The Manhattan Puzzle (13 page)

‘This is the part you’re not going to believe.’ Her grin widened.

‘Try me.’

She finished her wine and put the glass down.

‘I will.’ She leaned towards him again.

‘Are you ready?’ She nodded towards the door.

Henry smiled. This time he didn’t try to wipe out his smile. It would have been too difficult.

Isabel walked up Regent Street. She couldn’t feel her fingers any more, or her feet. Was she in shock? She wanted to be home with Sean and Alek, sitting at their kitchen table, with Alek’s favourite apple pie in front of them; the warmth of the kitchen all around. She could almost smell it.

She pulled her phone out, and rang Rose’s number. There was no answer. Her fingers jabbed at the phone. She called Rose’s mobile.

It was turned off.

She looked at her watch. Had Rose taken Alek to the cinema, as she’d promised? That had to be what was going on. She took a deep breath. If there was one thing she had to do, it was to stay calm. Rose was the most reliable person ever as far as children were concerned.

She’d never let her down.

She breathed deep, closed her eyes. The last thing she needed was to crack up. A group of people passed her. One boy bumped into her. She looked around, startled. Was there any possibility someone was after her? She looked in a shop window, watched people pass in the mirror of the glass, examined everyone who was hanging around. She couldn’t see anyone suspicious. An ACE PLUMBING van was pulled up on the far side of the street, but there was no one visible in it.

No one was watching her.

What should she do?

If only she could go back twenty-four hours, find Sean, persuade him not to go to that club.

She let her breath out. She should start visiting hospitals. Wasn’t that what people did if someone didn’t come home; look for them? Maybe he’d lost his wallet, his ID, his memory? But where should she start?

University College Hospital, on the Euston Road, of course.

That was where they’d taken George. And if anything had happened to Sean in the West End last night, that was where he’d have been taken too.

She looked down at herself. Would she even be allowed in the hospital at this hour? She was bedraggled-looking, her jeans were wet, clinging to her calves, but she didn’t care. She hailed the first black cab with its light on.

‘Is it accident and emergency you’re looking for, love?’ The driver pulled up at the front of the hospital.

The tower block of the hospital, there must have been fifteen or sixteen floors to it, was lit up like a corporate headquarters.

‘Here’s fine.’

She paid him, then went inside the main entrance. The hospital was still busy, despite the time. She went to the bright yellow-fronted reception desk. Two women wearing white shirts with an NHS logo in blue on their left breast were sitting behind the desk dealing with a queue of people.

‘I need to find out if someone’s been admitted,’ she asked the smiling woman behind the reception desk when she finally turned to her.

‘What’s the name?’ There was a computer in front of her. The reception area had an airy, bright and antiseptic feel.

‘Sean Ryan.’

The woman looked at her screen, tapped at her keyboard.

‘Sorry, love, we have no one here by that name.’

She breathed in. Then she blurted out.

‘If someone were found …’ The words were stuck in her throat. ‘Dead or without any identification, what do you do?’

‘Come back in the morning, love. Someone will help you then. All I can tell you is the names of the people who are registered.’

She remembered George.

‘Has a George Donovan been admitted?’

She looked at Isabel over her thick black glasses. ‘Hold on.’ She tapped at her keyboard again.

‘He’s in the acute admissions unit. Are you a relative?’

She blinked, nodded. Would it work?

‘I’m his sister.’ In a metaphorical sense, of course, but she didn’t say that.

‘Go to the first floor, that way.’ The woman pointed behind her, to where a staircase led upwards.

As Isabel went up, she checked her wallet. Would they ask for ID? She felt like a criminal. Maybe she could tell them her maiden name was Donovan. She’d just keep it simple, find out if he was okay. Then she could go home. She walked along a bright clean corridor. A big arrow sign pointed her to turn left.

As she pushed the door of the unit open a male nurse brushed past her. Then she was in a small reception area with new-looking black leather chairs. A man in a blue collarless shirt was peering at her from behind a counter straight ahead.

