Beside the FBI chief Harding was looking down hard at the floor again. McBride and his wife were moving their heads back and forth with each question and answer.

Norris said: 'No.'

Claudine prolonged the silence until McBride shifted impatiently. She said: 'You've just admitted totally misunderstanding the crime we are investigating. And by your refusal to listen to anyone's voice or opinion other than your own you're putting yourself your reputation before saving a child ...'

There was an audible intake of breath from the legal attache. McBride swivelled to the FBI man but before the amba.s.sador could speak Norris shook his head, the smile broadening, and said: 'This is quite ridiculous. We're wasting time here, sir-'

'How could Mary have been targeted as a kidnap victim without its being known in advance that the car would have a puncture, the school would misunderstand a telephone message and she'd walk off up the rue du Ca.n.a.l when there was no one waiting to collect her?' demanded Claudine.

The room was frozen by silence. She had little right to condemn Sanglier for bullying, Claudine accepted. But there was a very important difference. She was knowingly doing it to achieve an essential end result.

'I really don't think this should-' Norris started, but McBride stretched sideways, stopping the man with a warding-off gesture. He leaned forward over his desk towards Claudine and said: 'You've got an audience, doctor. I'm going to listen to everything you say but by Christ you'd better be right.'

Claudine's attention hadn't wavered from Norris. His mouth was moving, the words barely held back, and she decided that in his outrage the man was only just acknowledging the amba.s.sador's authority. Remembering their supposed ignorance of the incoming Mary, Mary message Claudine demanded: 'Tell me what their approach was.'

For a moment the FBI chief remained motionless, until McBride made another gesture, a beckoning motion this time. Norris reached into the file propped against his chair, extracting a single sheet of paper.

'Read it to us,' Claudine insisted, forcing the imperious tone. It was a thin tightrope, trying to impose her will upon Norris at the same time as impressing the amba.s.sador and his wife with her a.s.sessment to convince them that she should conduct any negotiation.

Norris did, his voice cracking in impotent fury.

'That an original print-out?' persisted Claudine, following the courtroom cross-examination principle of never asking a question to which the answer wasn't known.

'A copy. The screen cleared before we had time to get a print-out.'

'a.n.a.lyse it for us,' insisted Claudine remorselessly. This was appalling, she knew. She didn't have the slightest doubt that Norris was suffering the clinical mental impairment she'd earlier suspected. And by doing everything she could as relentlessly as she could to expose the professional inadequacy she was actually treating the man in a way diametrically opposed to the path she should have taken. Know thyself, she thought. Was her behaviour justified by the excuse of trying to rescue a child in every sort of physical and mortal danger? Or was it worse even than bullying? Wasn't she guilty of her own impairment, the need always to show that Claudine Carter was the best and prepared to trample any opposition underfoot to prove it? More than that, even? Wasn't she really performing, after all, to impress Peter Blake?

'It's the initial contact from people who have kidnapped Mary Beth McBride,' said Norris formally, his confidence recovering.

'From whom?' she jabbed, refusing to let go.

Norris hesitated. 'The people who've got her.' Doggedly: 'Her kidnappers.'

'Tell us about them.'

Norris looked uncertain. 'More than one. It would have had to be a car, to grab her off the street. At least one to drive, the other to subdue her when she realized what had happened. Enough money to own or gain access to a vehicle. Computer literate, with access to a modem. Money again-'

'I meant from the message,' Claudine interrupted. 'That's police reasoning, not psychological profiling. Tell me what you learn from the message itself. What it tells you about Mary, too.'

Norris broke his direct gaze, looking down to the paper as if he expected more than the message to be there. He became aware of McBride's attention and briefly looked back before saying: 'Beginning of a familiar kidnap pattern: abductors knowing they are in charge. The absence of any initial demand or how to respond is to impose pressure ...'

Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Claudine thought. Poor mentally confused, mentally blocked b.a.s.t.a.r.d. 'You're not properly interpreting a single indicator. Mary was abducted by chance, not design. The only intention of those who're holding her was to get a child. They're paedophiles.'

'Oh dear G.o.d, no,' moaned Hillary softly. 'Not that.' Her composure left her completely, her face crumpling.

