had something to tell me. What was it you wanted to tell me?’
‘That!’ insisted the man irritably. ‘That you’re subject to American law because you’re in America.’ Why was she being so stupid!
She could walk out, Claudine supposed: leave the embassy and get back to the hotel before Sanglier and Blake. She felt a sweep of embarrassment. No one would be able to understand her coming here like this: she couldn’t understand it now. He was a sick man, she reminded herself: a sick man who was going to be confronted very soon with the demand that he be removed from the investigation. She wouldn’t walk away from a sick man. She said: ‘There isn’t anything, is there? Nothing you needed to tell me about the case?’
‘I know,’ Norris announced. He had to maintain the pressure, constantly keep her on edge.
‘What do you know, John? Tell me. Let’s talk about it.’ This wasn’t any sort of treatment – it couldn’t be – but there would be an element of paranoia, his confused mind overcrowded with disjointed delusions, and if she could coax some of them out she might, temporarily, ease his burden.
‘Why don’t you tell me?’ He wasn’t going to lose control, as he’d lost control with the ambassador: find himself answering questions instead of asking them. Couldn’t understand how that had happened. A trick. Wouldn’t do McBride any good.
‘What do you want me to tell you?’
She was giving up! Far easier – far quicker – than he’d expected. But it happened sometimes. You could never tell. ‘All of it. How you managed to get in, on the inside. Where she is, so I can get her out. Everything.’
Claudine felt the first pop of unease, deep in the pit of her stomach. The moment of collapse at the highest point of tension, she thought. ‘We’ve got to work together, John. Help each other. I want to help you and I know you’ll help me.’
‘Just do as I ask. Tell me where Mary Beth is. She’s been missing for too long. I’ve got to get her back.’ Why couldn’t she understand!
Claudine knew she had to establish a central thread, something he could recognize and hold on to. ‘We’re trying to find Mary Beth together.’
She was trying to trick him! The muzziness, the cotton waste feeling, was coming back. And it was hot again. It was the artificial light that had to be on all the time. There should be air conditioning somewhere. Too late to look for it now. ‘You know where she is… who they are…’
‘I don’t.’
‘You do!’ Norris grabbed sideways, for the other item he’d carefully installed in the top right-hand drawer alongside the tape recorder: not the new-issue 9mm that a lot in the Bureau carried because of its stopping power but the Smith and Wesson he’d always preferred. He saw the fear in her eyes when he brought it out and laid it on the table between them, keeping his hand on the butt. ‘If you don’t tell me you’ll be obstructing a federal officer in pursuit of his duties and I am legally authorized, in the United States of America in which at this moment we both technically are, to use whatever force is necessary to make you comply with my requests.’ He brought the weapon up, pointing it directly at her. ‘So, answer my question.’ He had thought he wasn’t going to get through the formal warning – twice he’d almost lost it – but he had. The warmth was satisfaction now, a feeling of complete power. He was legally authoritzed to shoot to kill if she tried to escape. He’d only wound her: put a round in her arm, to break it. Prove he wasn’t making empty threats. He wanted very much to fire the gun: feel the kick and hear the explosion. ‘I’m waiting…’
Five streets away Robert Ritchie shouldered his way into the familiarly crowded bar on the rue Guimard, checking himself at the unexpected sight of the Englishman at the same table as Harding and McCulloch. He realized at once that they’d seen him so he had to continue, saying ‘Hi’ and glad-handing as he made his way through the crush.
Ritchie didn’t say anything when he reached their table. McCulloch said: ‘He’d already found the wire: both of them. And made you, the first night. I always said you were shit at surveillance. Their commissioner’s coming in this afternoon to stop the whole fucking nonsense.’
‘She’s with Norris at the embassy now,’ disclosed Ritchie. ‘I checked the transcript. He called her room, just over an hour ago: said something had come up that was too important to tell her over the phone.’
‘Nothing has come up,’ said Blake.
She had to bring him back from the edge, give him the thread. Her life hung upon her being able to open whatever door there might be to what remained of his rational, reasoning mind. If nothing did remain, then it was almost inevitable he would shoot her. From a metre away, he couldn’t miss. ‘We were supposed to work as a team, you and I.’
‘Inveigled yourself in, so they’d know everything we were doing, right?’
It would be a mistake to pander to the delusion, letting it grow. ‘I’m not involved with those who’ve got Mary Beth. I couldn’t be.’
‘No one saw it but me.’
He was closed off against her. ‘What did you see?’
‘You getting inside. Knowing everything we were doing.’
‘It made you angry, didn’t it, my replacing you?’
Trying to change the order, making him answer questions again. ‘Didn’t replace me. Thought you did but you didn’t. I’m still in charge.’
Why wasn’t she frightened when a gun was being held unwaveringly on her from point blank range? There were feelings – anger at being tricked, frustration at not being able to reach him mentally – but no actual gut- dropping fear. She isolated the pride – the boastfulness – in the man’s remark, wondering if it might be the chink she was seeking. There was the sudden flurry of movement behind her, obviously from the only door. She didn’t turn.
‘John!’ said a voice she recognized as Harding’s. ‘What’s the problem here, John?’
‘No problem: sorting everything out,’ said Norris, his eyes flicking over Claudine’s shoulder. ‘No need for you here: no need for any of you. Get out!’ The gun came up towards her.
‘We don’t need the gun, John. Let’s put the gun down, OK?’
‘Get out!’
‘Do as he says,’ insisted Claudine, still not turning.
‘John, I tell you what I’m going to do,’ said Harding. ‘I’m going to come on in here. Help things along a little.’ There was a nervous laugh. ‘It’s my office, for Christ’s sake! Guy’s gotta be able to get into his own office.’
‘Don’t need help!’ shouted Norris, his voice cracking. ‘My case. I’ll bring it in.’ The gun abruptly shook, in his fury.
‘OK! OK!’ said Harding urgently. ‘Everything’s down to you.’
There was renewed sound from behind and Claudine guessed more people had arrived. She heard McBride say: ‘Norris! John! This is the ambassador. You hearing me?’
‘Of course I’m hearing you.’ He wasn’t looking away from Claudine now.
‘What’s going on here?’
‘Getting your daughter back, sir. That’s what I was sent here to do.’ The gun wavered up and down, gesturing to Claudine. ‘She knows where Mary is. She’s going to tell me.’
‘Good man,’ said McBride. ‘Well done. I want you to put the gun down and we’ll take Dr Carter back to my office and she can tell me herself. Then I’m going to cable your Director just how damned well you did on this.’
‘She’s got to tell me, no one else!’ Norris’s thumb moved, visibly, flicking off the safety catch.
At the doorway McBride whispered to Harding: ‘Could you hit him from here? Disable him?’
‘He’s half hidden by her. He’d know what I was trying to do – see my gun – if I moved along the inside wall for a full shot,’ replied Harding, soft-voiced. ‘Oh shit!’
‘I could hit him,’ offered Blake. ‘But his reflex would be to pull his own trigger. He couldn’t miss her.’
Claudine, unaware of the import of the hushed conversation, said loudly; ‘Please be quiet, everyone. Let us alone.’
‘Yes,’ said Norris distantly. ‘That’s what I want, everyone to be quiet. Everyone except her.’ He was confused by so many people. He was pleased that McBride, all of them, were going to witness how good he was: be taught how to interrogate a felon properly. But he’d lost his concentration. Couldn’t think how to pick up the questioning. The gun felt suddenly heavy. He couldn’t remember why he’d pulled the weapon. Had she pulled hers, to challenge him? Couldn’t see it. To frighten her, he remembered. That was it, to frightened her!
