‘Why then do you think she didn’t?’ asked Claudine.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is she a disobedient child?’
The other woman hesitated. ‘She’s extremely self-confident.’
‘Walking away as she did, knowing it was forbidden, indicates wilfulness, doesn’t it?’
Madame Flahaur nodded reluctantly. ‘She liked being the centre of attention.’
‘To shock?’
‘To be the centre of attention,’ insisted the woman.
‘Was she a loud child? Exuberant?’
The woman frowned. ‘Loud? I don’t understand.’
Claudine gestured through the window to the road outside. ‘It’s a very busy street. It would have been crowded at the time she disappeared. If she was snatched – actually grabbed into a passing car – would she have tried to fight? Shouted? Or would she have been too terrified to resist?’
‘I think she would have resisted.’
‘So she’s not a nervous child? Sometimes wilful disobedience hides nervousness.’
‘No. She’s definitely not nervous.’
‘The photographs I have seen are facial portraits. Is she a well-developed girl?’
Madame Flahaur looked quickly at Blake. ‘She is beginning to form.’
‘Has she reached puberty yet?’
The woman flushed, very slightly. ‘Is this important?’
‘Everything I’m asking you is important, Madame Flahaur. The shock of what’s happened to her could cause her to menstruate. If she isn’t familiar with it, even if her mother or a teacher here has told her about it, it would add to whatever difficulties she’s suffering. She’d most probably have to tell a man.’
‘I’m sorry. Of course. No, she is not yet menstruating but it is something about which we instruct our pupils very thoroughly, to take away any fear when it happens.’
‘Does she look her age?’
The principal considered the question. ‘No, I don’t think she does. She is developing, as I said, but only just. And she’s quite a small child, below average height for her age.’
‘Has she had any sex education?’
‘It began this semester.’
‘You know her, Madame Flahaur. And can answer my next question more objectively than perhaps her parents could. Would you say Mary Beth McBride was a well-balanced child?’
Again the woman hesitated before replying. ‘Yes, I think I would.’
‘There is no proof of it yet, but the Americans believe she has been kidnapped: is being held somewhere. If that is the case, how do you think she would respond? Behave?’
‘It would be terrifying for any child.’
‘I’m not asking about any child. I’m asking about Mary. But let’s make it general, if you like. Considering the terror of being held by total strangers and not knowing what was going to happen to her, would Mary stand up to it better or worse than most children of her age?’
There was yet another pause for consideration. ‘Better, I think.’
‘Sport activities are part of the curriculum?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she enthusiastic? Or doesn’t she like it?’
‘She’s a very active participant in everything.’
‘Competitive?’
Madame Flahaur looked steadily back at Claudine, understanding the point. ‘Yes, she’s competitive.’
‘Someone who likes to win, in everything?’
‘Yes. Mary Beth likes very much to win.’
‘Well?’ demanded Blake, as they walked out on to the rue du Canal.
‘Good news and bad news,’ analysed Claudine. ‘She’s a wilfully disobedient child who doesn’t frighten easily. That’s good, if she’s being held. She’ll be able to stand up to the trauma. The bad news is that if she confronts too hard, too forcefully, anyone holding her will probably hurt her.’
‘Kill her?’
‘It would make it more likely.’
‘You’re supposed to make the forecasts,’ he reminded her.
‘She’ll try to do something,’ predicted Claudine.
‘There’s something we haven’t talked about yet,’ Blake pointed out. ‘What about her having been snatched for sex?’
‘It’s something we’re overdue considering,’ agreed Claudine. ‘I think it’s a far stronger possibility than a straight kidnap. Mary should have been taken home by a car waiting to collect her at the door. But it had a puncture. It was pure chance that she was walking up this road, which she shouldn’t have been doing. No one snatching her could have known who she was until after they got her. This isn’t a well-planned abduction of the daughter of a millionaire ambassador.’
‘I’d say that makes it even more likely they’ll kill her, if they haven’t already,’ said Blake.
‘I’d say the same,’ said Claudine.
James McBride was furious, red-faced, temple veins throbbing. Hillary, who insisted upon being part of every discussion about Mary in which her husband was involved, had actually leapt up from her seat, incensed.
‘Just two?’ demanded McBride.
‘And the woman’s never been involved in a kidnap before. She admitted it, openly,’ confirmed Norris. He sat primly on the chair, facing the ambassador across die desk, but inwardly he felt very relaxed, very satisfied. Everything was going precisely as he wanted, at the speed he wanted. He’d cleared his decks: got everything in place.
‘When I’ve finished kicking ass this fucking country – this fucking continent – is going to regret the day they didn’t take this seriously!’
‘Sir!’ said Norris quickly. ‘You made it quite clear in your first message to Washington how you wanted this handled. By the FBI. Which the Bureau and the President completely understood. That’s where we are now. I’ve made all the necessary gestures – at this morning’s meeting I even allowed them to think they’d out-argued me into having the media release, but they’re behind us now. Unimportant. I’m asking you, for the sake of Mary Beth, to let it be. Let’s wait for the approach, which I’ll personally deal with to get Mary Beth back. And we’ve got the perfect rejection when they complain about being kept out: they didn’t behave professionally enough to be included.’
‘I don’t need a perfect rejection!’ insisted Hillary.
‘But I need a clear field in which to operate, which I’ve got at the moment,’ said Norris. ‘And that’s exactly what I need to save your daughter.’
McBride was about to speak when the study door burst open. Paul Harding remained at the threshold, formality forgotten in his excitement. ‘Come! Quickly!’
He ran and automatically McBride, Hillary and Norris ran after him, not knowing where they were going. Six additional computers had been installed to supplement the embassy’s regular four in the emergency communications centre and they reached it in time to see every screen filled by the same message.
MARY, MARY QUITE CONTRARY WHERE DO THEY THINK YOU HIDE? NOT IN SILVER BELLS OR COCKLE SHELLS BE PATIENT, MR MCBRIDE.
Even as Norris yelled: ‘Who’s it from? What’s the sender address?’ the message flickered, just once, and disappeared from the screens.
The FBI man turned triumphantly to the ambassador. ‘Mary’s alive. And I was right. It’s a kidnap. We’re going to get her back, safe and well.’
As usual Mary was alerted by the sound of the key in the lock, but wasn’t prepared for it to be the woman standing outside when the door swung open. There was a jump, in her stomach, but she didn’t think anything showed on her face. She hoped not.
‘Come on out!’ said Felicite, hard-voiced, beckoning the child into the outer room.
Mary obeyed because to have held back might have indicated she was frightened: she didn’t want the woman
