'A day!' insisted the man, irrational anger taking over. 'If she doesn't make a definite demand set out how she wants it paid in twenty-four hours I'm going to insist Smet is picked up, by our people if necessary. I don't give a penny f.u.c.k about legality. I'll make him talk myself if I have to. I want it over. I want my baby back.'

There wasn't any point in arguing, Claudine knew. 'Twenty-four hours,' she agreed.

Mary was squatting cross-legged in front of the television on the other side of the river-view room, a tub of popcorn in her lap, engrossed in the satellite cartoon channel.

Felicite, who had already delayed the call twice, finally picked up the house phone. As usual, Lascelles answered at once.

'Everything is going to be in place for tomorrow.'

'Wonderful!' said the doctor. 'We've got our special guests. The boy is named Robert. The girl is Yvette.'

'How are they being taken down?'

'Separately, of course.'

'Either by you?'

'No.'

'I need to get the key from the agents in Namur. And someone to drive me. By myself Mary might try to get away.'

'You want me to pick you up?'

'I'll call McBride at three.'

'She'll see my face.'

'That's not going to matter, is it?'

'I suppose not.'

'I don't want it to hurt. Is there something? An injection?'

'Of course. Pills, too: a choice of pills.'

'There mustn't be any pain.'

'There won't be.'

'She wouldn't know?'

'She'd just go to sleep. Feel nothing.'

'That's what I want.'

'You must have grown very fond of her?'

'I love her,' said Felicite.

Although there was a specific understanding between them that Francoise never brought her friends to the house, Sanglier warned her of his return after an hour-long conversation from his Europol office with Lucien Bigot in Paris. He was immediately alarmed by the unknown, Paris-registered Citroen parked at the head of the drive, his first thought was that it might be someone carrying out the background investigation that Castille had talked about, although he would have expected Bigot to have mentioned it and Francoise had said nothing about a visitor.

They met him in the hallway, Francoise with her arm round the shoulders of a startlingly attractive dark-haired girl. She wore jeans and a shirt that was too tight, so that her nipples protruded. Francoise wore trousers, too, part of a black silk evening suit.

'I wanted you to meet Maria,' announced Francoise. 'I told you about her.'

Sanglier said nothing.

'h.e.l.lo,' the girl smiled.

Still Sanglier said nothing, waiting.

'Aren't you going to say h.e.l.lo?' demanded Francoise.

'I want you to go. Immediately,' Sanglier told the girl.

'She was just leaving anyway.' Francoise kissed Maria lightly on the cheek and said: 'I told you he was a bore, didn't I?'

That night the naked body of a boy was found on the edge of a forest near Dilbeek, on the outskirts of Brussels. The big toe was missing from the left foot.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

There were too many people. In Claudine's view there always were at crime scenes and their arrival the FBI forensic team with Harding, Rosetti and Blake with Claudine added to the congestion. Poncellet had come on ahead, after alerting them, and established some order but Claudine wished there had been more. A protective evidence tent had been erected over the body and a generator manhandled alongside for floodlights that not only illuminated the body within the tent but lit an area of about three square metres outside.

The body was ten metres along a rutted, dry stone-and-dirt track running into the forest from a minor metalled road. What tyre imprints there might have been in the dirt had been trampled underfoot by the bald-headed man who'd discovered the body while walking his dog and now stood trembling beside the police car that had answered his call so urgently the further obliterating skid marks still stretched from where it had come to a halt. As they approached, the dog, a mongrel, was completing the damage by scratching dirt over its urine puddle.

They'd all been approaching in a single, minimally destructive line along the edge of the track. Over his shoulder the leading forensic officer said: 'Why the f.u.c.k are we bothering?'

The forensic team were already suited. Harding and Blake stood back for Rosetti and Claudine to put on their coveralls and plastic galoshes. Poncellet was standing ashen-faced away from the tent, a handkerchief against his mouth and nose. 'He's been dead a long time.'

Claudine said: 'We know.'

The sickly sweet smell of decomposing flesh engulfed them as they went into the tent. Already inside were a Belgian pathologist and a police photographer. There were greetings in French but no handshakes: the Belgians were already contaminated. They wore nose clamps and their upper lips were smeared with camphor unguent. Rosetti and Claudine both applied cream and clips beneath their totally encompa.s.sing masks.

