The meeting was more for Claudine’s benefit than Blake’s but the detective led at the beginning, confronting the woman’s insistence that she had already told as much as she knew to both American and Belgian investigators with smiling, sympathetic politeness that impressed Claudine and coaxed a third account from the woman within minutes. It was a terrible, inexplicable misunderstanding, the first time anything like it had ever occurred at the school. A new system had already been introduced, with security guards individually checking pupils in and out of the school. The world seemed to have become a dreadful place. The whole school was praying for Mary Bern’s safe return. Blake said he was sorry but he didn’t think the school’s name could be withheld from the publicity.
‘Have you – or any teacher or official – ever thought your school was being particularly watched?’ he asked.
‘By someone intending to snatch a pupil, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
Madame Flahaur vigorously shook her head. ‘Anyone would have seen how careful…’ she began, trailing off in mid-sentence. ‘That doesn’t sound right now, does it?’
‘It wasn’t the answer to my question anyway,’ Blake said gently. ‘I’m talking about recent weeks or days: a car or a person hanging around that made you curious.’
She shook her head again, although less forcefully. ‘There’s a specific rule. If any member of staff notices anything like that, they have to tell me immediately. And I would have informed the police. There’s been nothing.’
‘That sounds as if such a situation has arisen in the past?’
‘Never,’ the principal insisted. ‘That’s the tragedy: I thought we’d anticipated everything to prevent something like this happening.’
‘Mary Beth would have known she should not have walked off, as she apparently did?’ suggested Claudine, choosing her moment. She needed to decide how well Mary Beth could face the terror of being seized. Upon the child’s behaviour – her strengths or weaknesses – depended the way she would be treated. Literally, perhaps, her survival.
‘Before she became a pupil someone from the embassy visited the school. Talked to me about security. He told me Mary had strict instructions never to leave the premises unless her transport was waiting. That’s our rule, too, with every child. I made sure Mary understood that when she arrived…’ Briefly the woman’s composure wavered, her lip trembling. ‘I know and accept she should not have been released in the first place but having found there was no car waiting she should have immediately returned inside.’
‘Why then do you think she didn’t?’ asked Claudine.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is she a disobedient child?’
The other woman hesitated. ‘She’s extremely self-confident.’
‘Walking away as she did, knowing it was forbidden, indicates wilfulness, doesn’t it?’
Madame Flahaur nodded reluctantly. ‘She liked being the centre of attention.’
‘To shock?’
‘To be the centre of attention,’ insisted the woman.
‘Was she a loud child? Exuberant?’
The woman frowned. ‘Loud? I don’t understand.’
Claudine gestured through the window to the road outside. ‘It’s a very busy street. It would have been crowded at the time she disappeared. If she was snatched – actually grabbed into a passing car – would she have tried to fight? Shouted? Or would she have been too terrified to resist?’
‘I think she would have resisted.’
‘So she’s not a nervous child? Sometimes wilful disobedience hides nervousness.’
‘No. She’s definitely not nervous.’
‘The photographs I have seen are facial portraits. Is she a well-developed girl?’
Madame Flahaur looked quickly at Blake. ‘She is beginning to form.’
‘Has she reached puberty yet?’
The woman flushed, very slightly. ‘Is this important?’
‘Everything I’m asking you is important, Madame Flahaur. The shock of what’s happened to her could cause her to menstruate. If she isn’t familiar with it, even if her mother or a teacher here has told her about it, it would add to whatever difficulties she’s suffering. She’d most probably have to tell a man.’
‘I’m sorry. Of course. No, she is not yet menstruating but it is something about which we instruct our pupils very thoroughly, to take away any fear when it happens.’
‘Does she look her age?’
The principal considered the question. ‘No, I don’t think she does. She is developing, as I said, but only just. And she’s quite a small child, below average height for her age.’
‘Has she had any sex education?’
‘It began this semester.’
‘You know her, Madame Flahaur. And can answer my next question more objectively than perhaps her parents could. Would you say Mary Beth McBride was a well-balanced child?’
Again the woman hesitated before replying. ‘Yes, I think I would.’
‘There is no proof of it yet, but the Americans believe she has been kidnapped: is being held somewhere. If that is the case, how do you think she would respond? Behave?’
‘It would be terrifying for any child.’
‘I’m not asking about any child. I’m asking about Mary. But let’s make it general, if you like. Considering the terror of being held by total strangers and not knowing what was going to happen to her, would Mary stand up to it better or worse than most children of her age?’
There was yet another pause for consideration. ‘Better, I think.’
‘Sport activities are part of the curriculum?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she enthusiastic? Or doesn’t she like it?’
‘She’s a very active participant in everything.’
‘Competitive?’
Madame Flahaur looked steadily back at Claudine, understanding the point. ‘Yes, she’s competitive.’
‘Someone who likes to win, in everything?’
‘Yes. Mary Beth likes very much to win.’
‘Well?’ demanded Blake, as they walked out on to the rue du Canal.
‘Good news and bad news,’ analysed Claudine. ‘She’s a wilfully disobedient child who doesn’t frighten easily. That’s good, if she’s being held. She’ll be able to stand up to the trauma. The bad news is that if she confronts too hard, too forcefully, anyone holding her will probably hurt her.’
‘Kill her?’
‘It would make it more likely.’
‘You’re supposed to make the forecasts,’ he reminded her.
‘She’ll try to do something,’ predicted Claudine.
‘There’s something we haven’t talked about yet,’ Blake pointed out. ‘What about her having been snatched for sex?’
‘It’s something we’re overdue considering,’ agreed Claudine. ‘I think it’s a far stronger possibility than a straight kidnap. Mary should have been taken home by a car waiting to collect her at the door. But it had a puncture. It was pure chance that she was walking up this road, which she shouldn’t have been doing. No one snatching her could have known who she was until after they got her. This isn’t a well-planned abduction of the daughter of a millionaire ambassador.’
‘I’d say that makes it even more likely they’ll kill her, if they haven’t already,’ said Blake.
‘I’d say the same,’ said Claudine.
James McBride was furious, red-faced, temple veins throbbing. Hillary, who insisted upon being part of every discussion about Mary in which her husband was involved, had actually leapt up from her seat, incensed.
‘Just two?’ demanded McBride.
‘And the woman’s never been involved in a kidnap before. She admitted it, openly,’ confirmed Norris. He sat primly on the chair, facing the ambassador across die desk, but inwardly he felt very relaxed, very satisfied. Everything was going precisely as he wanted, at the speed he wanted. He’d cleared his decks: got everything in place.
‘When I’ve finished kicking ass this fucking country – this fucking continent – is going to regret the day they didn’t take this seriously!’
‘Sir!’ said Norris quickly. ‘You made it quite clear in your first message to Washington how you wanted this handled. By the FBI. Which the Bureau and the President completely understood. That’s where we are now. I’ve made all the necessary gestures – at this morning’s meeting I even allowed them to think they’d out-argued me into having the media release, but they’re behind us now. Unimportant. I’m asking you, for the sake of Mary Beth, to let it be. Let’s wait for the approach, which I’ll personally deal with to get Mary Beth back. And we’ve got the perfect rejection when they complain about being kept out: they didn’t behave professionally enough to be included.’