Mind/Reader

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘I don’t like gambling with kids’ lives,’ persisted van der Kolk.

  Sanglier became irritated at the unexpected opposition. ‘I don’t like losing kids’ lives: lots of kids. Which we’ll go on doing if we make the slightest miscalculation. So I’m not going to do anything prematurely.’

  ‘Everything is going to be kept constantly under review?’ insisted van der Kolk.

  ‘Minute by minute.’

  He assigned another group to obtain from Amsterdam’s public planning department all the building, development and conversion plans for 32-40, Van Diemen Straat. It turned out to be a former dockside warehouse bordering the main North Sea canal into the city. All the architectural details were supplemented by ground and aerial photographs and combined into a specifically drawn survey of the building itemizing all entrances and exits either by road or sea. Marked on these special drawings was every fire and burglar alarm detail available from the city’s safety departments. Additionally Sanglier had van der Kolk arrange a court order to obtain from the company that installed it the code to immobilize the alarm system. At the same legal hearing the judge issued an open-ended search warrant for the premises, although Sanglier announced he didn’t intend using it immediately.

  He limited the promised minute-by-minute control group to himself, van der Kolk, Poulard, Siemen and the senior control officer from each ascribed unit. There was a conference room adjoining van der Kolk’s office large enough to accommodate the group and conveniently the computer and communication centre was on that level.

  The final unit, whose job was to assemble and index all the documentary and photographic information, was housed next to the computer centre. Sanglier moved two computer specialists from Europol to help handle the huge volume of material that began to come in almost at once. Although it greatly added to their workload he had everything duplicated to the original incident room at The Hague, knowing it would overwhelm Kurt Volker whom he ordered - directly, not through Claudine - to remain there. He knew, too, that it would satisfy any Europol curiosity as to why Volker, someone involved in the inquiry from the beginning, had not been transferred to Amsterdam.

  At the end of the first control body review Poulard said, sycophantically: ‘It is a war plan, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why don’t we use the search warrant now?’ demanded van der Kolk, still not totally convinced by Sanglier’s argument against isolating the Wo Lim transport at the established road blocks.

  ‘We don’t need to invoke it until we have to,’ smiled Sanglier, prepared for that demand as he had been for the Dutchman’s previous one. ‘It’s a food preparation and storage facility, to which inspectors can make unannounced visits to enforce health and hygiene regulations.’ The smile widened. ‘We’re going to make ours very early tomorrow.’

  Sanglier reluctantly accepted that the enormous picture coverage of the Europol press conference precluded his personal participation in the factory visit, as it did Poulard and Siemen’s, quite apart from any language difficulty. To the two authentic hygiene officers necessary for the inspection to appear genuine to Wo Lim staff familiar with the procedure Sanglier attached two Dutch-speaking Europol detectives - one, Hans Claus, from the management identifying team later to study the photographic selection - and a female photoanalyst from the Dutch force.

  The waterfront factory operated twenty-four hours a day but the squad timed their arrival for just after 8 a.m. because bone fide inspections were rarely made at night and they wanted all the senior staff to be in the building long before their supposed tour ended.

  There was no obvious surprise or consternation at their unannounced appearance, although the uniformed guards refused to allow them beyond the gatehouse while their documentation was checked and the duty manager summoned from the main building. From where they waited they saw that the building was surrounded by a metal fence topped with razor wire and counted three dogs, with their handlers, patrolling the inner perimeter. Later, in a seemingly casual conversation inside the building, their attentive escort assured Claus such high security was necessary against widespread pilfering and robbery.

  He introduced himself as Mr Woon and was a wide smiling bespectacled Chinese in a spotless white coat whose Dutch was impeccable. During the tour he engaged in conversation with each of the five in the squad.

  The factory was immaculate.

  Every worker they encountered wore a coat or overalls as spotless as Mr Woon’s and the hair of men as well as women was completely covered by the required white hats. The huge building was divided throughout its entire length and width into separate sections from the point of delivery of unprepared food, meat and vegetables through various stages of washing, trimming, butchering and packaging to dispatch areas on the far side. Every preparation table and slab was scrupulously clean, every floor area gleaming, every oven and stove shining from constant attention. Each section was quite separate from its neighbour and at each were men introduced as quality control and cleanliness officers. It could obviously have been staged for their benefit but the frequent hand-washing and surface-mopping appeared a well-established habit to the real hygiene officials.

  By prearrangement the inspectors lingered in the butchery area, which was further subdivided between meat and fowl. Here the floors were tiled and guttered in the centre of every work alley to dispose of any blood flow, and there were permanent cleaners disposing of the waste. Birds were plucked beneath loudly sucking vacuum devices and again there were cleaners stationed to collect feathers not immediately removed.

  The cold stores were vast caverns each preserving specifically separated foods, animal carcases in one, offal in another, birds in a third, vegetables and eggs in the fourth. Each was sealed by a huge metal door, operated by a central pronged wheel. Again by prearrangement they entered each one and in the carcase store both Europol detectives were able to study the method of hanging.

  The final dispatch area was entirely covered but open at one side to admit the huge lorries into their individual bays. Each bay was served by a conveyor belt delivering consignments controlled by a series of dispatchers at a central, airport-style carousel.