'I don't think using a child's nursery rhyme was necessarily intended to identify their s.e.xual predilection, although in my opinion it does,' Claudine pressed on, her sympathy switching to parents who from the beginning would have feared what she'd just openly declared. 'But the choice of that particular rhyme was most definitely intentional, far beyond the coincidence of the name. Mary's disobedient a contrary child. She might have got willingly into a car but she's resisted defied them since.'

'Is she alive?' demanded Hillary. 'What will they have done to her?'

Claudine didn't want to create any false hope it was difficult at that moment to imagine any other sort but she believed there was a fragile straw at which the couple could clutch. 'She has to be alive for them to know how contrary she is, doesn't she?'

'What about ...?' groped McBride, unable to say the words. 'Would they have ...?'

'I don't know,' admitted Claudine. 'The message does mean they've turned it into an abduction. As long as it remains that, there's a possibility she'll be safe ... safe in every way.' It wasn't the absolute truth but it wasn't an absolute lie, either. But there was no purpose in reducing to total despair people who had already lost their child, perhaps for ever. Destroying one man, as she feared she was destroying John Norris, was more than enough. The thin American had brought his head up to look at her again, his face fixed. Several times, as she talked, Harding and Rampling had nodded, as if in acceptance. So had the legal attache. She a.s.sessed Burt Harrison's face-twisted frown to be both an acknowledgement of her judgement and disgust at what it meant. The amba.s.sador was as crumpled as his wife, his whole body seeming to wither, a man a father brought face to face with the most unthinkable horror.

Desperately McBride said: 'You could be wrong! You could be the one misunderstanding!'

'It's my job not to be,' replied Claudine. 'And I don't think I am.'

'We've got a kidnap situation, which has always been my opinion,' persisted Norris. His voice was still cracked.

'There are young s.e.xual deviants juveniles even but the people holding Mary are adult,' predicted Claudine, ignoring the other profiler. 'There's an intellectualism almost a sophistication in their message that young people wouldn't have. And there is access to money, going beyond the obvious of a car's being involved. There's access to a house or somewhere where Mary can be held prisoner, without fear of discovery. And there's a high degree of computer literacy ...' She hesitated, her throat jagged, the strain of what had become a virtual lecture beginning to pull at her. 'The one message that's been received isn't an initial kidnap approach. It's a challenge. How we balance that challenge and I really do mean balance entirely determines our chances of saving Mary.'

Claudine paused again, looking at Norris. She'd had to be brutal, she convinced herself. It was nothing personal: certainly nothing done to impress anyone. And definitely not Peter Blake. From the amba.s.sador's very obvious anguish Claudine was sure, quite apart from whatever censure might officially come from Washington, that it was time to attempt whatever flimsy bridge was possible with Norris. She said: 'That's why there can only be one finely focused negotiating stance. And one set of negotiators. Work independently and you'll never get Mary back intact.' She began looking among the Americans arrayed before her but abruptly stopped: that was performing! Uncomfortable with the realization, but sticking with her point, Claudine said: 'Your decision, amba.s.sador. I believe you've only got one, which is the one we're asking you to make. Do you want to get Mary back, alive at least, horrifying as the implications of that question are? Or do you want your law enforcement agencies to go on working independently?' She allowed a gap. 'Our way, there's a chance. Your way there isn't.'

There was, momentarily, another chilled silence. Then Norris began to speak, but once again McBride quietened the man with an impatient gesture. It was Hillary who said: 'For G.o.d's sake, shut up!'

McBride said: 'There's been a bad misunderstanding. For which I apologize. Now it's been corrected: nothing will again be attempted independently. You have my word. But I want yours. Can you get our daughter back, alive at least?'

'Yes,' blurted Norris at once.

'I don't know,' admitted Claudine.

'I want you to lead the negotiations,' McBride told Claudine. He turned to the FBI man beside him. 'Do you understand?'

Norris was unable to reply for several moments. 'Yes,' he managed at last.

As Claudine had antic.i.p.ated, the press conference was frenetic. She had also antic.i.p.ated, correctly, that by the time it began the e-mail appeal would have been discovered by the already alerted media, and advised McBride and Sanglier to respond to every question in the apparent belief that Mary's disappearance was a ransom-motivated kidnap, with no s.e.xual implication. There was fractionally more time for her to prepare them than Andre Poncellet, who ascended the light-whitened platform more relieved than confused by her urging, which he accepted without argument, that he should let the other two men take the majority of the questions, restricting himself to agreeing with whatever undertaking they gave.

