The Predators

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Can you understand what they’re saying?’ demanded Félicité. 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, Félicité said: ‘The men on the television were talking about children getting punished if they’re bad, weren’t they?’

  Mehre sniggered 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 Félicité.

  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 Félicité.

  ‘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?’

  Félicité hadn’t but they were going to need another identification. ‘Do you have a pet?’

  ‘A rabbit.’

  ‘What’s its name?’

  ‘Billy Boy.’

  ‘What colour is he?’

  ‘White, with black ears. And a black leg.’

  ‘Who’ll be looking after him?’

  ‘Mom, I suppose.’

  ‘I didn’t mean a pet to play with. I meant another boy or girl.’

  ‘Does one live here, in this house?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Yes, I would.’ Nothing bad could happen if there was another boy or girl in the house. Mary felt better. Safer. Perhaps they could become friends and whoever it was might help her get away, like in the books. ‘Is there someone?’

  ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we?’

  Did she mean it? Or was she playing another silly game? She kept talking about games. This might be one of them, making Mary think she could be with someone and then saying she couldn’t. Cheating her. She wanted so much to be home. Home with mom. Cuddling with mom, like mom wanted to do a lot but she didn’t, saying it was silly. She didn’t think it was silly now. She wanted to be with someone who cuddled her. ‘Please let me go home.’

  ‘Don’t whimper!’ said Félicité sharply.

  ‘I hate you!’

  ‘You’ll love me in the end. Properly.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘I’ll make you.’

  Without warning the door leading upstairs opened. Without entering Gaston Mehre said: ‘The others are here. They want you to come.’

  ‘What …?’ demanded Félicité, surprised.

  ‘Please come.’

  He wasn’t wearing a mask and Mary saw a balding man with a red face. What hair he had was red, too. She’d be able to tell people what he looked like when she got home. She wanted them punished for what they were doing to her, the woman most of all. But after she got home.

  ‘They know!’ declared Jean Smet. He strode round the room with its panoramic view of the now placid river, nervously smoking the cigarette he’d lit from the stub of the previous one.

  ‘Know what?’ demanded Félicité, lounged in her throne-like chair. ‘And for Christ’s sake stop running around.’ She was angry at the man’s panic, which was making the rest nervous. And at his summoning them all like this, without asking her permission.

  The lawyer did stop but it seemed difficult for him to remain still. ‘That we took her for sex, in the beginning. They’re going back through police records not just in Brussels but throughout the country: Europol records, too.’ He looked fleetingly at Dehane. ‘They know computers are being used cleverly. They’re sure there’s no shortage of money.’ He concentrated upon Félicité. ‘Did you go to school in England?’

  She laughed at the totally unexpected question. ‘For three years. My father was at the London embassy. What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘She thought the person who wrote the message learned the language properly.’

  ‘So what?’ Félicité said dismissively.

  ‘They’re clever. It’s not confused, like last time.’

  Only Félicité was relaxed, unworried. The Mehre brothers were side by side with their backs to the water, Gaston holding Charles’s hand comfortingly. The obese Michel Blott was frowning at the apparent knowledge of those hunting them and August Dehane had started nibbling at a thumb nail, a nerve beginning to pull at the corner of his mouth. Smet lit another cigarette from his preceding stub and set off once more, moving up and down in front of the window. The heavily bespectacled Henri Cool sat with his arms awkwardly folded, as if he were holding himself for reassurance.

  ‘We can’t go on,’ insisted Smet. ‘We’ve got to get rid of her. We should have done it the first day. Not started all this.’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Cool reminded them.

  ‘So they’re cleverer than the last time,’ mused Félicité, more to herself than the others. ‘That’s good. It makes it much more interesting.’

  ‘They think that, too: that we’re doing it more as a challenge than for the money,’ blurted the government lawyer.

  ‘They have worked a lot out, haven’t they?’ conceded Félicité. ‘Who, exactly, is the clever one?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Smet. ‘An English superintendent, Blake, did most of the talking at the ministry, but there were two psychologists, a woman and an American. The Americans have brought in a lot of people and their man from the embassy., Harrison, said that as many more could be brought in as are wanted. Poncellet can second as many officers as they want from any force in the country. And the Europol commissioner, Sanglier, said there are unlimite
d resources once the investigation is focused. The entire Cabinet is determined to find her: find who’s got her. Ulieff’s job is on the line …’

  ‘All of which I anticipated, and we expected,’ said Félicité mildly.

