'Did he turn the engine off or keep it running?' asked Blake.

'He kept it running. And the brake lights were on all the time, so I suppose he was sitting with his foot on the brake.'

'What about indicators?' said Harding. 'Was there any signal that the car was going to turn in to the side and stop before it did so?'

'No. That's how I got stuck behind. It was too quick for me to get round him.'

'Didn't that inconvenience you?' asked Blake.

'It delayed me a few minutes. And I was in a hurry.'

'Did you sound your horn?'

'No.'

'Did the car move off immediately Mary got into it?'

Take your time, take your time, Claudine thought.

'Yes,' said the man.

'Fast?' asked Harding.

'There was too much traffic to drive really fast.'

'Was it as fast as the traffic would allow?' insisted Blake. 'As if he was anxious to get away?'

'I suppose it was as fast as he could go. I wasn't really ready and in the gap that opened up someone else overtook and got in front of me.'

'With another car in the way, were you able to see what was going on inside the car after Mary got in?' said Harding.

'Not really.'

'Which way did it go?'

'I don't know,' said the man lamely. 'We were moving again and I was late. I'm sorry.'

'You've done remarkably well,' Blake said, looking first to Harding, who nodded to show he'd finished, and then invitingly to Claudine.

'Monsieur Rompuy,' she said at once. 'I have some different sorts of questions which might seem odd but bear with me. The woman was looking sideways across the car, with Mary still on the pavement? And then she leaned across the car to encourage Mary in?'

'Yes?'

'That would have tilted her off balance, unless she supported herself. How did she do that? Was she resting against the seat or was her arm visible, along the seat back where it joins the rear shelf?'

'Along the back of the seat, all the time.'

'Throughout the entire time the door was open, for Mary to get in, you could clearly see the woman's arm along the back of the seat?'

'Yes.'

Claudine saw Blake and Harding exchange glances, aware of their oversight.

'Was she wearing a bracelet?'

'Three gold bands that seemed joined together. I got the impression they matched the earrings.'

'What about rings on her fingers?'

'I didn't see any.'

'What about her arm? Did she just let it lie there, casually supporting herself? Or did she gesture for the child to get in?'

'She kept it along the back of the seat.'

'What about her free hand? Did you see any movement with that?'

'Not until she reached forward to take the girl's backpack. The girl took that off before getting into the car.'

Claudine resisted the temptation to take the direction the answer offered. 'You were stuck behind their car. Were there any other vehicles held up behind you?'

'One. It was the car that cut in front of me when we started moving again.'

'That's our next positive witness,' intruded Poncellet, imagining he was helping.

Claudine ignored the interruption, wishing the Belgian commissioner hadn't broken the flow. 'Had that car sounded its horn?'

'Several times. It made the child look, which put her fully facing me. That's why I was able to recognize her from the newspaper and television pictures.'

'Knowing that they were causing a traffic jam irritating other drivers the woman still sat casually with her arm along the seat?'

'Yes.'

'And the driver didn't react, either?'

'Not that I saw.'

'Tell me about Mary. Did you see her walking along the pavement, before the car stopped?'

'I wasn't conscious of her until the car stopped.'

'Was she carrying her backpack then? Or wearing it?'

'Definitely wearing it. I remember her slipping out of the straps to take it off.'

'She did it herself, quite willingly?'

'Yes. Then she handed it into the back of the car, to the woman. She wouldn't have been able to have sat comfortably if she hadn't.'

'I understand,' said Claudine. 'Because she turned towards the car behind you could see Mary's face very clearly. What was Mary's expression? Was she frightened? Upset? Frowning? Laughing? Crying?'

Rompuy shook his head uncomfortably. 'She wasn't laughing or crying. It's difficult but I thought she looked annoyed.'

'At the driver behind you?'

'I'm not sure at whom.'

'What about being frightened?'

'That wasn't my impression.'

'She got quite willingly into the car?'

'Yes. As if she expected it. She simply handed her backpack through the open door and followed it into the car.'

'When Mary did that, the woman still had her arm along the back of the seat?'

'Yes.'

'I know the car behind you overtook, blocking your view. But that didn't happen immediately. In those first few seconds Mary was sitting in the seat along the back of which the woman had her arm outstretched?'

'Yes.'

'Could you see Mary?'

'Just the top of her head.'

'What about the woman? Did she bring her arm down, to put it round Mary?'

'I don't think so.'

'In those last few seconds, when you could still see the woman and Mary, how were they sitting?'

'Quite ordinarily. Side by side.'

Claudine stopped, satisfied at the improvement to her profile. She said: 'You've given us a great deal of your time and a great deal of help. For the moment we're almost through. Having seen the woman as you did, how old would you think she was?'

