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as you can see. Those are for the spouses or, shall I say, significant
others of the participants.
Most of the wives were here this morning. Actually, they re heading off now
on a coach tour famous gardens, Windsor Castle, a trip on the Thames. Perhaps
you d rather
Wouldn t miss this for the world.
I glanced around the room. The head of Australia s Probation Services was the
only other woman at the table. The chair behind her was empty. The spouse
seats were almost completely deserted except for one backing up an older
French Minister of Justice, whose trophy wife or mistress sat dutifully in
place, and that of the Danish criminologist, whose barely-out-of-her-teens
girlfriend stroked the back of his head as we waited for everyone to settle
down.
Chapman growled into my ear. You really owe me for this one. Everybody s
treating me like I m some useless appendage you ve brought along to carry your
luggage.
Personally, I think you should have taken the garden tour with the
significant others. You would have found someone to hit on in that group.
Don t throw yourself at Windlethorne too quick, Blondie. I know how you fall
for that kind of sensitive-looking specimen.
I looked up to the head of the table. Lord W. was chewing on the end of his
wire-rimmed glasses as he debated some weighty issue with a pudgy German who
kept punctuating his comments with jabs in the air. I blushed when
Windlethorne caught me looking and smiled back at me. Mike was right, he was
exactly my type.
Lord Windlethorne invited everyone to take his or her seat and called the
afternoon assembly to order by introducing me formally to the politicians and
academics who had presented papers or would be joining my panel for the rest
of the day. He then proceeded to call on speakers in the order they were
listed in the program.
One of the Swiss finance ministers began the session with a forty-five-minute
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discourse on the problems of financial frauds and the Internet. He detailed
instances of multimillion-dollar swindles that had been attempted in recent
months and outlined a plan for combating technological hoaxes in the next
century.
The concentration then moved to interpersonal violence. Twenty-minute time
slots had been allocated for each of the four speakers the Australian woman
who talked about her country s novel techniques for handling teen offenders;
the pudgy German, a sociologist who studied European ethnic violence of the
last fifty years, predicting and projecting trends; Creavey s analysis of
terrorist tactics and how to combat them; and my slightly doctored version of
Battaglia s remarks about the prospect for America s future crime and
punishment.
Lord Windlethorne lit his pipe and opened the floor to statements from
everyone present. Like many Europeans, these professionals seemed most
interested in the problems of urban America, which had to this point in time
seemed so extraordinarily unlike their own.
What aboutyour specialty, Miss Cooper? Professore Vicario asked, Do you
think it has much, how do you say in English, relevance to our population here
in Europe?
I had made only a short reference to the issue of sexual violence in my
formal remarks but was delighted to get it on the table during the
question-and-answer period. As progressive as you all tend to be on a variety
of topics, you re light-years behind on this one. One need only consider the
terrible cases of child abuse in Belgium last year the pedophile rings that
involved government officials to understand how widespread the phenomenon is.
And you ll forgive me,professore, but your magnificent country still has some
of the most archaic laws concerning spousal abuse that one can imagine in this
day and age.
I don t need to center this around my own personal interest, but itis just
incredible to me, I added, that you could even contemplate a meeting of this
scope without devoting attention to the issues of drugs, drug treatment, and
gun control.
I thought Windlethorne was squirming a bit in his seat as he tried to
reignite his pipe, but others in the room picked up on the subjects
immediately.
Creavey jumped in. I assure you, Alex is right. If you don t think these are
your problems yet and I can t believe there s one of you in this room who
hasn t had some exposure to them in your criminal justice systems at
home they re coming in your direction.
The Home Secretary tried to pooh-pooh the trend toward violence, sheltered in
this elegant retreat that seemed a world apart from the reality of city
streets. Oh, come now, people. Let s not exaggerate this picture, shall we?
Battaglia had been right on the money. A bit of hooliganism, joyriding
Chapman had been waiting for his moment. He knew, from conversations with
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