The Manhattan Puzzle (27 page)

She was clutching at wisps.

She shuddered. Could the man she loved really have met with a prostitute and killed her? She thought about Alek. Thank God he didn’t have to see this. She got an urge to call him, to speak to him. It wouldn’t be long before it was Sunday morning in London. She closed her eyes. Thank God for one thing. At least Alek was safe.

‘Mrs Ryan, I know you’re under stress. It’s a terrible thing your husband has admitted to, and I understand it’s hard to believe,’ said Grainger.

Isabel’s hand on the table was trembling. She put it in her lap, gripped it with her other hand and pressed them both into her stomach. She kept her eyes closed.

‘Have you been told that your husband bailed out of a moving vehicle?’ said Detective Grainger.

She shook her head. A part of her didn’t want to hear any more bad news, didn’t want to see any more bad news.

‘Someone should have told you.’ She put a finger on Isabel’s knee and pressed it down hard, as if she was trying to get through to her.

‘You may need some protection.’

Isabel’s eyes opened.

‘What happened?’ she said. She sat up straighter.

‘As your husband was being driven to the 17th precinct station house earlier this evening, Mrs Ryan, he jumped out of the car taking him there. He’d agreed to be driven there following that recording you saw.’

‘Why would Sean come to New York, if he was going to confess?’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘He could have done that in London.’

Detective Grainger looked at Vaughann, then back at her.

‘You should tell her what’s happened, Mr Vaughann.’ Grainger had a stiff look on her face, as if she had plenty of thoughts about all this, but wasn’t going to reveal any of them.

Vaughann coughed, then began talking. ‘I confronted your husband about all the speculation in the English media earlier. It was at that point Sean agreed to make the statement.’ He paused, as if he thought he had done something commendable.

‘This follows our protocols precisely.’ He looked like someone for whom that mattered a lot.

‘Serious incidents involving the bank’s reputation have to be reported to the authorities immediately.’ He shook his head, as if disappointed at the timing of all this.

‘You decided to terminate the Institute’s contract without hearing Sean’s side of the story?’ Isabel said.

He stared at her. ‘We spoke to your husband, Mrs Ryan. You saw the interview.’ He sniffed.

‘I’d say he wanted your husband on tape in case he was arrested, isn’t that right, Mr Vaughann?’ said Detective Grainger. ‘You were covering your backsides.’

‘Detective, this is also about business. I made it clear at all times that the Institute’s contract had to be terminated if he admitted a criminal offence.’ He was staring at Grainger. ‘I did tell you this already.’ His tone was firm.

‘After he made his admission there was nothing else I could do, no matter what my personal feelings were.’

‘Yeah, you did the right thing,’ said Isabel. ‘You always do the right thing.’

‘Yes, we do. Your husband has been acting odd for a while,’ he went on. ‘But this is not about me or about BXH. I had no choice in this. Sean volunteered his replies. You’ll have to ask him why. We’ve exceeded our obligations. You wouldn’t even have seen his confession if we hadn’t done it this way.’ He sounded pleased with the way it had all worked out.

‘Your husband has no further contractual relationship with BXH. He assaulted one of my colleagues when they were stopped at a red light. Then he got out of the town car and ran up Lexington, against the traffic. It’s all verifiable. He was probably on two or three different security cameras when he ran for it. It was like something from a movie, so I’m told.’

She took a huge breath. Air poured into her. None of this sounded like Sean. It felt as if they were talking about someone else, some stupid criminal. What the hell could have driven him to do all this?

She looked up. Everyone in the room was staring at her. She saw pity and distaste in their eyes.

Henry Mowlam put the phone to his ear and listened. The office was quiet around him.

‘Henry, there’s been a development.’ Finch’s tone was at its most officious, which meant there were people around her.

‘What’s happened?’

‘We’ve discovered your stupid symbol on the plan of the underground levels of the BXH building in New York. Apparently it’s on the original plans from 1923. They show the deepest level of the building with a vault marked with a square and arrow.’

‘That’s it?’ He tried not to sound too exasperated. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded. ‘No, Henry, that’s not it. Isabel Ryan is in imminent danger. I need you to make contact with her and warn her about her husband. She knows you, so she’s more likely to believe you. Her husband has confessed to that dancer’s murder. The NYPD will treat him as armed and dangerous from this point on. It looks like you were right.’

