The Manhattan Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  As they travelled back downtown together Lord Bidoner asked her, ‘Do you have it?’

  Xena simply tapped her jacket pocket in reply.

  28

  The young policeman in his fluorescent yellow jacket looked at the tax disc on the windscreen, stared at Isabel for a few seconds, then let them through with a nod. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

  ‘That was your driving they pulled us over for,’ said George. ‘That’s the last time I take a ride with you.’ He laughed to himself, turned in his seat, and stared out the back window.

  She could smell the alcohol on his breath.

  She’d be lucky, she knew, to get anything useful out of him. He directed her to a parking space on a narrow street with five and six-storey red-brick mansions on each side. The empty space was well past the building he pointed out, where his apartment was, but that was his problem.

  ‘Women drivers, you’re useless,’ he said.

  She’d had enough of his crap.

  ‘What kind of a sick bastard are you?’ She didn’t wait for him to respond. ‘You work with Sean, but you don’t give a damn what happens to him. Well, I hope you get what’s coming to you. You don’t deserve to be a part of the human race.’

  He stepped back, examined her.

  ‘You think you did me a favour?’ His tone was taunting.

  ‘Those cops back there weren’t looking for drunks, darling. They were looking for drug dealers, pimps with sub-machine guns. You haven’t been to Kilburn in a while, have you? I bet you didn’t even notice the armoured vest that cop was wearing.’

  She stared at him. The wind whistled around them. Above, great cloth-of-coal clouds were moving fast. Any second the hail was going to start again.

  ‘You think you deserve help because you look sweet? Well, stand in line, honey.’

  With that he turned, walked away.

  She couldn’t resist it.

  She went after him.

  ‘This is your last chance to be a decent human being, George. The City of London police were at my house earlier. You better tell me what’s going on, or I’m going to call them, tell them that you’re up to your neck in whatever it is they’re investigating. And the first journalist who camps on my door, when all this gets out, is going to get your address and your phone number and every detail about how many calls Sean made to you.’ Her finger was shaking as she jabbed it towards him.

  ‘My, my, you are a fiery one, aren’t you?’

  ‘What’s happening at BXH, George?’

  ‘Don’t you watch any TV?’

  ‘As little as possible.’

  ‘Shame. You’re missing a lot of good programs.’

  ‘What’s happening with the merger, George? Is it under threat?’

  He smiled, then his eyelids drooped.

  ‘Why is BXH’s share price crashing?’ She leaned forward.

  ‘It’s all about the money, honey.’

  ‘That’s it? What about Sean? He isn’t involved in anything underhand. He’s as straight as they come. You know that.’

  ‘The straight and narrow runs right through people sometimes. Like an arrow.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Just what I said.’

  He was definitely hiding something.

  ‘That club that murdered girl was from, George, what’s it called?’

  He looked at her blankly.

  ‘You know the place I’m talking about. Mrs Vaughann told me some of them went there last night. The name is probably in the Evening Standard. It’s not a state secret.’

  George hesitated. When he spoke, his tone was more sympathetic.

  ‘Magnolia.’

  ‘What kind of a club is the Magnolia, George?’

  ‘It’s a sleazy rip-off lap-dancing club. The kind that serves food and champagne at £500 a bottle. It’s for banker dummies who’ve got too much money, who get sucked into doing stupid things to prove how important they are.’

  ‘When do they open?’

  His eyes glistened. ‘I don’t know. You’re not planning on going there, are you?’ He guffawed.

  She was going to find out what had happened.

  ‘What did you mean the straight and narrow runs through people, George?’

  ‘I’d have to kill you if I told you the answer to that.’

  29

  Lord Bidoner closed the small laboratory fridge. It clunked shut. He walked to the glass window of the apartment. Far below on Fifth Avenue, the traffic was bumper to bumper. It had started snowing again. Flakes of snow blew against the glass, then flew away. A few inches from his face the world was icy and blustery. Where he stood it was warm and hushed. He smiled to himself.

  Then he turned back and contemplated the laptop screen at the far end of the room. On it was a slowly revolving gold-on-gold depiction of the square and arrow symbol that had consumed his life for the past four years. Ever since he had learned it had been in the manuscript that contained a record of Jesus’ trial, that it had been referred to in the trial document explicitly, he had wanted nothing more than the symbol’s secret to be revealed and the dark prayers it had contained to be invoked.

  Because the symbol did hold a secret. A secret that would help them find the most important DNA sample in history.

  The images of the manuscript they had obtained from Dr Hunter’s home, before it had been torched, had made that indisputable. Dr Hunter, who had been tasked with translating the manuscript that had been found by the ever stupid and interfering Sean and Isabel Ryan, had probably never even realised that copies had been taken.

  He walked towards the painting above the fireplace. It was blazing with a perfect fake fire. This was a good moment. The recent news about Sean Ryan had been positive. The man’s stupidity, his real character, would be obvious to all soon. Lord Bidoner had kept his enemy close and the situation was resolving itself. He couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.

  It is strange the way things work out, he thought. Just when his search for what lay behind the symbol reached its fruition, the problem of the man who had discovered it would be resolved.

