The Manhattan Puzzle (22 page)

‘She lost her husband,’ said Laura.

‘I know what that’s like,’ said Bao. ‘There is always a piece missing inside you after something like that.’ She smiled, but it was fleeting. Then she glanced at a thin gold watch on her wrist, frowned, and shook her head fast.

‘So sorry’ she said. ‘No time to listen to any story.’

Isabel’s pulse was quickening.

‘We’ll go,’ said Greg. He had his iPad open and was tapping at the screen.

‘So sorry everybody. In two minutes there’ll be a knock on this door. My customers need to relax, even when it’s snowing.’ Bao smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

This wasn’t someone who would let you impact on her money making. Not for one minute.

‘Why don’t you go down the fire stairs?’ said Bao.

‘Did they fix the lights?’ said Greg.

‘Sure. I use it sometimes. It’s good exercise.’

‘Okay,’ he said. He tapped at his iPad. Bao was standing near the door staring at him.

She couldn’t have made it any clearer that she wanted them to leave. Isabel went to the door and put her eye to the spy hole. There was nothing but blackness. Was it broken?

‘I can’t see anything,’ she said.

A growl sounded from the other side of the door. It was low and was followed by a snuffling at the bottom of the door, as if a dog was trying to get in.

‘Your customer brings a dog, right?’ said Greg to Bao.

‘No.’ She motioned them away from the door. Then she pointed at the window.

‘There is a ladder. Go that way.’

Isabel opened the window wide. There was a proper metal ladder running past the window to the right. It had a wire cage around it to stop you falling and was secured by iron studs pushed into the wall. ‘It’s a long way to go down.’

There was a barking now and a banging from the front door.

The banging stopped. It felt as if someone was listening.

‘When you get two floors down you knock on the window,’ whispered Bao. ‘My girlfriend down there.’

Greg blinked. Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by more, faster banging on Bao’s door. This wasn’t polite banging. This was a banging intended to test it for weaknesses.

‘You go first,’ Isabel said to Laura.

‘I can’t,’ said Laura.

‘You have to,’ Bao hissed.

Laura looked from Greg to Isabel. She gripped Greg’s arm.

‘You can do it,’ he said. ‘You always went first when we were young.’

She gave a fake smile, reached towards the handrail and pulled herself onto the ladder. Isabel and Greg watched her go down a few steps.

Then Greg went after her.

‘Are you coming with us?’ said Isabel.

‘I’m not staying here,’ said Bao.

Isabel looked over the edge of the window. It felt as if she was falling, her skin pulling back along her body. Vertigo sucked at her. She looked up the shaft, to steady herself, then grabbed the rough, cold handrail. She said a prayer under her breath and swung her body into the cage.

Being ten floors up, even in a wire cage, was like being near the top of a cliff.

She could feel the icy air moving into the cracks of her clothes, sliding inside, touching her skin. There was an odd smell in the shaft, as if there was something bad down below. A loud mechanical hum filled the air.

She heard another crack, as if the door of Bao’s apartment was about to give way. She forced herself to go down the ladder, counting each step to distract herself. The thought of falling, banging against the wire, the ladder coming away from the wall, filled her mind until she could almost see it happening.

The ladder was held away from the wall about three inches by metal spikes. It meant she could move down smoothly. But it was also bad, as it felt as if she was descending into thin air. And every time she looked down she had to grip the ladder so tight she was afraid it would disintegrate.

So she looked at the wall, the bricks passing, and kept going.

She heard a noise below, and when she looked down she could see Greg’s head. He had the beginnings of a bald patch in the centre. He was leaning out of a window.

Snow was settling on her shoulders. Flakes landed on her nose. She kept going. She was thinking about Alek waiting for her now.

She felt the emptiness around her, the space and air extending down and up. One slip and this wouldn’t be fun any more.

Then she felt a hand on her legs. She moved down, grabbed the top of the window opening and went in completely.

There was an older Chinese woman in the room. This apartment was all red. The woman was dressed in a long white kimono. She bowed to Isabel as she came in.

‘Thank you,’ said Isabel.