The two detectives exchanged looks again at another oversight.

'I'm not very good at guessing ages.'

'Give it your best try.'

'Fortyish. Early forties.'

'One final question. Could you work with a police artist to create a sketch of the woman you saw lure Mary into the car?'

'I could try,' agreed the man.

Claudine thought, uncritically, that by the end of Johan Rompuy's interview which had begun so well Blake and Harding had no longer been able to think with total objectivity, which in both their circ.u.mstances was totally understandable.

For a long time she didn't know how long Peter Blake had not been an investigator, needing to pick and prise the information from others. He had, in fact, been the infiltrated eye-witness a.s.sembling the evidence and facts for others to accept and a.s.similate: the giver, not the hopeful taker.

And an emba.s.sy posting, like Paul Harding's, was again different. In a foreign country it was scarcely operational. At best it was a liaison function with in-country law enforcement, with as much unadmitted but tacitly acknowledged intelligence-gathering as possible. It was too much to expect an instant adjustment from a man literally thrust back into the field, as Harding had been.

It was the most basic of all psychological mistakes, even from professionals, to imagine that because a person had been an eye-witness had been there, watching everything, seeing everything they would possess the unprompted gift of total recall. No one did. A hundred people, standing side by side, would give a hundred different accounts of something happening literally in front of them, depending upon their age, att.i.tudes, feelings and personalities: it wasn't human nature it wasn't humanly possible for two people to see the same thing the same way.

The commonest failing was investing a situation with a logical progression. There was no such thing as a logic to human interaction. There was even a recognized psychological term, the phenomenon of closure. Nothing was logical nothing should have happened in the way it appeared to have happened in the disappearance of Mary Beth McBride. So it couldn't be investigated logically. The questioning by the two detectives had been copy-book, a building block attempt to perform their function. And Johan Rompuy had been a deceptive one-in-a-million witness: because he had been so good so observant he'd lulled them into carelessness. It was incredible, after learning so much, that neither had suggested Rompuy work with a police artist to create a visual impression of the woman: obvious by not being obvious.

Both men looked sheepishly at her as the second motorist came into the room and Harding said: 'Do you want to join in as we go along?'

'Let's stay as we are,' said Claudine, hoping they did not infer disapproval.

Rene Lunckner was an air traffic controller at Zaventem airport and like Rompuy had been late for his afternoon shift. He hadn't known at first why the cars in front had suddenly stopped and only just managed to avoid colliding with Rompuy's vehicle. He thought he'd sounded his horn three or four times before slightly reversing to swing round the car in front of him. It was then he'd seen Mary Beth McBride, seeming to look directly at him. The driver of the Mercedes had his window down and was gesturing for him to pa.s.s but oncoming traffic was too heavy for him to pull out as far as he needed: for a few moments he had, in fact, caused greater traffic congestion than already existed. The driver had signalled with his hand and his indicator that he was pulling away from the kerb. Lunckner was adamant the car into which Mary got was dark blue, top of the range 'definitely larger than a 230' and that it had a Brussels registration. 'I couldn't believe someone who knew the city would stop like that and block the traffic.'

'Stuck out in the road as you were, could you see the driver?' demanded Harding.

'Not very well. He was going bald and he wore spectacles; I think they had heavy black frames. And he had a beaked nose. That's the best I can do.'

'A thin man? Or fat?'

'Quite heavily built.'

'Did you see enough of him to help a police artist create a picture?' asked Blake, avoiding their earlier oversight.

The man shook his head. 'I really don't think so. I don't want to mislead.'

'We'd really like you to try,' urged Blake. 'We'll keep your reservations in mind.'

'All right.'

'How old would you say the man was?' said Harding, also avoiding the earlier omission.

'Again, I don't want to mislead. Late forties, early fifties. I can't get any closer than that.'

'What about the woman?' asked Blake.

'I hardly saw her at all: I was looking at the front of their car, trying to judge the distance to get by.'

'But you didn't get by,' reminded Harding. 'You had to pull in behind.'

'Blond. Hair very tightly pinned at the back. I didn't see her face at all. I wasn't really interested: it was a mother picking up her daughter, as far as I was concerned. All I wanted to do was get by and get to work.'

'Is that the impression you had?' asked Claudine quickly, not wanting to miss the moment. 'That it was a mother picking up her child?'

'I drive along the road all the time. I know the school's there and I'm used to seeing the kids picked up. That usually causes jams, too. I try to beat them by coming along earlier but that day I didn't make it.'

'Was there anything other than your knowing there was a school that made you think it was mother and daughter? Anything unusual about the way the child was behaving?'