‘Can I help you?’ he said. His tone had a note of anxiety. It was late, of course. Visiting times were probably long over.

‘I’m looking for George Donovan.’ She put her elbows on the high, shiny plastic-coated surface of the reception counter.

‘Do you have ID?’

She showed him her driving license. He looked at the picture, then at her, as if he was wondering if she was using someone else’s. Thank God driving licenses don’t show your maiden name.

‘Thanks, we have to check everyone these days,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Go on through. He’s in a cubicle at the far end. One of the nurses will direct you.’

She passed through a double door into a busy corridor. A man with a pale bare chest was on a trolley. A nurse was leaning over him. Other patients were staring at her from high beds. There was an irritating whirr from the ceiling. A pungent antiseptic smell filled the air. The unit was Friday-night busy.

She kept walking. Eyes stared at her hungrily, as if she might have some special news for them. There was equipment everywhere, humming, blinking. The smell of antiseptic was stronger now. A notice told her to clean her hands. She stopped to squeeze some antiseptic gel on to them. As she did a plump black nurse came towards her.

‘Are you here for George Donovan?’

She nodded. ‘Is he all right? I was with him when he got hit.’

‘He has internal bleeding, a fractured skull. Would you like to see him?’

Isabel nodded.

The nurse took her to a door on the right and opened it.

‘He’s sedated. It’s better if we don’t disturb him. You can’t stay long. A few minutes, that’s it.’

George was lying under a white sheet, surrounded be a semicircle of medical equipment. A low hum filled the air. He had a couple of drips connected to him. His head was bandaged with white gauze. Isabel felt something rise up inside her. She’d been walking around with this guy only a few hours before. He’d been trying to help her. The welling almost burst to the surface. She pushed it down.
Stop.

‘A colleague from his work was here earlier. A nice woman.’

‘Which colleague?’ she said.

‘I didn’t get her name.’ She sounded irritated that Isabel was asking her questions.

‘What was she like?’

The nurse looked at her oddly, her head turned sideways. Isabel didn’t care what she thought.

‘Sorry, I can’t help you. Lots of people go through this place every hour.’ Her expression hardened, as if she didn’t like where the conversation was going.

It was time to change the subject. ‘Will George be okay?’

‘I can’t say. We’ll know more tomorrow.’ She was looking at Isabel’s crumpled clothes now.

‘I’m sorry. You will have to go.’ She stared into Isabel’s eyes. Was there a suspicious gleam there, or was she imagining it?

‘Okay.’

Isabel headed back towards the reception area. She had to sit down. She flopped onto one of the leather chairs. She needed a few seconds of peace. And she needed to call Rose.

Rose’s line buzzed at least ten times before she answered. Isabel was about to cut the call off, race to her house, start banging on the door to find out where Alek was, when Rose’s voice came on the line. She sounded odd.

Xena rubbed a little olive oil on the henna square on her forearm.

‘We have stayed here too long,’ she said.

‘Once the final sacrifice is over, and we have what we want, we will go,’ said Lord Bidoner.

Xena stretched her arm towards him, showing him the tattoo.

‘The lines are straight?’ she asked.

‘Perfect’ he said.

‘My grandmother taught me. She was from Tigray. Her clan were the kings of Aksum. She taught me well.’

The laptop screen on the coffee table in Lord Bidoner’s apartment flickered. He took his eyes off her and returned to looking at the screen. There were six boxes on it showing line graphs. Each of them was heading downwards.

The initials ‘BXH’ were under each graph along with the name of the class of security and the stock market where the shares were listed.

The names included the London Stock Exchange, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Euronext Paris, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and the New York and Vienna Stock Exchanges.

‘Everything is good?’ said Xena.

He turned to her and stroked her bare arm.

‘Better than good. The BXH share price fell straight through the floor. They are calling it the greatest banking rout since Lehman’s.’

He switched tabs on his browser. The
Financial Times
had a leading article about BXH’s shares being in free fall all around the world.

‘And no one knows what you have done,’ said Xena. She stroked his leg, rubbing her hand hard into his thigh.