He wanted to hear from those who held his daughter, declared a choke-voiced McBride, his wife rigid-faced beside him. He was prepared to negotiate. He pleaded for Mary not to be harmed in any way. Towards the end he cried, openly and unashamedly, accepting Hillary's offered hand. Claudine was delighted because the helplessness was so genuine and conveyed exactly the impression she wanted: that whoever held Mary was in total control, able at a finger snap or rather a keyboard tap to manipulate not just the nations of the European Union but America as well.

John Norris understood everything. He'd underestimated the woman, who was activated entirely by jealousy envy of his reputation and ability and had managed to mislead everybody. Only a temporary setback: a mistake of stupid people traumatized by the loss of a daughter. Have to put it right, of course. He had a child to save. The woman could even be part of it. The idea settled in his mind. That was brilliant, her being part of it. Deceiving everyone. Everyone except him. Because he was cleverer than any of them. Cleverer than her, certainly. This could be his best case, proving that she was involved. Wouldn't be easy. Have to put a squad on her; strip her down to the bone. That was the way. Always was. Discover their secrets. Everyone broke down, confessed, when they were confronted with their secrets. Play it cleverly, though. Don't let her know that he knew. Go along with everything while he had her checked out: got to the secrets. Then save Mary. He'd get her back. He knew all about kidnapping. Knew the way their minds worked. Knew the way everybody's mind worked. That's what he was. A mind-reader. Don't worry, Mary. I'm coming. I'll save you. No one else but me.

Norris sensed Claudine's attention, switching from the closed circuit television upon which they'd watched the conference.

'I thought that went very well, didn't you?' she said, attempting some rapport.

'Let's see what the next message is.'

Claudine turned to face him. 'Let's talk about what we're going to do,' she said urgently. 'Talk to me about how you're thinking: what you're thinking. We both know she'll die if we don't. Let's try to save her, together.'

'You're right,' said Norris. 'We've got to save her together.' If he told her what he was thinking she'd know and then she could tell the others who had Mary. She might be able to fool everybody else but she couldn't fool him.

The Justice Minister himself, Miet Ulieff, greeted the delegation. By unspoken agreement it was Peter Blake, not the weary Claudine, who for the benefit of the ten a.s.sembled Belgian officials repeated what they believed to have happened to Mary Beth McBride. He said nothing about the FBI dispute, which had also been kept from Andre Poncellet. The impression was that everything had come from the closest liaison between Europol and the Americans.

'I want to be kept in the closest touch with every aspect of this investigation,' announced Ulieff when Blake finished. 'I'm therefore appointing a member of my legal staff to work permanently alongside Commissioner Poncellet until this poor child is recovered.' He turned, gesturing a man forward. 'Allow me to introduce Jean Smet.'

Thanks to the communication system he had introduced John Norris was able to read the messages the amba.s.sador sent to both the State Department and Bureau headquarters, and from the cables that came in personally directed to him later that day he realized the Europol commissioner hadn't been bluffing about making a direct complaint to Washington, either. He responded, as was required, with the a.s.surance of total future cooperation with Europol, but with the reminder that by initially working independently he had been following not just his instructions before leaving Washington but the amba.s.sador's clearly expressed wishes, too.

It was late in the day when he detached Duncan McCulloch and Robert Ritchie, two of his best men, from the squad now sifting the responses to their Internet message and briefed them in detail on the investigation of Claudine Carter.

'Keep it tight,' he ordered. 'Report back to me, no one else. This case is being allowed to go wrong. We've got to get it back on track.'

CHAPTER NINE.

Mary cried, finally. Although not for herself. For her mother and father: for her father mostly. Mom had just sat there, saying nothing, her face not moving, like when they played statues at school with the person who moved first losing the game. Dad had looked so helpless, weeping as he had, not being able to talk properly when he'd asked whoever was holding her to tell him what they wanted so that he could do it and she could go home. She'd never known him like that. Not crying. Not knowing what to do. That wasn't like dad. Grown-up men didn't cry. Not dad, anyway. He always knew what to do. That's why he was an amba.s.sador, an important person. She didn't like it, dad not knowing what to do. It wasn't right. Made her feel funny, unsure of what was going to happen to her. She did know, of course. Dad would get her out: get her home. With lots of things to tell everyone at school.

