Mind/Reader

by Brian Freemantle

  Outwardly a supremely confident man, Claudine decided. Accustomed to automatic deference but determined not to let anyone forget respect was his by right. A seeker of admiration, perhaps. If he were, then he wasn’t as confident as he seemed on the surface. Too early to assess that. Maybe someone with a tendency to bully, if the respect degenerated into awe of his being the carrier of the legend. She’d have to be careful he didn’t misconstrue her demeanour. Not a problem. She knew she wasn’t someone who invited bullying. Wrong to attempt anything more now: a risk of herself misconstruing if she did.

  She was taking her time getting to him, Sanglier accepted. Almost prolonging the approach. Not apprehensive of him, as people often were. He would have liked her to be. Not to be could indicate that she did know something. Too soon to make a guess like that. Absolutely essential he didn’t make a mistake, a miscalculation. Elfin, far more French than English, in a simple black dress unadorned by any jewellery but wearing matching gold bracelets on either wrist. Different, in person, from the personnel photographs he’d already pored over. Obviously the features were identical but in the flesh there was an animation, a presence, impossible for a camera to capture. Not a beautiful woman - the nose was too long and the lips too full - but definitely an arresting one. Allowing himself the speculation as a man - not as Claudine Carter’s superior with a private worry about what she might know - Sanglier was more intrigued by her than sexually curious, well aware that a lot of men found the sort of ambience Claudine Carter generated a stronger physical attraction than a more obvious promise or expectation. Her face was narrow and open, her eyes - a deeper blue than was obvious in the photographs - only lightly colour-shadowed. The lipgloss was muted, too, and the dark auburn hair was shorter than the file pictures, cut tight into the neck. He thought it made her look imperious. The word stayed with him. There could be an imperiousness in the way her steady gaze matched his. Arrogance could be useful, an attitude to be manipulated, as he’d manipulated the other commissioners to gain the control he had achieved.

  He finally allowed the proper smile, gesturing her to one of an already arranged half-circle of chairs. As she sat, Sanglier started the concealed tape. He said: ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.’

  ‘For me also,’ said Claudine. She spoke in French, as Sanglier had.

  Behind her Claudine heard the door open. There were two more chairs beside her but only the footsteps of one person. She didn’t turn. One of the secretaries from the outer office came into her view, cups and percolator on a tray. The woman poured, unasked, offering coffee to Sanglier first. As she left Sanglier said: ‘Smoke, if you wish.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Do you mind if I do?’ He’d hoped she would be a smoker but he could still create the imagined situation he wanted.

  ‘Of course not.’ She hadn’t expected the politeness.

  ‘You will have already guessed why I’ve called you in.’

  ‘The serial killings, obviously.’ He was facially quite different from his father, whose pictures she could clearly remember adorning commemorative posters and prints during Resistance anniversaries. The old man had been much fuller faced, although similarly moustached, but Henri Sanglier was patrician by comparison to his peasant-like father.

  ‘Initially there is to be a very small task force, personally supervised by me.’ Having lighted one, Sanglier put the Gauloises packet beside the ashtray.

  Claudine waited for the man to continue. When he didn’t she inferred she was undergoing a test and said: ‘To decide the direction of an investigation?’

  ‘Do you consider that the proper way to begin?’

  Claudine was curious at being asked her opinion. All part of the assessment, she supposed. Cautiously she said: ‘It’s the logical way to begin. The geographical separation will be one of the biggest problems.’

  ‘One of a great many,’ encouraged Sanglier.

  ‘To be considered in order of priority and sequence.’

  There certainly wasn’t any lack of professionalism so far.

  ‘Would you have any fear at being part of the initial task force?’

  Claudine frowned at the ill-fitting word in the question. ‘I don’t go into an investigation fearfully. That would be self-defeating. I recognize the difficulties and mitigate or deal with them. So no, I would not be frightened to be part of the initial task force. I would very much like to be.’

  ‘It’s an investigation of the utmost importance to this organization.’

  ‘I know that.’ Claudine supposed they had to go through the obvious. He was holding the cigarette in his right hand and she was aware of his constantly fingering the blotter edge with his left, as if he were uncertain.

  ‘I mean politically as well as professionally.’

  ‘I understand that, too.’

  ‘It would not concern you?’ He broke the cigarette, stubbing it out and almost immediately lighting another.

  Claudine was caught by a conflicting reaction, unsure how to reply. It would be as wrong to appear dismissive of the difficulties as it would be to indicate she was apprehensive. Which in any case she wasn’t. ‘It would be something of which I would be aware, naturally. But I would not consider it primarily my responsibility. My primary responsibility would be a professional investigatory one, leading to detection and arrests.’

  ‘You believe you could dissociate one requirement from the other?’

  What commitment did the bloody man want her to make? ‘I think I could successfully balance the two, at the level at which I would be working.’

  ‘Even in its limited initial size, the task force would be multinational.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You don’t foresee any difficulty working like that?’

  Another ineptly worded question. ‘I was appointed after a protracted vetting procedure precisely because I satisfied people I wouldn’t have any difficulty working like that. My background is more European than specifically English.’

