stop her now was going to look more suspicious than letting her continue. “Of course not, Frau Schmitt, if you feel it’s relevant,” he said stiffly, allowing a trace of doubt to enter his voice.
Elsa brushed it aside. “She was taken from her own bed, in the middle of the night, from under the noses of her bodyguards,” she said, coolly now. “Yes, I think it is very relevant, don’t you?”
Gilby recognised defeat when it was staring him in the face. Without further demur he stepped back to his place and waved her to continue. I twisted round slightly in my chair so I could watch the instructors as much as Elsa.
The German woman had come well prepared for her lecture and she didn’t get it from the Manor library, that’s for sure. There was an elderly photocopier in there, which we’d all used to produce grainy pictures of our main protagonists, taken from the newspaper cuttings and books.
Elsa already had photographs, which meant she could only have brought them with her. She tacked a line of them up onto the dusty blackboard for us to see.
“This is Heidi Krauss,” she said, indicating an awkwardly posed studio picture of a girl who looked barely sixteen. “This is her father, Dieter, a successful and wealthy industrialist, and this is their home on the outskirts of Düsseldorf.”
She delivered the details in a flat, almost clinical style, the way I imagine she used to report to her superior officers when she’d been in the police. She hardly referred to her notes and barely glanced at Gilby or his men as she spoke.
Dieter Krauss, she told us, was away in the Middle East on the night his daughter had been kidnapped, just two weeks before Christmas. I realised with a jolt that she was talking about this Christmas. Heidi was at home with three household staff and four personal bodyguards. Of a Mrs Krauss, there was no mention.
There had been trouble with the movement sensors round the perimeter of the property. They had been badly adjusted so that small animals had been causing a number of false alarms. When the system was triggered again shortly before eleven on that evening, the man on duty did not immediately alert his colleagues to a possible security breach.
Instead, he had taken a torch and gone out alone through a side entrance to check the grounds for himself. There, a small force – more than four, it was reckoned, but less than eight – had overpowered him and gained entry through the open door.
Leaving a man guiding them towards Heidi’s location using the internal security cameras, the intruders had closed in on her. They had used a taser stunner to instantly incapacitate her, then wrapped her in a blanket and started to carry her out, with the rest of her security team oblivious in the next room.
Had the housekeeper not stepped out into a corridor at the wrong moment, that’s where the story would have ended. As it was, the woman started screaming. The intruders shot her in the neck, killing her almost instantly.
The close-protection team had responded immediately to the alert, drawing their own weapons, but they had been understandably reluctant to become involved in a gunfight when the risk of accidentally hitting their principal was so high.
Hamstrung in this way, they’d stood little chance. One of them was also shot and killed, while another received a leg wound which had resulted in amputation. They had exchanged fire but, Elsa reported, they were doubtful that they hit anyone. Certainly none of the intruders had been injured sufficiently to prevent their escape – with Heidi.
Elsa paused and looked around at us. She didn’t seem to be aware that she held the absolute attention not only of the class, but of the instructors as well. They had frozen up like a Madame Tussaud’s exhibit, only not so lifelike. If Gilby clamped his jaw shut any tighter he was going to shatter those perfect teeth.
“So, Frau
Elsa brushed it aside. “She was taken from her own bed, in the middle of the night, from under the noses of her bodyguards,” she said, coolly now. “Yes, I think it is very relevant, don’t you?”
Gilby recognised defeat when it was staring him in the face. Without further demur he stepped back to his place and waved her to continue. I twisted round slightly in my chair so I could watch the instructors as much as Elsa.
The German woman had come well prepared for her lecture and she didn’t get it from the Manor library, that’s for sure. There was an elderly photocopier in there, which we’d all used to produce grainy pictures of our main protagonists, taken from the newspaper cuttings and books.
Elsa already had photographs, which meant she could only have brought them with her. She tacked a line of them up onto the dusty blackboard for us to see.
“This is Heidi Krauss,” she said, indicating an awkwardly posed studio picture of a girl who looked barely sixteen. “This is her father, Dieter, a successful and wealthy industrialist, and this is their home on the outskirts of Düsseldorf.”
She delivered the details in a flat, almost clinical style, the way I imagine she used to report to her superior officers when she’d been in the police. She hardly referred to her notes and barely glanced at Gilby or his men as she spoke.
Dieter Krauss, she told us, was away in the Middle East on the night his daughter had been kidnapped, just two weeks before Christmas. I realised with a jolt that she was talking about this Christmas. Heidi was at home with three household staff and four personal bodyguards. Of a Mrs Krauss, there was no mention.
There had been trouble with the movement sensors round the perimeter of the property. They had been badly adjusted so that small animals had been causing a number of false alarms. When the system was triggered again shortly before eleven on that evening, the man on duty did not immediately alert his colleagues to a possible security breach.
Instead, he had taken a torch and gone out alone through a side entrance to check the grounds for himself. There, a small force – more than four, it was reckoned, but less than eight – had overpowered him and gained entry through the open door.
Leaving a man guiding them towards Heidi’s location using the internal security cameras, the intruders had closed in on her. They had used a taser stunner to instantly incapacitate her, then wrapped her in a blanket and started to carry her out, with the rest of her security team oblivious in the next room.
Had the housekeeper not stepped out into a corridor at the wrong moment, that’s where the story would have ended. As it was, the woman started screaming. The intruders shot her in the neck, killing her almost instantly.
The close-protection team had responded immediately to the alert, drawing their own weapons, but they had been understandably reluctant to become involved in a gunfight when the risk of accidentally hitting their principal was so high.
Hamstrung in this way, they’d stood little chance. One of them was also shot and killed, while another received a leg wound which had resulted in amputation. They had exchanged fire but, Elsa reported, they were doubtful that they hit anyone. Certainly none of the intruders had been injured sufficiently to prevent their escape – with Heidi.
Elsa paused and looked around at us. She didn’t seem to be aware that she held the absolute attention not only of the class, but of the instructors as well. They had frozen up like a Madame Tussaud’s exhibit, only not so lifelike. If Gilby clamped his jaw shut any tighter he was going to shatter those perfect teeth.
“So, Frau
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