Mind/Reader

by Brian Freemantle

‘Well enough.’

  ‘Did he maintain daily contact with Dr Carter?’

  Poulard swallowed again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘They have a good working relationship?’

  ‘Very good. As she has with the computer man, Volker. She seems to have put him on an equal footing with the rest of us.’

  It hadn’t been the direction in which Sanglier set out but he decided to follow it. ‘Why’s that a problem?’

  ‘It isn’t, of course. 1 just didn’t expect it. There doesn’t seem to be anything he can’t do or find out with a computer.’

  The unease twitched through Sanglier. ‘Accessing records, you mean?’

  ‘Everything, from the way he’s put the murder dossiers together.’

  Just the murder dossiers, wondered Sanglier. It would be obvious for her to get the best man possible, to search archives. And from his own well-concealed searches he knew a lot of wartime material had been transferred to computer databases. It led him in the direction he intended. ‘Has she talked to you about how good he is?’

  ‘There hasn’t been time since I got back.’

  ‘Haven’t you got to know each other at all?’

  Poulard shrugged. ‘Lunch, the first day. I know her husband died but she really didn’t tell us much about herself.’

  ‘Did she say anything about me?’ demanded Sanglier bluntly.

  ‘You?’ said Poulard, confused.

  Sanglier made a disparaging gesture. ‘I’m aware of gossip here, about my appointment. The family name …’

  ‘No,’ said Poulard. ‘She didn’t say anything at all.’

  ‘I don’t enjoy gossip,’ said Sanglier. ‘I’m extremely proud of the family name.’

  Poulard blinked, his bewilderment growing. ‘Of course. I can understand.’

  ‘I’d like to be told, if you encounter it.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Enough, decided Sanglier. ‘I would like to see far more practical police initiative in the coming days. Don’t forget there could be more killings.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Poulard.

  He wasn’t allowed to. The head of the ninth victim was found the following morning, in Rome. The discovery diminished the impact of the arrest of three neo-Nazis for the Cologne killing.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ agreed the Serious Fraud Office superintendent, John Walker. ‘I think the bugger’s frightened. We have to keep him that way.’

  ‘How long can he continue to dodge another interview?’ demanded Toomey.

  ‘Not long,’ said Walker, standing at his office window with the wide, feet-splayed stance of a street-corner constable. ‘I’m happy to let him plead pressure of business for a week or two. All he’s doing is putting off the evil moment and he knows it. So he’ll be putting pressure upon himself, as well as getting it from us. We’ll just keep applying to his lawyers. There’s no way of their guessing what you’ve got, is there?’

  ‘No,’ said Toomey confidently.

  ‘And we’ll see him in tandem this time. That’ll make him twitch.’

  ‘What about the woman?’

  ‘Afterwards,’ decided Walker. ‘Play this right and they’ll collapse in upon each other. One won’t be able to dump the shit on the other fast enough.’

  ‘There’s the question of political embarrassment, in her case.’

  ‘We’ll get her out of Europol long before there’s any risk of that.’ The large man smiled. ‘We’re going to make a reputation out of this. That’ll be good, won’t it?’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  From the occasional rusted ornamentation elsewhere along the ancient wall of the Borghese Gardens, Claudine guessed the head was impaled on a piece of metal to hold it in position. It was of a black woman whose age Rosetti estimated at between twenty and twenty-five. The lipstick was bright red and smudged from her lower lip over her chin. The kohl around her eyes, which were closed, was smudged, too. There were two decorative tribal scars down either cheek. The hair was short and tightly curled, a cap to her skull. There were gold earrings set with a red stone. The ears were pierced and the lobe of the left was torn, at the point of the piercing. From the length of the neck that remained Claudine thought the woman could have been Nubian, although she wasn’t sure if Nubian girls were decorated with tribal scars. Apart from where the neck had been severed there were no wounds or contusions. There was no facial contortion. The tribal scars were not intrusive and Claudine decided in life the woman would have been striking.

