The Manhattan Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  ‘Don’t forget London,’ said Isabel. ‘There are 10,000 BXH employees in the London office.’ She thought about the offices in Canary Wharf, all the people she knew at the bank.

  And what about herself? Did this explain why Sean hadn’t come home, because BXH was about to go out of business with a very large bang? She felt light, as if air had filled every cell of her body.

  ‘Why the hell are they announcing this now?’ Laura looked pale, bemused.

  Isabel shrugged. The skin on her face felt tight.

  ‘God only knows what’s happened to Sean.’

  Laura looked at her sympathetically. Suddenly, Isabel remembered that their main bank account was at BXH. This was crazy. She remembered Sean fretting about it. He’d promised her he’d do something about it. But he’d never told her he had.

  If BXH went bankrupt would her ATM cards still work? She could almost understand why Sean might be afraid to come home.

  But where was he?

  ‘What a mess,’ she said.

  ‘A lot of people are gonna get fucked if they pull the plug on BXH. Someone’s gonna step in, honey. They have to. There’s gotta be frantic rescue efforts going on down there.’ She pointed at the floors below them.

  And then she walked, as if in a trance, towards the doors.

  Isabel followed. She looked back, as they exited, for a final glimpse of the room. There were only a few people left, tapping at their phones or deep in animated conversations. There were no security guards trying to move them on either. It looked as if a party had ended abruptly. There was a crowd of people standing around the elevators. One door was painted gold. All the other elevators had silver doors. One of the guards who’d checked them into the press conference – what a joke all that security seemed now – was standing near the elevators, presumably to make sure they all left the building the right way and didn’t take souvenirs.

  Then the gold elevator door opened.

  It was packed full of men in black suits. They looked as if they’d been squashed into it like salary men on a Tokyo subway train at rush hour.

  The guard stepped forward, blocking anyone from approaching the elevator. As the doors closed Isabel felt something reach inside her chest and brush her heart.

  Sean was in the elevator!

  47

  The large white clock in the monitoring room in Whitehall in central London showed the time as 12:08 a.m. Henry Mowlam was at his desk. Only half of the twenty desks in the room were occupied.

  He’d always loved the excitement of being called in to monitor late night operations, but what he didn’t enjoy was the often cruel realities that people had to face when terrorists or rogue elements began implementing their self-serving plans.

  This was the third time he had monitored a situation involving Isabel and Sean Ryan. He felt a personal involvement now, which was definitely not a good thing, given the reality of what Isabel, in particular, might be facing.

  He closed the emergency notification system on his main computer screen. The message he had just sent would wake officials in the Bank of England, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. A conference call would be held in twenty minutes.

  The officials he’d notified were all middle-ranking grades, but each of them had the authority to institute emergency procedures in their area of responsibility.

  The emergency measures that would be required to ensure BXH’s UK arm was able to open on Monday would be the main item for discussion. Henry would represent the Security Services on the call.

  He probably wouldn’t mention the disappearance of Rose Suchard or the fact that the Ryan’s son was also missing. But he would mention the murder that was connected with BXH and he would inform them that it was one of the connected incidents he was investigating. The involvement of Sean Ryan with the murder had still not been proven a hundred per cent, but his subsequent disappearance and the disappearance of his son gave cause for real concern. The case against Sean Ryan was strong and almost irrefutable now.

  Whether any of that had anything to do with BXH’s announcement was another matter entirely. However, the murder, and the subsequent headlines, certainly hadn’t helped their image.

  He looked at his second screen, the one on the left of his desk, and scrolled through his secure email system. There was still no message from the Manhattan FBI officer he had been put in touch with. The man was likely to be busy, they always seemed to be in the FBI office in the downtown Federal Plaza building, but he would be letting his UK colleagues down badly if he failed to respond to this request.

  Henry had mentioned the possibility of the woman becoming a serious crime target, but he hadn’t passed on the full details of how the dancer, connected to Isabel Ryan through her husband, had died. He’d saved that information for when the agent made contact.

  Perhaps that had been a mistake.

  He reached over, attached the preliminary autopsy report for the dancer to an email to the agent and sent it, with the following text:

  Please respond to surveillance request 786/425/MTY. The attached file gives my reasons for heightened concern, as the surveillance target – Isabel Ryan – is married to a prime suspect in this murder case.

  Please go directly to Page 7, where a summary of the victims’ injuries, including a ritual-like removal of skin from the torso, and the number of deep stab wounds suffered, give evidence to the pattern of behaviour the perpetrator is capable of.

  We believe this prime suspect is now in your area of operations. Extreme caution and an armed response is advised in this case.

  Please respond ASAP.

  I hope the Yanks catch Sean Ryan, he thought, as the message sent icon flashed up. They don’t have a lot of sympathy for murderers. They often, and quite justifiably, put bullet holes in them.

  48

  Isabel only saw Sean side on. But it was definitely him. Her mouth opened. The elevator doors were closing, just as the word, ‘Sean’ left her throat.

  And then her chest was being compressed. Her vision was focusing tightly on the doors, tunnelling everything peripheral away. A rushing filled her ears.

