Andrew Grant - Even

I’d imagined walking into Tanya’s bedroom a thousand times, but never under these circumstances. Pulling back her duvet felt intrusive, not intimate. I moved on to her wardrobe, then her bathroom. I felt like a pervert, rooting through her personal things, but I carried on anyway. And turned up absolutely nothing. I kept on looking until I was absolutely certain there was nothing there to work with. Nothing I could uncover on my own, anyway. Maybe a forensics team could take things further, but with the facilities at my disposal I’d hit a dead end. Again. And now, I was out of ideas.

I could only hope Tanya wasn’t out of time.

I moved back into the main room, perched on the windowsill, and called Lavine.

“I’ve scoured her place,” I said. “No luck at all. How about the NYPD. Anything?”

“Kyle’s talking to them now,” he said. “I should know in a minute. Hold on.”

I swiveled around and looked out of the window, just for something to do. There wasn’t much of a view. The apartment was in the wrong part of the building for that. All I could see was other people’s light spilling out and throwing shadows down to the courtyard, seven floors below.

“Have you thought about my idea?” I said. “About the drug implants?”

“We’ve been kicking it around,” he said.

“And?”

“Varley’s not convinced. He thinks it’s not spectacular enough.”

“But that’s the whole point. Spectacular’s out of fashion. No one can top 9/11, so attacks are becoming more personal, now.”

“I don’t know. Varley thinks it lacks impact.”

“He didn’t see Taylor’s body, though, did he? Neither did you.”

“No.”

“Well, picture this. You go to bed with your wife, everything perfectly normal. You wake up in the morning and she’s dead. But that’s not all. The bed is soaked with her blood. Saturated with it. So are you. Like you’ve bathed in it. The room stinks. It’s all over the floor. It’s flooded out of the door and down the stairs and filled half the hallway. It’s dripping through the ceiling of the room below-”

“Stop it, now. You’re exaggerating.”

“Or it could be your parents. Your kids. Neighbors. Friends…”

“OK. I’m getting the picture.”

“It’s about taking terror out of the public space and bringing it into people’s homes. Taking their sanctuary away. No one would feel safe. Anywhere. At any time. Tell me that doesn’t have impact.”

“Maybe you’re right. Let me talk to him again.”

“You don’t need to talk about it. You need to find a way to stop it happening. What about patient lists? Client records from the clinics?”

“That’s a nonstarter. Maher told me there was no paperwork recovered at all. From any of the sites. And all their computers were wiped, as well.”

“Computers? Wait a minute. Didn’t Maher say the devices were rigged for Wi-Fi, not cell phones?”

“Yes. That’s his theory.”

“Then that’s the answer. Talk to the phone companies. And whoever pipes in the cable TV. Shut down the broadband at source. That way, you’d stop the signal getting through. Whether they’re bombs or drug implants or anything else we haven’t thought of.”

“Shut down the Internet? We could do that, I suppose. We’ve done it before. But here’s the problem. What if the devices work the other way around, like burglar alarms? It might be stopping the signal that sets them off. Whatever they are.”

“So. We’re no further forward.”

“No. Oh, hang on. Kyle’s off the phone. Let me talk to him. Give me a second.”

I could see that quite a few rooms were still lit up, all around the courtyard. Maybe seven out of every ten. Quite a few people must still have been awake. They must have been awake earlier, when Tanya was taken. I thought about going around and knocking on their doors. The police might have drawn a blank before, if they’d even tried, but jogging memories is a gift of mine.

“OK, I’m back,” Lavine said. “This is how we stand. The NYPD is throwing everything they have into finding Lesley. They’ve brought in all their specialist squads. Organized Crime. Vice. Narcotics. Major Case. Computer Crime. Everyone. A bunch of our own guys are backing them up. Varley’s even reached out to the DEA, to see if they know anything.”

“When will we hear?”

“I don’t know. Lesley’s a slippery customer.”

“So basically no one has made any progress.”

“No.”

The light went out in one of the apartments, opposite. Then another, almost immediately. I would have to get moving if I wanted to talk to people, tonight.

“Look, thanks anyway,” I said. “But I’ve had an idea at this end. A long shot, but I’m going to give it a try. Call me if anything breaks.”

“Will do,” he said.

Two more lights went out, away to my left. The useless, lazy bastards. People who’d just been sitting around in their snug little apartments, paying no attention to anyone else’s problems, when all Tanya needed was for one person to have opened their eyes. Now they were heading off for a cozy night’s sleep without a care in the world. Maybe there was a case for jogging memories a little more vigorously than usual. I pushed back from the windowsill and started toward the kitchen. I’d only taken four steps when my phone rang again. Lavine’s number flashed up on the screen. But when I answered, it was Varley’s voice I heard.

“Listen to this,” he said. “Hot off the press. The body you found at the clinic? It wasn’t Taylor. Maher’s come up with a new ID.”

“Who was it?” I said.

“No one we’ve heard of before. A guy called Darius Metcalf.”

“What’s his connection with Tungsten?”

“There isn’t one. He does have a sheet, though. Small-time stuff. He’s just some junkie asshole. They probably picked him because he was scrawny enough to pass for Taylor. The weedy little runt.”

“So Taylor is still alive?”

“As far as we can tell.”

“Where is he?”

“We don’t know.”

“Why the elaborate cover? Why not just slip away with the others on Monday, before anyone was even looking for him?”

“We’re thinking he wasn’t looking to run. He was looking to stay, under the radar.”

“What for?”

“We’re thinking he’s the trigger man. Or he knows who is. Which means he’s the way we’re going to stop these explosions.”

Forget that, I thought. He’s the way I’m going to find Tanya.

We already knew someone at Tungsten had made Tanya call me. To lure us to the clinic. To find their video. And now, it appeared, to set up Taylor’s cover at the same time. That was a neat move. We hadn’t seen it coming. But the key is what happened next. They didn’t just kill Tanya, or even let her go. They gave her to Lesley. And that didn’t happen on its own. Taylor and Lesley must have been in contact, to arrange the handover. They must have spoken today. This evening. In the last few hours. Taylor could get in touch with Lesley when it suited his own ends. So he could get in touch with her for me.

If I could put my hands on him.

“Let me help you find him,” I said. “You’ve tried his apartment? His office?”

“They’re the first places we looked,” Varley said. “We’re still sitting on them.”

“No fruit?”

“Nothing from his work, but a neighbor saw him leave his building. Yesterday afternoon. Less than an hour after he was released. Two big guys were with him, in some kind of desert uniform. He was carrying a satchel. Like a laptop bag. But no other luggage.”

“Any idea where he was going?”

“No. That’s why I’m calling you. You spent the most time with him. Any thoughts about where he might run?”