There was a jeering laugh. ‘You haven’t lost me! You won’t find me, either.’
‘My name is Claudine. Claudine Carter.’
‘So?’
‘I wanted you to know.’ Was she moving too quickly?
The laugh came again. ‘What name would you like me to have?’
‘Your choice.’
‘How about Mercedes? That’s appropriate, isn’t it?’
Claudine felt a stir of satisfaction. The woman was responding, nibbling the unsuspected bait! ‘Is it appropriate?’
There was a silence. She’d never get it, Claudine guessed: would the woman actually admit it?
‘You tell me.’
Good enough. ‘In its original Spanish it’s a name that means compassionate or merciful. Are you compassionate and merciful?’
‘You have to tell me that, too. And isn’t name comparison invidious?’
Claudine didn’t want her too angry: she had the child to take the irritation out on. ‘I don’t follow,’ she admitted.
‘In Latin, the name Claudine means the lame one.’
Anxious to show her cleverness: that was good. ‘Let’s hope you’re Mercedes the merciful.’
The pause this time had nothing to do with the uneven sound. In apparent awareness the woman said: ‘You are the mind-reader, aren’t you?’
She had to avoid responding to questions as much as possible, always making the woman come to her. ‘We need to know that Mary is all right,’ Claudine repeated.
‘She is.’
‘How is she?’
‘Learning.’
Claudine was chilled by the word. A challenge? Or a taunt? She couldn’t avoid it. ‘Learning what?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Not a clever negotiating lady like you!’
‘What’s Mary learning?’
The line abruptly became clear enough for a brief sound of background noise. ‘How to be a good girl.’
‘Let’s talk about getting Mary back.’
‘I’m not sure I want to give her back yet. I’ve become attached to her.’
This was wrong: dangerous! ‘I said we wanted to negotiate.’
‘There is nothing to negotiate really, is mere?’
‘Tell me what you want.’
‘I want to speak to the ambassador.’
‘He wants me to talk to you on his behalf.’
‘You’re not understanding, silly woman. You all do what I tell you, otherwise Mary isn’t going to be a happy little girl. When I call tomorrow I want to speak to McBride, not you. And by tomorrow you’ll know what will happen if you don’t do precisely what I tell you.’
‘There’s something I want to say,’ blurted Claudine, trying to hold the woman.
‘I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say. I want the ambassador waiting this time tomorrow. And I know he will be.’
‘I want-’ started Claudine but stopped as the line went dead. The receiver was suddenly heavy in her hand. She became aware she was shaking again and dropped rather man replaced the telephone on its rest. She looked up to see everyone staring at her.
Something was wrong. Didn’t fit. Or jarred, maybe. There was something in the recording mat they’d just sat through that was out of context, but she couldn’t isolate it. There’d been too much in too short a time, she told herself. Objectively, she shouldn’t have even taken the call, although she was glad she had. Claudine believed, despite the discrepancy, whatever it was, that it had been useful and that there was a lot to learn from it. But later. Not now. Now she was stretched to breaking point, about to snap. Overwhelmed. The shaking came in spasms, starting, stopping, starting again.
‘Are we going to get Mary back?’
Claudine only just avoided wincing at the desperation in McBride’s voice. And at the wide-eyed strain on the face of Hillary, who Claudine had not realized was present until she’d replaced the telephone. Claudine felt crushed, as if the room – no, not the room: a force she couldn’t see – was closing in to compress her into something very small, too small for them to hear or take notice of. Fumbling the Librium from her track suit pocket she said: ‘Can I have some water, please?’
Blake poured it for her, once more using the closeness to say: ‘You want the doctor again?’
Claudine shook her head. ‘I need some time. To listen to the recording again, compare it to the written transcript…’
‘You must have some impressions!’ insisted Smet. ‘It was the woman in the car, wasn’t it?’
‘Of course it was,’ said Claudine irritably.
‘On a mobile telephone,’ said Rampling. ‘That’s why the sound level kept rising and falling: interference from bridges and highly built-up areas. That’s why we couldn’t get any sort of fix: tomorrow we’ll use scanners.’
‘Are we going to get Mary back?’ Hillary McBride repeated her husband’s question, even-voiced, rigidly in command of herself. She added: ‘Back alive?’ and Claudine wished she hadn’t.
‘I think so,’ said Claudine reluctantly.
‘That’s not good enough,’ protested McBride.
‘It’s the best I can offer,’ said Claudine.
‘You’re supposed to know!’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Claudine. ‘Not yet. I will but not yet.’
‘I don’t think we should press Dr Carter any more,’ said Sanglier.
‘The inquiry… inquest…?’ groped Claudine.
‘It’s a formality: we won’t need you,’ said Harrison.
‘I’d like to go back to the hotel,’ Claudine admitted.
‘What if she calls again?’ demanded Hillary McBride.
People seemed to be advancing towards her, retreating and advancing again and Claudine regretted taking the tranquillizer. With a monumental effort she said: ‘She won’t call again: not until the same time tomorrow. Maybe not even then.’
‘So you have worked something out?’ demanded Smet.
‘I want to go home,’ said Claudine.
She was unaware of the drive back to the Metropole or of Blake’s being with her until focusing jerkily upon him helping her through the foyer. She began to wonder how he’d got the key to her room but couldn’t hold the thought and then found hreself in it. He was there too, but moving around: momentarily she didn’t know where he was. He emerged from the bathroom, tossing something up and down in his hand, and as he crossed to the bureau telephone Claudine remember the bugs.
‘All clear,’ he announced, holding out the tiny pin-heads in the palm of his hand.
‘I don’t want to be by myself,’ said Claudine.
‘No,’ agreed Blake.
It hadn’t gone at all as she’d intended and Felicite was angry: frustrated. Claudine fucking Carter wasn’t frightened enough. None of them were, if they were prepared to let the woman take the call which they should all have been pleading to receive. They had to be taught a lesson.
She coasted the Mercedes into the limited parking zone outside the railway station and on her way to the public telephones thrust deeply into a refuse bin the mobile August Dehane had programmed with the number of one that had been stolen a week earlier in Bruges.
Lascelles came on the line as soon as Felicite had identified herself to his receptionist. ‘A scalpel?’
‘I’ll explain when we meet.’
‘I’m looking forward to seeing her,’ said the doctor.
‘She’s beautiful,’ promised Felicite.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Hello.’
‘Where’s the lady?’ Mary had been waiting eagerly, on her feet just inside the door when she heard the key grate. Now there was a plunge of disappointment.
‘She couldn’t come,’ said Charles Mehre.
‘She promised!’ She’d become her friend. Been kind to her. It wasn’t fair.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is she coming later?’
‘No. Just me.’
‘She promised!’ Mary repeated.
Charles Mehre shrugged.
‘I want to come outside,’ insisted Mary.
The man hesitated, blocking the entrance to the cell. ‘All right.’