‘Don’t whimper!’ said Felicite 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 Felicite, 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 Felicite, 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 Felicite. ‘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?’ Felicite said dismissively.
‘They’re clever. It’s not confused, like last time.’
Only Felicite 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 Felicite, 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 Felicite. ‘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 unlimited 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 Felicite 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 Felicite.
The six men looked blankly at her, none of them understanding.
Felicite 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 Felicite 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.
Felicite 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.
Felicite 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 Felicite. ‘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?’
Felicite 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 Felicite had said something they already knew. Looking at Charles Mehre, Blott said: ‘What about criminal records?’
‘Restricted to children?’ Felicite 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 Felicite 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.’