The Final Reckoning

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The instant the fire alarm sounded, the conversation halted. A secretary popped her head around the door to say that she was terribly sorry, but they had to evacuate the building immediately. Henry Goldman composed himself, packed his papers into a leather portfolio case and followed the secretary out.

Outside, there was a crush of employees, two or three of them donning fluorescent bibs, and a mood of nervous excitement. Tom and Rebecca walked the fifteen flights downstairs, neither daring to say much about what had just happened. One of the firewardens peered at their visitor labels and shepherded them to a different meeting point from the rest of the Roderick Jones staff. They stood there for twenty minutes in the early evening cold, Tom seizing the outdoor opportunity for a quick cigarette. He offered one to Rebecca, who pounced on it hungrily. Of course. Most of the doctors he knew were twenty-a-day types. Still she said nothing.

Then, with no announcement, no whistle or klaxon, merely directed by the herd instinct that grips every crowd, people began to drift back into the building. Apparently a false alarm.

They were soon back on the sixteenth floor and in the conference room. The secretary reappeared.

‘Can I help?’ she chirped, as if she had never seen them before.

‘We were here before the alarm. Meeting Mr Goldman?’ Rebecca offered a smile.

‘Oh, but Mr Goldman's gone, I'm afraid.’

‘Gone?’

She shrugged. ‘I assumed you'd finished your meeting.’

At Tom's request, she called down to Security, who checked the executive garage: Mr Goldman's parking space was now empty. ‘He wouldn't have done that in the old days, I can tell you,’ she said, ‘taking the chance to knock off early. Most partners never leave here before ten or eleven; the secretaries have to work in shifts! Mr Goldman was one of the worst. Before he retired, of course.’

Tom gave a full-wattage smile: charm mode. ‘And that was a regular fire drill, was it?’

‘Oh no. We only have those on Mondays. I thought maybe it was faulty wiring: that's what happened the last time. But I just spoke to Janice – she's one of our fire marshals – and she said someone broke through one of the “In case of emergency” things in the basement. Used one of the plastic hammers to break the glass and everything.’

‘Gosh,’ said Tom.

‘You'd think there'd be a fine for that sort of thing,’ the secretary added. ‘Apparently Security have no idea who did it, but they're checking the CCTV already.’

‘Perhaps it was a high-spirited prank,’ Tom said, recalling the language the Dean had used back at Manchester when he and his mates had let off fire extinguishers. ‘By one of the younger members of staff.’

The secretary looked appalled. ‘But we don't have anyone like that here,’ she said. And Tom believed it. That memory of his university days had incubated a new intuition and now it was nagging at him.

Rebecca was in no mood to prolong this chitchat with Henry Goldman's assistant any longer than necessary. They excused themselves and headed out of the building. Letting Rebecca walk on ahead of him, Tom made a quick call to Jay Sherrill: he didn't like the guy, but he at least ought to look like he was co-operating. He wouldn't let on about Merton's Holocaust past: Henning had told him not to and that suited Tom fine. Sherrill might connect that with the gun and discover the DIN story for himself. Before Tom knew it, this whole business would be spinning out of his control. Managing the flow of information, that had been the secret of success in the UN: Henning Munchau had turned it into an art form.

‘Hello, Detective Sherrill, it's Tom Byrne here in London.’

‘Any leads on that weapon we found?’

‘I do have something, as it happens, yes.’

‘Go on,’ said Sherrill.

‘It's sketchy, nothing firm. It's possible that Merton may have had a past in some kind of armed group.’

‘Jesus. What kind of armed group?’

‘Like I said, it's sketchy at the moment. But I think he may have been one of a group of men acting as vigilantes. Taking the law into their own hands, punishing criminals.’

‘When you say “punishing” do you mean-’

‘Yes, Detective Sherrill. I do. But it was a long time ago and I'm not sure it sheds much light on the finding in the hotel room or the Russian-’

‘No, but still. This is useful. What's the evidence?’

‘Just a hint or two in some documents Merton left behind. Nothing explicit.’

‘Anyone in this group ever get convicted?’

‘Not one, as far as I know.’

‘Are they still active?’

‘That's the million-dollar question. I'll check in when I get more.’

He hung up and sprinted to join Rebecca, now unlocking the Saab. Once in the driving seat, she let out a gale of pent-up oxygen: ‘Christ, that was frustrating! He's finally on the brink of telling us something we don't already know and you start ranting.’

‘I did not rant. I was just making a point-’

‘I don't want to talk about it.’

‘-that sometimes justice-’

‘I mean it,’ she said, glaring. ‘I don't want to talk about it.’ And with that, she pulled out of the parking space and into traffic, the ferocity of her silence filling the car.

The arguments Tom wanted to make were running through his head, but they did not get very far. Rebecca was probably right; he had indeed scared Goldman off. He had made an elementary mistake, voicing his own views on a case when his own views were irrelevant. All that mattered was extracting information from a witness. He knew it was a mistake but that wasn't what unnerved him. It was why he had made it.

The daylight was fading now. Rebecca was gripping the steering wheel furiously, her gaze fixed on the road ahead. Tom stared into space. Neither of them paid attention to the wing mirror on Tom's side of the car: if they had, they might have seen the manoeuvre of the Mercedes three cars behind them – the move which confirmed it was following them.