  It was like being caught in a car crash. Everything was moving in sticky-motion. And she was reacting way too slowly.

  ‘Sean,’ she roared. The doors slid closed as Sean’s name echoed off the walls.

  Everyone in the lobby turned and looked at her. The studied professional atmosphere shattered, as if a chandelier had fallen.

  Someone laughed. Then everyone went quiet. But only for a second. Then a hubbub of voices rolled over her as the noise of thirty or so people talking excitedly rose up to a pitch. They had all turned to look at her, but just for long enough to take in that she’d stopped screaming and that she wasn’t a threat.

  ‘Are you okay?’ a black-suited woman said.

  Isabel couldn’t speak. She was transfixed by the image of Sean in the elevator. Her brain was focused on one thing; trying to work out what to do next. She looked at the old-fashioned circular dial above the elevator door. The elevator was going down fast. Could she follow him? She looked at the other elevators. None of them were near their floor. And people were waiting at each set of doors.

  A security guard was beside her now, eyeing her up and down suspiciously.

  ‘Can you call that elevator back?’ she said quickly. ‘There’s someone in it I have to see.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am. No can do.’

  Laura was beside her.

  ‘You can’t or you won’t?’ said Laura.

  He looked at her, his expression as hard as a frozen statue’s.

  ‘You should leave quietly, lady. You’re making a disturbance.’

  ‘My husband’s was in that elevator.’ Her words tumbled against each other. ‘He’s been missing for two days. That’s why I screamed. Can you speak to someone, intercept him, tell him that I’m here, please.’

  He paused for only half a second before responding. ‘Sorry, I can’t do that either. Why don’t you
call him on his cell?’ He sounded suspicious.

  Isabel let out a groan. It came all the way from the bottom of her soul.

  The security guard must have figured out she was for real, because after glancing up at the indicator above the elevator, he said, ‘Look, that elevator just went down to the executive parking. He’s likely to be driving straight out of there. Don’t you know where he’s staying?’

  ‘Can’t you take me down there?’ Vital seconds were being wasted. She was rocking back and forth. There was something pushing at her to get going, to go after Sean. But none of the other elevators had come to their floor yet.

  ‘I gotta stay here.’ He glanced towards the people hanging around. One or two of them were listening to their conversation.

  He bent towards her. ‘But if you go to the side of the building you might catch him coming out of the car park,’ he said. ‘It takes a heck of a long time to get a car outta here.’ He paused. ‘Just don’t say I told you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘How many exits are there from the car park?’

  ‘There’s only one, ma’am, but you better get there quick, just in case.’

  One of the other elevators made a soft ping.

  She barged into the crowd assembled around the elevator door, elbowed people hard, pushed quickly into tiny gaps. She could feel warm bodies under her hands, shiny cottons.

  ‘Hey, don’t push,’ someone shouted.

  The doors shut, almost catching her shoulders.

  She hadn’t even had time to say goodbye to Laura. She turned her head, tried to glimpse her, but Laura was still at the back of the crowd.

  She wriggled forward. She’d taken up a space in the elevator that didn’t really exist. She’d created it by pushing someone in the back.

  Some people were grumbling, loudly, at what she’d done. She didn’t care.

  When she reached the street it was snowing thickly.

  The view from the windows upstairs hadn’t been a mistake. And it felt a lot colder too. The snow was compacting as it hit the concrete under her feet, making it slippy and uneven.

  She had to get to the car park exit. If she was there when Sean came out, he’d see her, he’d stop the car.

  He’d have to.

  As long as she got there in time she had a chance.

  She looked at her watch. How long had it been since she’d seen him? Two maybe three minutes, that was all.

  He could have been working up there all day on something to do with BXH’s bankruptcy. Maybe he had to do a project report to make sure the Institute’s project survived.

  Her breath was coming fast. Clouds of mist clung to the air around her as she ran to the corner of the building. She slipped and heard a shrill noise behind her, a screech. But she didn’t look back. She turned onto Lexington. The wall of the bank was on her right. She used it to steady herself. The car park exit was just ahead. Two hundred feet away.

  Not far. She ran on, slipped again.

  She could see light streaming from the exit through cracks in the steel shutters.

  There was snow on the bottom of the shutters. Two inches of it at least. It was one of the places the snow was sticking most. There, and on the ledges of the building, around the edges of the high stone blocks that made up its walls. She stopped three feet from the shutter and stamped her feet.

  The cold was eating at her toes.

  But there was good news. The build-up of snow meant the shutter probably hadn’t gone up in the last few minutes. That meant Sean was still inside.

  She’d made it in time.

  But was there anywhere else he could have gone? Could he have gone back up again, maybe to the CEO’s suite with its panoramic views of Manhattan, which he’d told her about? If the elevator had gone down to the car park, that had to mean he was planning on leaving the building.

  Didn’t it?

  She slapped her arms against her sides, over and over. She used to pray when she was seven, to believe it all. But she hadn’t asked for God’s help in years. She wasn’t even sure if she believed in him any more. But she’d thanked him enough times for good fortune, hadn’t she? So maybe she did. In her own way.