Lord Bidoner turned to her. The skin on his forehead was flaky and his grey hair was receding, but his blue eyes were fixed on her and a smile was emerging on his lips.

‘Is the room ready for its next visitor?’

Xena nodded.

‘You will enjoy this one,’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘I only do what was done to me or my family. I take no great pleasure in it. Not like some.’ Her eyes flickered away from his face, as if she was remembering something.

Lord Bidoner stared at her. It was hard to find someone as committed as Xena.

In many ways they were mirrors of each other. She’d suffered a botched circumcision and her family, two brothers and her mother, had been tortured to death in the Eritrean–Ethiopian War.

She’d been taken in by an orphanage run by nuns, but they had beaten her remorselessly for the tiniest infraction.

Most girls who suffered like that either cut themselves off from human contact, or harmed themselves in one way or another, but she had taken the pain and had forged it into a willingness to do what others were unable to.

Which was exactly what he had done.

His mother had died in the liberation of Vienna in 1945. She had been raped and brutalised by partisans working with the Soviets until she’d died. His grandmother had taken him in. He’d been a few months old. The old woman had been good to him, but when he got older she’d disciplined him harshly, beating him for any display of emotion.

Both he and Xena had been brought up on stories of what had been taken from them. With force.

And both of them had felt the blows of frustrated tormentors.

Until they had fought back.

‘The next one will be more interesting than the others,’ he said.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

‘Hello?’

‘Rose, it’s me. Just wondering how Alek is.’

There was a long pause. Isabel pressed the phone tight to her ear.

‘Alek’s great. He’s sleeping right now.’ She sounded distant. She was probably tired, possibly sleeping, like she should be.

‘I tried you earlier. Did you go to that movie?’

‘No. We were all watching DVDs.’

‘Great. Thanks again for looking after him. See you Monday night.’

‘See you.’ The line went dead. The call had only lasted a minute, but at least it had answered one big worry.

Seconds later her phone buzzed.

It wasn’t a call. It was that faint noise a phone makes when it’s trying to attract your attention. She’d missed a call. She looked at the incoming call list. Someone had called her five minutes ago. The number was a US number. She pressed call-back.

‘Hello? Did you just ring this number?’

‘Isabel, it’s Karen.’

‘Hi Karen.’ She tried to sound as normal as possible. The number was Karen’s mobile.

‘I was on the internet,’ she said. Then she paused, as if there was more she had to say, but she really didn’t want to say it.

‘And?’ Isabel could feel something ominous coming.

‘Sean’s picture is on the front page of the
Daily Mail
website.’ Karen’s words came out fast. ‘They say he’s wanted by the police. There’s a search warrant being issued. I can’t believe it.’

For a long moment Isabel didn’t register what she was saying. Then, like a shutter falling, she understood and her whole body tightened, every muscle. A slick of sweat broke out on her forehead. Then a warm flush passed through her, starting on her arms and ending up on her cheeks. She didn’t care about the embarrassment of him being on some newspaper’s site. What worried her was the fact that the police were hunting him. She’d almost fooled herself into thinking they just wanted to speak to him.

And she’d fooled herself that all this wasn’t actually too serious.

She straightened her back, swallowing the lump that was forming in her throat. She wasn’t going to crack up.

She wasn’t.

‘I can’t imagine why he’s on that site.’

‘But they’re looking for him, Isabel.’

A weird tremor started in her leg. She pressed her foot to the floor, steadying her calf muscles.

‘Isabel,’ said Karen.

‘Yes?’ Images of Sean were flashing through her mind. She saw him surrounded by police, being taken away.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She sounded upset, as if she was crying.

She heard the sound of a TV in the background.

‘Everything’s going to be okay, Karen.’ Her voice was hard, confident, but there was a tremor in her hand holding the phone.

‘Frank …’ Karen started the sentence, then stopped. Then she started again.

Isabel could feel distress coming over the line.

‘Frank thinks Sean going missing is connected to what’s happening at BXH. There’s a lot of strange talk he’s been hearing.’