Laurence O’Bryan - The Manhattan Puzzle

She felt a blast of icy wind coming from the corridor.

He turned, looked over his shoulder. Then he stood.

‘Wait here, please.’

She did as she was told.

She heard voices, the sound of people creaking the floorboards upstairs. She stood, then sat down again. A part of her wanted to fight them, ask them all to leave, shout at them. But she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them.

The policewoman came into the kitchen. She dominated the room, smiling at Isabel as she sat down. It was her turn to ask the questions.

She started by questioning Isabel about her relationship with Sean, whether he had gone missing before. Isabel told her what had happened a few weeks ago. The policewoman took notes. Then she asked Isabel whether Sean told her much about his work.

‘No, he doesn’t talk about anything to do with BXH. I told your colleague.’ She leaned forward. ‘Why aren’t you concerned about his safety? He’s missing. Anything could have happened to him.’

The policewoman’s expression was not sympathetic.

‘We are concerned about your husband, Mrs Ryan. A missing persons alert has been issued. If we find out what has happened to him you will be notified.’

‘What do you do when someone’s reported missing?’

‘We check out all the likely places, hospitals, police cells, the river police, the security people at his work.’

‘The river police?’

The policewoman looked at her, assessing her, it seemed. ‘In case he committed suicide.’ Her expression softened a little.

She swallowed hard. Suicide. She held the edge of the table tight, her fingers white with the effort.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Ryan?’

Isabel nodded.

The policewoman went on, leaning towards her. ‘Did you and Mr Ryan have any marital problems?’ She emphasised the word, marital.

‘No.’ Isabel looked her in the eye.

‘How does your husband normally react to stress?’ She reminded Isabel of a cat playing with its food.

‘Nothing gets to Sean. He just keeps rolling, bouncing off things. That’s how he puts it.’ She sat up straighter, the memory of him saying that playing through her mind.

The policewoman smiled at Isabel, as if she didn’t believe her.

‘We were supposed to be meeting Sean’s uncle and aunt tomorrow. They’re on holiday in Paris.’ A pang of guilt ran through her. Sean’s uncle had been diagnosed with Huntington’s a few years before. The last thing he needed was for his dead brother’s son, who he’d promised to look out for, to disappear and for the police to be investigating him.

How was she going to tell them?

‘Did your husband organise this holiday?’ The policewoman’s eyebrows were up.

‘No, I did.’

‘Was there any particular reason for the timing? Isn’t BXH pretty busy right now?’

‘We’re going to meet Sean’s nearest relatives. This is the time when they come over to Europe. And we need a break. I deserve it. Sean deserves it. He’s been working very hard.’ Isabel gave her a paper-thin smile.

‘Have you any reason to believe your husband might be with another woman?’ The policewoman leaned forward. Her eyelids were drooping.

‘No.’

She made a note in her notebook, then glanced at Isabel. She wasn’t smiling now.

‘I’ve never even suspected him of anything like that.’

‘We’re just trying to understand where he might be.’

There was a stubborn look on the policewoman’s face, as if she wasn’t at all convinced that Sean wasn’t with a mistress somewhere, enjoying himself.

‘We found passports upstairs, but not your husband’s, Mrs Ryan. Does he keep his somewhere else?’

‘I thought they were all upstairs.’ Had Sean taken his with him? Her hands felt cold again. She spotted the red apples and Conference pears she’d bought the day before to snack on. The thought of eating made her stomach tighten.

‘What did you study in college, Mrs Ryan?’

She didn’t answer for a few moments. It suddenly struck her that she might be a suspect too; that her background made it possible that there was more going on here.

She’d become an IT security consultant because she wanted to do something that took advantage of her security experience while she was with the Foreign Office.

‘Biology,’ she said. When she went to the University of London, she’d imagined biological science would be a great course to get dates on. As it turned out, most of the other students were either too painfully shy to talk to a girl, or they acted like superior nerds.

The policewoman sniffed. ‘I see.’ There was a pause while she wrote something down. ‘And have you worked for BXH at any time?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I worked at the Foreign Office until a few years ago. But you will be aware that I’m not allowed to talk about my work there.’ They had to know about the Official Secrets Act. They would have signed it themselves.

From the curious look on the policewoman’s face, Isabel got the impression she thought Isabel was hiding something.

‘My husband is working on a project for BXH. That’s all.’

The policewoman gave her a nod.

‘Did your husband keep anything from his office anywhere else in the house, aside from in that room upstairs?’

‘No.’ She shook her head.

That was when she noticed all the drawers in the kitchen cabinet, one of those old ones with shelves for showing plates and jugs, were a little pulled out. Had the police been through every corner of their house already?

‘When will you be finished here?’ Isabel waved at the house above them.

The policewoman countered with, ‘Do you mind showing me where your husband kept whatever he did bring home?’

As they went upstairs she saw a plainclothes officer exiting the front of the house carrying one of those bright blue plastic storage boxes.

When they got upstairs Inspector Kirby was pulling out books from Sean’s bookcase in the office, flicking through them one at a time, putting them back haphazardly. Sean would have gone crazy if he’d seen him.

‘This is the only place Sean kept anything from work. If he did bring anything home it would be in this room. And that laptop is mine.’ She pointed at her shiny black Toshiba. It was in a pile with Sean’s laptop and some papers near the door.

‘I’m afraid we’ll have to take that one too.’ The inspector’s tone could have sliced steel. He looked at the policewoman. They were communicating in some unspoken language.

She should have been raging, fuming at them, but she wasn’t. Every file on her laptop was stored on the internet, in a cloud. None of what they were doing mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting Sean back.

She stood there, watching him as he took out and looked through the last of the books on the bottom row of Sean’s bookcase. After he was finished he stood and surveyed the room.

The plainclothes officer she’d seen carrying the other blue box came into the room. He had an empty box in his hand now.

‘Just one more, Tom,’ he said. He bent down and put the laptops into the box. He dropped them in, as if they were far more rugged than you’d imagine they would be.

‘Be careful,’ said Isabel.

‘Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs Ryan. We’re finished, for now.’

‘You’re going?’ The weight on her chest diminished.

‘Yes, Mrs Ryan. We’ll let you know if we find out where your husband is, and please, don’t forget, call us if he contacts you or you hear any news about his whereabouts. We wouldn’t want to disturb you again. We do take into account the impact our investigations have on families. We try to be as reasonable as we can.’