Bao, who’d been coming down only a foot above Isabel, came in behind her and closed the window. Then she pulled across a red curtain. You couldn’t even see the window any more.

‘No one can tell where we went,’ said Bao. ‘I will go up later, after my number one customer comes. Nobody frightens him.’

‘We should go,’ said Laura. Greg was outside in the corridor looking one way then the other.

The older Chinese woman bowed again as Isabel went past her. Isabel bowed back.

As she closed the door Greg was waving impatiently at her and Laura from a doorway up the corridor.

Isabel’s every muscle tensed as she looked first one way then the other. Had they done it? Had they escaped? And who the hell was that following them with the dog?

Echoes of what she’d been through in Istanbul and Jerusalem came back to her. Was all this connected?

She needed to think, but first of all she needed to get out of this place.

‘Come on, we gotta fucking go!’ hissed Greg.

She walked fast towards the door he was waiting fifty feet down the corridor.

When the door closed behind them she breathed properly for the first time in minutes. Then they were heading down a cold concrete stairway. All she could hear now were groans from the pipes and the bee-like hum of the fluorescent lighting. The air was freezing in the stairs, way colder than in the corridor up above. And their breath was visible as if they were smoking. She touched the metal handrail only once. It was icy and reminded her of the ladder.

They’d gone down about halfway now. She felt better, relieved to be moving. It seemed they’d left their pursuers behind.

‘I hate running down stairs,’ said Laura.

‘I ordered a taxi on my phone while we were waiting for you,’ shouted Greg. ‘It’s on its way down Lexington. It’ll be below in one minute. That’s what the app says.’

‘I hope it comes,’ shouted Laura.

Then she heard a bang from up above. Anxiety exploded through her. She took the next set of stairs in two jumps. Laura was ahead of her, going faster now too.

Greg was even further down.

Then she heard a shout from up above.

‘Get ’em boy!’ And then barking and a scrambling noise. She started to run.

Henry Mowlam was sitting at a wooden meeting-room table in a spartan room on the sixth floor of their office building in Whitehall. The view from the narrow window was of offices and a stretch of the River Thames, with the upper part of the illuminated Millennium Wheel visible behind them. The wheel glistened.

Finch was in the small modern kitchen, next to the meeting room making them coffee. They’d left the observation room, underground, a few minutes before.

‘This is explosive stuff,’ said Henry, as he stacked the files he’d been leafing through together.

‘I know,’ said Finch, poking her head through the doorway, then disappearing again.

Henry had spent the last ten minutes speed reading what was in the files. When Finch set the mug down in front of him he had his questions ready. ‘Why do the Chinese want this facial recognition software so badly?’ he said.

‘For automated population control, and for the elimination of genetic aberrations, which lead to dissent. That’s the best guess of the geniuses in the research agency.’

Henry shook his head. ‘All that from a face?’

Finch nodded. ‘It’s about tracking people. Once they have this working they’ll be able to pick up relatives of high-risk individuals at choke points, like bus stops and train stations, and revoke their city residence permits.’

‘You think this is connected to what’s going on in Germany?’ he said. He glanced at the file he’d been looking through detailing the funding sources for the nationalist party that had come from nowhere to dominate the headlines during the recent parliamentary elections in Germany.

‘Yes, the money for their first six months came from this hedge fund Lord Bidoner is involved with. It’s not the sort of the thing that would put anyone behind bars, but it’s worrying.’

‘You do know we still haven’t got FBI approval on tracking Isabel Ryan.’

‘It’s being escalated, Henry.’ She picked up the files and put them under her arm.

‘We better go back downstairs,’ she said. ‘I just wanted you to see these.’ She smiled at him as she passed.

‘I appreciate it,’ were his last words, before he closed the door.

As they walked down the corridor to the elevator he walked close to her. Their arms touched. He could feel her body heat. He closed his eyes. This was not the time to get distracted. He had to stay focused.

They had some decisions to make soon. Very soon.

The BXH conference call had shown their lack of reliable information on what had been going on at BXH. But what concerned him more was the fact that every member of the Ryan family was now missing.

Greg hit the exit door running. It swung wide, banging hard against the outside wall. The noise it made was like a clang from a kettle drum.