It was the woman who made dad cry. Her and the stupid men in their stupid masks. But the woman's fault most of all. They all did what she told them to do. So she hated the woman, for making dad cry. Couldn't let her know, though. She might hit her again. Her bottom still hurt from the slapping in the bathroom. She hated the woman for slapping her, too. She ran her teeth over her brace, particularly the sharp bits. She wouldn't take it out again. Not because the woman had slapped her for doing so: because she'd said she'd liked her without it. She wouldn't do anything the woman liked, anything to please her.

Mary realized she didn't have a handkerchief. She scrubbed her eyes and her nose with her fingers and tried to dry them on her skirt, only just preventing herself from jumping when the woman shouted.

'Don't be dirty! Get a tissue from the bathroom!' Felicite was glad she'd come out to the house by the river to let the child watch the televised conference. It made her feel good, being able to reduce the man to tears. She hadn't expected that. It was a bonus. Power. Much better than the satisfaction she got from making her group do what she wanted. Pity the wife hadn't cried, too. That would have been wonderful, making them both dance when she pulled their strings. One was enough, though: enough for now.

She hoped Jean wouldn't be too much longer. She wanted to hear what happened at the Justice Ministry. The rush hour in Antwerp might delay him. He'd sounded frightened on the telephone, but it only needed the smallest thing he didn't expect to frighten Jean Smet.

Mary came back into the huge room with her face and nose dry, but uncertain what to do. Dad and mom weren't on television any more, but there was a group of men talking about how kidnap victims were freed, and the strange giggling man who had felt her bottom had joined the woman to watch. The French being spoken on screen was very fast and Mary had difficulty following it. She thought she heard something about Belgium's having a bad record for child crime she wasn't sure what rapports s.e.xuels actually meant but it sounded like what they'd been told about in biology at school, how babies were made and a succession of children's photographs suddenly appeared on the screen.

'Can you understand what they're saying?' demanded Felicite. By telephoning the school another pleasure, speaking to the establishment whose pupil was hers now, to do with what she chose pretending to be the parent of a potential student, she'd discovered the curriculum languages were German and English in addition to French.

'I'm not very good. Something about children being taken away from their parents.'

To Mehre, in English, Felicite said: 'The men on the television were talking about children getting punished if they're bad, weren't they?'

Mehre sn.i.g.g.e.red so hard it sounded like a cough. He said: 'Yes! Are we going to do it!'

Mary was sure they hadn't been speaking about punishment. 'I haven't done anything bad.'

'You're not going to, are you?'

'Let me, please!' said the man urgently.

'Dad said he wanted to talk to you.'

'Are you going to be naughty?'

'No,' Mary made herself say. The woman wanted to hurt her again. Why was the man snuffling?

'I really want to be nice to you. We all do,' said Felicite.

Mary couldn't think what to say. She lowered herself very gently on to one of the big chairs, like a movie seat, in front of the giant screen. Her bottom still hurt. The men weren't talking on television any more. Sesame Street was on, although it was in French. She could understand that easily enough. She tried to watch it but not so the woman would see and get angry.

'I want to love you. Be kind to you.'

'Take me home, then.'

'I will.'

'When?'

'Not yet.'

'When?'

'Soon. Would you like me to be nice to you?'

'I don't know.'

'You don't want me to slap you again, do you?'

'No!'

'So you've got to be a good girl. Do what I tell you to do.'

'All right.' Mary wanted to go back to her room: not to be with this woman and the man who was grunting more than laughing now.

'Did you like seeing your mama and papa?'

'Yes.' They were trying to make her cry again but she wouldn't. 'Are you going to talk to him, like he asked?'

'He knows you're safe.'

Mary swallowed. 'When can I go?' She wished she hadn't walked away from school. She wouldn't do it again. Ever.

The man gave a grunting laugh.

'Not yet,' said Felicite.

'When?'

'When I say so.'

'You're bad, for taking me.'

'Don't be rude. If you're rude I'll slap you again.' She smiled. 'And you know I don't want to do that.'

The woman's voice was thick again and Mary didn't like it. She didn't believe the woman wanted to be nice to her. If she wanted to be nice why had they taken her and locked her up and hit her? It didn't make sense. She didn't like not understanding what was going on. 'I'm not rude. And I don't want to stay here. I want to go home.'

That was better. Mary was being contrary again. 'Would you like someone to play with?'

Mary frowned. 'A pet, you mean?'

Felicite hadn't but they were going to need another identification. 'Do you have a pet?'