The Manhattan Puzzle

‘We’re still assessing that. But our current best guess is a big rise in Chinese firms taking over major companies in the West, as new sources of income and places to invest their surplus cash are sought out. I expect there’ll be a few hiccups.’

Henry looked down at the shiny mahogany table. This should be fun, he thought, monitoring managers trying to impose Chinese six-days-a-week work practices.

‘But the cultural impact of Chinese takeovers is not what we’re really concerned about today. Our concern is that this might lead to a backlash against Chinese communities in the United Kingdom. That’s why I called you to this meeting. We have reason to believe that has started.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Henry. ‘Is the Ebony Dragon hedge fund on the list of companies being monitored?’

‘No,’ said Major Finch.

‘You do know I submitted a report about the activities of its chairman, Lord Bidoner. Ebony Dragon has a source of funding in China now. They’ve been buying up British companies, even a few well known ones.’

Finch sighed. ‘You are barking up the wrong tree, Henry. I know you’ve been researching Bidoner’s link to that book that was found in Istanbul – what do they call a section of it?’

Henry looked at the faces around him. A few of them had heard what the title of a certain part of the book had been translated as. Their faces were even more expectant than the others, as if they were looking forward to a diversion.

He smiled back at them, then spoke. ‘The book of dark prayers.’

Major Finch threw her eyes up to the low ceiling as a few coughs in the room disguised some of the badly suppressed sniggers.

‘Yes, I read that bit, Henry. But what I don’t get is why that sort of thing should be of interest to any of us. This is the twenty-first century.’

Henry waited for some more coughing to stop before replying.

‘I don’t believe in it, but when people start copying the crap that is in that book I think we should all keep an open mind.’ He looked around. No one nodded in agreement.

‘You’re talking about those murders in Jerusalem. Those bodies being burnt, yes?’

Henry nodded.

‘But no connection with Bidoner or his hedge fund has been proven, Henry. We monitored him for six months, didn’t we?’

‘Ebony Dragon were the only people who profited from what happened around that time.’

‘We can’t investigate everyone who makes a profit, Henry. We’d be seriously understaffed if we did. We have no proof that anything illegal went on. And Ebony Dragon is one of the largest hedge funds in the world. I expect they have fingers in a lot of pies.’

‘That’s what worries me,’ said Henry, quietly.

Finch was already moving on to something else.

6 (#ulink_f04ac565-4d97-5c6f-8b86-6591c3dce262)

It wasn’t Sean on the phone. It was one of his colleagues from work, George Donovan.

George was a senior security manager at BXH who took an interest in Sean’s project there. He was a close-mouthed Iraqi war veteran, a borderline posttraumatic stress victim, Sean said, who’d rejoined his British army regiment when he’d heard they were heading to Afghanistan for a campaign.

She’d met him only twice. There was something weird about his stare. It felt as if he was wondering whether to kill you or not. He reminded her of Mark, her ex, who had died in Israel. He’d had a similar distant stare at times, as if he’d seen too much.

Sean had told her that George had been a hero. But why BXH needed that kind of security officer, he’d never explained.

‘Good morning, Mrs Ryan.’

‘Good morning, George.’

George cleared his throat. Isabel wondered was he at work, sitting in that neon-lit open-plan office on the twenty-ninth floor of BXH, the banking corporation worth the GDP of a fast-developing nation state, where he and Sean and ten thousand other Londoners worked like coal miners on twelve-hour shifts. Sean had been working late at the bank for months now, integrating the facial recognition software the Institute had developed with the bank’s IT systems.

And if he was at the office already, did that mean that any minute now he was going to rush into one of those breakfast meetings Sean was always telling her about?

‘Can I speak to Sean, please?’ George’s tone was stiff, proprietorial, as if Sean belonged to BXH, not to Isabel. Not really.

It was a tone Isabel hated. She had to tighten her hand around the phone to stop herself reacting.

‘He’s not here.’ There was no point in lying. ‘He hasn’t come back yet. I thought he was with you lot last night.’

‘I wouldn’t know, Mrs Ryan. Sean has a meeting here at eight thirty. I’m sorry to disturb you. I thought I might catch him before he left your house.’ He paused for a millisecond, to reload.

‘Aren’t you and Sean going away later today?’ There was the tiniest note of surprise in his tone. And something else too. Did he know something Isabel didn’t?

She chewed her lip. She hadn’t done that in years. The pressure in her forehead was intense suddenly, as if a blood vessel had become trapped.

‘We’re going tonight.’ She tried to make it sound as if they had plenty of time.

They had plenty of time.

George hummed. It sounded almost as if he was laughing.

Isabel wanted to explode. The pressure inside her was rising, like a wave.

‘What time did you last see him?’ she said, in as calm a tone as she could muster.

A dog barked in one of the other back gardens. Isabel felt the bones in her fingers pressing into the plastic of the phone.

‘Maybe six yesterday evening. He was expected in here this morning.’ There was a note of anger in his voice. Was he implying Sean was late?

A prickly warmth spread over Isabel’s face. She hated anyone criticising Sean.

‘I thought he had a day off today?’

A tiny snort came down the line.

‘What time had you been planning to leave for Paris, Mrs Ryan?’

It sounded as if George thought the trip was bound to be cancelled. The hairs on the back of Isabel’s neck rose like quills.

‘The train’s at a minute past six. Our taxi’s coming an hour before that.’

The journey from Fulham to St Pancras International station should take no more than forty minutes, even late in the afternoon, but Sean had wanted them to be early, to enjoy every second of what they’d earned, he’d said.

By five fifteen that afternoon at the latest, according to Sean’s plan, they’d be in St Pancras. And after that it’d be first class all the way. It was going to be a weekend to remember. A well-deserved payback for all the evenings she’d spent alone while he was working.