  ‘I’m not sure that we did, not properly,’ said Blott, the other lawyer. There was the faintest sheen of perspiration on his forehead.

  ‘Once the investigation is focused,’ echoed Félicité.

  The six men looked blankly at her, none of them understanding.

  Félicité stared contemptuously back at them, one by one, finishing upon Smet. ‘That’s what you said, isn’t it?’

  ‘What Sanglier said.’

  ‘So what we’ve got is nothing more than intelligent police guesswork,’ sighed the woman. ‘They don’t know anything. And if they do, you’ll know, won’t you?’

  ‘You’re asking me to do too much,’ complained Smet. ‘I’m taking all the risk. You’ve no idea what it’s like, sitting mere listening to it!’

  ‘You aren’t in any danger and you know it,’ said Félicité impatiently. ‘It’s all going exactly as I knew it would. Even better, with your attachment to Poncellet. That was my idea too, remember? But you did very well, making it work.’

  Smet smiled gratefully, stubbing out his cigarette without lighting another. ‘It was the only positive idea anyone had before we met them all. Ulieff almost cried with gratitude.’

  ‘You’ve got full access?’

  ‘Ulieff’s told Poncellet he wants daily briefings.’

  ‘Which means we’ll have daily briefings, too. So where’s the danger?’

  ‘I think they’re clever,’ insisted Smet inadequately, his mind locked on a single thought.

  Félicité looked at Dehane. ‘And we’re cleverer, aren’t we, August?’

  The deputy head of Belgacom’s research and development smiled uncertainly. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You know so, all of you. Have I ever failed you?’ They were like children themselves, always needing to be reassured.

  ‘No,’ mumbled Cool, for all of them.

  ‘Did Marcel ever fail you, before me?’

  ‘No,’ said Cool again.

  ‘So we’re going to stop panicking, aren’t we? Stop panicking and listen to me and everything will work out just as I want it to.’ To Dehane she said: ‘What happened after the Americans posted their message?’

  ‘There’ve been almost five hundred responses, with an upsurge after the press conference,’ replied Dehane, a greying, bearded man.

  Félicité smiled. ‘But not one from us. And every single one of those five hundred has to be eliminated, right?’ The American response had been another bonus she hadn’t expected but she wanted them to think that she had, because she’d already decided how protective it was.

  Smet said: ‘That’s the only positive line of enquiry, according to today’s meeting.’

  ‘Which we already know is absolutely pointless,’ said Félicité. ‘People running round in circles like chickens with their heads cut off.’ She looked pointedly at Smet, deciding the comparison fitted: a squawking, long-legged human chicken shitting himself at the first sight of the farmer’s axe.

  Aware of her concentration Smet finally abandoned his aimless wandering and sat down in an opposite chair.

  ‘We’ve opened new lines into the embassy, at the Americans’ request,’ said Dehane. ‘We’ve actually been officially asked to impose a monitor on the embassy’s e-mail address. And we’ve sent some of our operators there to help with the backlog that’s built up.’

  ‘So we’ll know all about that from you, just as we’ll know all about the official investigation from Jean, won’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Dehane. ‘We are safe, aren’t we?’

  Félicité let the question settle in everyone’s mind, conscious of the discernible recovery among the men. ‘We’re going to know what the people looking for us are doing and thinking, every minute of every day. And watch them, every minute of every day, buried under an avalanche of stupid messages.’

  Gaston Mehre patted his brother’s hand reassuringly. Charles covered the comforting fingers with his own. Blott and Dehane looked at each other and nodded, smiling, as if Félicité had said something they already knew. Looking at Charles Mehre, Blott said: ‘What about criminal records?’

  ‘Restricted to children?’ Félicité asked Smet.

  ‘That’s the remit,’ confirmed the lawyer.

  ‘It was indecency in a public place, twelve years ago,’ reminded Gaston, patting his brother’s hand again. ‘The girl was sixteen. Charles was eighteen.’

  ‘It won’t show up,’ said Félicité positively. She held out a wavering finger, as if she was holding a gun, stopping at Blott. ‘You can compose the next message. I’ve got an identification. She’s got a pet rabbit named Billy.’

  The fat man shifted uncomfortably. ‘What shall I say?’

  ‘This one doesn’t have to have any input from me,’ said Félicité, impatient again. ‘I don’t want to know what it says. Just compose it and give it to August to send.’

  ‘Should I make a demand? Get it over with quickly?’ asked Blott hopefully.