  The head, hidden now within a forensic tent, had been fixed to face the Vatican and the dome of St Peter’s, clearly visible from the hill upon which the gardens had been created by the cardinal nephew of a seventeenth-century Pope.

  Only the Rome pathologist was inside the tent with Claudine and Rosetti but the area outside was crowded with what Claudine estimated to be twice as many uniformed and plainclothes carabinieri as were conceivably necessary. They milled about aimlessly, mostly looking towards where the media people and their battery of television and still cameras were penned behind rope barriers. There was much serious-faced mobile telephone and radio conversation for a lot of which the policemen seemed to find it necessary to walk about.

  The ground and grass were littered with discarded cigarette ends. The grass was flattened and the gravel of the paths churned. The grass within their tent was crushed, too, and thick with butts.

  Claudine’s only language, apart from English and French, was German, so she was unable to follow the intense discussion between Rosetti and the other Italian. He was ignoring her. The Rome police chief hadn’t, when they’d arrived, the open appraisal obvious until Rosetti had said something. Now the man, Giovanni Ponzio, waited just outside the tent. Like everyone else he stood facing the banked cameras. He smiled in her direction whenever she looked out of the canvas screen.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Rosetti.

  ‘Of course.’ She was actually finding it very hot inside the sterile, evidence-protecting suit she’d already decided to be a wasted gesture in view of the chaotic trampling all around her.

  ‘Anything more you want to see while the head’s in situ?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘We want to take it off now.’ Rosetti and the other man looked at her, waiting.

  ‘Why don’t you then?’

  ‘You don’t want to go outside?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  Rosetti shrugged, deferring to the local pathologist. The head came off with the faintest of sucking sounds. The fixing had been a metal spike about twenty-two centimetres long that Claudine guessed had originally supported some statuary, maybe even a bust. It would have been easy to repeat the mistake of the bateau mouche in Paris, imagining the head part of an intended decoration.

  ‘Clean cuts, so it was a knife,’ said Rosetti, in French for her benefit. ‘But there are a lot of them: the head was hacked off, in a series of blows. Frenzied even. Larynx appears intact and there’s no external evidence of strangulation.’

  ‘From the repose of the face she was dead before the dismemberment,’ suggested Claudine.

  ‘Yes.’

  Claudine indicated the metal spike. ‘Quite a lot of clotting there but not a lot on the stonework itself.’

  ‘It must have been virtually bloodless,’ said Rosetti, agreeing again. He scraped some residue off the spike into a glassine envelope. ‘There’s nothing significant in the skin temperature, except that it is not particularly cold to the touch. Impossible to estimate a time of death within any practical time period. There’s enough blood to test for freezing, though.’

  Claudine looked closely at the staining on the spike. ‘Embedded about ten centimetres: substantial force?’

  ‘I’ll need to measure the precise depth, but that’s about right. So yes, substantial.’

  ‘A two-handed, downward movement from a balanced position,’ guessed Claudine. ‘Do you think there’s enough smoothness in the earrings to be useful?’

  ‘I
t’s worth mentioning to Ponzio: there’s no powder residue,’ said Rosetti, understanding the question. ‘And you can see there’s no mouth tearing. I’ll need to check at the mortuary but it doesn’t look as if any attempt was made to impose a smile.’

  Claudine pointed to the trailed eye make-up. ‘That could have been made by the melting of ice that had formed externally, couldn’t it?’

  ‘Possible,’ conceded Rosetti. ‘I think it’s far more likely to be lachrymatory, from the natural collapse of the tear glands.’

  ‘It’s too soon, obviously, but I don’t think she’s part of our primary Celeste group.’

  ‘Creating a fourth of her own?’

  ‘That’s my thinking at the moment,’ said Claudine.

  The Rome pathologist stood with the head in his hands, almost as if he were offering it to Claudine. He said something, looking towards her.

  ‘He wants to know if you’re finished,’ translated Rosetti. ‘We are. Here at least.’

