Mind/Reader

by Brian Freemantle

  It was virtually an automatic gesture to telephone Paris, to re-route Poulard to London. So blank was his mind that he wasn’t even thinking of Claudine, who was fortunately with all the officers in the police chiefs suite and instantly understood what had happened from Poulard’s close-to-panic responses.

  ‘Give me the phone!’ she demanded and the disorientated detective was so startled that he did so without argument. To an equally surprised Sanglier she said: ‘Just the head?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘Transfer me to Volker! We’ve got them!’

  The humiliated but publicity conscious Auguste Leclerc was among the officers in the room and heard everything Claudine said over the next half-hour.

  CHAPTER THIRTY – FOUR

  It was a totally logical pattern, literally needing only one more line to be drawn to make it perfect. Kurt Volker understood it as quickly as Claudine and told her it would be easy. Sanglier understood, too, after a slightly longer explanation, and agreed because he had no alternative, even though it would be condoning the computer illegality for which he’d sidetracked Claudine and the German.

  Sanglier remained confused, unsure which path was the safest to take. The instant glory was in England, if Claudine Carter was right: the place he should be when the seizures were made to cover the accusation that everything he’d done in Amsterdam had failed to stop another killing. But there was an ‘if’. More than one. If Claudine was wrong and there wasn’t a pattern after all, he’d be exposed to even more humiliation by being there. And if the woman was right, Amsterdam remained the focal point where everything would come to a triumphant end: where, in fact, the greater glory would be.

  He’d stay. He’d stay because it was safest and because initially all the organization had to be done from here, which kept him at the top, in charge of everything. He stopped Winslow just as the man was about to go sailing and told him to get back to the Europol building immediately, and occupied the time it took the British commissioner to do so with briefing by telephone first Willi van der Kolk and then Bruno Siemen. He specifically instructed both to make no move until he personally arrived back in Amsterdam to order and supervise it. He’d be there in two hours.

  The worrying response from the Dutch police chief was: ‘So someone else had to die, as I warned?’

  Siemen said: ‘If it works, it’ll all be over.’

  David Winslow agreed, although reluctantly at first, that for the reputation of Europol and for the authority to ensure Poulard, Claudine and Rosetti got the unified cooperation they might need in a country that did not have a national police force it was necessary for him to go to London. Sanglier added, impatiently, that he’d already diverted the Europol plane en route from Paris and that Winslow had an hour to get to Amsterdam to join the others. Claudine Carter would fill him in on anything he wasn’t sure about on the way: London would be alerted to their arrival while they were in the air.

  Sanglier was pleased with the sense of drama he detected in his telephone conversations with London, but it seemingly failed to communicate itself to Kurt Volker. When Sanglier got to the incident room, empty apart from the German, Volker was relaxed in front of his screens, the central one of which was already filled with a digitalized map. Sanglier had to come directly behind the crumpled man before he could see that it was England.

  Adrenalin-charged by the speed at which everything was suddenly moving, Sanglier said urgently: ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ said Volker, remaining at ease. ‘We’re all set up.’

  ‘Show me,’ ordered Sanglier, more calmly.

  Volker refused to be hurried. ‘I’ve had to hack into databases. The British Customs again.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sanglier, his lips a tight line.

  ‘That’s all right, then?’

  ‘Show me,’ repeated Sanglier.

  Volker smiled up, satisfied, looking forward to telling Claudine. He said: ‘It doesn’t appear to be a Dutch lorry. I’ve gone back through the British Customs entries at Harwich, Dover and Newhaven again and there’s nothing showing from the Wo Lim factory. So …’

  ‘The British factory.’

  ‘It looks like it.’

  He’d got away with it! There couldn’t be any serious accusation. The British could - and doubtless would - try to wriggle out of any responsibility by accusing him of failing to warn them about the Wo Lim Company, but he wasn’t worried about arguing the operational need to concentrate everything in Amsterdam. Far more important was that the killing hadn’t taken place in the factory he’d had under total surveillance. It couldn’t be shown to be his fault!

  ‘Have you got into their system in England?’ Sanglier asked, openly accepting the hacking he’d ostracized Claudine and the German for practising.

  Volker indicated the screen to his left. ‘That’s their dispatch records over the past week. Seven trucks, three in the last twenty-four hours, which are the most likely.’

  ‘What are you waiting for now?’

  ‘Our people to set themselves up with some computers in England, so I can download all this to them. And the next find which will tell us which way to go.’

  Like the isolating of the Wo Lim factory in Amsterdam it all appeared so simple, thought Sanglier. ‘Providing they stick to pattern.’

  ‘Claudine is sure they will,’ said Volker, as if reciting a commandment written in stone.

  Sanglier had initiated a lot and Winslow had supplemented it from the plane’s communication system while they were still crossing the Channel, so by the time they arrived at the Thameside headquarters of the National Criminal Intelligence Service - the intended British FBI as hostilely opposed by the country’s police forces as Europol was within the European Union - they were well on their way towards a smaller copy of the type of operation Sanglier had established in Holland.

