The Manhattan Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  ‘You have a balcony?’ she said.

  ‘Your husband isn’t out there,’ said Vaughann.

  ‘Why don’t you show Mrs Ryan our terrace,’ said Pilman. He clearly thought he was dealing with a slow child.

  Vaughann took a brass key from a hook behind the yellow brocade curtain at the side of the door and unlocked the balcony. A wild blast of icy air and snow rushed into the room as he pushed the door open.

  She stepped back, acutely aware of her vulnerability again. Freezing air poured in. The balcony was small, stone floored, but big enough maybe for a coffee table and a few chairs in the summer.

  It was a place of demons in winter. She could see gargoyles along the high outside edge of the balcony. The freezing wind had a lot of snowflakes in it too. And there was something rattling out there. She didn’t want to go out. She’d seen enough.

  Vaughann smiled and locked the door. She glanced around. She was wasting her time.

  ‘I’d have imagined a woman like you would know when to cut her losses,’ said Pilman.

  ‘I’m full of surprises.’ She was standing by the marble table now. One of her knees was pressing into it. It felt cold through her trousers, despite the heat in the room.

  ‘Your support for your husband is truly touching, really it is,’ said Pilman.

  He sat on an armchair covered in patterned cream silk. Every piece of furniture in the room looked as if it could have been in a museum or an art gallery.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time you got some sleep?’ said Pilman. ‘You look shattered.’

  Vaughann’s eyes bulged. He looked to be getting angrier. Was she keeping them from something? Good.

  ‘You have no idea what’s going on tonight, do you?’ said Vaughann. ‘You are incredibly lucky we have given you so much time, Mrs Ryan. I wouldn’t be as understanding as Mr Pilman. You should know that he took a call from the President of the United States this evening. Millions of people will be affected by what is happening to BXH. So, I am afraid you will have to leave. We have things to do. Important things.’

  ‘I hope you told the President about the billions you’ve wasted.’

  Vaughann took a step towards her.

  Pilman put his hands up. ‘Please, both of you. I want this to end amicably.’ He paused, gave her that dead salesman’s smile again.

  ‘I’m sure BXH will be willing to compensate you for your distress.’ He gave her a lips-pressed-together smile. ‘I’ll get our legal team to draft something up.’

  It sounded as if she was being asked to drink poison. She’d probably be bound by some secrecy clause until well after she died.

  There was a chill deep in her stomach. Her anger rested with it, twisting at her gut. She could hear the wind pressing against the windows. It sounded as if something was scratching at the glass.

  ‘I don’t want compensation. I’m not one of your underlings.’

  Pilman sat on the nearest sofa. He leaned back, making himself comfortable. It looked as if he’d resigned himself to her taking her time before leaving.

  An elaborate gold clock on the mantelpiece chimed. It was two feet high and had little gold figures and an ivory face.

  ‘I’ll call Gus Reilly,’ said Vaughann. ‘I expect he wants to talk to you.’

  That was the moment her phone rang again. She answered it this time. There had to be a good reason for someone to keep calling her in the middle of the night.

  She walked towards the window and turned her back on Vaughann and Pilman.

  A minute later she had to sit down on a high-backed seat. A rush of emotion threatened to overwhelm her. She held the arms of the chair tight. She knew Henry Mowlam from when he’d visited them in London, but she’d never expected to be called by him in the middle of the night with such news.

  Such shocking news. She pressed the phone to her ear as if it was her lifeline.

  73

  Henry Mowlam held the phone tight to his ear. He had just told Isabel Ryan that her son, Alek, was missing.

  He hated such moments. He had only informed two other people that their loved ones had disappeared, but each time it had been unnerving and very unpleasant.

  ‘Mrs Ryan, there is more I need to tell you. Are you sitting down?’

  ‘Just tell me,’ she replied.

  She was tougher than he expected. Her Foreign Office training kicking in, no doubt.

  ‘You are in danger. We advise that you come back to the UK as soon as possible.’

  ‘How am I in danger?’

  ‘You know your husband has confessed to a murder, yes?’ said Henry.

  There was a hesitation, then she said, ‘Yes, and I don’t believe it.’

  ‘There is more going on that I can’t tell you, Mrs Ryan. All I can say is that there’s a connection between BXH and what happened to you in Jerusalem and Istanbul.’

  ‘What connection?’ she said, quickly.

  ‘Your husband may have been involved in what happened in each of those cities.’

  He couldn’t tell her about finding the square and arrow symbol in the BXH building. He didn’t want her any more involved than she already was. The screen in front of him was showing the current coordinates of the mobile phone he was calling, overlaid on a map of Manhattan.

  She was in the BXH building.

  The last thing he wanted her to do was start digging around looking for where her husband might be hiding. But he had to make her realise she was in danger.

  There was a pause. ‘I’ll try to get back on an earlier flight. Please, do absolutely everything you can to find Alek.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Everything.’

  ‘We are looking everywhere, Mrs Ryan. We won’t let up until we do find him. You can be sure of that. Call me as soon as you touch down in England.’

  ‘I will.’ The line went dead.

