Mind/Reader

by Brian Freemantle

  She maintained nightly telephone contact with her mother, repeating on the eve of the operation the assurance of a weekend visit, and called twice from the incident room on the actual day. On the second occasion Claudine spoke with the surgeon, who said both breasts had been removed as well as a substantial proportion of the lymph glands. They would not know for several weeks if they had got all the malignant tumours but he was hopeful. Her mother was a remarkably fit and determined woman. He expected a quick recovery.

  And Rosetti kept his contact promise. He’d found sufficient evidence of internal anal and vaginal bruising to satisfy him that the Asian boy as well as the girls had been raped. He’d also recovered semen deposits from which he hoped to get DNA tracings. He hadn’t discovered any soap or cleaning fluid residue on the bodies, nor any dye deposit to provide a clue to any employment. Nor had any of the three Asian teenagers he’d so far examined undergone any dental work that might have been recognized by an orthodontist. There were other examinations and tests he was carrying out before moving on to London. If anything he judged to be vital emerged he’d obviously tell her at once but he’d prefer to complete every test and analysis and then discuss them with her in full rather than keep adding piecemeal to her profile. He said he was glad of her immediate agreement, particularly after the pressure from Poulard and Siemen to give them each finding as he made it.

  ‘How are you getting on with them?’ asked Claudine.

  ‘They’re very hopeful of a lead from my examinations.’

  I bet they are, thought Claudine: from her complete assimilation of the French reports she knew it was their only practical chance of appearing to benefit from going to France in the first place. Dismissing the two detectives from her mind, Claudine said: ‘Have you confirmed your belief that the mouths were jammed into a smile?’

  ‘Absolutely. The damage is quite extensive inside, the boy particularly.’

  ‘The faces are still frozen into those grimaces?’

  ‘Of course. They’re in refrigeration.’

  ‘Could they be improved? Made less horrible?’

  ‘Their families know they’ve disappeared, and they haven’t come forward,’ Rosetti pointed out, understanding the direction of the questioning. ‘Why should seeing after-death photographs in newspapers or on posters make them change their minds?’

  ‘Because they are after death,’ said Claudine brutally. ‘The shock might just snap them into doing it. And there’ll be others, not just the family, who know them. Even an anonymous call would be enough.’

  ‘They could be made presentable,’ conceded Rosetti. ‘Do you want me to do it before going on to London?’

  Claudine weighed the question. ‘Yes, if you’ve completed everything you want to do. And the others, when you’ve finished your examination.’

  After Siemen’s ice-breaking approach the two detectives maintained daily contact, too. Usually it was the German but twice the calls came from Poulard. He never once referred to her profile but conceded they hadn’t learned sufficient to justify extending their trip by visiting the various French cities where parts of the bodies had been left.

  ‘There seems to have been some misunderstanding about our liaison,’ said Claudine, seeing no reason why she had to wait for their return before confronting the stupidity.

  ‘I thought we had divided our respective responsibilities,’ said Poulard.

  ‘Between ourselves,’ agreed Claudine easily. ‘But I imagined you’d have wanted to be associated with our first presentation to the Commission.’ The recording apparatus revolved silently in her line of sight on the far side of the incident room and Claudine realized, surprised, how adept she was becoming at bureaucratic guerrilla warfare, even automatically choosing phrases like ‘our first presentation’ to make clear the separating awkwardness was theirs, not hers.

  ‘Teething troubles,’ said Poulard, too glibly.

  And who bit off more than they could chew, thought Claudine, amusing herself with the metaphor. ‘I’m glad we seem to have resolved them now. Maybe it’s something we should talk through when you get back, to make sure there’s no misunderstanding in future.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Having made her point, Claudine didn’t raise it again on Poulard’s second approach from Paris. Neither did he, talking only of the investigations - arrests even, in Lyon and Marseille

  - he’d initiated on known National Front cells. She had just replaced the receiver after that conversation, on the Thursday afternoon, when Sanglier said he wanted to see her.

  He had to attempt the recovery in the way he’d already decided, after the disastrous session with Sobell, but Sanglier knew it wasn’t going to be easy. So much had happened since. Immediately after learning of a British investigation too restricted even for the British commissioner to be told, Sanglier had discovered through the travel division Claudine’s less than twenty-four-hour visit to Lyon. Since which time, according to telephone records, she’d several times telephoned her mother’s restaurant and a Lyon hospital, both of which he’d identified by dialling and apologizing for reaching the wrong number. The explanation for those to her mother were obvious enough: logically, whatever Claudine Carter knew her mother also knew. The hospital remained a mystery. He could only guess there were people working there who’d been associated with the Resistance half a century before. Or who’d inherited some knowledge, as he was sure Claudine had inherited hers.

  Other commissioners had even commented to him about the woman’s self-confidence – admiring it as an attribute, not nervous of it as worrying independence - particularly after criticizing the press release in a memorandum to the entire operational committee. Sanglier didn’t accept that her objection had rightly gone to those who’d given her the commendation and in whose name the media statement had been made, which was how those admiring commissioners saw it. The cow should have worked through him and she knew it. So to do what she had was positively denigrating him, which she clearly felt able to do without risk of correction.

