Sam Bourne - The Final Reckoning

‘Here we go,’ she said, signalling a right-turn into a steep, sloping driveway. The house was vast and absurdly palatial; Tom could see sixteen windows, half of them lit, before he lost count. Rebecca pulled the car up alongside a sleek Mercedes and turned off the engine. ‘Remember, all charm this time.’

Rebecca pressed the doorbell. A traditional ding-dong chime sounded, unexpectedly suburban for a house so grand and Tom was reminded of the days when his mother had dragged him around the wealthier parts of Sheffield, carol-singing.

No answer.

‘Try the knocker,’ he said. ‘Really hard. These houses are so big, they probably can't hear the doorbell.’

Rebecca reached for the brass knocker, fashioned as a bar of metal held between the jaws of a fierce lion. She pulled it back then banged it firmly down, twice.

The first knock gave nothing away, but the second rang oddly hollow and the door swung inward. It had not been locked at all.

Rebecca furrowed her brow at Tom, then stepped in. He followed her into a wide hallway, where their footsteps were muffled by a huge shimmering rug, an irregular checkerboard of different colours. Rebecca called out, ‘Hello?’ and walked further in, to a large reception area bordered on all sides by cream sofas, with two large, low coffee tables in the centre. The facing wall was covered with a vast picture that seemed part-photograph, part-painting. Recognizable were the faces of a forty-something Henry Goldman and, with buck teeth and curly hair, a teenage Julian.

Rebecca tried again: ‘Mr Goldman?’

‘Perhaps we should leave,’ Tom suggested, glad of an excuse for an early exit – and perhaps a return to Rebecca's flat. ‘We can call him tomorrow.’

‘But Julian said he was definitely home.’

‘Does he live alone?’

Distractedly, her head peering into the darkness of a corridor, Rebecca said, ‘Yes. His wife died years ago.’

‘Have you been here before?’

‘Often when I was younger, but not recently. I'm just going to try the study and, if he's not there, we'll go.’

She stepped gingerly into the gloom, calling out ‘Mr Goldman? Henry?’ as she moved. She reached a door and as she opened it, the corridor was filled with light. Behind her by several paces, Tom felt vaguely disappointed: if the lights were on in the study, then the old boy was clearly home. He'd probably nodded off in his chair.

Rebecca's scream tore the air. She stood frozen in the doorway, then darted forward. Tom ran after her, only to find her hunched over a slumped body, her ear clamped to the chest of Henry Goldman, whose cold white face was staring upward. He looked aghast. Rebecca straddled his body and began pounding at his chest, bringing both hands, her fingers laced together, down in a series of massive thumps. Crouching at her side, Tom could hear her exertion as she sent all her strength plunging down in successive blows. But he could also hear a different sound, a kind of desperate whimpering issuing from her. Tears streaked down her cheeks like rain on a window pane.

Finally, she climbed off the unmoving body and let her head fall onto Tom's shoulder. ‘He's dead,’ she sobbed, the tears soaking into his shirt. ‘He's dead. He's dead.’ Her fingers were scratching at his side and his arms. ‘He's dead, he's dead, he's dead.’ Finally, she pulled back so that Tom could see her face. ‘He's dead – and we killed him.’

He wondered at first if it was some kind of joke. When he saw it, he had immediately looked around the rest of the office, to see who might be behind it, but there was no telltale sniggering. Besides, he was hardly ever in this office. He had no co-workers to speak of, still less work buddies. As a first grade detective, that's not how you operated. Out of the bag meant you were neither glued into a uniform, nor chained to a desk. Jay Sherrill worked as he imagined a top surgeon or lawyer might, running his own day, travelling around, with the cellphone and BlackBerry in place of an office.

Yet someone had put this here and they had done it in the last few minutes. When he had arrived an hour ago, seeking a quiet space to think through his next move after that none-too-subtle warning from Stephen Lake of the Intelligence Division, there had been no Post-It note stuck to his computer screen. He had gone to the vending machine for a cup of Styrofoam coffee, could only have been five minutes, and now there it was. The message was marked in block capitals: SUBWAY. ACROSS STREET. 4.15

He looked at his watch. It was 4.06pm. It could be a trap. He thought of some of the cases he had fought in the last two years, including one that touched on an outer ring of the mafia. Every cop in New York knew how those guys liked to exact their revenge. But his own role had been marginal; overwhelmingly, it had been an FBI operation. They surely wouldn't come after him. And in a crowded subway station, during the day?

He studied the note once again. It was cleverly worded. Someone passing by would have assumed it was not a message at all, but a reminder Sherrill might have jotted down to himself. The block capitals betrayed no clues. But how could someone have possibly got in here, one of the most heavily secured buildings in New York city, and got out again that quickly? He had no idea.

He also had no choice; he would have to go. You couldn't ignore a direct message like this; no cop would.

He walked out of the main entrance and was about to turn left for the subway station when he saw it, directly opposite him. Subway, the sandwich bar. He was almost relieved. It was the last place in the entire United States any mafioso would use for a hit: right opposite headquarters, it was an alternative police canteen, brimming with cops fuelling up on foot-long Philly cheese-steak heroes with extra everything. It was the kind of place a first grade detective like Sherrill always avoided, knowing the derision and resentment that would come his way from the old timers the instant he stepped inside.

He pushed the door open and scanned the room, hoping he wasn't making it too obvious. A line of customers, either cops or secretaries on lunch hour; a couple of middle-aged men on cellphones. None of them seemed to recognize him.

‘Excuse me,’ Sherrill said, still scoping the faces, as a blue-overalled cleaner shuffled into him, lethargically wielding a broom and a flip-open, extended dustpan. One of those ridiculous, preppie habits Sherrill couldn't shake: apologizing when someone bumped into him.

‘No problem, Detective,’ the cleaner murmured back.

Sherrill wheeled round to see the man, black, dreadlocked and with white headphones in his ears, raising his eyebrows in recognition: ‘You wanna take a walk?’

Sherrill said nothing and watched, stunned, as the man propped his cleaning equipment by the front door and headed out. Once outside, the cleaner walked purposefully, not waiting for Sherrill to catch up. He remained a half-pace in front, looking ahead, so that he and the detective might just be two New Yorkers hurrying about their business, not communicating at all.

‘Thanks for coming, Detective Sherrill. Sorry about,’ he made a small movement with his hand, ‘all this.’

‘Who are you? How do you know my name?’

‘We're co-workers. I'm an agent with the NYPD Intelligence Division. Undercover.’ Still looking straight ahead, he smiled briefly. ‘In case you hadn't noticed.’

‘How did you-’

‘Get into your office? That was easy. I've got an NYPD pass. Besides, cleaner's overalls? That's a regular invisibility cloak in this town. Fuck Hogwarts. Just gotta be a black man dressed as a cleaner: no one sees you then, trust me. Hey, Sherrill, pull out your cellphone.’