'A rabbit.'

'What's its name?'

'Billy Boy.'

'What colour is he?'

'White, with black ears. And a black leg.'

'Who'll be looking after him?'

'Mom, I suppose.'

'I didn't mean a pet to play with. I meant another boy or girl.'

'Does one live here, in this house?'

'Maybe.'

'Yes, I would.' Nothing bad could happen if there was another boy or girl in the house. Mary felt better. Safer. Perhaps they could become friends and whoever it was might help her get away, like in the books. 'Is there someone?'

'We'll have to see, won't we?'

Did she mean it? Or was she playing another silly game? She kept talking about games. This might be one of them, making Mary think she could be with someone and then saying she couldn't. Cheating her. She wanted so much to be home. Home with mom. Cuddling with mom, like mom wanted to do a lot but she didn't, saying it was silly. She didn't think it was silly now. She wanted to be with someone who cuddled her. 'Please let me go home.'

'Don't whimper!' said Felicite sharply.

'I hate you!'

'You'll love me in the end. Properly.'

'I won't.'

'I'll make you.'

Without warning the door leading upstairs opened. Without entering Gaston Mehre said: 'The others are here. They want you to come.'

'What ...?' demanded Felicite, surprised.

'Please come.'

He wasn't wearing a mask and Mary saw a balding man with a red face. What hair he had was red, too. She'd be able to tell people what he looked like when she got home. She wanted them punished for what they were doing to her, the woman most of all. But after she got home.

'They know!' declared Jean Smet. He strode round the room with its panoramic view of the now placid river, nervously smoking the cigarette he'd lit from the stub of the previous one.

'Know what?' demanded Felicite, lounged in her throne-like chair. 'And for Christ's sake stop running around.' She was angry at the man's panic, which was making the rest nervous. And at his summoning them all like this, without asking her permission.

The lawyer did stop but it seemed difficult for him to remain still. 'That we took her for s.e.x, in the beginning. They're going back through police records not just in Brussels but throughout the country: Europol records, too.' He looked fleetingly at Dehane. 'They know computers are being used cleverly. They're sure there's no shortage of money.' He concentrated upon Felicite. 'Did you go to school in England?'

She laughed at the totally unexpected question. 'For three years. My father was at the London emba.s.sy. What the h.e.l.l's that got to do with anything?'

'She thought the person who wrote the message learned the language properly.'

'So what?' Felicite said dismissively.

'They're clever. It's not confused, like last time.'

Only Felicite was relaxed, unworried. The Mehre brothers were side by side with their backs to the water, Gaston holding Charles's hand comfortingly. The obese Michel Blott was frowning at the apparent knowledge of those hunting them and August Dehane had started nibbling at a thumb nail, a nerve beginning to pull at the corner of his mouth. Smet lit another cigarette from his preceding stub and set off once more, moving up and down in front of the window. The heavily bespectacled Henri Cool sat with his arms awkwardly folded, as if he were holding himself for rea.s.surance.

'We can't go on,' insisted Smet. 'We've got to get rid of her. We should have done it the first day. Not started all this.'

'That's what I said,' Cool reminded them.

'So they're cleverer than the last time,' mused Felicite, more to herself than the others. 'That's good. It makes it much more interesting.'

'They think that, too: that we're doing it more as a challenge than for the money,' blurted the government lawyer.

'They have worked a lot out, haven't they?' conceded Felicite. 'Who, exactly, is the clever one?'

'I don't know,' said Smet. 'An English superintendent, Blake, did most of the talking at the ministry, but there were two psychologists, a woman and an American. The Americans have brought in a lot of people and their man from the emba.s.sy., Harrison, said that as many more could be brought in as are wanted. Poncellet can second as many officers as they want from any force in the country. And the Europol commissioner, Sanglier, said there are unlimited resources once the investigation is focused. The entire Cabinet is determined to find her: find who's got her. Ulieff's job is on the line ...'

'All of which I antic.i.p.ated, and we expected,' said Felicite mildly.

'I'm not sure that we did, not properly,' said Blott, the other lawyer. There was the faintest sheen of perspiration on his forehead.

'Once the investigation is focused,' echoed Felicite.

The six men looked blankly at her, none of them understanding.

Felicite stared contemptuously back at them, one by one, finishing upon Smet. 'That's what you said, isn't it?'

'What Sanglier said.'

'So what we've got is nothing more than intelligent police guesswork,' sighed the woman. 'They don't know anything. And if they do, you'll know, won't you?'

'You're asking me to do too much,' complained Smet. 'I'm taking all the risk. You've no idea what it's like, sitting mere listening to it!'

'You aren't in any danger and you know it,' said Felicite impatiently. 'It's all going exactly as I knew it would. Even better, with your attachment to Poncellet. That was my idea too, remember? But you did very well, making it work.'

Smet smiled gratefully, stubbing out his cigarette without lighting another. 'It was the only positive idea anyone had before we met them all. Ulieff almost cried with grat.i.tude.'

'You've got full access?'

'Ulieff's told Poncellet he wants daily briefings.'

'Which means we'll have daily briefings, too. So where's the danger?'

'I think they're clever,' insisted Smet inadequately, his mind locked on a single thought.

Felicite looked at Dehane. 'And we're cleverer, aren't we, August?'

The deputy head of Belgacom's research and development smiled uncertainly. 'I suppose so.'