  So Isabel prayed for good fortune, the shutter opening, Sean seeing her. It was the kind of good luck she hadn’t needed in a long time.

  She looked up. A thick snow-globe cascade of white was falling from the sky, making her feel small.

  Please, make me suffer in another way. Bring him back. Now.

  She felt a presence and turned her head.

  Standing behind her, only feet away, was the bum from a few hours before.

  He was shuffling towards her.

  ‘What are you doin’ back here?’ His voice was a sinister growl.

  What was he going to do?

  ‘It’s a free country.’ A familiar rotting smell filled her nostrils.

  He straightened. Something rustled.

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  He spat towards the wall of the bank, pushed his hands deeper into the pockets of his matted, torn coat. There was thick snow in his hair, something brown and slimy on his cheek.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  He moved between her and the car park exit.

  ‘You sure are a sweet thing.’ He leered.

  A rattling sound interrupted him, the noise of chains, as if a drawbridge was being raised. Then the steel shutters clanked and rose slowly upwards. Thank God! The bum turned his head to stare.

  The shutter was only three quarters of the way up when a black town car slid its sleek nose out of the ramp behind, like an animal checking the weather.

  ‘Hey,’ she screamed.

  The bum laughed.

  ‘You are dreamin’, lady. Those magicians can’t hear you.’ His face was twitching, one eye more open than the other.

  She turned to face the car as it stopped, waiting to slip onto Lexington. She rushed forward.

  There were dark shapes in the back. Two men.

  ‘Sean!’ she screamed. She waved frantically. A rush of adrenaline shot through her making her tremble. He couldn’t miss her.

  She reached towards the car.

  It was him!

  But he was staring straight ahead. And her legs were weak, like stacks of crumbling papers.

  He looked worried.

  Her fingers were a half inch from the window when the car jerked forward, turning into the street. She could feel the air being disturbed in its wake, warm, as if an animal had passed. And she’d almost touched its shiny coat.

  And in that next second all her hopes were lost. She deflated like a burst party balloon.

  Stupid. So totally stupid. Why hadn’t she thrown something at the car?

  And now it was gone.

  And the whole thing had taken no more than a few seconds. Sure, the good news was Sean was alive and in New York. But there was something very wrong. Something terribly wrong.

  The steel shutter clanked down. The light behind it went out. She was a foot away from the bum. She stepped towards the kerb and looked around quickly for a taxi. She’d memorised the license plate of the car Sean had been in. Maybe she could follow him. If only she could get a cab quickly enough.

  But there were none coming down Lexington. Why was it always this way? Too many when you didn’t need one, never even one when you did?

  The bum shuffled closer.

  She stood her ground.

  ‘Go away.’ She glared at him. She didn’t care that he was bigger than her, smellier.

  The car Sean was in had almost disappeared into the gauze of falling snow.

  ‘Are you okay?’ It was Laura’s voice. She was standing beside her. Isabel was glad to see her.

  ‘Is he bothering you?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  The bum was backing up.

  She was still trembling. Partly from the cold. Partly from the shock of seeing Sean and not speaking to him. There was something awful going on.

  And it wasn’t
a story on the news or a movie. This was her life. And now she felt isolated, cut off.

  ‘It’s too cold to hang around. Come on, let’s get a cab at 45th.’ Laura linked her arm through Isabel’s. They walked.

  ‘You could have waited for me, honey.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Her mouth was dry, her lips cracked and hard. Snow brushed at her face, ice prickling at her cheeks.

  ‘Your husband was in that car, wasn’t he?’

  She nodded. She’d been rude to Laura, she knew, and she was lucky she’d come after her.

  A yellow cab with its light on was rolling towards them. Laura put her hand up. The cab pulled up with a screech, as if its brakes weren’t working properly. A wave of slush surged towards their feet. They both jumped out of its way.

  Isabel got in first.

  ‘Where you going, my ladies?’ The driver was wearing a turban.

  She thought about asking him to follow the car Sean was in, but she could hardly see cars a block away with the falling snow. Driving around looking for him when his car had disappeared would be a totally stupid idea. She rubbed her forehead. She’d been so close to him. So close.

  Goddamn it, she had to focus on the good news. He was alive. He was here in New York. She’d seen him.

  ‘Just drive, buddy. Down to 37th,’ said Laura.

  He pulled out. There was hardly any traffic. They passed the intersection where Sean’s car had turned. There was no sign of it. Then they were at the turn for her hotel. Should she get out, go back to her room?

  As they waited at the corner of 42nd she realised she wasn’t going to get out. She didn’t want to be alone. Not now.

  ‘Did you get the license plate?’

  For a sinking moment she thought the number had gone from her mind. She could see the car, feel its heat, but she couldn’t see its plate. Then it came back to her – AFC 35P450. That was it.

  ‘Yeah, I did. But what the hell good will that do?’

  ‘Maybe we can find it.’

  ‘You mean track it?’

  Laura nodded.