In a sharp, outside-herself moment Claudine was distracted by the awareness that they were talking in ordinary, low-voiced conversational tones – no one visibly angry, no one visibly offended, no one visibly judgemental – about other adults conspiring sexually, perhaps in other ways too, to abuse children sometimes young enough to need comfort blankets and imagine their favourite bunny rabbit or teddy bear could hear what was said to it. What, she wondered, happened to that imagination when people like Jean Smet and Felicite Galan and all the other stunted freaks finished with them, even if they allowed them to live? Wrong: allowing personal emotion to intrude. If she stood any chance whatsoever – and with the taunting clock inexorably counting off every minute of every hour she was beginning to doubt that she did stand any chance – allowing that sort of intrusion actually put Mary Beth at risk.
‘The host?’
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Smet. ‘She was determined to control the others as she controlled us. She liked disciples.’
Claudine frowned at the biblical analogy, disliking it. Instead she thought of another, unsure in her absence of religion of the accuracy of her recall. It was something about suffer the little children. Reluctant to concede defeat, Claudine said: ‘Tell me about Felicite Galan as a person.’
Smet weighed the question. ‘Arrogant. Needing constantly to be the object of all attention: to be admired, never opposed. Sophisticated. Used to every good thing in life, after being married to Marcel. A hedonist willing – anxious – for every new experience.’
Claudine had been prepared for the man to attempt every possible personal benefit rather than give a truly accurate opinion but decided that he hadn’t. Instead, surprisingly, he’d answered honestly. Curiously she said: ‘You admired her, didn’t you? Maybe you were even physically attracted to her!’
‘She terrifies me,’ confessed the man. ‘I could never lose the feeling that one day she’d destroy me: suck from me every ounce of blood and leave me to rot in her web.’ He gave a bitter snort of a laugh. ‘And she has, hasn’t she?’
Claudine said: ‘Charles would have killed Mary Beth, wouldn’t he?’
Smet gazed steadily at her across the table. ‘To kill someone would be an experience Felicite hasn’t had before. I think she’ll want to do it.’
Mary Beth hadn’t been able to sleep again after waking up to make pee pee, although she pretended to, trying to breathe how people breathed when they were asleep, in and out and making funny gurgling noises.
The woman had startled her, being right there in the chair when she’d put the light on, jerking awake at the sudden glare and coming to the bathroom with her. And she hadn’t liked it afterwards, when the woman had taken off most of her clothes and got on the bed, not beneath the covers but on top, so that the bedclothes were tight, trapping her, like the woman’s arm was trapping her, heavy over her shoulders and along her arm.
She hadn’t liked either the way the tall, bony man had held her too tightly to carry her into the house when she could easily have walked. Or the noises the house itself made, creaking and groaning, like an old man who couldn’t move properly any more.
But most of all she didn’t like – hated – the pink fairy costume the woman said she had to wear for the party before going home tomorrow. The material had been stiff and scratchy when they’d made her try it on and she knew she hadn’t looked lovely, as they’d said she did. It was too tight around her tummy and the straps cut into her shoulders, hurting her.
‘You’re not asleep, are you, darling?’
‘Almost.’
‘I’m going to miss you.’
Mary Beth said nothing.
‘Would you miss me, if you didn’t have me any more?’
It was another one of those silly conversations. ‘I suppose. I don’t like the fairy dress.’
‘It’s a fancy dress party. All of us are going to dress up.’
‘Why? It sounds silly.’ She wished the woman’s arm wasn’t so tight around her. She shrugged, trying to ease it off.
‘Don’t you want me to cuddle you?’
‘You’re too heavy.’
‘Will you wear the fairy costume, just for me?’
‘I’m going home, after the party, aren’t I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘But I want to change first. Back into my new clothes.’
‘All right.’
‘I’ll wear it then. Will there be a cake?’
‘And candy. Very special candy.’
The soaring expectation and plunging despair increased everyone’s exhaustion. Only Blake and Harding were still determinedly interviewing Michel Blott. Everyone else slumped listlessly around, beaten. Harrison said he’d persuaded the ambassador and his wife there was no sense in their staying, promising to call if there was any development. Henri Sanglier had left with them. Miet Ulieff had gone with Poncellet. Claudine was vaguely aware of Volker, hunched before his three-screen computer assembly in the adjoining communications room, more surprised at finding Rosetti still there.
Seeing the look on Claudine’s face the pathologist said: ‘I didn’t have anywhere else to go after McCulloch had me explain to Gaston Mehre all the forensic and medical evidence. And I wanted to see it through anyway.’
‘We’ve lost Felicite,’ said Claudine. ‘And by the time we find her it’s going to be too late.’
‘No idea at all?’
‘None,’ she admitted. There was still none two hours later, with the new day lightening up outside, when she finished listening to all the interviews. Volker was with the patient Rosetti when the Italian carried in the third cup of coffee. Peter Blake followed almost at once. Volker offered Claudine the papers he was carrying and said: ‘Eindhoven police wired the specification of Felicite’s Goirle house. Our people are still going through it. So far there’s nothing.’
‘And won’t be,’ said Claudine dully.
‘You can’t find what isn’t there,’ sympathized Rosetti.
‘And it isn’t,’ said Blake. ‘The ransom instructions are our only chance. This time we’ve got to get a fix. She won’t kill the child immediately. With helicopters we’d have time to get to her before anything happened.’
The coffee was stewed and disgusting and Claudine put it aside, undrunk. ‘There has to be a way!’ she insisted stubbornly. ‘We’ve got so much, know so much – about Felicite Galan in particular – that there has to be a direction to follow. We’re just not seeing it!’
‘There isn’t!’ Blake was equally insistent. ‘We’ve been through it all each and every way.’
Claudine stared down unseeingly at the villa details, forcing every iota of her profile through her tired mind. ‘As well as suffering a psychosis Felicite Galan is arrogant, opinionated and rich,’ she recited to herself. ‘She’s the link between her own and at least one other paedophile ring and she’s determined to impress them with the best child-sex orgy she can organize. She’s going to be the host…’ Claudine stopped, blinking, finally focusing upon the papers in front of her. ‘Spread them,’ she told Blake, hurrying away from the table. He had done so by the time she returned with the architects’ drawings of the Antwerp river house they’d obtained earlier from the city’s planning department.
She used the remaining half-filled coffee cups to weigh down the edges to make a side-by-side comparison.
‘What?’ demanded Blake.
‘Antwerp’s got the huge basement room we all saw tonight,’ said Claudine, tracing the drawing with her finger. ‘As well as that huge room overlooking the river. And six bedrooms.’ She switched to the other set of specifications. ‘Goirle’s got an even bigger main room. And five bedrooms.’ She looked up, stretching, trying to ease the ache from her back and neck. ‘Felicite’s the host. That’s what Smet said. So they’re all coming to her. It’s her party so it’s going to be somewhere of her choice. But these two houses aren’t big enough. And we know it’s not at