  Sanglier lighted another cigarette. ‘Not just a European background, in fact, but a very early association with an organization like ours.’

  Claudine was bewildered at the reference to her father. It confused her more than anything else so far, although he would obviously have studied her personnel file and know of her father’s attachment to Interpol in Lyon. ‘A peripheral association.’

  ‘Weren’t you encouraged by the work your father did when you decided upon your own career?’

  What the hell had this to do with judging her suitability as a criminal psychologist involved in a serial murder investigation? She had no intention of talking about a man who’d meant so little to her. Shortly, she said: ‘Not at all. There is no operational function at Interpol. Just the assembling and dissemination of criminal intelligence. There was no guidance my father could have provided upon what I chose to do.’

  It sounded like disrespect for her father, which Sanglier didn’t understand. How could there be disrespect towards someone who, according to Claudine’s file, had died ten years earlier and with whom she hadn’t permanently lived for four years before that, during her time at the Sorbonne? He crumpled the latest cigarette, half smoked, into the ashtray so that it broke like the other one and said, intentionally dramatic: ‘I’m sure you are going to be an extremely effective member of the team.’

  For the briefest moment Claudine didn’t properly appreciate that it hadn’t after all been a contest between herself and the other Europol psychologists and that Sanglier was confirming her place on the task force. Formally, wishing there were better words, she said: ‘I will do everything possible to make myself so.’

  The two men entered together, obviously having been kept waiting outside. Claudine at once recognized René Poulard but not the other man. Poulard gave no indication of recognizing her, which was understandable after their previous encounters. She hadn’t consciously connected Poulard with her earlier reflection about predatory sexism but her most boorish
experience within Europol had involved the thin-bodied, saturnine Frenchman. Having lived so long in France Claudine was accustomed to the inherent Gallic flattery towards women - before moving to England and marrying Warwick she had accepted it as harmlessly amusing, enjoyable even - but Poulard’s went beyond hopeful flirtation to overconfident, virtually arrogant expectation. He’d refused to believe her uninterest, clearly imagining instead she was putting up a sexual challenge. Which he’d met with even more persistent after-work drink and dinner invitations until finally she’d intentionally chosen an audience in Europol’s cocktail bar for her public rejection, knowingly - determinedly – humiliating the man.

  Which made his inclusion in a tight-knit task force engaged on the organization’s first, can’t-fail operation possibly the worst Claudine could have imagined.

  As the two men finished their long walk to his desk Sanglier, who knew of the confrontation because it was part of knowing everything about Claudine Carter and had picked Poulard because of it, was thinking exactly the same thing. Sanglier didn’t stand to greet them and delayed inviting them to sit while he made the formal introductions.

  Any reaction Poulard might have given at finding Claudine already waiting in the commissioner’s room was initially swamped by his being in Sanglier’s presence. Claudine thought his attitude came close to the awe she had determined against. The response from the second man, whom Sanglier introduced as Superintendent Bruno Siemen, seconded from the organized crime bureau of the Bundeskriminalamt, was almost as obsequious and Claudine guessed Poulard had briefed the German while they waited outside. Poulard finally allowed himself a gesture with their required handshake, making a caressing withdrawal which Claudine decided was an attempt at mockery. Siemen’s contact was perfunctory and limp.

  Sanglier’s approach to the two men was quite different from that to her and Claudine divided her concentration between the facts of the briefing, with which she felt suf ficiently familiar, and how Sanglier conducted it. There was no invitation to smoke, which he stopped doing after one more cigarette, nor the automatic arrival of fresh coffee. And there was a brusqueness in Sanglier’s tone, which made Claudine think again how deference prompted bullying.

  Sanglier put far more stress on political pitfalls, the difficulty of working with national forces and the impossibility of failure than he had to her. But he didn’t ask for their personal reaction at being selected or whether they felt able to combine the necessary political awareness with the absolute essential of solving the serial murders. Nor did he seek their views about the investigation’s beginning with a concentrated task force, which Claudine imagined was a decision about which they might have had professional, contributing opinions. Sanglier promised every technical and scientific facility available at Europol, in addition to those of national forces. Manpower, too, once the way was decided upon for the investigation to follow. Finding that route - the correct route

  - was their principal objective. An incident room would obviously be made available within the building and their conferences recorded and case files maintained by support staff. He would resolve any difficulty they experienced with national forces at the highest level. The two essentials were speed and a satisfactory conclusion. Sanglier finished by smiling towards Claudine and saying, in a much less official tone: ‘As Dr Carter and I have already decided.’ He briefly extended the smile to the two men and added, briskly: ‘Now! Questions?’

  If it hadn’t been inappropriate Claudine’s would have been why he’d concluded the briefing by inexplicably involving her like that. Poulard and Siemen remained silent, each waiting for the other to speak. Sanglier shifted impatiently, looking directly at Poulard. ‘Well?’

  ‘You are in charge?’ said Poulard, weak-voiced.

  Excellent, thought Sanglier. ‘Yes.’

  ‘On a daily basis?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ protested Sanglier, although he did.

  ‘Are we to work with you on a daily basis?’ said the discomfited man, unwilling to ask the direct question.