  The most bitter recognition of all was that, for the moment at least, she was right. Worse, even, was that he had virtually to make peace with her.

  Sanglier was standing away from his desk when Claudine arrived. He forced the few cosmetic steps necessary to appear to greet her, ushering her away from the desk to the more comfortable side area where they’d sat with Sobell.

  ‘It’s the wrong time of the day for coffee. Something stronger, perhaps? Wine? Whatever.’

  The odd uncertainty was there. ‘I don’t drink, thank you.’

  ‘Then I won’t. It’s hardly cocktail hour anyway.’

  Where were the Gauloises, wondered Claudine. She remembered, belatedly, Sanglier hadn’t smoked during the meeting with Sobell. She sat quite comfortably, waiting.

  ‘I wanted to tell you how impressed I was with your profile,’ said Sanglier, the praise thick in his throat. ‘I was glad the rest of the Commission agreed sufficiently with me to make the commendation.’

  Why did the man find it necessary to claim credit? ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But you disagreed with our assessment of it?’ A criticism of the Commission would feature well on his personal recording.

  ‘Not with the assessment. With the emphasis given to some parts to the disadvantage of others …’ Although she was sure she was right, Claudine decided against an open challenge. Instead, recalling the phrase to which she most objected, she went on: ‘I did not, for example, insist that “racism was the underlying connecting link”. I specifically avoided that conclusion in my presentation to you and Commissioner Sobell.’

  Sanglier was ready. ‘I fail to see your argument when you advise Cologne racial hatred is the most likely motivation and attach a list of every neo-Nazi organization that exists in Germany for them to investigate!’

  ‘Because that killing probably is racially motivated. But the others aren’t.’ There was nothing to be gained by complaining the Germans were still withholding m
aterial: she would anyway have had to disclose how she knew.

  Sanglier had hoped for a more exploitable response: one that might, even, show the confidence spilling over into above-her-station arrogance. ‘Would you have liked the statement cleared with you first?’

  ‘Consultation might have prevented the wrong stress. And the very real danger.’

  Sanglier felt a jump of unease. ‘What very real danger?’

  ‘I believed my profile to be an internal document, restricted to Europol and to the investigating forces it might guide in their continuing inquiries. The release contained virtually every opinion I offered …’ She allowed another break, veering towards the earlier avoided challenge. ‘ … some, even, that I didn’t offer, almost as if there’d been another contribution.’

  ‘I still fail to see—’

  ‘I’d hoped to have made it clear in my memorandum to the Commission. Something I did dwell upon in my profile was copy murders. The way the release was phrased could sound like an invitation to a mentally unstable person.’

  Why in God’s name hadn’t Burrows cautioned him about that when he’d checked the proposed wording with the American, instead of stressing the racial aspect? ‘More murders, you mean?’

  ‘I sincerely believe it to be a risk. I hope I’m wrong. But then, odd though it may seem, I frequently hope I am wrong about some of the forecasts I make.’

  Paradoxically it was the sort of remark he would have welcomed very recently, but it didn’t excite him now as it once would have done. Instead he decided he’d have to abandon recording these encounters: destroy the tapes so far collected and get the equipment dismantled. Virtually everything that had so far been gathered provided nothing incriminating or usable for his intended purpose but rather created a perfect defence for the damned woman against any accusation of incompetence or inability. ‘It is, of course, only your opinion.’

  It was too inviting an opportunity to ignore. ‘But one which I was appointed - without any outside interference as far as I am aware - to provide.’

  ‘Quite so,’ muttered Sanglier. He did, finally, light one of the pungent cigarettes, needing to bring the conversation to its original purpose. ‘How are things with Poulard and Siemen?’

  ‘Settling down,’ said Claudine cautiously.

  ‘So there have been problems?’ pressed Sanglier.

  ‘The expression that Poulard and I agreed upon was teething troubles.’

  Sanglier was rapidly changing his mind about his choice of Rene Poulard. It was another frustration, but there was nothing now he could do about it. With the decision already made to destroy the tape, he said openly: ‘I believe I was misguided by them, from Paris.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Claudine, even more cautiously. The pendulum appeared to have swung back in the direction of the strained friendliness of their first meeting, just prior to her introduction to the two detectives.

  ‘About the exchange of information between you: from whom I could expect any lead to come.’ Forcing the words, which were true but not in the way he had to convey them, Sanglier added: ‘I was extremely uncomfortable during our meeting with Commissioner Sobell. I felt quite improperly briefed.’

  Would that explain the oddness of the man’s behaviour? Perhaps, taking into account her belief of Sanglier’s inner uncertainty. Except that the problem then hadn’t been improper briefing: they’d learned nothing in Paris to brief the man about. She had nothing to lose from accepting an offered olive branch, to further advantage. ‘I’m sure you’ve corrected that during your daily conversations.’

  Sanglier began a sharp look towards her but stopped. ‘You’re also in touch daily, for the same conversations, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Claudine smoothly. ‘We talk, certainly. I don’t know if I talk with them about the same things as they talk about to you.’