It had stopped snowing.

The door had a brass sheet on it, covering it completely inside and out. Once it must have been luxurious, in a sixties sort of way. Now it was dented, scuffed.

There was snow and slush under their feet. Isabel’s shoes were holding up well, so far, but they weren’t snow shoes. Her fingers and cheeks tingled. It felt as if she was being assaulted by the cold.

A yellow cab was waiting at the end of the alley. She went after Greg and Laura, slipping, sliding, towards it. She knew at that moment what the phrase having your heart in your mouth meant. Her throat felt as if it was almost blocked.

It was so good to get inside the cab. It felt safe.

‘Let’s go uptown to my place,’ said Laura, as the cab moved off. She was settling back as if nothing had happened.

‘Is Bao okay?’ said Greg. He leaned over Laura and looked Isabel straight in the eyes.

‘She’s fine, I think,’ said Isabel.

‘Who the hell was that?’ He grabbed her knee.

‘I don’t know.’

The words caught in Isabel’s throat.

Goddamn it. Goddamn them all.

‘Look,’ said Laura. Isabel turned and looked out of the back window of the cab.

A man had come out of the alley they’d just come from. He was bald and wearing a long buttoned-up navy coat. He had a large Alsatian on a lead. He looked like a security guard from a high-class gated estate. He stared at their cab, as if he was memorising it.

‘I suggest we don’t go back there for a while,’ said Laura. ‘I don’t want to meet that guy. You don’t want to either.’ She nudged Greg.

Isabel had a weight inside her. It grew as the cab speeded up and she could see through the back window that he was just standing there not following them. Everything that had happened in Istanbul and Jerusalem had come back to her. She’d been kidnapped by a man just like this.

‘Bastard,’ shouted Greg. He waved a fist briefly, then banged it into his chest.

‘Leave us alone,’ he shouted.

The taxi slowed down. Laura shouted at the driver. ‘Keep going.’

U2 were belting out ‘One’ on the cab radio. She looked out of the window. She was almost hallucinating. The snow, the lights of the other cars, their combined heavy breathing, all added to the sensation that this was the cab ride from hell. Then the car bounced through a pothole and the music got louder. They passed 42nd Street. She definitely didn’t want to go back to her hotel.

Maybe she could go back there later. Much later.

And breathe. This isn’t about you. Go to BXH in the morning. Tell them you want to see your husband. There’s no way they can deny that he’s here in New York. You saw him, for God’s sake.

Her heart slowed.

At least she knew the routine in the bank on busy weekends. People would go in there at eight on a Sunday morning if necessary, so Sean had said. And as they were heading into Chapter 11 that was definitely what was going to happen tomorrow.

She stared out of the back window. There were cabs and trucks and a snowplough behind them.

‘Who was that fucking idiot?’ said Greg. ‘A friend of yours?’ He sounded angry. She didn’t blame him.

‘Do you think that guy was from BXH?’

Isabel shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Could be.’

‘They’re up to their necks in dumb contracts,’ said Greg. Someone’s going to end up holding one hell of a giant bag of worthless paper if they go south.’

‘It won’t be that big a disaster,’ she said.

‘What? No way, their balance sheet has more holes than a Swiss cheese. The shock wave from BXH defaulting will go around the world and flatten tons and tons of people. Millions I reckon.’

‘But they won’t default.’

‘That’s not what the market thinks. Their share price is close to zero. All their depositors will start queuing for their money back soon. Maybe from tonight.’ He turned his head to watch someone at an ATM.

‘They’ll need a loaves and fishes moment to survive what’s coming.’ He sniffed. ‘I hope they don’t get it.’

‘The Fed’ll step in,’ said Laura. ‘Pump hundreds of billions in.’

‘There’s a bunch of senators who are against any more big bailouts,’ said Greg. ‘This is gonna give them a real fright. They might just stand up to Wall Street this time.’

He closed his eyes, bent his head down.

They were heading up Third Avenue. They’d reached 59th Street already. Towers of glass and concrete were all around.

Isabel’s phone warbled.

A text had come in. A tiny ember of hope glowed inside her. Could it be Sean? Her cold hand pulled her phone out.