Henry put the phone down. He took no pleasure in being right. What he wanted to do now was make sure Isabel Ryan and Alek Ryan got out of this situation in one piece.

He dialled Isabel Ryan’s mobile number.

The call diverted to voicemail.

Isabel looked down at the table. She wasn’t going to give in. And there was the question of timing. Detective Grainger had said the vehicle Sean had been in had been on its way uptown. But if it had been, how had it gone through the Lincoln Tunnel only a few minutes later?

She closed her eyes and imagined herself standing looking at the screen in Greg’s tiny apartment. What time had the screen said it had gone through the tunnel?

Then she remembered Greg saying, ‘18:58,’ and pointing.

‘Mr Vaughann,’ she said.

He raised his eyebrows.

‘How come that town car Sean was in went through Lincoln Tunnel just minutes after I saw it outside the building here? If they were heading to a police station they wouldn’t have been able to get to the Lincoln Tunnel in a few minutes.’

‘I don’t have to explain anything,’ said Vaughann. He paused. ‘But I will. Your husband jumped from the car only three blocks from here. They had plenty of time to get to the Lincoln Tunnel.’ Three blocks? Had he seen her?

‘Why didn’t they go straight to the precinct, report what had happened?’

‘We got a call reporting what had occurred, Mrs Ryan. That’s good enough for us,’ said Grainger.

Everyone was still looking at her. They were all totally convinced of Sean’s guilt. She was the last juror in the room holding out for an innocent verdict on some guilty bum, preventing him from being convicted.

There was a knock at the door. A policewoman, in full uniform this time, poked her head inside the room.

‘Can I see you, Detective Grainger?’ she drawled.

Grainger rose to her feet and exited the room.

They sat in a silence broken only by distant groans from the pipes and the hum of the fluorescent lighting. Dick Owen turned to Vaughann, leaned close to him and whispered.

She closed her eyes. Would she have to accept Sean’s guilt?

Grainger came back into the room.

‘Your husband has been seen, Mrs Ryan.’

Isabel rose to her feet. Her legs felt jellylike, as if she’d been in a hospital bed for six months. For a moment everything went black. She swayed and sat down again.

‘Are you okay?’ said Grainger

‘Where is he?’ she said. She shook her head to clear it.

‘He was seen on a security camera in this building,’ said Grainger.

‘What?’ exploded Vaughann.

The hairs on the back of Isabel’s neck stood up like porcupine quills.

‘They don’t know how he got in, but he was spotted in your underground car park, Mr Vaughann,’ said Grainger, calmly. It sounded as if she was blaming him. An alarm bell rang out in the hallway. The noise filled the room with a klaxon-like sound. More bells joined in, including one directly above them on the roof. The noise ran through her, making her bones vibrate.

Then, they all stopped as quickly as they’d started.

‘I have to go,’ said Vaughann. He stood up.

Dick Owen did too. ‘I should check on my people,’ he said. He stabbed a finger at the ceiling. His face was pale.

‘We need to talk a bit more, Mrs Ryan,’ said Detective Grainger.

Her head was throbbing. Why hadn’t he given himself up to the police?

She looked at her watch; her Gucci with the interchangeable rims. Sean had bought it for her in Macy’s for her birthday last year.

How far away that time seemed now.

‘You’re going to have to be real careful from this point, Mrs Ryan,’ said Grainger, softly. She pointed a finger at her.

‘You don’t think my husband’s dangerous, do you?’

‘He could be. You have to be open to it.’ Grainger crossed her legs. Her scuffed black shoes looked as if they hadn’t been polished in a long time.

Isabel shrugged.

Grainger put her face closer to hers.

‘BXH’s security manager here in New York is missing. Nobody has any idea where he is. We’re searching for him. And we’ve had some other incidents I’m concerned about. I don’t want any more victims.’

‘But if he did murder someone, why has he come back? That would be crazy,’ said Isabel. She was trying not to sound too anxious. She wasn’t succeeding.