  He closed his eyes. Hopefully he had intervened in time and had told her enough, but not too much.

  74

  She gripped her arms around herself, then slowly relaxed them. Images of Alek raced through her mind. Fear for him and a feeling that she was falling were pulling at her, sucking her down into a hole of terror and anxiety.

  She felt as if she was going mad with it. There was too much going on for her to take it all in.

  She shook her head. She had to stay sane. Stay focused. She had to. For Alek’s sake. And Sean’s.

  She opened her eyes. Pilman and Vaughann were talking at the far end of the room. There was something black poking out from under the sofa Pilman had been sitting on. It was a briefcase. She stared at it, walked in slow motion towards it. Was that Sean’s briefcase?

  She bent down.

  Yes, it was.

  A sense of recognition and surprise came over her.

  She reached down, slid the briefcase out and took it to the marble coffee table.

  ‘Your husband was up here first thing this morning,’ said Pilman, as he came towards here. ‘I think that may be his.’

  She was sure it was Sean’s. They’d bought it in Harrods the previous Christmas. It had been her present to him. It had brass locks, a thick leather handle and some new shock absorbent padding inside for a slim laptop. Modern traditional they’d called it.

  ‘It is. I gave it to him,’ she said. She zipped it open.

  Inside was Sean’s usual collection of items he needed for meetings. There was a navy-blue notebook, a selection of pens, a white cable for recharging his phone, earphones, business cards, some airline face wipes, some BXH documents in a folder, his Sony laptop.

  His laptop was upside down and the cables were strewn over it. That wasn’t like him. She heard a cough behind her, someone moving. She didn’t look around.

  She pulled the laptop out quickly.

  ‘I don’t think you should be starting that up,’ said Pilman.

  He was standing over her.

  ‘This belongs to my husband,’ she said, angrily. ‘I have every right to do this.’ Alek was missing and he wanted t
o stop her accessing Sean’s laptop?

  ‘I’d prefer if you didn’t start that up. Please don’t make this unpleasant.’

  Fuck him.

  Could she remember Sean’s password, that was the next question? God, she was tired. She closed her eyes. Images of Alek being held somewhere, as she had been in Jerusalem, filled her mind.

  My God, who would take a child? She shuddered.

  Yes, she remembered the password. It was the same as the one she’d used in London.

  Would he have changed it without telling her?

  She tried it.

  Vaughann was standing over her as well now. ‘That’s BXH’s property.’ He was bending down towards her.

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s my husband’s property.’ She looked up at him. She had to keep him away, just for a few minutes.

  ‘Don’t touch it or me. Unless you want to be accused of sexual assault, Mr Vaughann.’

  He snorted. ‘No one’s going to believe you, take your word over mine.’ He reached down towards the laptop. ‘Move away, now.’

  Isabel raised her hand, as if she was going to slap him. He made an exasperated noise, straightened up, headed quickly for the main door of the room. She wouldn’t have that much time.

  ‘What do you expect to find?’ said Pilman.

  She didn’t want to tell him that she had no idea, but that she knew where to look if there was anything of interest on any computer.

  She opened the Windows recycle bin. There was nothing there. Then she used a utility to open up files that had been deleted recently and hadn’t been overwritten yet.

  One of them was a document called The Likely Impact of Superfast Facial Recognition on Crime, Tax Evasion and Political Corruption. Another was an exciting memo about the Institute Christmas party.

  Was there anything else? Was there anything that might help her find Alek?

  She scanned the temporary file list.

  Pilman coughed.

  ‘Why don’t you take the compensation, Mrs Ryan? Things might get very difficult if your husband isn’t the family breadwinner any more. You should consider your future.’

  Outlook folders. That was the next place to look.

  She looked in the inbox, the deleted box and even in Sean’s personal email box. She scanned the emails that had come in on Thursday and Friday or had been deleted on either day. It was all routine stuff.

  What next? Come on.

  Browsing history.

  She looked for the history file. It had been deleted.

  But there was another way to find a record of the websites Sean had recently visited.

  Vaughann was standing right on top of her again. She could see his shoes, feel his presence. She kept looking at the screen. Her muscles tensed. If he tried to take the laptop, she would have to hit him, again. Harder this time.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Gus Reilly. He’s asked me to confiscate any computer equipment up here.’ He reached down. ‘He will be here any minute.’ He had his hand near the laptop’s lid.

  His superior tone was irritating.

  She slapped at him. He pulled his arm away, but too late. She connected with the back of his hand.

  ‘I told you to stay away from me. I will scream rape. And I will press charges.’ She didn’t look up. Her heart was pounding. Her tone was fierce.

  He stepped back.

  ‘You’ll regret this,’ he said.

  She could feel the animosity coming off him. She kept staring at the screen. The third website on the list sent her head into a deep tailspin. It was the website for the strip club in London. Sean had viewed two pages on the site.

  It could have been just curiosity or was she still being stupid? The next website was the Optical Science Journal’s news section. Then he’d gone to the website for some obscure hedge fund she’d never heard of. She clicked through to the site. They had a webpage that said almost nothing.