  He deserved some good fortune, after all he had done, all he had invested in this project.

  A light knock on the front door of the apartment broke his thoughts. He walked across the soft grey carpet and stood near the door.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Jim Green,’ came a voice. Green, the head of trading at Ebony Dragon was early, but that probably just showed his eagerness. He reached for the button that would unlock the door.

  30

  ‘I told you this place wouldn’t be open so early,’ said George, as they walked back along the lane that led from Jermyn Street to the row of five-storey white stuccoed Edwardian houses tucked away behind a department store. The Magnolia club appeared to take up the basement levels of two houses, at least.

  ‘They probably open at eight. We could come back then.’ It sounded as if he was trying to cheer her up.

  There’d been a light on above the door of the club, but no one had answered when they’d knocked.

  ‘It’s only half an hour.’

  They’d taken a taxi. He’d refused to tell Isabel any more, not another word about what he knew, but he’d insisted on coming with her to the club.

  It seemed almost as if he felt guilty. She didn’t argue with him. She wasn’t going to say it, but having him with her had some upsides. Not the least of which was that she would have more time to work on him, especially if he kept drinking.

  The wind was hurtling up Jermyn Street. It felt as if they were in a wind tunnel in the arctic.

  ‘Let’s go for a drink,’ said George. His shoulders were hunched against the chill. ‘I know a good place on the other side of Piccadilly.’

  She expected he knew a lot of good places on the other side of Piccadilly. He leaned towards her.

  ‘You don’t have a clue what Sean was into, do you?’ He had a smug I-know-
a-lot-of-things-you-don’t look on his face. What the hell gave him the right to be so condescending? She felt like slapping him. But instead she jabbed her knuckles into his upper arm, hard.

  ‘Let’s get you a drink. Then you can tell me what he was into.’

  He gave her a wink. She looked away.

  As they waited for the pedestrian lights to change at the bottom of Regent Street, she felt a jostling behind them. A lot of people were waiting at the crossing. Traffic was speeding past dangerously, only inches away. Suddenly, the crowd around them was moving, swaying, as if someone was pushing through it. She was about to turn around.

  Then it happened.

  A red Routemaster double-decker was looming in front of her, like a red elephant charging by. George grunted loudly. He staggered forward. A rush of adrenaline pumped through her. Her mouth opened.

  She reached out.

  Time slowed.

  She felt the rough fibres of his coat slide past her fingers. A lump crammed her throat, stopping her breathing. The front corner of the bus hit him with a stomach-twisting thud.

  George spun.

  It felt as if a ghost had fallen through her.

  And then, all at once, there was the deafening noise of braking, a high-pitched scream, a man’s shout. Then other vehicles were braking too.

  George bounced off the bus like a doll being thrown. His arms and body flew in front of her, in a surreal kaleidoscope.

  She leaned forward. She didn’t know why. It was exactly the wrong thing to do.

  Someone grabbed her shoulder. The bus stopped right in front of her, a shiny, creaking red machine, steam pouring from its engine, people screaming inside, faces pressed up against the window grotesquely, like meat in a sausage machine.

  She looked down and to her right.

  George was lying, crumpled, in the three foot gap between the railings and the bus.

  With an impolite shove of her elbow she pushed past a gaping onlooker, and headed for George.

  She heard a whistle behind her, a car horn beeping, a voice from somewhere demanding, ‘Don’t move him, love.’

  There was a despairing pounding in her ears.

  She knelt beside George, bending close to see if his eyes were open, with a stink of diesel in her nose and mouth, almost making her gag. His eyes were closed.

  There was blood down the right side of his face, dripping thickly. Thoughts of Sean flowed through her. Was that why she was crying like this or was it because she’d brought George here, that it was her fault that this had happened to him?

  ‘Don’t die, George,’ she whispered. She heard the wail of an ambulance. Behind her an authoritative voice said, in a Cockney accent just like Michael Caine’s: ‘Stand back, please, love. Stand back.’

  She stroked George’s arm lightly, and said a prayer. A shiver ran through her. What the hell was happening? First Sean. Now this.

  Was this how someone who’d fought for his country was going to die, in oily dust, while Friday-night revellers passed by, annoyed that their night out had been interrupted for a few seconds?

  ‘Move away please, miss,’ a voice said.

  She felt a pressure on her back. She looked around. Her forehead was pounding. A man in a yellow emergency vest pushed past her, roughly.

  She took a step back, heard a cough, looked up.

  The bus driver was leaning out of the door of his cab, holding a hand to his mouth ‘Move back more please, miss,’ the policeman said, more firmly this time.

  She straightened up, stepped back some more.

  A second man in a yellow jacket pushed past her. She was stuck to the spot, staring. They were manoeuvring George onto a folding stretcher with thin steel bars. There was a contraption, a thick white brace, around his neck.

  She couldn’t believe what had happened. There was something so weird about it all. Was George just unlucky? She looked around. Or had someone pushed him? Or did he fall because he was drunk? She went back over everything, trying to remember.