‘Your husband could have come back for the purpose of revenge, Mrs Ryan. We can’t discount that. Revenge is behind a lot of the craziness I see. Your husband may blame BXH or some individual here for what’s happened to him. He might have a weapon now too. We have to plan for every scenario.’

‘I don’t believe that.’ She massaged her forehead.

‘I had to tell this poor woman last week that her husband had killed himself. I also had to tell her he’d killed a co-worker in their broking firm. God only knows why.’ Her expression wavered for a moment. A look of weariness appeared.

‘Revenge is a powerful thing.’

‘What if Sean’s innocent?’ said Isabel.

‘Listen, your husband would have come to us if he was innocent.’

‘This is so not Sean.’ Her hands were gripping each other.

Grainger was looking pensive, as if she was working out how to tell her bad news.

‘Mrs Ryan, your husband is considered dangerous at this point. He’s a wanted man; a suspect in a murder case.’

‘Sean’s as straight as they come. He’s the most honest man I’ve ever met, Detective. You have to believe me. Please.’

‘This is not about you,’ said Grainger. She sounded sympathetic. ‘You gotta trust me. It is real hard to believe it when someone you know well goes off the rails.’

‘I hate this stupid bank.’ Isabel looked around. ‘You know someone invited me here by text this evening. What the hell was that about?’

Grainger shrugged. Her pained expression made it clear she thought Isabel was still trying to hold back reality.

‘Are you married, Detective?’

Grainger nodded. ‘That’s how I know how difficult this is for you,’ she said. Then she leaned towards Isabel. ‘You staying near here, Mrs Ryan?’

Isabel told her which hotel she was in.

‘You should go there right now.’

‘Okay.’ She wanted out of the room. ‘Did you see a bathroom near here?’

Grainger grunted, motioned her to follow, then pointed to the elevators.

‘See that guard?’ She waved to him. He was standing beside the elevator doors. He was a short guy with blonde hair. He waved back, nonchalantly.

‘I’m gonna ask him to escort you out of the building.’ She put a hand on Isabel’s arm ‘Please, stay in your hotel until we call you, understood?’

Isabel nodded.

‘When are you due to fly back to London?’

‘Ten tomorrow night.’

‘If you get any more text messages or any calls from your husband, call me as soon as you get them. Don’t go off and meet him. That’s real important, Mrs Ryan.’ She slipped a card out of the back of her notebook and handed it to Isabel.

‘You got all that?’

Isabel nodded.

The toilet had white tiles on every wall. She washed her face, letting the water drip into the square old-fashioned porcelain basin. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her skin was chalky, her hair sticking out at odd angles. The dark patches under her eyes were spreading.

Was she right to believe in Sean or was she being stupid?

She remembered a long walk they took in Hyde Park the previous summer, how they’d talked about everything. How she was sure she knew him better than anyone else on the planet.

Had it all been a lie?

She bent over the basin, a wave of emotion engulfing her. Stop! You’re going to make yourself crazy.

She straightened. She looked like a ghost. She needed to sleep. She knew that rationally, but she also felt as if she’d passed the lowest ebb of her tiredness. A notice beside the mirror caught her eye. It looked as if it had been put up in the seventies.

It was about the fire exit.

The FIRE EXIT, at the end of the corridor on each floor, should be used only in the case of emergency. For those in the basement levels, please remember that you must walk upwards to exit the building.

And she knew in that second that she wasn’t going to go back to her hotel. She wasn’t going to stop looking for Sean just because someone had told her to. What could they do to her anyway? Charge her with trying to find her husband?

She pushed her hair behind her ears. It looked better that way. Sean always said that. She took off her jacket, tied it around her waist. She didn’t feel cold, though that was probably because of the giant hot water pipes running along one wall.

Then someone knocked on the door of the toilet. There was a muffled shout.

‘You in there?’

She stood still. She didn’t answer. Seconds ticked by, dripping slow like the water from one of the taps.

Whoever it was didn’t knock again.

She waited, looking at herself in the mirror. Her black silk shirt was surprisingly un-creased. If you didn’t look too closely she could be mistaken for someone in the bank’s IT Department. One of the less formal staffers.

Maybe, if she timed it right, as the guard was looking the other way, and if she was quiet, she could slip down to the fire exit and go up through the building.