  Another site he’d gone to was a history of Grand Central station. Had he visited it because he was coming here for the weekend? She clicked the link.

  The page he’d been looking at was about a depression-era private train platform connected to the station. The page featured plans of tunnels connecting the platform to Grand Central and the old post office building next door to BXH, and an explanation of how important the post office had been to the war effort.

  What the hell had that got to do with anything?

  After that on the list there were a few sites about Paris. One was for a lingerie shop. Another had the opening times of the Louvre. Her heart lifted. He’d been thinking about their trip.

  Then there were some pages from the SEC’s website about various regulations. One was a page about money laundering and ID checks. That was as far as she got.

  ‘Hey,’ a voice called out, in a tone sharp enough to cut the head of a chicken. ‘Get away from that laptop.’

  She had to keep looking.

  She could hear footsteps. She tapped at the keyboard. A second later it started closing.

  ‘What are you doing, tampering with evidence?’

  She looked up.

  Gus Reilly was closing the keyboard. Her fingers were a second away from being trapped. She pulled them back and smiled up at him. She wasn’t going to snap at someone who worked for the New York District Attorney’s Office. She wasn’t that stupid.

  He closed the laptop, picked it up, pulled the plug out, put the laptop under his arm.

  ‘This is evidence in an investigation. I sure hope you haven’t deleted anything.’

  She pushed herself to her feet. She had pins and needles in both calves. Her head was still pounding and her stomach felt as if she’d eaten something bad.

  ‘Why would I do that? I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  He made a balloon-exploding noise. ‘Paaaah. Yeah, right. What about trespassing? That’s what the NYPD are talking about charging you with for starters. We can lock you up any time.’ His face was red, his cheeks bulging.

  ‘I’m trying to find my husband.’ Her voice was raised.

  ‘Right, and what you are gonna do now is come downstairs, and make a statement.’ He reached towards her, as if he was going to grab her.

  She put both hands up. ‘Okay, I’m coming. You don’t have to manhandle me.’

  He looked at Pilman, then at Vaughann. ‘You gentlemen all right?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Reilly. The District Attorney’s office is doing a great job,’ said Pilman.

  Gus motioned for her to come with him.

  She didn’t look back. In the corridor she said, ‘How come they’re not under investigation?’

  ‘One thing at a time, Mrs Ryan. Let’s deal with your statement first.’

  He led her to the main elevators, not to the service elevator she’d come up in.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to,’ he said, as the elevator doors opened.

  ‘What am I up to?’ The doors closed behind them.

  ‘Covering up for your husband. And you better understand this, if you’ve deleted anything at all on his laptop I’m gonna know about it. And on another matter, what were you doing down in the basement?’

  ‘I was looking for Sean. I found Detective Grainger’s body.’

  ‘I hope you’re not involved in that. That is monstrous what happened to her.’ He stared at her, as if watching for her reactions.

  ‘It makes me sick too.’

  He looked at the light indicating the floors they were passing.

  Isabel had to look down. She felt dizzy. Was Alek okay? Could she do anything to help him?

  The elevator stopped on the forty-ninth floor.

  Reilly said nothing else until they were in a large meeting room. It had been taken over by a swarm of uniformed police officers, security guards, men and women with badges she didn’t recognise.

  She was glimpsing the reality of what happens when a police officer is shot. She heard Sean’s name three times in less than a minute in that ro
om, and she couldn’t even make out what the rest of those conversations were about. It was all a jumble.

  She tightened her arms around herself.

  ‘What is the DA’s office investigating at BXH?’ she said, as Gus Reilly sat down at the head of the shiny black conference table, which dominated the long thickly carpeted meeting room.

  ‘That’s all confidential,’ he said. ‘Sit down, Mrs Ryan. I’ve got some questions that need answers. And there’s a couple of other officers who want a word with you too.’

  She sat on the steel and black leather chair beside him and leaned on its armrest.

  Nobody was paying any attention to them.

  Two young officers, a blonde girl and a tall black officer with gold epaulettes were poring over a set of layout diagrams at the far end of the table. Other people were talking into walkie-talkies or in huddles with colleagues. There must have been fifteen people in the room.

  A side table with an antique silver coffee pot and a teapot on a silver tray stood nearby. They looked like items you’d find at Tiffany’s.

  ‘Have you been read your rights, Mrs Ryan?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied.

  ‘Have you seen your husband since I saw you last, Mrs Ryan?’ Reilly spoke fast, as if he had a lot to do.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What were you looking for on his laptop?’

  ‘A clue for where I might find him.’

  ‘Did you find anything?’

  ‘No.’ She stared into his eyes.

  His narrowed. ‘Are you aware of the investigations the DA’s office has been carrying out into BXH?’

  She shook her head and leaned forward. ‘Is it something to do with the facial recognition software?’

  He hitched his trousers up at the side, gave her a knowing look and answered her with a question. ‘Did your husband say anything at all about investigations into BXH?’

  ‘No. He’s based in London, anyway. Are you investigating the bank there?’

  His eyes darted around the room. ‘You want some advice, Mrs Ryan?’ He turned back to her.

  She didn’t answer.