  There were twenty Wo Lim lorries being loaded while the squad were there. They examined the interior of three, two of them refrigerated. Hans Claus pretended to misunderstand the loading procedure briefly to get beyond the covered area out on to the service road that encircled the factory.

  It had been agreed that the proper inspectors should insist upon examining previously issued health certificates to get the squad on to the first-floor management level. There were five partitioned and glass-doored offices, each occupied by Chinese who looked up in apparent surprise at their presence on the central corridor. At the end, beyond another glass door, were two rows of head-bent men. In front of the individual computers at which they sat were the traditional Chinese calculating abacuses.

  The Dutch inspectors dutifully examined the previous certificates and announced they were giving the Wo Lim factory the highest possible health grading. The beaming Mr Woon offered tea or Dutch beer and while they were drinking two unidentified Chinese entered, smiling as broadly as Mr Woon, and profusely thanked the group as a whole for the pass category.

  As they drove away from the factory, one of the genuine inspectors said: ‘In twenty years I’ve never examined a cleaner food processing and packing plant.’

  ‘It had to be, didn’t it?’ said Hans Claus, unimpressed. It was the opinion he maintained throughout his account an hour later to Sanglier and the rest of the control group back at Amsterdam police headquarters.

  ‘It’s suspicious because there’s absolutely nothing to be suspicious about,’ said Claus, who’d tried to evolve telling phrases on the return journey. ‘The health inspectors couldn’t have given it anything but their highest classification. We weren’t denied access to anything or anyone. Not that we’d have gained much trying to talk to anyone. Every last employee - every person - in the place is Chinese:
I didn’t see a single European face. I’m sure I’ll be able to recognize Mr Woon and the two who weren’t introduced to us when we get the photographs.’

  ‘I’ve got the features of everyone on the top floor well established,’ promised the photoanalyst, Berta Snaap. ‘And you’re right. Everyone was Chinese.’

  ‘Woon was described as the duty manager,’ resumed Claus. ‘But I’d put him much higher. He was certainly clever. We were held at the gate for exactly twenty-three minutes, more than enough time for anything they didn’t want us to see to be got rid of, not that I think today there was anything they didn’t want us to see—’

  ‘Got rid of how?’ broke in Sanglier.

  ‘I got outside for a few minutes before Woon brought me back. A vehicle could be driven through any one of the three subsidiary exits we’ve got marked on the plans without anyone inside the factory or at the main gate knowing a thing about it. And the sea comes right up to the edge of the dispatch area at one end, which I don’t think we’ve properly allowed for. We’ll need seaborne surveillance. Boats can come and go without anyone knowing about it from the shore.’

  ‘There’s something else that struck me,’ offered the second detective, Albert van Kleiper. ‘Woon made a point of talking to each of us. I think he was checking we were all Dutch.’

  ‘You think he suspected it was a phoney check?’ demanded Sanglier, alarmed.

  ‘No,’ said van Kleiper. ‘I don’t think he or anyone else in that factory leaves the slightest thing to chance.’

  ‘Which is why the fence is topped with razor wire and the inner perimeter patrolled by dogs,’ said the woman. ‘It’s an incredible amount of security against petty pilferers.’

  ‘What about the butchery section?’ asked Siemen.

  ‘Very big. I counted thirty butchers, actually handling and disjointing meat. Very expertly, with fine-toothed saws. And there’s something important in the deep freeze storage facilities. The hooks from which the carcases are hung are double- pronged. I had to estimate, obviously, but I’d say the tips of the prongs were about forty-five centimetres apart.’

  ‘So would I,’ agreed van Kleiper.

  ‘The distance between the outside abdominal or anal lacerations on each of the five,’ remembered Sanglier.

  ‘We managed to get inside two of the refrigerated lorries,’ continued Claus. ‘Even part-loaded, it would be totally impossible to see from a road check - remember, anyone would be looking in with his head virtually level with the floor of the vehicle - what was at the far end. Fully loaded it’s not even worth trying.’

  ‘And all the refrigerated vehicles we saw carried the Transports Internationaux Routiers protection,’ added van Kleiper.

  ‘What are our chances of a surprise entry?’ asked Sanglier.

  ‘Nil,’ said Claus simply.

  ‘So what have we got?’

  ‘A lot more circumstantial suspicion to go with the circumstantial suspicion we had in the first place,’ said Claus, who thought it was the best phrase he’d managed to think up.

  Scott Burrows examined without speaking all the material recovered from the unsuccessful Baltimore raid and Joe Hardy sat silently opposite him in the FBI office of the American embassy.

  ‘Five cuttings from the press conference reports referring to American profiling assistance,’ said Burrows at last, unnecessarily.

  ‘All with your name inked in on the margins,’ said Hardy, equally unnecessarily. Offering a sealed envelope he added: ‘I’m to give you this. To save you opening it it’s an offer personally signed by the Director. You can move to wherever you want. Your choice.’

  ‘Fuck it,’ said Burrows. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘There’s a port and airport watch, stateside.’

  Burrows snorted a laugh. ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

  ‘You think he’ll try?’

