'No, I do know,' insisted Claudine. But did she really know how strong she was?

'I'll arrange a car to take you back to your hotel,' offered Betty.

'I want to find everyone else,' Claudine said positively. 'I didn't take much notice of the route on my way down here. That's all the help I need.'

'Let's hope you're right,' said Kenyon cynically.

'I might not be. And if I'm not, I've got your numbers.' She conjured the contact card between her fingers.

Claudine's arrival in the amba.s.sador's suite was met with astonishment.

'I didn't ... I thought ...' groped McBride, standing awkwardly but bringing everyone else to their feet with him.

'I just want to be here,' said Claudine awkwardly. 'I'm all right.' She saw Peter Blake was the only person in the room without a jacket and remembered his pulling her into him, swamped in Norris's gore and her own vomit. Then she saw him crossing towards her.

'You sure this is a good idea?' he said, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

'No,' Claudine admitted. The shaking had gone, but despite the comforting thickness of the track suit she felt suddenly cold.

'Why then?'

'Because I want to.'

Claudine was pressing her eyes tightly together again (no blood-red explosion!) when Sanglier arrived close behind Blake. Until that moment she hadn't been aware of his being in the room.

'You don't need to be here,' insisted the Frenchman.

'I want to be,' she repeated. Now she was there, she wasn't sure that was true.

From behind his protective desk McBride, still standing, said: 'Dr Carter, I want to say ...' but Claudine, faint-voiced, stopped him.

'There's no need to say anything. It's over.'

Claudine had never known the sensation before: never wanted to know it again. It was as if she were suspended above them all, in an out-of-body experience in which she could hear and see them but they were unaware of her presence. Her uncertain ears even made their words echo, ghost-like, and she had to hold very tightly on to her ebbing and flowing concentration: several times, when it ebbed, her vision actually blurred, merging people together with distant voices.

Claudine clung, like a drowning person to a fragile handhold, to her decision to be there. It was right that she should be. Not to contribute: she wasn't able to contribute to anything at that precise moment. But she could listen, difficult though that might physically be.

Claudine sat apart from the closely arranged group round the amba.s.sador, welcoming the distance although becoming aware that, mostly unconsciously, the discussion was directed towards her, not for approval but from courtesy. McBride did most of the talking.

For Claudine irony piled upon irony when the amba.s.sador insisted that American sovereignty in US emba.s.sies overseas made John Norris's suicide a matter entirely removed from Belgian jurisdiction or public awareness. Without mentioning Claudine or even looking in her direction McBride said there had been sufficient witnesses to the incident for an internal inquest, to be held that evening, prior to the body's being returned to America. It had been the climax of a series of extremely unfortunate incidents here at last he looked at Claudine for which he apologized but in no way did he expect it to affect the princ.i.p.al reason the only reason for their all being there. No replacement negotiator, either FBI or CIA, was being sent from Washington. Paul Harding was to a.s.sume overall command of the combined agencies' commitment, with the a.s.surance at presidential level that it was seconded to Europol.

McBride was about to launch into a formal speech of congratulation to Claudine when he was interrupted by the sound of the telephone. He stared at Harrison, who said: 'I held all calls! Except ...'

McBride s.n.a.t.c.hed up the phone, not immediately speaking. Holding the receiver away from him, as if it were hot against his ear, he said to Claudine: 'It's a woman. She says Mary got a B for the geography paper that was in her backpack.'

'Check that!' Claudine told Blake, as she moved towards the telephone.

'I want McBride.'

English but accented. French possibly. Claudine said: 'I'm speaking on his behalf.'

'The wife?'

'No.' The only lies she could risk were those she couldn't be caught out on. d.a.m.n her hearing! The voice kept rising and falling.

'Ah, the clever little mind-reader!'

'We want to negotiate.' This was probably the most difficult part, establishing the rapport from which to manipulate the woman without her being aware it was happening.

'Of course you do.'

'Tell me about Mary.'

'Demanding!'

Blake and Harding hurried back into the room together. The note Blake slipped in front of her said: 'School confirm B grade.' Harding made a rolling-over motion with his hands, encouraging her to extend the conversation as much as possible.

The woman's reaction was exactly what Claudine wanted. 'We have to know she's all right.' The sound abruptly dipped and Claudine said urgently: 'h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!' She saw Rampling re-enter the room, shaking his head to Blake and Harding.

There was a jeering laugh. 'You haven't lost me! You won't find me, either.'

'My name is Claudine. Claudine Carter.'

'So?'

'I wanted you to know.' Was she moving too quickly?

The laugh came again. 'What name would you like me to have?'

'Your choice.'

'How about Mercedes? That's appropriate, isn't it?'

Claudine felt a stir of satisfaction. The woman was responding, nibbling the unsuspected bait! 'Is it appropriate?'

There was a silence. She'd never get it, Claudine guessed: would the woman actually admit it?

'You tell me.'

Good enough. 'In its original Spanish it's a name that means compa.s.sionate or merciful. Are you compa.s.sionate and merciful?'