The boy was face down and partially on his left side. The left shoulder was humped and the left arm and hand hidden beneath it. The body was grotesquely ballooned by decomposition gases, the skin split in places and the major lesions moving with maggots. It was on the edge of a sheet of hessian, glued to it in places by congealed body fluid. The a.n.a.l entry was greatly distended and on both shoulders and the neck were bite marks difficult at first to identify because of the bloated flesh. The eye sockets were wide open and writhed with maggots that had already destroyed the eyes themselves. There was no visible cause of death. The two pathologists stood side by side to heave the body over on to its back. As they did so the stomach split, spilling choking fluid and gas. Rosetti used a magnifying gla.s.s to examine what was left of the p.e.n.i.s and had photographs taken of it. Maggots had attacked the stump of the missing toe, making it impossible to recognize a professional amputation.

'Anything extra you want?' asked Rosetti, his voice m.u.f.fled and adenoidal.

Claudine shook her head, holding her hand up against any approach from either Harding or Blake as she and Rosetti emerged. Both men had been driven back by the smell from inside the tent.

They took off their masks and nose clips and Rosetti said: 'We're badly contaminated. Infectious.'

The Belgian pathologist and photographer had already stripped off their forensic suits, head coverings and shoes and piled them in the middle of the path. Claudine and Rosetti added to the pyre and stood back for the mortuary attendant to soak the bundle in petrol. It exploded into flame at the thrown match, melting plastic adding a new smell.

'You want to go into the tent?' Rosetti asked Harding and Blake. Both investigators remained some way away.

Harding said: 'We'll take your word for it.'

'You going to do the autopsy straight away or wait until it's properly morning?' called Blake. 'It's still only four thirty.'

'I'll do it as soon as we get back to Brussels,' said Rosetti.

'You want to attend?' invited Claudine. 'I'm going to.' She went towards the two men, away from the stink. Rosetti followed.

'We'll leave that to you, too,' said Blake. 'And we've seen all we want here.' He shook his head ruefully. 'Or rather not enough. There's not a tyre tread to be seen and a herd of elephants couldn't have trodden the side track and undergrowth any flatter.'

'And the guy who found the body heard nothing, saw nothing and knows nothing,' added Harding. 'It was the dog, obviously, who found it: smelled it.'

'Maybe there'll be something from the autopsy,' said the disappointed Poncellet.

The mortuary attendants emerged from the tent with the remains sealed inside a body bag, leaving it on the ambulance gunney while they added their overalls to the dying bonfire.

Claudine and Rosetti, both long inured to the horror of violent death, returned to the city separately from the others, their bodies cramped together in the front of the ambulance, each aware of the closeness of the other but not acknowledging it. It was, thought Claudine, a bizarre surrounding in which to come physically closer to the man than she ever had before.

There were changing facilities at the mortuary and Claudine stripped and showered with strongly disinfected emulsion before re-suiting and re-masking herself, sprinkling the inside of the protective clothing with disinfecting powder. She only bothered with bra and pants beneath.

The body was already on the metal dissecting table when she entered the examination room, Rosetti, the Belgian pathologist and the photographer about to start. Three of the American forensic scientists were in the side laboratory in which Claudine and Rosetti had earlier examined the amputated toe. One was already working on the hessian. The other two were waiting to test samples from the body.

Rosetti led the dissection but in consultation with the other surgeon. Their masks, as well as Claudine's, were electronically linked, enabling them to communicate with each other. Everything said was automatically recorded. Rosetti dictated quietly, in French, and formally, according to the accepted medical format. He identified himself, the Belgian and the mortuary and stipulated the date and the time. He also named Claudine as an official observer.

He worked quickly but methodically, removing facial skin sc.r.a.pings, body fluid, head and pubic hair and finger and toenail samples for the waiting forensic experts. He had to break the jaw to carry out the dental examination. When he sawed into the chest cavity carrying the opening up to the humped left shoulder they were all covered in a fine spray of bone and body fluid and had to stop to sponge clean each other's visors. At Rosetti's urging, as soon as the chest had been opened, the Belgian pathologist sectioned several lung samples for the side laboratory, first having each photographed. Rosetti also had several pictures taken of the a.n.a.l distension before carrying out an internal examination. To do so he had to turn the collapsing body on to its front. Having done so he shaved the back of the head up to the crown, pointing out to the other man the patterned discoloration that became visible.