  The bitch was playing with him, as she always did: she might be able to keep the smirk off her face but she couldn’t keep it out of her voice. ‘There seems to have been little point in their going to France at all. Not until Rosetti’s arrival, that is. And that’s not opening up a positive line of inquiry for them to follow. Are you learning anything from it?’

  Claudine didn’t answer at once. With the exception of a startling pathological discovery - which she’d known about virtually the moment the Italian made it - there was every practical working reason to wait until the man finished his reexaminations of all the remains before updating her profile rather than add each individual piece of the jigsaw as it emerged. But that’s how Poulard and Siemen would be offering it in their desperation to appear to be providing something. So Sanglier would know if she held anything back. ‘There are some medical findings that don’t take us very far forward but might improve the profile when I’ve had the chance to consider them in their proper perspective. The most important, from an investigatory point of view, is semen deposits from which it might be possible to extract some DNA to identify the killers when they’re arrested. It’s being analysed at the moment.’

  ‘We recovered extremely well with the press release: turned every criticism back on the people making it. It’s important we maintain the momentum.’

  ‘I understand that.’

  ‘How much longer before you’ll be able to provide an enlarged profile?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If it becomes a problem, you could provide something?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Claudine reluctantly.

  ‘I hope there isn’t any misunderstanding between us from the meeting with Sobell?’

  ‘None as far as I am concerned.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ smiled Sanglier. ‘If difficulties arise with Poulard or Siemen, you’ll let me know, won’t you?’

  Claudine was curious if the identical question had been put to the two detectives. ‘I’m sure none will.’

  Claudine made her way back to the lower level trying to decide what Sanglier had meant to achieve by calling their meeting. For her part she hoped he’d understood she knew bloody well that he was getting her opinions checked by Scott Burrows. And that she’d frightened him sufficiently to make him think twice about doing it in future.

  Yvette was waiting for her in the incident room with Peter Toomey’s request that she return his call as soon as possible. Claudine’s breath perceptibly snatched.

  ‘Motherfuckers!’ erupted Scott Burrows. In his anger it took several attempts to light the cigar.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hardy, conscious of the looks from people closest to them in the embassy mess. Scott had been pissing into the wind to imagine Washington would change its mind. ‘There was a killing that fitted two weeks ago.’

  ‘Identical?’

  ‘Close enough. Raleigh, North Carolina. Highway patrolman. Had a wife and two kids.’

  ‘I know the fuck where Raleigh is!’ said Burrows irritably. ‘Maybe if I’d been there it wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘At least it wasn’t you.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been.’

  ‘Miriam’s going to be upset,’ said Hardy.

  ‘I think she might leave me.’

  The FBI station chief frowned over his glass. ‘You’re not serious about that?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You going to tell Washington?’

  ‘I think I might tell Washington I quit altogether.’

  ‘That’s not going to solve anything.’

  ‘We could go back stateside.’

  ‘What if your profile is accurate?’

  ‘I’d be ready.’

  ‘Would Miriam, when you’re not around?’

  Burrows didn’t reply.

  ‘There’s no point in this, is there?’ said Sanglier.

  ‘No point in what?’ Françoise frowned.

  At least the thin cheroots she smoked didn’t smell like the ones the American smoked, but he wished she wouldn’t do it so openly in public. The terrace of the Villa Rosenrust was crowded. ‘
Going on as we are.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it? I don’t get in your way, you don’t get in mine. It’s a perfect situation.’

  ‘I don’t have a “way”.’

  ‘That, darling Henri, is your problem. Why don’t you fuck this woman psychologist you’re always on about?’

  ‘You’re being fatuous. And life doesn’t come down to fucking.’

  ‘It does to me. And I’m being totally practical. I think our situation works perfectly.’

  ‘What if I did find someone? And wanted to marry her?’

  ‘You couldn’t,’ said Françoise simply. ‘You’re married to me.’

  It was going to be more difficult than he’d imagined.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A lot had unsettled Claudine during the preceding thirty-six hours, but Toomey’s urging that she be accompanied by a lawyer was perhaps the most disturbing. But the delay had given her time to rationalize and she was glad she had imposed it. She was in total control of herself again, mentally assembling her for-and-against patterns, like Kurt Volker’s computer comparison graphs. She didn’t like personal uncertainty. In the last few months there had been far too much.

  Most obviously in her favour was that there could be no shock from this meeting greater than that which Toomey had produced the first time. She hadn’t collapsed then. Nor would she now, whatever the new reason for this second encounter, if indeed there was a new reason. Toomey had refused to give one: to tell her anything, apart from making the lawyer suggestion.

  Logically it could only be a positive legal development in the investigation into Paul Bickerstone and a £200,000,000 currency trading profit. But how positive for Toomey to agree without argument to a meeting at her weekend convenience, not during normal working time? More questions than proof, she guessed. A double-edged reassurance, Claudine acknowledged. True, if it had been urgent, he could have come to her in The Hague, as he had before. But the fact that he’d accepted a Saturday meeting indicated importance. Had that been the intention, like beginning their conversation with an immediate reference to her need for legal help and asking her to come to London and refusing to be specific about anything, all ploys to trick her into some mistake as he’d tried so hard to do at their initial confrontation?