Laurence O’Bryan - The Manhattan Puzzle

Was there something going on that he didn’t see?

He read the email from Lord Bidoner to the CEO of BXH, which they had intercepted. It requested an inventory of the bank’s artworks. It also stated that Lord Bidoner had an artistic interest in a jade statue that the bank was rumoured to have in its possession since the time of the Second Opium War.

He turned to look at the report from Captain Charles George Gordon. Was Bidoner looking for the statue mentioned in this report? It certainly looked like it.

But why?

Isabel went to the back door and looked out, her face close to the window. She could feel the cold leaking through the glass. She moved away. The noise could have been a neighbour’s cat, hunting for mice. Or it could have been an early rising burglar. She checked the back door was locked, rattled the handle. Hopefully whatever it was would go away.

A memory of the thugs who had chased her and Sean from the hotel in Istanbul came back to her.

She put the back door key on the top of the mahogany dresser. The doorbell rang. It was one of those old-fashioned bells that emits a buzz for as long as the person outside wants it to. Whoever was pressing it clearly wanted an answer quickly.

She was at the door in seconds.

Had Sean lost his key?

Through the stained glass front door window she could see a bulky shape. It was Sean! He’d lost his keys. Her heart thumped like an overexcited schoolgirl’s. She swung the door open and froze, her body temperature cooling fast.

It wasn’t Sean. It was a young man with streaky blonde hair and purple skin eruptions, a before specimen from a magazine ad for acne treatment.

As he stretched his hand out to her she felt stupid at having opened the door so quickly. She could easily have checked in the security viewer. She stepped back and got ready to close the door, fast.

Mr Streaky Blonde’s suit was light grey. It had thin lapels and it looked way too tight, bulging in all the wrong places.

‘James Kilfeather, from Gold and Ferry in the City.’ He smiled at her, like a salesman who’d just seen his next bonus appearing in front of him.

The look on her face must have taken him by surprise. He stepped back, his expression changing from friendly to troubled in a second.

‘Is Mr Ryan here?’ He glanced over her shoulder.

Had Sean made an appointment he hadn’t told her about?

‘No, he’s not. I’ll tell him you were looking for him.’ She tried to sound friendly, but all she wanted was for him to go away.

That was when she saw the clipboard. It was one of those big blue plastic ones with a shiny silver clip to keep the papers down. Under the clip there was a sheet with printed boxes, as if he was about to fill something in. He was holding it as if it was his raison d’être .

‘Did Mr Ryan tell you I was coming to do the valuation?’

She stared at him.

‘Valuation?’ The word stuck in her throat, as if it were a piece of bread too big to swallow. She could feel herself getting angry, the muscles in her neck tightening.

‘Mr Ryan rang our office on Wednesday. He was very specific. He asked us to value this property. Are you Mrs Ryan?’ Streaky Blonde was getting peeved, as if it was her fault Sean wasn’t there.

Why would Sean need the house valued?

She felt light-headed. This had to be a practical joke.

‘You’re mistaken. We’re not selling up. I’ll get Sean to call you, sort all this out when he gets back.’

She smiled thinly, closing the door on his reddening face.

She watched his shadow through the stained glass, her pulse drumming. Would he go away? A second later he was gone.

What the hell was Sean up to?

That was when she noticed the silver front door key.

It wasn’t hers, she was sure of it. All her keys were on her key ring with the enamel apple she’d picked up on their last trip to New York, on a visit to BXH’s head office, which even the wives had been invited to.

Was it Sean’s key? She moved it near the pile of mail that had arrived for Sean the day before. Then she pulled her phone from her jeans pocket.

She tapped in his number. Number unavailable. This was getting too weird. She stood in the hall. The house seemed very quiet.

‘Alek,’ she called out. Anxiety exploded inside her. She rushed up the stairs. As she got to the top she saw Alek’s bedroom door was closed.

She pushed it open, fast. Alek was on the bed, moving a toy soldier up a pillow mountain. His amber locks looked adorable. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes. Her heart was drumming rapidly. What the hell was happening to her? She wasn’t normally this paranoid.

‘Come on, Alek, let’s get ready. We’re going.’ Alek didn’t budge.

‘Remember,’ she said. ‘You’re going for a sleepover. And Rose is going to take you to that new movie.’

She felt a tug of guilt looking at his upturned face, but when he moved off the bed like a boy possessed, the guilt subsided. The thought of a new movie beat just about anything in Alek’s mind.

‘Pick one toy to bring with you,’ she said, as she left the room. Alek’s hands were full already.

Sean’s weekend Samsonite bag was in a corner of the bedroom. It was empty. She’d already packed hers with most of what she’d need for the weekend.

She threw some of his things into his bag: socks, two shirts, his leather jacket. She was determined to keep to the plan. He wasn’t going to let her down. They had plenty of time before the taxi came.

Just as long as Mr Vaughann didn’t insist he stay at work. And she would conveniently forget about that message George had given her until they were safely on the train. Sean deserved a break too.

They’d hardly had any holidays in two years. Not like some of them at the bank. One of the few financial downturn-induced changes at BXH, as far as Isabel could make out, was that some of the senior managers had been forced to call off their weekday golf outings.

A cruel punishment indeed.

The only other change Isabel could see was all the extra hours Sean had been putting in.

It was time to go. At least without Alek hanging off of her, she’d be able to focus on finding Sean, and getting away to Paris in time.

She stopped, and put her hand to her forehead. Was she crazy thinking their trip would still happen?

The dining table in Lord Bidoner’s Fifth Avenue apartment was set for breakfast. The silver coffee pot in the centre of the table was letting out a curl of steam.

Lord Bidoner was dressed in a black kimono, as was Xena, though hers went only to her thigh. He poured coffee into a thin gold-edged cup, as Xena went to answer the doorbell.

The two men who entered, the head of trading and the head of risk at the New York securities division of the Ebony Dragon hedge fund, were both Harvard educated and experienced in the animal world of Wall Street.

‘Come in, the coffee and pastries are both warm,’ said Bidoner.

The two men took coffee and stood near the picture window. They were both quiet and watchful. It wasn’t often that they were summoned to meet the chairman of the fund they worked for at his apartment. It had only happened once before for each of them, when they were being recruited.

‘Sit, gentlemen,’ said Lord Bidoner. He stood with his back to the wall of glass and its million-dollar view. The sun still hadn’t risen, but the buildings around them were starting to come to life.

The two men sat on the edge of the leather sofa, a few feet apart. Xena stood at the far end. Her long legs glistened, but neither man glanced at her.

‘As I told you when I approved your salaries, there will be times when each of you will be asked to do unusual things. This is one of those times.’