'You have to tell me that, too. And isn't name comparison invidious?'

Claudine didn't want her too angry: she had the child to take the irritation out on. 'I don't follow,' she admitted.

'In Latin, the name Claudine means the lame one.'

Anxious to show her cleverness: that was good. 'Let's hope you're Mercedes the merciful.'

The pause this time had nothing to do with the uneven sound. In apparent awareness the woman said: 'You are the mind-reader, aren't you?'

She had to avoid responding to questions as much as possible, always making the woman come to her. 'We need to know that Mary is all right,' Claudine repeated.

'She is.'

'How is she?'

'Learning.'

Claudine was chilled by the word. A challenge? Or a taunt? She couldn't avoid it. 'Learning what?'

'What do you think?'

'I don't know.'

'Not a clever negotiating lady like you!'

'What's Mary learning?'

The line abruptly became clear enough for a brief sound of background noise. 'How to be a good girl.'

'Let's talk about getting Mary back.'

'I'm not sure I want to give her back yet. I've become attached to her.'

This was wrong: dangerous! 'I said we wanted to negotiate.'

'There is nothing to negotiate really, is mere?'

'Tell me what you want.'

'I want to speak to the amba.s.sador.'

'He wants me to talk to you on his behalf.'

'You're not understanding, silly woman. You all do what I tell you, otherwise Mary isn't going to be a happy little girl. When I call tomorrow I want to speak to McBride, not you. And by tomorrow you'll know what will happen if you don't do precisely what I tell you.'

'There's something I want to say,' blurted Claudine, trying to hold the woman.

'I don't want to hear anything you've got to say. I want the amba.s.sador waiting this time tomorrow. And I know he will be.'

'I want-' started Claudine but stopped as the line went dead. The receiver was suddenly heavy in her hand. She became aware she was shaking again and dropped rather man replaced the telephone on its rest. She looked up to see everyone staring at her.

Something was wrong. Didn't fit. Or jarred, maybe. There was something in the recording mat they'd just sat through that was out of context, but she couldn't isolate it. There'd been too much in too short a time, she told herself. Objectively, she shouldn't have even taken the call, although she was glad she had. Claudine believed, despite the discrepancy, whatever it was, that it had been useful and that there was a lot to learn from it. But later. Not now. Now she was stretched to breaking point, about to snap. Overwhelmed. The shaking came in spasms, starting, stopping, starting again.

'Are we going to get Mary back?'

Claudine only just avoided wincing at the desperation in McBride's voice. And at the wide-eyed strain on the face of Hillary, who Claudine had not realized was present until she'd replaced the telephone. Claudine felt crushed, as if the room no, not the room: a force she couldn't see was closing in to compress her into something very small, too small for them to hear or take notice of. Fumbling the Librium from her track suit pocket she said: 'Can I have some water, please?'

Blake poured it for her, once more using the closeness to say: 'You want the doctor again?'

Claudine shook her head. 'I need some time. To listen to the recording again, compare it to the written transcript ...'

'You must have some impressions!' insisted Smet. 'It was the woman in the car, wasn't it?'

'Of course it was,' said Claudine irritably.

'On a mobile telephone,' said Rampling. 'That's why the sound level kept rising and falling: interference from bridges and highly built-up areas. That's why we couldn't get any sort of fix: tomorrow we'll use scanners.'

'Are we going to get Mary back?' Hillary McBride repeated her husband's question, even-voiced, rigidly in command of herself. She added: 'Back alive?' and Claudine wished she hadn't.

'I think so,' said Claudine reluctantly.

'That's not good enough,' protested McBride.

'It's the best I can offer,' said Claudine.

'You're supposed to know!'

'I don't know,' admitted Claudine. 'Not yet. I will but not yet.'

'I don't think we should press Dr Carter any more,' said Sanglier.

'The inquiry ... inquest ...?' groped Claudine.

'It's a formality: we won't need you,' said Harrison.

'I'd like to go back to the hotel,' Claudine admitted.

'What if she calls again?' demanded Hillary McBride.

People seemed to be advancing towards her, retreating and advancing again and Claudine regretted taking the tranquillizer. With a monumental effort she said: 'She won't call again: not until the same time tomorrow. Maybe not even then.'

'So you have worked something out?' demanded Smet.

'I want to go home,' said Claudine.

She was unaware of the drive back to the Metropole or of Blake's being with her until focusing jerkily upon him helping her through the foyer. She began to wonder how he'd got the key to her room but couldn't hold the thought and then found hreself in it. He was there too, but moving around: momentarily she didn't know where he was. He emerged from the bathroom, tossing something up and down in his hand, and as he crossed to the bureau telephone Claudine remember the bugs.

'All clear,' he announced, holding out the tiny pin-heads in the palm of his hand.

'I don't want to be by myself,' said Claudine.

'No,' agreed Blake.

It hadn't gone at all as she'd intended and Felicite was angry: frustrated. Claudine f.u.c.king Carter wasn't frightened enough. None of them were, if they were prepared to let the woman take the call which they should all have been pleading to receive. They had to be taught a lesson.