Until that moment Rosetti had completed ignored Claudine. Now he turned, although keeping strictly to medical protocol, declaring for the recording that he was interrupting the autopsy for preliminary discussion. And gave the time 5.45 a.m. of the break.

It was, literally, like an alarm clock awakening Claudine. Her first impulse was to excuse herself and leave at once but just as quickly she realized she had more than enough time to listen to what Rosetti had stopped to tell her. There was just the possibility there would be something she could use in what he said, although for what she wanted to achieve she doubted it.

Rosetti did not come to her immediately. From the side laboratory he collected the clipboard log, flicking through the several attached notes as he approached.

'A professional male prost.i.tute,' declared Rosetti. There was a metallic playback to his voice through the headset. 'Very active. I wouldn't put him older than seventeen but I found tunnelling during the internal a.n.a.l examination. The epithelium is thick, too, indicating constant intercourse ...' Rosetti went to the clipboard. 'There were traces of make-up on the facial skin.' He paused. 'Also of a glue that quite heavily impregnated the hessian in which the body was wrapped ...'

The clock on the autopsy wall registered 6.05 a.m. Claudine saw, impatiently. Why hadn't she thought of it before! Why! Why! Why!

'There was also the same varnish on the nails that we found on the severed toe,' continued Rosetti.

'How long has he been dead?' asked Claudine, forcing the calmness. Six eight.

'Sometime during the last fortnight,' said Rosetti. 'I can't be more definite than that. There is still some residual rigor: that's why the shoulder snapped when the body was thrown down. It was just picked up, obviously from a vehicle, and tossed aside, landing on the shoulder. That's why it had rolled almost completely free of the hessian. As you saw there was no attempt to conceal it.'

'What the caller told Smet Gaston was going to do, just get rid of it,' remembered Claudine. 'Anything special about the hessian? It looked comparatively new.'

'It was, although he'd been wrapped in it for a long time.' He looked quickly at his clipboard. 'Forensic say it's high-quality sacking: the sort of stuff used for wrapping things of value.'

'How did he die?'

Rosetti led her to the dissecting table. Claudine followed, unworried by the closeness to a partially dissected carcase. He pointed to the opened a.n.u.s, then to the blackened pattern on the back of the shaven head.

'They're finger bruising; could be either ante or post death. Hands being pressed either side of the head. I think it was during a.n.a.l intercourse, not necrophilia. There's no rectal lesion or tearing, which there would have been if entry was forced after death. The lungs are bubble-enlarged, definitely showing suffocation. During the act of b.u.g.g.e.ry his face was forced into something soft, most likely a pillow, until he died. The a.n.u.s is distended because muscles don't contract after death.' He indicated another pattern, wounds this time. 'Bite marks. Which could give us a jaw formation impression of the killer. I think the p.e.n.i.s was bitten, too.'

Momentarily Claudine lost her impatience to leave the room. Almost to herself she said: 'And that was done by one of the people who've got the ten-year-old child we're trying to get back unharmed.'

'Yes,' said Rosetti. 'I don't think I've ever examined a worse manic s.e.x attack. It's totally animal.'

'I've got to go. Now!'

'But ...'

'Later.' It was six fifteen.

Claudine ran clumsily from the room, hampered by the enc.u.mbering suit. Remembering the victim's h.o.m.os.e.xuality and the spray of the body fluids she forced herself to slow, stripping off the protective clothing, and was even more careful against outside contact while thrusting it down the incinerator chute.

It was six twenty-three when she emerged from the shower, six twenty-eight when she burst into the corridor, searching wildly for a telephone. And physically collided with Peter Blake.

'I've been stupid,' she gabbled. 'If we tell Smet this early he'll call ...'

'I already did,' Blake said, holding her at arm's length, smiling. 'And he called, too. Twice. And we got the numbers. Felicite is Felicite Galan. She lives at the Boulevard Ans.p.a.ch. Gaston's name is Mehre. He's an antique dealer in Antwerp.' The smile expanded. 'We're well up to speed, so you don't have to run.'

