commissioner said he could be there in ten minutes. Sanglier hoped that would be sufficient intervening time. He wished there’d been a justifiable reason to have Claudine remain part of the discussion.
In Poncellet’s pristinely neat office the Justice Minister listened stone-faced, seemingly reluctant to accept copies of everything that had been recorded from Smet’s home telephone and the incomplete transcripts from the lawyer’s office line. He waved the bundle like a flag of surrender and said, his voice jagged: ‘This is inconceivable. Horrifying. I can’t believe it.’
‘They’re on their way here now, all except the woman. And they know where the child is,’ said Sanglier.
There was too much for Ulieff to absorb: too much to think about. It was appalling. A total disaster. Smet was a member of his staff. Someone he personally knew. Someone who’d inveigled himself into an unquestioned position of trust, actually as a liaison in the investigation. Just as, Ulieff reminded himself in further horror, the man had made himself part of a previous investigation into a child sex murder, one that had never been solved. How could he, Ulieff, escape personal responsibility? Distance himself. All he could do. Distance himself by as much as possible. He made another gesture with the transcripts. ‘Does he know you’ve got this?’
Instead of answering Sanglier said: ‘It was necessary to behave as we did. We didn’t know, in the beginning, who among us was the informer.’
Doubtful awareness registered upon the face of the no longer urbane man. So occupied was he by personal concern that it never occurred to him to be affronted by what Europol and the Americans had done. ‘Are they admissible?’
‘It’s arguable. And we don’t have time to argue. We need to know now, this moment, where Mary Beth is.’
‘Of course.’ Getting the child back was the most important factor: it always had been. The quicker they managed that, the better able he would be to confront the scandal: manoeuvre his way out. He’d have to lead, Ulieff decided. Announce the fullest inquiry the moment they recovered the child: recovered her alive, not dead. He wouldn’t be able to survive if she was found dead and one of his own staff was part of whatever had happened to her. He’d have to resign. No choice. No alternative. Destroyed. The bastard! The insinuating, evil, perverted bastard!
McBride said: ‘I spoke to Washington before coming here tonight. Personally to the Secretary of State. He hoped there wouldn’t be any difficulty in our continued cooperation.’
Ulieff frowned, realizing he was being told something other than the obvious but not easily able to understand what it was. It sounded like an apology but what did they have to apologize for! ‘I hope that too. I don’t see why there should be.’
Sanglier looked obviously disappointed. ‘We don’t want Smet hiding behind legal barriers.’
Ulieff saw a faraway light. ‘I won’t allow that to happen.’
‘With so many being the potential informer, having access as they did to every early planning discussion, it would have been difficult obtaining a judge’s order authorizing a wire tap without their knowing it,’ persisted Sanglier. He let a silence grow. ‘You could privately have approved it, in consultation with myself and the ambassador.’ It begged the question of why they hadn’t and Sanglier had an explainable apology if Ulieff challenged him.
The man didn’t. Instead his face cleared. ‘If it removes an obstacle…’
‘Smet is a criminal lawyer. One of the others seems somehow connected with the law from a remark that was made when he arrived at Smet’s house tonight.’
To McBride the minister said: ‘Is this what your Secretary meant by cooperation?’
‘We did not speak in specifics, only generalities,’ said McBride, easing the Belgian’s way. ‘This conversation is between the three of us. As it will always remain.’
At that moment Andre Poncellet bustled into the room, stopping uncertainly at finding the other three men obviously well settled ahead of him. Ulieff said: ‘Commissioner Sanglier has something to explain to you.’
Poncellet remained standing – he had little choice while Ulieff expansively occupied his desk – his face tightening as the minister’s had initially done for different reasons, although Sanglier said nothing about the man’s own house being entered and bugged.
‘You actually thought I could have been one of them!’ protested Poncellet, aghast.
‘We couldn’t trust anyone,’ said Ulieff, taking up the role he had been offered. ‘It was my decision it should be this way.’
Welcome to the club, thought Sanglier, waiting for the obvious demand about his own home to come from the still incensed policeman. It didn’t. Quickly Sanglier said: ‘Your credibility – your authority – has not publicly been questioned or impugned. Nor will it ever be: there is no reason why it should be. You were personally present much earlier today at the discovery of a murder victim. The men being brought to this building tonight are unquestionably involved. They are also part of the kidnap of the ambassador’s daughter that has yet to be resolved. When it is, again tonight, you’ll be there as the representative of Belgian authority: of the Belgian police.’
‘I greatly resent being doubted; being suspected.’ The protest wasn’t as stiff as it should have been.
‘Until we had positive proof I couldn’t make any exception,’ said Ulieff. ‘I would like now personally to apologize. Which I do, unreservedly.’ The police commissioner would leak the apology to restore his credibility, guessed Ulieff. And by so doing confirm his knowledge as minister from the beginning of the trap. Everything had settled perfectly.
Poncellet accepted the regret with a short head jerk. As he did so the intercom on his desk announced the arrival of the first arrests from the rue de Flandres. Ulieff said: ‘Let’s get the child back. End the whole unfortunate business.’
As the lift descended Sanglier decided that diplomacy was like a child’s early comprehension exercise. All you had to do was fit the pieces into their correct shapes to make a smooth, unbroken picture.
Everyone had been brought in by the time they reached the ground floor. The vestibule was in chaos. There had been no advance warning of any arrests on any charge and once again there were too many people milling about, virtually all with no idea what to do. Poncellet at once took officious charge, loudly declaring the detentions were connected with that morning’s murder and without prompting ordered that each man should be detained in an individual cell.
Charles Mehre screamed, loud enough to startle, when he realized he was being parted from Gaston, who instinctively reached out a comforting hand. Charles’s escort hesitated, looking to Poncellet for guidance. Claudine had anticipated the moment, manoeuvring herself next to the commissioner. Quietly she insisted: ‘By himself. Solitary.’
Charles immediately began to fight, violently, scattering everyone around him. He head-butted his escort, bursting the man’s nose, and split the eye of one of the three policemen it finally took to subdue him. Claudine was among those thrown back by the outburst, close to where Rosetti had remained, against the wall.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘Both of them have got red hair and misshapen teeth,’ the pathologist pointed out. ‘The orthodontic cast should be conclusive but one of them’s the most likely candidate.’
‘Something easy at last,’ remarked Claudine.
Little else proved to be.
Smet’s cosseted briefcase did contain an address book. There was also a diary. The book carried the names and addresses of the five men seized with him in the rue de Flandres house, as well as that of Felicite Galan. Only the house they’d already entered and found empty was listed against the woman’s name. The diary appeared strictly limited to business appointments but Claudine quickly isolated the simplistic code, red-inked stars dotted alongside various dates, the majority at weekends. One star, however, was against the mid-week date of Mary Beth’s disappearance.
The only other contents of the briefcase, apart from every record of their planning meetings, were three separate and undesignated keyrings. One ring, gold-coloured, held a single key.
The ideal psychology – indeed virtually a universal practice among police interrogators seeking incriminating confessions from a gang – would have been to leave them separated overnight, for each man to be eroded by his fear of what the others might admit or accuse him of. That night, with everyone’s eyes constantly drawn to the ever-moving police station clocks, it was difficult for Claudine to argue restraint for longer than an hour. Sanglier agreed to her sharing Rampling’s questioning of Jean Smet.
Claudine guessed at once that the psychology was totally skewed. A gap of twenty-four hours would probably