  As in Amsterdam, there was an accommodation problem, the central control room the only one large enough even when attendance was restricted to division heads. The NCIS commander, Edward Pritchard, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Herbert Brooke, were already waiting. So was Patrick Lacey, the junior government minister at the Home Office. Claudine went through the introduction formalities alert to everything around her, glad that computer terminals were a standard part of the office equipment. She was excited, fuelled like Sanglier by adrenalin but at the same time very calm, her chest quite free. Even the stomach cramps had gone.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ demanded Lacey doubtfully, the moment the courtesies were over.

  Winslow at once deferred to Claudine, who said: ‘I wouldn’t have started it all if I hadn’t been,’ too late realizing it sounded like a personal boast, which she hadn’t intended. Hurriedly she went on: ‘For a reason I don’t understand - and don’t need to, at the moment - the pattern for the Celeste killings is always the same. The victims are always Asian teenagers: we’ve just learned they’re from illegal immigrant families who refused to put them into prostitution. They’re always deep frozen. They’re always dismembered …’ she hesitated, to establish her point ’ … and their bodies are always distributed, over the course of a single week, along a food chain delivery route, in the same order: head, hands, torso, arms and legs. And so far, here in England, only the head has been recovered.’

  Claudine was disappointed at the lack of instant awareness. When it came it was from the Metropolitan police chief. ‘So the hands will be next?’

  ‘Wired together in a mockery of the Asian peace gesture of greeting,’ confirmed Claudine.

  ‘What will that show us?’ frowned Lacey.

  ‘The route of the delivery truck that can be intercepted and stopped before it has time to distribute the torso and the arms and the legs,’ declared Claudine simply. She added: ‘Which a colleague of mine will already have gone a long way towards plotting and will send here as soon as we establish a computer link.’
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  Claudine made no effort to conceal that London had been kept in ignorance of the Wo Lim Company. Nor did she try to defend it, halting her explanation while Winslow confronted the furious interruption not just from the government minister but from Sir Herbert Brooke and the NCIS commander as well.

  ‘You knew, long before alerting us today, of the location here in London where a murder - a horrific murder - was likely to be committed? And didn’t warn us?’ demanded Lacey, aghast.

  ‘We believed the killings were being carried out in their Amsterdam warehouse,’ said Winslow lamely.

  ‘It’s incredible!’ said Brooke. ‘Totally and utterly incredible.’

  It was, conceded Claudine: an incredible example of chest-hugging territory-guarding and the very last thing to be arguing about in view of what had to be achieved in the coming three or four days. Not three or four, she corrected herself. They had precisely four days and eight hours until the midnight end of the current week. ‘I understand the Wo Lim factory in London is now under total surveillance. There are other things that still have to be put in place, in readiness for what we have to do. If they’re not, we risk failing.’

  After a moment’s silence Patrick Lacey, the professional politician, said to Winslow: ‘I agree. But I am officially telling you, as the senior representative here of your organization, that this will be raised at the next ministerial meeting. Is that understood?’

  ‘Completely,’ said Winslow, his immediate embarrassment comforted by knowing the ultimate rebuke would be to Henri Sanglier.

  ‘Let’s establish the computer link,’ demanded Brooke, still angry, ignoring Winslow. Doing so temporarily broke the formality of the meeting. Volker gave one of his conspiratorial giggles when Claudine dictated the NCIS access code identifying where they were working from, saying for her ears only that he already had it ready to dial.

  For the first time Claudine was disappointed by a gap in what Volker transmitted, assuming at once what she expected had not existed. She was ready with an explanation for Volker’s having what transportation details there were from the London factory - that they’d been obtained through the Amsterdam parent company - if fresh anger erupted at withheld information, but no one picked up on it. Fortunately Volker included the plotted maps showing how the bodies of the previous Celeste victims had been distributed to support their theory and Claudine bustled the illustrations on to display boards to elaborate her earlier explanation. There was very little further discussion about the interception and certainly no challenge.

  Diplomatically they deferred to the British police chiefs for the logistical planning. It was agreed it would be wrong to alert every Chief Constable in every one of England’s forty-three autonomous police authorities but that army helicopters should be called in to supplement police machines to transport them to wherever the hands were found. Claudine noted, pleased, that her recovery sequence had been automatically accepted. There was the suggestion of the previous animosity towards Winslow when Brooke insisted the lorry interception be coordinated to the minute with the seizure and total occupation not just of the factory in London but that of the parent company in Amsterdam as well as its other subsidiary in Marseille.

  ‘Have we overlooked anything?’ he finished.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Poulard quickly, eager to make a contribution.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Pritchard.

  ‘The only thing we can do,’ said Claudine. ‘We wait. It won’t be long. It has to be within the next twenty-four hours, according to the pattern.’ She paused, before adding: ‘That is, according to my profile.’

  But when the next development came it wasn’t what any of them expected.

  They had to cross the river for a convenient hotel and chose one in St James’s because it was nearest. They were all too adrenalin-charged to think of sleep and it was still comparatively early anyway, so after settling into their rooms they accepted Poulard’s invitation to join him in the lounge. Claudine chose French wine, which was better than she expected, although not as good as it would have been in France. The restaurant was already closed and no one felt like trying to find one still open outside. They didn’t feel like lounge-service sandwiches, either. At Claudine’s urging they talked through all the decisions that had been made at the NCIS building, to ensure nothing had been overlooked, which prompted Rosetti to admit he’d forgotten to find out about any initial post-mortem examination.