  ‘I’ve seen all I want,’ said Claudine.

  There was a burst of camera lights when they emerged from the tent, the local medical examiner carrying the bulged plastic exhibit sack. Instinctively Claudine pulled out of sight around to the far side of the tent, taking Rosetti and the police chief with her. Ponzio stopped so that he was still in camera view.

  In word-groping English, he said: ‘I have promised a press conference. You will take part?’

  ‘No,’ said Claudine at once, gratefully stripping off the overalls. Beside her Rosetti did the same.

  The man appeared disappointed. ‘I thought you would want to represent your organization?’

  There hadn’t been any discussion with Sanglier about media exposure before she’d left The Hague but there was no practical benefit at this stage and Claudine had no interest in personal publicity. The opposite, in fact. She hadn’t expected the Italian policeman to be willing to share it. She said: ‘Our job is to help in the background,’ and decided it was the perfect politically correct response.

  ‘The monsters have got as far as Rome,’ declared the police chief portentously. Ponzio appeared to think in newspaper headlines. He was fat, with oiled black hair and rings on either hand. The light grey suit was silk but crumpled, with a shine to it.

  ‘I don’t think she is necessarily the victim of the same killers as the others,’ warned Claudine.

  ‘You mean there are more than one?’

  ‘I don’t think you should link them all together and subsequently be shown to be wrong.’

  The man nodded gravely. ‘It’s surely a madman?’

  In this case the police chief was probably right but to generate that sort of hysteria could act as incitement and she didn’t want any more incitement than already existed. Instead of replying she said: ‘The head would have had to be held tightly on either side, to be fixed as it was on that spike. There could be part of a palm- or fingerprint on the earrings.’

  The Italian nodded as if he’d already thought of it, which Claudine was sure he hadn’t. ‘I will ask the doctors to take them off at the mortuary so that I can have them tested. Anything else?’

  Claudine looked across the city, towards the Vatican. ‘In some of the cases the bodies have been spread throughout a city: I think that might happen here. If it does the pieces will be left in public places: tourist places. You should police those particularly. Question people carrying odd packages or bags.’

  Ponzio frowned at her. ‘Rome has more tourist places than any other city in the world. And everyone carries a bag or a sack of some kind.’

  ‘And one of them might be the person who managed to decapitate someone,’ insisted Claudine. ‘I’m not suggesting it would be easy, just the sort of check that should be carried out.’ She looked again across the city. ‘St Peter’s, particularly.’

  ‘I’ll need to get permission. It’s a sovereign state.’

  ‘I think it should be done,’ said Claudine.

  ‘You’re sure about the press conference?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘I intend issuing a warning.’

  ‘To whom, about what?’ frowned Claudine.

  ‘Women,’ said Ponzio simply. ‘To be careful.’

  It would probably be pointless, causing nothing but panic, but it just might prompt someone to report people carrying with difficulty a torso-like shape. ‘You could also issue a photograph of the woman, when the medical examination is finished at the mortuary.’

  ‘Which I’d like to start as soon as possible,’ put in Rosetti. ‘You coming with me?’

  Claudine shook her head. ‘I’d prefer to talk to the person who found it.’

  ‘I’ll call ahead, so they are expecting you. There’ll be every cooperation,’ assured Ponzio.

  They hung back while he posed the telephone call for the benefit of the cameras, and then got into the same police car, because the American who had made the macabre discovery was at the police headquarters to which the mortuary was attached. Rosetti and Claudine parted in the vestibule, assigned to their respective escorts.

  Morton Stills proclaimed his Berkeley faculty, where he was a second-year engineering student, in foot-high lettering on a sweatshirt he wore over shorts and heavy-soled Reebok training shoes. His thinness was accentuated by his height, which Claudine guessed to be just under two metres. He had a severe crew-cut and bit his fingernails. He was doing it as Claudine entered the interview room where he sat with two men, one of whom introduced himself as Bill Hamilton with a consular position Claudine didn’t catch and the other of whom produced a card identifying himself as Henry Pegley, attached to the US embassy’s legal division. Pegley said he’d heard of Europol - knew one of their FBI guys was somehow involved — and was quite happy to help if he could.