  ‘I wish to Christ I knew,’ said Burrows. ‘That’s been my problem from the beginning. Not being sure.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Claudine was frightened, although her breathing was still easy.

  She couldn’t remember such a positive feeling before - not even during the near collapse - and like too many others in recent weeks it disorientated her and she already felt too disorientated. It was a long time - too long - since she’d been fully in control of herself and things around her.

  Tonight she intended putting some of that right, despite the most recent and persistent apprehensions, because tonight a lot - more than she knew or could anticipate - depended on it. And very quickly after tonight she had to resolve a lot of the other doubts.

  Seeking patterns, as always, she tried to package the uncertainties, no longer caring if personal considerations encroached into her sacrosanct professionalism or her sacrosanct professionalism intruded into her personal life. It wasn’t possible any longer - perhaps it never had been - to separate one from the other.

  It had been pretentious to try. The conversation with Rosetti echoed in her mind, which was hardly surprising as she stood wine glass in hand in front of the drinks selection she’d had delivered that day, in preparation for the evening to come and for the Italian’s visits she hoped would come frequently in the future. With it echoed her tattered axiom, seemingly more a taunt than the anchoring reassurance she’d once regarded it to be.

  Had she ever known herself? Properly, honestly, sensibly known herself? Or had all of it been pretension upon pretension, act upon act for an audience of one: not drinking because she despised her father for doing so; and swearing - more mentally than verbally - because people she worked with swore; dominating the marriage because she’d accepted her mother’s judgement of Warwick’s weakness; and imagining there was no encounter she couldn’t manipulate and orchestrate?

  No, she decided, refilling her glass as if in defiance of herself. Not all of it: not everything. But too much. She’d cheated everyone - cheated Warwick and cheated her mother and perhaps, even, cheated her father - by building a pretension for every situation into a wall behind which to hide who she really was and what she really felt. And most of all cheated herself, her always applauding audience of one.

  So who was she, this new person she didn’t know? And what did she feel? She was Claudine Carter, who had every reason to believe herself a first-class criminal psychologist but no right to arrogance and conceit because of that awareness. But she used it as a shield, going too far beyond justifiable confidence to disguise the vulnerability she’d always secretly suffered from but never admitted, the fear that she might not be as good as she thought she was and that one day - with one profile — she might be caught out.

  She hadn’t been caught out with the mass killings. She’d got those assessments right, every time. Proved herself to herself. And to Europol’s ruling body, not just to Henri Sanglier. He remained an enigma, as his sexually predatory wife with her daily unanswered telephone messages remained an irritant. Claudine was confident - confident, not arrogant - that she could handle both. She’d officially appeal against any censure, if Rosetti was wrong about Sanglier’s motive: appear in front of the full Commission if necessary and simply set out the facts, concede the illegality and challenge them seriously to censure either her or Volker.

  And she would continue to ignore Françoise Sanglier’s calls.

  How much longer was she going to continue ignoring her biggest personal pretension: her refusal to consider the situation between herself and Hugo Rosetti? No longer. She thought she loved him. And if she did then she’d never loved Warwick because what she felt now was quite different from any emotion she’d known before. When she’d worked in London - travelled all over England at the ring of a telephone - she’d never had Warwick constantly in the corner of her mind, as she had Hugo wherever she was and whatever she did; never imagined or hoped that the ring of that telephone would be Warwick, for her, and felt the sink of disappointment when it wasn’t. Never … Claudine stopped the reflection, refusing it. It wasn
’t right - cruel, if only to herself - to try to discover how she felt about Hugo by comparing her feelings for him with those for Warwick. And if she hadn’t loved Warwick and he’d realized it, it put into perfect context - made totally understandable - everything he’d written in his tortured suicide note.

  Which brought her to that night, about which for the first time she’d recognized how frightened she was, just as she recognized it was too late now to do anything about it, and that Hugo had been right when he called her a bloody idiot for agreeing to meet Paul Bickerstone.

  Claudine was making towards the telephone to call Rosetti, just wanting to hear his voice and hopefully some reassurance, when the entry bell sounded in the lobby.

  ‘It’s Paul. I’m early,’ said the voice.

  Claudine would never have recognized Paul Bickerstone, with or without his gorilla outfit. He was a sleek man, polished hair tight against his head, rounded by business lunches and tanned by luxury yacht cruises: switching her mammal imagery, Claudine’s impression was of a seal. Maybe, in view of what he was supposed to have done, a shark would have been even more appropriate.

  In the momentary hesitation in the apartment entrance she thought he was going to kiss her - he actually leaned forward

  - but then he drew back to offer his one free hand. She was surprised he had sufficient strength in the other to carry a bouquet she genuinely had to enfold in both arms to accept. Struggling with it to the kitchen she decided it would have needed a Kew Gardens botanist to identify all the blooms. He followed with champagne she hadn’t seen him carrying and she was glad she’d included it in her selection, because she was able to serve hers chilled, even though it was Moet and not the superior Roederer Crystal he’d brought. Bickerstone solicitously carried the bottle, in its cooler, and glasses back into the lounge, opened it and poured.