  The cold was making her hands and face numb. The icy feeling was seeping up her arms. It felt as if her body was someone else’s, as if she didn’t have to be concerned about it getting cold.

  She went to the back of the ambulance waiting nearby with its lights flashing, filling the air with a sickening blue radiance. She still didn’t know if George was alive or dead.

  The idea that he might be dead already or that he was dying right now, hammered into her brain.

  ‘Were you with him, love?’ one of the ambulance men asked her, as the other one closed the back door. Her last sight of George had been of a white face, a plastic oxygen mask and a bright green blanket lying over him haphazardly.

  She nodded. ‘Can I come with you?’ Over his shoulder she noticed the policemen bent over a notebook, writing.

  ‘Are you a relative of his?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You can follow us, love. We’re taking him to University College Hospital. Do you know where it is?’

  She nodded. Euston Road wasn’t far.

  ‘You didn’t get hit, love, did you?’ There was concern in his eyes.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Is he going to be okay?’

  ‘He’s alive. That’s all I can say. How do you know ’im?’

  ‘He’s a friend. I was with him.’ The pounding in her forehead was easing.

  ‘What’s his name, love?’

  She gave him George’s name. He wrote it down. She told him where George lived, though she couldn’t remember the house number. He raised his eyebrows. They weren’t that close, was the unspoken implication.

  And he was right.

  And then they were gone and a policeman with a pointy helmet and a bulky black and yellow jacket, was beside her.

  He was asking her questions. She answered them all, gave him her name and address, then told him what had happened. Then he closed his notebook. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock,’ he said, with a sympathetic smile. ‘You should go home. We’ll be in touch.’ Then he was gone.

  And she didn’t want to go home.

  31

  The door closed with a click behind Jim Green. He passed into the main room of the apartment. The early afternoon noises from Fifth Avenue, the honking of car horns and the occasional shout for a taxi, were unheard up here on the twenty-fifth floor.

  ‘How can I help you?’ said Lord Bidoner.

  Jim Green looked around. He seemed relieved that they were alone. He held his hand out.

  ‘I’m worried, sir.’

  ‘That’s what I pay you for, Mr Green. To be worried. To lose sleep. To make me money.’ Bidoner’s tone was angry. ‘But indulge me, tell me what’s going on. I am sure you wouldn’t come back here unless you had a very good reason.’

  Jim Green was sweating. ‘My colleague is holding back some of our reserves, sir. And he expects me to agree to this.’ There was a slight tremor in his voice. He clearly wanted to betray his colleague, but the reality of it all was getting to him.

  That was the moment Xena choose to walk back into the room. She was carrying a knife. She laid it down on the coffee table, then sat near it. She didn’t speak, but watched Jim Green’s every move.

  Lord Bidoner stood in front of him, invading his personal space. ‘Are you truly ready to crush your enemies, Mr Green?’

  ‘Sure.’ He said it as if they were talking about playing a round of golf.

  ‘Are you committed, Green?’

  Green nodded.

  Lord Bidoner took his phone from his pocket, opened an encrypted file storage app and flicked through some files. He stopped at one and turned the phone to Jim Green.

  The video that played was of a little girl running with a pink satchel on her back. She ran into the arms of a woman, her mother no doubt. There were other children behind them. She was clearly just after leaving school.

  Little voices squealing in delight came from the phone.

  ‘Where the hell did you get
this?’ Green’s voice had risen. He half reared in his seat. His face was ashen.

  Bidoner put his phone back in his pocket.

  ‘I just want you to understand that we expect one hundred per cent commitment. Your wife and daughter are lovely. You were trying for a child for a long time, I’m told. Is that true?’

  Green nodded and sat back down. His expression hardened.

  ‘I know what I have to do, sir. And I will do it. You will have no trouble about my commitment.’

  ‘Good.’ Bidoner took a step back. As Green stood, Bidoner said, ‘Do you remember the oath you took when you joined us?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I swore to carry out whatever instructions given without question.’

  ‘Good. Because, God forgives, but we don’t.’ He paused to let his words sink in. ‘And we will be even more powerful soon. Xena, show our friend to the door.’

  As Green opened the door Xena came up beside him. She looked him in the eye, then rubbed at the front of his trousers. She had a smile on her face. It turned to an exaggerated scowl as she took her hand away.

  ‘Don’t worry. My friend just likes to size people up. And don’t forget, keep me informed of everything your colleague gets up to.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And remember, there is no room for failure, Mr Green.’

  32

  The busy corner of Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus was returning to normal. Isabel was standing exactly where they’d been standing waiting to cross the road, but George was on his way to hospital, perhaps dead already, and she was on her own, feeling hollow.

  After a few minutes of being jostled by passers-by, she turned and headed back towards the club, just for something to do. There was no way she was going drinking now.

  As she waited to cross Piccadilly, heading for the lane leading to Jermyn Street, she stood well back from the edge of the road, and looked around to see if anyone suspicious was near her. Then she turned back towards Piccadilly Circus. There was a long queue at the cash machine outside the BXH branch. There must have been thirty people waiting. God only knew what they were saying about BXH on the news. When a bank gets into trouble, anything can happen. She passed the queue quickly.