Sam Bourne: The Final Reckoning

‘First, I need you to shadow the NYPD guys on the case. They'll have seen the body by now: they'll know we screwed up. I need you over their shoulder. Just for this first day: I stuck my balls out, made a big deal of it, so I can't send out some novice to do it. It would make us look like pricks. Get a sense of what they're doing, then hand it over.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I need you to close this thing down, Tom. Make it go away. This is just too much of an embarrassment. We can't have the grieving family on television holding up pictures of Grandpa, wanting to send the bloody Secretary-General or fuck knows who else to jail. You need to go to England, find the family and do whatever it takes to make it go away. Put on the English accent, do the whole thing.’

‘I don't need to put on an English accent.’

‘Even better. Play the charming Brit and offer a gushing apology, massive compensation package, whatever they want. But no grandstanding, OK? No photo-ops with the Secretary-General or any of that bullshit. He's new. We can't have him associated with this.’

Tom took a drag of his own cigarette. He could see the politics clearly enough: his departure had left no Brits in the Office of the Legal Counsel. Plus it probably helped to have an outside lawyer do this: arms' length, so that the UN itself would be less tainted by whatever shabbiness Tom would have to resort to in order to get a result.

But it was hardly a top-flight legal assignment. He would not have to liaise with Foreign Office lawyers or diplomatic officials. He would probably have to deal with some London ambulance-chaser desperate to get his hands on a pot of UN cash. Bit of a waste of his CV: eleven years as an international lawyer with the UN and before that a legal resumé that included spells doing litigation in a City firm and three years as an academic at University College, London.

‘There are plenty of Brits around who could do this, Henning. Maybe not at the most senior level, but just below. Perfectly capable lawyers. Why me, Henning?’

‘Because you're a safe pair of hands.’

Tom raised an eyebrow: a lawyer who'd left the UN the way he had was not what you'd call a safe pair of hands. Come on , the eyebrow said, tell the truth.

‘OK, you're not a conventional safe pair of hands. But you're someone I can rely on.’

Tom made a face that said flattery wasn't going to work.

Henning sighed in resignation. ‘You know what they're like, the young lawyers here, Tom. Christ, we were both like that not so long ago. Full of idealistic bullshit about the UN as “the ultimate guarantor of human rights” and all that crap.’

‘So?’

‘So we don't need any of that now. We need someone who will do what needs to be done.’

‘You need a cynic.’

‘I need a realist. Besides, you're not afraid to put the rulebook to one side every now and then. This might be one of those times.’

Tom said nothing.

‘Above all, I know that you'll regard the interests of the United Nations as paramount.’ The hint of a smile playing around the corner of Henning's mouth gave that one away. He couldn't risk some British lawyer who might – how would one put it? – lose sight of his professional allegiances. Always a risk a Brit might give a call to his old pals at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, just to keep them in the loop. Lunch in Whitehall, a bit of chit-chat, no harm done. But there was no risk of that with Tom Byrne, graduate of Sheffield Grammar and the University of Manchester. He could be relied on not to betray the UN to his old boy network for one very simple reason: he didn't have an old boy network.

‘You know me: I'm a citizen of the world.’

‘I knew I could rely on you, Tom.’

‘You did a lot for me, Henning. I haven't forgotten.’

‘After this, we're even. Really. Which is not to say you won't be properly rewarded.’

‘Not the usual crappy UN rates?’

‘Separate budget for this, Tom. Emergency fund.’

‘So I'm to give the family whatever they want.’

‘Yep. Your job is to make sure that, after today, none of us ever hears another word about the dead old guy. When he gets buried, I want this whole thing buried with him.’

Henning led them through the press gauntlet, the pair of them using their shoulders to carve a passage. Reporters threw questions at Henning even though they clearly had no idea who he was but he said nothing until they had reached the entrance of the makeshift tent that contained the dead man's body.

‘Tom, this is Jay Sherrill. The Commissioner tells me he is one of his elite, first grade detectives.’

‘First grade? That sounds junior.’ He couldn't help it: the guy looked about nineteen. Maybe early thirties, tops. Neatly pressed shirt; studious absence of a tie; sleek, hairless, handsome face. Tom could have drawn up a profile of Jay Sherrill then and there: one of the fast-track Ivy Leaguers favoured by all urban police forces these days. They were the young guns who spoke and dressed more like management consultants than cops. Had probably done a fortnight on the street and was thereafter catapulted to the first rank of the force. Tom had read an article about men like this in the New York Times magazine, how they never wore uniform – they were ‘out of the bag’ in NYPD jargon – and how they did their own hours. They were the new officer class.

‘Young, sure. But with a ninety-six per cent conviction rate.’ The accent was posh Boston; he sounded like a Kennedy.

‘Ninety-six per cent, eh? Which one got away?’

‘The one with the best lawyer.’

Henning stepped in. ‘All right. As you know, Commissioner Riley and I have agreed that the UN and NYPD are going to work closely on this one. And that means you two fellows. Are we clear?’

‘We're clear,’ said Sherrill, making a pitch for the high ground of maturity. ‘Mr Byrne, I'm on my way to meet the head of security for this building. You're welcome to come with me.’

Tom dutifully followed, noting Henning's schoolmasterly gaze. He would behave himself. ‘Let's hope you're the first person he's spoken to,’ he offered, in a tone he hoped suggested a truce.

‘You worried he might have talked to the press?’

‘No, I'm worried he might have talked to someone in this building. It leaks.’ Tom was thinking of his own mission to London, what he would say to the family. He didn't need a whole lot of rumours reaching them before he did.

As they walked through the visitors' marquee, now closed to the public, and into the eerily quiet foyer of the main building, Tom raised a palm in farewell to Henning, off to a meeting of the top brass. He realized what a pushover he had been. The Tom Byrne of more than a decade ago would have been appalled. But that Tom Byrne was long gone.

They rode in an empty elevator to the first floor. For Tom, being back in this building was at once instantly familiar and yet, after more than a year's absence, oddly nostalgic too – like coming back to your own city after a long trip abroad.

Harold Allen was waiting for them. Tom had never spoken to him before, but he recognized him. He'd once been the most senior African-American officer in the NYPD before he had famously sued his own force for racial discrimination. Once tipped as a future commissioner, he was now in charge of a mere corner of the city he might have led – and, thought Tom, even in this small patch he had managed to run headlong into a weapons-grade scandal. The anxiety was carved into his face. He showed his guests to a round table in the middle of the room, a few paces ahead of his own desk. Tom noticed the multiple framed NYPD citations for bravery on the wall.