  Claudine sat listening but at the same time allowing the conversation to swirl around her, wondering if she’d be able to get to Lyon at the weekend. Foulan didn’t expect the biopsy results until Friday at the earliest but visiting her mother didn’t depend on that. The oncologist’s suspicion was enough to make her going essential: for her to make the trip as often as possible now. She felt quite calm about it at last. She accepted it. She hoped there would be time - proper time - for her mother and Gerard to be together. She also hoped that her mother could go on sitting at her commanding table, in the restaurant that had been her life, for just a little while longer. And she hoped most of all that in the end the pain could be kept away. Would Foulan help: help in a way that could be understood without having to be asked for, directly? Or would he be prevented by his religion? It was something she had to explore, as soon as possible. If he wouldn’t do it with his own hand, perhaps he’d make it possible for her to do it when the time came. She was conscious of Hugo’s eyes upon her and looked at him. He smiled and she smiled back and saw Poulard intercept the look and smirk and hoped the oversexed French groper had misunderstood, although not as much as she wished it didn’t need to be a misunderstanding.

  ‘What do we do if nothing happens tomorrow?’ asked Winslow.

  Rejoining their conversation, Claudine said: ‘It will.’

  ‘You really think you can read minds?’ demanded Poulard. One of the wine bottles was empty and his voice was slightly slurred.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Claudine. ‘But what people do tells me how they think and from that I can anticipate what else they might do.’

  ‘OK,’ challenged Poulard. ‘Tell me what I’m thinking.’

  ‘A psychologist couldn’t possibly do that,’ said Claudine. ‘It would need a sewage inspector.’

  The affront began to register until the guffaws from Winslow and Rosetti, so Poulard had to laugh too. At that moment there was a public address request for Winslow to pick up a house phone. There was one immediately outside the lounge door. The three of them watched, unspeaking, as Winslow spoke: towards the end he began gesticulating.

  His already flushed face was beetroot red when he returned. ‘That was Pritchard. The front pages of virtually every first edition British newspaper carry stories of our coming here.‘He looked at Claudine. ‘You’re the lead, using the Paris photographs. Described as Europol’s supersleuth.’

  ‘Jesus!’ erupted Claudine. ‘How the—’

  ‘All the stories are datelined Paris. Sampire is quoted extensively. So is Leclerc. He talks about a secret plan to catch the killer.’

  ‘All the French were in the room when you talked to Sanglier,’ Poulard remembered.

  ‘Fuck!’ said Claudine, loud enough for other people in the lounge to look towards her, surprised. Some frowned in distaste. Winslow looked the most shocked of all.

  By dawn NCIS was under media siege, made easy by the virtual cul-de-sac in which the building was situated. So was New Scotland Yard and the nearby Home Office. They moved out of the St James’s hotel, central to all three, but once she saw the size in which her photograph had been reproduced - in two tabloids it occupied the entire front page - Claudine accepted she would not remain undiscovered for long. Her greater concern was how much might have been published about their plans. She knew she’d initially had to be quite specific to convince Sanglier. She scoured every publication and watched every early morning newscast. Nowhere did the stories go beyond generalization.

  ‘At least there was some integrity,�
� said Rosetti.

  ‘Which doesn’t solve our problem,’ Poulard pointed out. ‘We can’t go to NCIS because we’d become hare to the hounds: really endanger everything. And NCIS is where we’ve established the communication link into which the next discovery will be relayed, the moment it’s made. After the way they felt last night about not being informed where’s our guarantee of being told when it happens?’

  ‘Volker,’ said Rosetti, at once. ‘They’ve got to coordinate the move against the Amsterdam factory through him. That was their decision, last night.’

  ‘But we don’t need to be there when the lorry is halted and searched,’ Claudine said.

  ‘We don’t need to be there,’ echoed Winslow, turning Claudine’s remark. ‘It would only ever have been an act of courtesy for us to be included in what, to satisfy jurisdiction, has to be an English arrest.’

  ‘I want to be there,’ said Claudine vehemently, and because she was talking more to herself than to the others she only just stopped short of adding that it was her case.

  ‘I don’t think that’s our priority,’ said Winslow. ‘Our concern is whether the driver is frightened into breaking the pattern. Just dumps the rest of the body.’

  ‘Wherever he did that would guide us to him,’ said Poulard. ‘And there’d be forensic evidence he wouldn’t be able to get rid of.’

  ‘Brooke wasn’t available when I tried to call him before we left the other hotel,’ reminded Winslow ominously. ‘Neither was Pritchard.’ He stirred, getting up from his chair. ‘So it’s time I tried again.’

  Would Sampire and Leclerc have done it if she hadn’t so publicly humiliated them? wondered Claudine. Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not. Maybe she was having to learn the hard way a hard lesson in her new life, that sometimes there was a reason for the political correctness of which until now she’d been so contemptuous.