The Final Reckoning

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘Thanks for seeing me, Commissioner.’

‘No need to thank me. Me who asked you to report direct to this office.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So what you got, Sherrill?’

‘Progress, sir. And in an unexpected direction.’

‘Usually say “shoot”. Not quite right in this context, I grant you. Why don't you go ahead?’

‘The starting assumption yesterday morning was that Gerald Merton was an innocent old man, a tragic case of mistaken identity.’

‘That's right.’

‘Well, some of our early findings shed doubt on that basic assumption.’

‘Do they indeed?’

‘Yes, sir they do. The first alert Intel Division had was a meet-up at the premises of an arms dealer-’

‘The Russian.’

‘Yes. His phone number appears on the cellphone of Gerald Merton. Second, an overnight search of the deceased's hotel room has produced a weapon, a polymer-framed revolver, with steel inserts, Russian made.’

‘Hitman's friend.’

‘Precisely, sir. Serious calibre. It was secreted in the room at the Tudor Hotel where Mr Merton was registered. And third, the gun has Merton's fingerprints on it, sir. All over it.’

Riley sat back in his chair, testing its recline mechanism to the full. He did not break eye contact with the detective. He was assessing him, like a head teacher weighing up a bright pupil. ‘That's all fascinatin', Sherrill. Really is. Anyone else in NYPD know about this?’

‘No, sir. You asked that I report only to you.’

‘Good work, Sherrill. Let's keep it that way.’ He let his seat spring forward, then he leaned forward some more. ‘How'd your interview with the Watch Commander go?’

Sherrill went back to his notes, flicking through to the right page. He hadn't expected this. The Watch Commander's testimony had been wholly predictable, nothing compared to what Sherrill had found on Merton. Why had the Commissioner not reacted to what was clearly the biggest news here?

‘Watch Commander Touré reported that a phone call had come to him from his liaison at the NYPD, suggesting a heightened state of vigilance in respect of a man wearing dark black coat, woollen hat and-’

‘And when'd this come through?’

‘At approximately 8.49am, sir.’

‘And when was the shooting?’

‘8.51am, sir.’

‘Now, what do you notice about those two times, Detective?’

‘They are two minutes apart, sir.’

‘My, that Harvard education is worth every cent! Exactly, Mr Sherrill. Exactly! Which tells us what?’

‘Well, it could be a coincid-’

‘No coincidences in police work, Mr Sherrill. It tells us there was live intelligence, that's what it tells us.’

‘You mean that someone had seen the suspect approaching the United Nations building?’

‘That's exactly what I mean. Now, what was the precise wording of the message received by the Watch Commander at the UN?’

Jay Sherrill turned one more page of his notebook. He looked back up at the Commissioner. ‘It was an urgent warning, sir. Urging UN to be on the lookout for a possible terror suspect.’

‘Urgent, you say. Almost as if they knew he was on his way.’

‘But that makes no sense, sir.’

‘And why's that, Mr Sherrill? Why does it make no sense?’ Riley was leaning back again. He was enjoying himself.

‘Because anybody who actually saw Gerald Merton would have seen that he was, in fact, a very old man. The very opposite of a terror suspect.’

‘You'd think so, wouldn't you, Mr Sherrill? You and I would certainly have done that, wouldn't we?’

Now it was the detective's turn to study the face of his boss. Slowly, out of the darkness, a picture was emerging, a glimpse of what might be in the Commissioner's head. He didn't yet fully comprehend what his boss was after, but now, at last, he had an inkling of it. Whatever else, it was not a simple resolution of the killing of Gerald Merton.

‘What do you want me to do, Commissioner?’

‘An excellent question, Detective. I want you to find out who exactly fed that urgent advisory to Watch Command at the UN and on what basis they gave it. Because a crucial mistake was made in this case, the mistake that led that unlucky Belgian policeman-’

‘Portuguese.’

‘Whatever. It led an unlucky, terrified cop to make a fatal error. We need to find the precise source of that original error. I want to know which part of the law enforcement apparatus of this city-’

‘But it may not have been a mistake, sir. The gun, the fingerprints-’

Riley held up his right palm, in a gesture of hush. ‘All in good time, Mr Sherrill. All in good time.’