With the image of the distorted and s.e.xually mutilated body horrifically vivid in her mind throughout the remainder of the long day, Claudine couldn't dispel the feeling mat to run was exactly what she all of them had to do. To run as fast as they could in every newly pointed direction and break any law to get to Mary Beth.

It was irrational and unprofessional, she accepted, and totally opposite from what they actually had to do. Which was to proceed step by step with the utmost care. Make no unpremeditated move until they'd located Felicite Galan and established the child was with her, and only then risk a strike to prevent Mary Beth being the next disfigured body on the mortuary slab.

By the time Claudine reached the emba.s.sy the surveillance had already been organized and in Brussels was in place. Sure of their target and knowing from Smet's panicked telephone call that Gaston Mehre was at home over his gallery in Antwerp's Schoenmarkt, Harding a.s.signed a thirty-man squad to put the antique dealer under total observation.

The lawyer's call to Felicite Galan, while identifying her from the number, had rung out unanswered. It was again McCulloch and Ritchie who led the operation in Boulevard Ans.p.a.ch. Watchers were positioned outside as before, to warn of the woman's unexpected return, separate from the evidence-collecting 'floaters.' In addition there were four CIA agents, all women, two with paramedic qualifications, if Mary Beth were found to be imprisoned in the house.

She wasn't.

It was the first and immediate disappointment after McCulloch and Ritchie immobilized the rear-mounted, out-of-date alarm box with instant setting foam and picked the rear door lock.

The two men varied their routine in their immediate search for the child, both looking initially for bas.e.m.e.nt cells before quickly working upwards, room by room. At the same time as McCulloch reported failure on his mobile phone he said that from the disarray and cast-aside clothes in Felicite's bedroom and en suite dressing room as well as an open-doored cupboard in which suitcases were stored she'd obviously packed and left in a hurry. He and Ritchie were reverting to routine: some proxile copied material, including bank statements, was already being ferried back. Again they hadn't found an address book.

Kurt Volker deputed himself, without argument, to collate what came from the house.

Rosetti got to the emba.s.sy by mid-morning. For the benefit of the entire group he repeated what he'd earlier told Claudine, adding that around the a.n.a.l area and stuck by body fluid to the hessian he'd found four red-pigmented pubic hairs, obviously not those of the auburn-haired victim, from which the killer could be identified by DNA comparison. The body was too decomposed for any s.e.m.e.n trace to have remained. There was no dental work from which the victim could be identified from orthodontic or dental records and although quite a substantial amount of the face was intact he thought a model reconstruction from skull and facial bone formation would be necessary if they wanted to issue a picture appeal. A mouth impression of the killer was possible from at least two of the bite marks. No effort had been made to clean the body and there were a lot of forensic tests still to be carried out. No one commented on the quickly developed photographs of the boy that Rosetti circulated.

Harding was actually remarking that antique dealers used hessian to wrap sale items and specialized glue for repairs when the first contact came from Antwerp. None of the combined FBI and CIA team had yet entered the premises as purchasing American tourists the prepared cover but from external observation there appeared to be two men working there. Both had red hair and from their facial similarity were clearly related.

'The hessian will match that in the shop, as well as the hair,' predicted Harding. 'So we've got ourselves a couple of murderers. One at least.'

The still unknown executive at Belgacom was the first caller, just after eleven, to be picked up on the agonizingly limited microphone in Smet's office. The lawyer did most of the talking, as he did on the three subsequent and connected calls, and a murmur of antic.i.p.ation went round the listening group at the repet.i.tion in every one.

'My house tonight. Seven.' To the man they now knew to be Gaston Mehre, he added: 'It's desperate. Terrible.'

Harding had already phoned the controller of the Antwerp squad, giving the time when the shop would be empty that night. By then the search of Boulevard Ans.p.a.ch had been completed, listening devices installed in every room and telephone and all doc.u.mentation McCulloch and Ritchie considered relevant copied and returned to where they had been found. There were thirty CIA and FBI agents dispersed around the house and along every road feeding into it.