  ‘I’m not sure that would be practicable - even possible - with the murders spread as they are. I will, of course, be available at all times, day or night.’ That would sound impressive on the tape.

  ‘So what is the chain of command at our level?’ Poulard was finally forced to ask. He only gestured towards Siemen.

  ‘You have equal rank,’ said Sanglier, answering the man literally. ‘I hadn’t imagined a difficulty.’

  ‘I’m sure there won’t be one,’ said Siemen. He was a large, blond-haired man who had the walked-over face - flattened nose and puffed cheeks - and muscle-turning-to-fat body of a former sportsman. His French was good, although accented.

  Poulard at last indicated Claudine. ‘And Dr Carter?’

  ‘You’ve surely worked with a forensic psychologist in the past?’

  ‘Yes.’ The man’s face was burning.

  Sanglier turned to Claudine. ‘How do you see yourself operating, Dr Carter?’

  ‘As a perfectly harmonious team,’ said Claudine.

  ‘Which is how I insist you must work,’ said Sanglier.

  By the time Sanglier had finished the word-for-word examination of the meeting it had long ago grown dark outside his locked office and he’d almost finished the second bottle of mineral water to ease the dryness of his throat after chain-smoking the harsh cigarettes. But that, like everything else, had been worthwhile. Choosing to see her first - and alone - had been the master stroke, buttressed by all the other seemingly inconsequential gestures that hadn’t been inconsequential in the least. The full ashtray would have registered with both men, as obvious as the coffee she’d been offered but they hadn’t. It had been an equally good idea to keep them waiting for more than half an hour after the time he’d summoned them and it was clear from the stumbling, who’sin-charge questions from Poulard that the resentment had been well and truly created.

  Sanglier wished he understood the woman’s attitude towards her father. It could simply have been surprise at his reference to the man, although she didn’t appear someone easily surprised, but he was sure there had been a dismissiveness.

  Sanglier decided he’d speculated enough. He rose at last, carefully storing the tape cassette in his personal safe, identical to that in Claudine’s office two floors below. It had, Sanglier decided, been a good beginning: better than he could have hoped for.

  And it hadn’t finished yet, he reflected, as the tentative tap came at his door. Because it was locked Sanglier had to walk the entire length of the room but he didn’t mind. This meeting was going to be entirely different.

  ‘Nothing!’ exclaimed Toomey, disappointed.

  ‘Not without her,’ said the Serious Fraud Office superin-tendant. John Walker was a large, square-bodied man so obviously a policeman he rarely had to produce a warrant card for identification.

  ‘I think there’s enough for a prosecution,’ insisted Toomey.

  ‘Recommend it, then,’ said Walker.

  ‘Bickerstone is your investigation: it’s for you to suggest it.’

  The large man shook his head. ‘The bastard’s been too bloody clever.’

  ‘She’s hiding something,’ insisted Toomey.

  ‘You mean she was part of it?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s something.’

  ‘Find out what it is and we’ll have a case,’ said Walker simply.

  ‘I’m going to,’ promised Toomey. ‘She thought she could dance rings around me. I’m going to prove her wrong.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  In the solitude of the lake-view apartment, with a Duke Ellington tape in the background, it was instinctive for Claudine to seek shape and pattern from the encounter with Henri Sanglier, as she always looked for shape and pattern in her life, privately as well as professionally. She didn’t find any and it disorientated her.

  She paraded the inconsistencies in her mind, annoyed at questions without answers. Why the prepared-in-advance cof
fee, relax-with-a-cigarette greeting? And why not for the men? Why had Sanglier sought her opinion about the size and function of the task force, but not theirs? And the biggest, most personal ‘why’ of all: why had the man suddenly talked about her father and his possible influence upon her?

  There was no logic. Introducing her father made no sense, even for someone whose entire life had been entwined to the point of mummification with a genuine icon of a French resistance movement.

  Difficult though it was to accept, the only positive, trained impression that Claudine retained was that Henri Sanglier had been nervous during their one-to-one meeting. Which was as preposterous as too much else. What was there to make Henri Sanglier nervous? But the uncertainty - the plucking of the blotter edge and virtual chain-smoking of cigarettes he’d crushed out to destruction - had definitely registered with her as a personal agitation. Towards Poulard and Siemen his demeanour had been entirely and markedly different, forceful to the point of being overbearing but always supremely professional.

  The Ellington recording automatically switched to the reverse tracks and Claudine used the remote control to lower the volume. She hadn’t wanted to start work at Europol like this. She hadn’t had any preconceptions about the crimes she might be called upon to help solve - a preconception was professionally the very last thing with which to enter an investigation - but she had imagined the beginning of every case upon which the leading policemen of Europe were employed would go according to a smooth running pattern she could recognize from familiar experience. There was nothing smooth running or familiar about what had happened so far. So far she’d undergone an inadequate, confusing briefing from a controller whose attitude she didn’t understand and been paired with the very Europol detective with whom it could be the most difficulty personally to operate … while all the time knowing the stature of a much resented and much opposed European FBI was bound up with her contribution in solving what appeared the most bizarre crime in the history of serial murders, which by their very nature formed a chronicle of the bizarre.