Flesh crawl. He couldn’t have put it better, but his position stopped him being so vocal, forthright. By the book. Sometimes it was frustrating. The seed of an idea started to gel at the back of his mind, but it wasn’t exactly something he’d want to discuss on an open police line.

‘Look — you’ve just broken all of this to me. And there’s a score of things I’d like to check internally before I give you a final opinion. Is there a number I can get you on in an hour or so?’

Elena was back at the hotel to take Crowley’s return call, and by then he had the whole game-plan worked out. She was almost breathless at its audacity.

‘Do you really think it could work?’

‘I certainly hope so. The thing is, what other choice is there?’ Crowley was calling from an outside booth, having already primed the man whose name he’d passed on to Elena. ‘We could contact him and run this, we’ve used him before — but it could take ten days or so to get the paperwork through, with also the chance that it won’t get approved. Concerns about police entrapment and all that. You contact him directly, and he could have it all up and running by tomorrow. You don’t want to leave Lorena exposed with Ryall any longer than you have to.’

The mention of Lorena’s exposure made Elena face again what she saw as the main problem. ‘The trouble is, to pull this off Lorena’s going to have to be in on it. She’s going to have to be told that Ryall’s been molesting her. Knowing that, I’m not sure she could face going back to him — even if it might only be for days.’

‘That’s the one thing I can’t answer for you. Whether or not she’ll be strong enough to go through with this. But that is the choice right there: nail-biting worry for a few days, but if it works she’s rid of him forever. Or take the chances with a court case with the knowledge that there’s a seventy percent chance of her going back to him in six months or a year.’ Crowley suddenly felt he should mention his concerns about the CPS so that she had the full weight of the options. ‘…With the odds so low there’s even the chance of them deciding not to pursue the case at all. She could end up back with him in only weeks.’

There was silence at both ends of the line for a moment. Another strike against. Elena sensed that Crowley wanted her to take the leap, but she just wasn’t sure Lorena was up to it. She’d braved the worst that the Bucharest streets and orphanages could throw at her, but playing this knife-edge game with a wily old fox like Ryall was something else again. She moved on to other issues to give her a moment more to think.

Crowley told her not to worry; Ryall wouldn’t give her any trouble with pressing for abduction charges. His plan was to remind Ryall of the tape she’d left with Gordon and that Lorena had consented, then comment that one of the sessions in Canada could be seen as suspect in regard to him molesting Lorena — though in the end they’d decided it was inconclusive. ‘But of course if he was to press for prosecution with you, you’d no doubt bring all of that out in your defence. That should be enough to warn him off.’

When they came to travel arrangements, Elena said that she didn’t know yet if she could travel back with Lorena. ‘There’s something very important that I might have to stay for.’ She paused only for a second before adding, ‘I’m hoping to meet up with the son I haven’t seen in twenty-odd years. He got separated from me at birth.’ She originally wasn’t going to explain to Crowley, but it struck her that he might think it odd to let Lorena travel back alone, especially given what she might have to face.

If she was staying, they arranged that she’d take Lorena to the nearest British embassy. Crowley would make the travel arrangements directly with them from that point. ‘Either they’ll send someone or we will. Quite honestly, I’d fly over myself and hold her hand all the way if it might make her brave enough to go through with this and help us nail Ryall.’

Elena got the first hint of antipathy between Crowley and Ryall; or maybe it was just the tape she’d played. But, everything else filed and sorted, the problem was back before them: whether a ten-year-old girl could help them succeed where the system had failed.

Ryall had probably been molesting her for years, dragging her down into a deep hypnotic sleep so that he could do what he liked with her. His eager hands travelling all over as her small body lay inert; her steady breathing suddenly fractured, more hesitant, but only part of her subconscious registering what he was doing. And he’d probably done the same with Mikaya for years before that. Elena shuddered with revulsion at the thought. And now as they finally revealed to Lorena what her subconscious had kept trapped for so long, they wanted her to lay inert for Ryall one more night so that they could get the proof to nail him.

Elena rubbed her forehead and glanced towards her hotel room door. Lorena was downstairs, no doubt still swapping stories over the bar with Alphonse. In the end only Lorena could decide if she could possibly face that. Throw the decision back to a ten-year old girl. The rest of them were hopeless: the system, Crowley, and most of all herself — strung out from pills, stress and lack of sleep — she was the last one balanced enough to decide. ‘I’ll talk to Lorena and see what she thinks.’

Elena was still in the same position minutes later, hands clasped anxiously together, chewing lightly at the back of her knuckles, wondering how on earth she was even going to begin to broach this topic with Lorena — I’ve got some good news and some bad — when the phone rang again. It was Staff-Sergeant Michel Chenouda.

‘Mrs Waldren. I’ve got some good news.’

‘…I was planning this all for tonight. If we’re going to do this, we should move quick. One thing I argued in your favour is that you’ve just arrived — nobody knows about you. As time goes on, that advantage could be lost. I was thinking, say… ten o’clock tonight. Is that okay?’

‘Yes, yes… I think so.’

‘You’ll have to come on your own… So can you make arrangements for your daughter by then? You won’t be returning till tomorrow morning.’

‘Yes, uh… I have a friend she can stay with.’

‘Fine. Now it’s a few hours run. A two-hour flight by small plane, and the car drive each end. And as soon as you start heading out of the city, you’ll have to wear a blacked-out headset. Secrecy is absolute on this — nobody’s to know where he is.’

Funicelli listened to them go through the last of the arrangements, then phoned Roman. Fourteen minutes later Roman was alongside him in his car as he replayed the tape. They were five blocks away from the Montclaire on Rue Berri. No point in keeping up the look-out: the police might run a sweep before coming by to pick her up. They’d return later and start following.

Roman checked his watch as the tape ran to an end. ‘Just over four hours, huh. We’re going to have to move fast.’

Funicelli nodded thoughtfully. He hit stop and rewound. ‘You should listen to the conversation she had just