'You know so, all of you. Have I ever failed you?' They were like children themselves, always needing to be rea.s.sured.

'No,' mumbled Cool, for all of them.

'Did Marcel ever fail you, before me?'

'No,' said Cool again.

'So we're going to stop panicking, aren't we? Stop panicking and listen to me and everything will work out just as I want it to.' To Dehane she said: 'What happened after the Americans posted their message?'

'There've been almost five hundred responses, with an upsurge after the press conference,' replied Dehane, a greying, bearded man.

Felicite smiled. 'But not one from us. And every single one of those five hundred has to be eliminated, right?' The American response had been another bonus she hadn't expected but she wanted them to think that she had, because she'd already decided how protective it was.

Smet said: 'That's the only positive line of enquiry, according to today's meeting.'

'Which we already know is absolutely pointless,' said Felicite. 'People running round in circles like chickens with their heads cut off.' She looked pointedly at Smet, deciding the comparison fitted: a squawking, long-legged human chicken s.h.i.tting himself at the first sight of the farmer's axe.

Aware of her concentration Smet finally abandoned his aimless wandering and sat down in an opposite chair.

'We've opened new lines into the emba.s.sy, at the Americans' request,' said Dehane. 'We've actually been officially asked to impose a monitor on the emba.s.sy's e-mail address. And we've sent some of our operators there to help with the backlog that's built up.'

'So we'll know all about that from you, just as we'll know all about the official investigation from Jean, won't we?'

'Yes,' confirmed Dehane. 'We are safe, aren't we?'

Felicite let the question settle in everyone's mind, conscious of the discernible recovery among the men. 'We're going to know what the people looking for us are doing and thinking, every minute of every day. And watch them, every minute of every day, buried under an avalanche of stupid messages.'

Gaston Mehre patted his brother's hand rea.s.suringly. Charles covered the comforting fingers with his own. Blott and Dehane looked at each other and nodded, smiling, as if Felicite had said something they already knew. Looking at Charles Mehre, Blott said: 'What about criminal records?'

'Restricted to children?' Felicite asked Smet.

'That's the remit,' confirmed the lawyer.

'It was indecency in a public place, twelve years ago,' reminded Gaston, patting his brother's hand again. 'The girl was sixteen. Charles was eighteen.'

'It won't show up,' said Felicite positively. She held out a wavering finger, as if she was holding a gun, stopping at Blott. 'You can compose the next message. I've got an identification. She's got a pet rabbit named Billy.'

The fat man shifted uncomfortably. 'What shall I say?'

'This one doesn't have to have any input from me,' said Felicite, impatient again. 'I don't want to know what it says. Just compose it and give it to August to send.'

'Should I make a demand? Get it over with quickly?' asked Blott hopefully.

'I think you should,' said Smet. 'I want to get it finished. I'm the one under all the pressure.'

'There's no hurry,' said Felicite. 'They're the ones under pressure. I want to increase it before the negotiations start.'

Cool said: 'We should kill her. We're going to anyway. Let's have a party, now, and get it over with.'

'You know the party we're going to have,' Felicite reminded him. 'The others haven't found their new friends yet.'

Before she left, Felicite beckoned Gaston away from his brother. She said: 'Charles was getting too excited this afternoon. I don't want him doing anything to Mary.'

'I know how to quieten him,' said the man. 'Don't worry.'

Before Sanglier caught a late afternoon train back to The Hague it was agreed to post an appeal on every Internet provider for users to leave the emba.s.sy's home page clear for whoever held Mary to make unimpeded contact, despite Kurt Volker's doubt that it would have any effect.

'It's a user's dream,' warned the German. 'Every surfer is a voyeur at heart. Think of the opportunity! The chance to become involved in a sensational investigation from the uninvolved comfort and danger-free safety of their own armchair! Certainly every journalist from every media outlet will be permanently connected.'

Claudine was depressed by the enormous traffic flow into the greatly enlarged computer centre, unable to believe it possible for a genuine kidnap message to be identified from the ma.s.s of material being sorted in front of her. Volker wanted to attempt a fast-track selection program and refused Claudine's dinner suggestion, so because it had been a hard day and La Maison du Cygne was conveniently close she and Blake ate there again. Exhausted, Claudine sat back, very content to let Blake order.

'A lot of battles won?' he suggested.

'But not the war,' cautioned Claudine. She supposed she should have felt satisfied by the events of the day but she didn't. She felt curiously flat, unsettled that there wasn't a positive direction in which to go. It wasn't, she knew, a properly dispa.s.sionate reflection but always in the forefront of her mind was the thought of an imprisoned child she had somehow to find.

'You think the Americans will still try to go it alone?'

'Norris will, if he gets the chance,' predicted Claudine.

'I can't see that happening now,' said Blake, looking casually round the room.

'I did a terrible tiling to him today.' She supposed her guilt contributed to her despondency.

'It was justified, in the circ.u.mstances.'

'It's never justified for a doctor, which I am, to make an illness worse!'

'You think you did that?'

'Very possibly.'

'But you can't be sure?'

'I think I did. That's enough.'

'It will be, if you get Mary back,' said Blake, turning Claudine's words back upon her.

'It's supposed to be a combined effort,' she reminded him. The sole was excellent but she was having difficulty eating. Perhaps she should have stayed at the hotel.

'You were very impressive today,' Blake congratulated her.

Claudine's spirits lifted slightly. 'You were pretty impressive yourself.'