this time. Norris reached into the file propped against his chair, extracting a single sheet of paper.
‘Read it to us,’ Claudine insisted, forcing the imperious tone. It was a thin tightrope, trying to impose her will upon Norris at the same time as impressing the ambassador and his wife with her assessment to convince them that she should conduct any negotiation.
Norris did, his voice cracking in impotent fury.
‘That an original print-out?’ persisted Claudine, following the courtroom cross-examination principle of never asking a question to which the answer wasn’t known.
‘A copy. The screen cleared before we had time to get a print-out.’
‘Analyse it for us,’ insisted Claudine remorselessly. This was appalling, she knew. She didn’t have the slightest doubt that Norris was suffering the clinical mental impairment she’d earlier suspected. And by doing everything she could – as relentlessly as she could – to expose the professional inadequacy she was actually treating the man in a way diametrically opposed to the path she should have taken. Know thyself, she thought. Was her behaviour justified by the excuse of trying to rescue a child in every sort of physical and mortal danger? Or was it worse even than bullying? Wasn’t she guilty of her own impairment, the need always to show that Claudine Carter was the best and prepared to trample any opposition underfoot to prove it? More than that, even? Wasn’t she really performing, after all, to impress Peter Blake?
‘It’s the initial contact from people who have kidnapped Mary Beth McBride,’ said Norris formally, his confidence recovering.
‘From whom?’ she jabbed, refusing to let go.
Norris hesitated. ‘The people who’ve got her.’ Doggedly: ‘Her kidnappers.’
‘Tell us about them.’
Norris looked uncertain. ‘More than one. It would have had to be a car, to grab her off the street. At least one to drive, the other to subdue her when she realized what had happened. Enough money to own or gain access to a vehicle. Computer literate, with access to a modem. Money again-’
‘I meant from the message,’ Claudine interrupted. ‘That’s police reasoning, not psychological profiling. Tell me what you learn from the message itself. What it tells you about Mary, too.’
Norris broke his direct gaze, looking down to the paper as if he expected more than the message to be there. He became aware of McBride’s attention and briefly looked back before saying: ‘Beginning of a familiar kidnap pattern: abductors knowing they are in charge. The absence of any initial demand or how to respond is to impose pressure…’
Poor bastard, Claudine thought. Poor mentally confused, mentally blocked bastard. ‘You’re not properly interpreting a single indicator. Mary was abducted by chance, not design. The only intention of those who’re holding her was to get a child. They’re paedophiles.’
‘Oh dear God, no,’ moaned Hillary softly. ‘Not that.’ Her composure left her completely, her face crumpling.
‘I don’t think using a child’s nursery rhyme was necessarily intended to identify their sexual predilection, although in my opinion it does,’ Claudine pressed on, her sympathy switching to parents who from the beginning would have feared what she’d just openly declared. ‘But the choice of that particular rhyme was most definitely intentional, far beyond the coincidence of the name. Mary’s disobedient – a contrary child. She might have got willingly into a car but she’s resisted – defied them – since.’
‘Is she alive?’ demanded Hillary. ‘What will they have done to her?’
Claudine didn’t want to create any false hope – it was difficult at that moment to imagine any other sort – but she believed there was a fragile straw at which the couple could clutch. ‘She has to be alive for them to know how contrary she is, doesn’t she?’
‘What about…?’ groped McBride, unable to say the words. ‘Would they have…?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Claudine. ‘The message does mean they’ve turned it into an abduction. As long as it remains that, there’s a possibility she’ll be safe… safe in every way.’ It wasn’t the absolute truth but it wasn’t an absolute lie, either. But there was no purpose in reducing to total despair people who had already lost their child, perhaps for ever. Destroying one man, as she feared she was destroying John Norris, was more than enough. The thin American had brought his head up to look at her again, his face fixed. Several times, as she talked, Harding and Rampling had nodded, as if in acceptance. So had the legal attache. She assessed Burt Harrison’s face-twisted frown to be both an acknowledgement of her judgement and disgust at what it meant. The ambassador was as crumpled as his wife, his whole body seeming to wither, a man – a father – brought face to face with the most unthinkable horror.
Desperately McBride said: ‘You could be wrong! You could be the one misunderstanding!’
‘It’s my job not to be,’ replied Claudine. ‘And I don’t think I am.’
‘We’ve got a kidnap situation, which has always been my opinion,’ persisted Norris. His voice was still cracked.
‘There are young sexual deviants – juveniles even – but the people holding Mary are adult,’ predicted Claudine, ignoring the other profiler. ‘There’s an intellectualism – almost a sophistication – in their message that young people wouldn’t have. And there is access to money, going beyond the obvious of a car’s being involved. There’s access to a house or somewhere where Mary can be held prisoner, without fear of discovery. And there’s a high degree of computer literacy…’ She hesitated, her throat jagged, the strain of what had become a virtual lecture beginning to pull at her. ‘The one message that’s been received isn’t an initial kidnap approach. It’s a challenge. How we balance that challenge – and I really do mean balance – entirely determines our chances of saving Mary.’
Claudine paused again, looking at Norris. She’d had to be brutal, she convinced herself. It was nothing personal: certainly nothing done to impress anyone. And definitely not Peter Blake. From the ambassador’s very obvious anguish Claudine was sure, quite apart from whatever censure might officially come from Washington, that it was time to attempt whatever flimsy bridge was possible with Norris. She said: ‘That’s why there can only be one finely focused negotiating stance. And one set of negotiators. Work independently and you’ll never get Mary back intact.’ She began looking among the Americans arrayed before her but abruptly stopped: that was performing! Uncomfortable with the realization, but sticking with her point, Claudine said: ‘Your decision, ambassador. I believe you’ve only got one, which is the one we’re asking you to make. Do you want to get Mary back, alive at least, horrifying as the implications of that question are? Or do you want your law enforcement agencies to go on working independently?’ She allowed a gap. ‘Our way, there’s a chance. Your way there isn’t.’
There was, momentarily, another chilled silence. Then Norris began to speak, but once again McBride quietened the man with an impatient gesture. It was Hillary who said: ‘For God’s sake, shut up!’
McBride said: ‘There’s been a bad misunderstanding. For which I apologize. Now it’s been corrected: nothing will again be attempted independently. You have my word. But I want yours. Can you get our daughter back, alive at least?’
‘Yes,’ blurted Norris at once.
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Claudine.
‘I want you to lead the negotiations,’ McBride told Claudine. He turned to the FBI man beside him. ‘Do you understand?’
Norris was unable to reply for several moments. ‘Yes,’ he managed at last.
As Claudine had anticipated, the press conference was frenetic. She had also anticipated, correctly, that by the time it began the e-mail appeal would have been discovered by the already alerted media, and advised McBride and Sanglier to respond to every question in the apparent belief that Mary’s disappearance was a ransom-motivated kidnap, with no sexual implication. There was fractionally more time for her to prepare them than Andre Poncellet, who ascended the light-whitened platform more relieved than confused by her urging, which he accepted without argument, that he should let the other two men take the majority of the questions, restricting himself to agreeing with whatever undertaking they gave.
He wanted to hear from those who held his daughter, declared a choke-voiced McBride, his wife rigid-faced beside him. He was prepared to negotiate. He pleaded for Mary not to be harmed in any way. Towards the end he cried, openly and unashamedly, accepting Hillary’s offered hand. Claudine was delighted because the helplessness was so genuine and conveyed exactly the impression she wanted: that whoever held Mary was in total control, able at a finger snap – or rather a keyboard tap – to manipulate not just the nations of the European Union but America as well.