  ‘Mort’s already made his statement: we’re just waiting for copies to be translated and signed. As long as the Italians don’t mind I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a copy,’ added Pegley.

  ‘That’s kind,’ said Claudine. ‘But would you mind going through one or two things for me just once more?’

  ‘It is absolutely necessary?’ demanded Pegley protectively.

  ‘No,’ said Claudine. ‘But I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing else to do and there isn’t a lot to tell,’ said the boy.

  He’d left the youth hostel before eight, wanting to get some early morning photographs of Rome - he gestured to an elaborate Mitsubishi camera beside him on the table - and had chosen the Borghese Gardens because of their elevation over the city. After taking some pictures of the Villa Giulia and the Temple of Antoninus he took the walk that would have led him out on to the via Veneto, where he’d arranged to meet for coffee the friends he was travelling with. He’d become aware of the view of the Vatican and decided to use up his film. He hadn’t realized it was a human head until he’d started focusing his camera and realized what was in the foreground of his viewfinder.

  ‘What was the first thing you did?’ asked Claudine.

  ‘Looked, to make sure what I was seeing. Close, not through the camera I mean.’ He shuddered at the recollection.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Ran to find someone.’

  ‘You didn’t touch it?’

  ‘Ma’am!’

  ‘How close did you go?’

  Stills shrugged, making an expanding movement with his hands until they ended up about a metre apart. ‘Maybe this close.’

  ‘What time was it?’ asked Claudine.

  ‘I’m not sure. I didn’t think to look. Maybe nine. Early, certainly.’

  ‘Were there a lot of people about at that time of the morning?’

  ‘Some. When I was focusing I had to wait for people to pass.’

  ‘Pass how? Walking? Or running? Jogging perhaps, dressed like you are now?’

  ‘I don’t remember any joggers, although I said hello to some American guys near the villa: they were wearing Stanford shirts.’

  ‘What abo
ut people - a person - running?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘We’ve gone through all this: it’s in the statement,’ interrupted Pegley.

  ‘Just a few more questions,’ insisted Claudine. To Stills she said: ‘What about the wall itself, when you were focusing? Apart from the people passing in front of you was there anyone - more than one person, even - standing in your way at the wall?’

  The boy didn’t answer at once. Then he said: ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ admitted the American, his fingers moving back to his lips. ‘I don’t think there was but I’m not sure.’

  ‘You suggesting Mort might have seen who put it there?’ demanded Hamilton.

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything whatsoever,’ insisted Claudine, annoyed at the interruption. ‘I’m simply trying to get a picture of what happened.’ Going back to the boy she said gently: ‘Tell me why you’re not sure?’

  ‘I just have a vague recollection of something but I’m not sure if it was a person or one of the statues there …’

  Pegley moved to speak but Claudine raised her hand in a stopping gesture. ‘You waited for people to pass, before you took a photograph?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But the person or the statue whom you might have seen wasn’t moving: it was stationary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hopefully she said: ‘So did you take a photograph?’

  Stills looked anxiously between the other two Americans. ‘I didn’t tell the Italian detective about this, did I?’

  Anxious the boy should not become nervous of authority, Claudine said before either man could speak: ‘That doesn’t matter: you’re telling us now. Might you have taken a photograph?’

  ‘I might have done,’ said Stills miserably. ‘I don’t know. Like I said, I couldn’t believe what I saw, when I saw it. I was frightened.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ soothed Claudine. ‘Anyone would have been frightened. It was horrible …’ She paused. ‘You saw the head through your viewfinder, so you lowered the camera to look closer?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the boy.

  ‘And when you realized what it was did you just run, to find an official? Or did you shout out?’