  ‘I think you should,’ said Smet. ‘I want to get it finished. I’m the one under all the pressure.’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ said Félicité. ‘They’re the ones under pressure. I want to increase it before the negotiations start.’

  Cool said: ‘We should kill her. We’re going to anyway. Let’s have a party, now, and get it over with.’

  ‘You know the party we’re going to have,’ Félicité reminded him. ‘The others haven’t found their new friends yet.’

  Before she left, Félicité beckoned Gaston away from his brother. She said: ‘Charles was getting too excited this afternoon. I don’t want him doing anything to Mary.’

  ‘I know how to quieten him,’ said the man. ‘Don’t worry.’

  *

  Before Sanglier caught a late afternoon train back to The Hague it was agreed to post an appeal on every Internet provider for users to leave the embassy’s home page clear for whoever held Mary to make unimpeded contact, despite Kurt Volker’s doubt that it would have any effect.

  ‘It’s a user’s dream,’ warned the German. ‘Every surfer is a voyeur at heart. Think of the opportunity! The chance to become involved in a sensational investigation from the uninvolved comfort and danger-free safety of their own armchair! Certainly every journalist from every media outlet will be permanently connected.’

  Claudine was depressed by the enormous traffic flow into the greatly enlarged computer centre, unable to believe it possible for a genuine kidnap message to be identified from the mass of material being sorted in front of her. Volker wanted to attempt a fast-track selection program and refused Claudine’s dinner suggestion, so because it had been a hard day and La Maison du Cygne was conveniently close she and Blake ate there again. Exhausted, Claudine sat back, very content to let Blake order.

  ‘A lot of battles won?’ he suggested.

  ‘But not the war,’ cautioned Claudine. She supposed she should have felt satisfied by the events of the day but she didn’t. She felt curiously flat, unsettled that there wasn’t a positive direction in which to go. It wasn’t, she knew, a properly dispassionate reflection but always in the forefront of her mind was the thought of an imprisoned child she had somehow to find.

  ‘You think the Americans will still try to go it alone?’

  ‘Norris will, if he gets the chance,’ predicted Claudine.

  ‘I can’t see that happening now,’ said Blake, looking casually round the room.

  ‘I did a terrible tiling to him today.’ She supposed her guilt contributed to her despondency.

  ‘It was justified, in the circumstances.’

  ‘It’s never justified for a doctor, which I am, to make an illness worse!’

  ‘You think you did that?’

  ‘Very possibly.’

 
‘But you can’t be sure?’

  ‘I think I did. That’s enough.’

  ‘It will be, if you get Mary back,’ said Blake, turning Claudine’s words back upon her.

  ‘It’s supposed to be a combined effort,’ she reminded him. The sole was excellent but she was having difficulty eating. Perhaps she should have stayed at the hotel.

  ‘You were very impressive today,’ Blake congratulated her.

  Claudine’s spirits lifted slightly. ‘You were pretty impressive yourself.’

  ‘Largely repeating your theories.’

  ‘I’d say the input was fifty-fifty.’

  ‘You think there could be something from the people who’ve got her among all the stuff that’s come in?’

  Claudine shrugged: ‘If there is it’s going to be a hell of a job finding it.’

  ‘I don’t like the helplessness of having to wait for them to make a move. They’re orchestrating the entire thing.’

  ‘That’s the whole point,’ insisted Claudine. ‘They’re getting their satisfaction from control: making us follow their lead.’

  ‘Similar to Norris?’

  ‘Marginally.’

  ‘Let’s hope it’s the only way they’re getting their satisfaction,’ said Blake heavily.

  ‘I wish to God I could be more certain about that,’ admitted Claudine. ‘If she is still alive and they’ve started abusing her she’ll break – become subservient, and totally confused by adults doing things to her she won’t fully understand. Why it’s happening, I mean.’

  ‘She’s been gone more than three days,’ the man reminded her.

  ‘They might still not have touched her, physically. Don’t forget the usual way is to try to convince the child that sex with an adult is quite normal: talk about it first and show them photographs and films of it happening to other children.’

  ‘That sounds bad enough to me,’ said Blake.

  ‘I’m hoping for arrogance,’ said Claudine. ‘And that’s how I’m connecting the daytime abduction with their first contact. Both are arrogant – the daylight snatch, on a crowded street – even reckless. That’s in Mary’s favour.’

  ‘How long will it go on like that?’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ admitted Claudine honestly. ‘Just as I wish I could guess how much longer Mary can hold on, whether she’s being sexually molested or not.’