captain must have decided to include Russell in their conversations. Or maybe he had something to say that particularly concerned him. Vivien pressed a button.
‘You’re on.’
The captain’s voice came through the car speakers, loud and clear. ‘Tell me what you have first.’
Vivien updated the captain on their progress. ‘I’m almost sure the guy in the wall is this Mitch Sparrow I told you about. I may even have something that can be used as the basis for a DNA test. But we have to move quickly.’
‘Let me have what you’ve got, and consider it done. Anything else?’
Russell was fascinated by the laconic but clear way the two police officers communicated. They spoke the same language, which they’d learned by experience.
‘Years ago,’ Vivien continued, excited, ‘Sparrow worked for a small construction company called Newborn Brothers. His wife just told me. They did renovation work on a house at North Shore, Long Island. And listen to this: apparently the house belonged to an ex-soldier and one year after the end of the work it blew up. According to the experts it wasn’t an accident, but a bomb. What do you think?’
‘I think you found yourself a good lead.’
Vivien continued, certain that her chief was taking notes at the other end. ‘We have to check out Newborn Brothers and the company that did the building on the Lower East Side, and look through the personnel records, if they still exist. See if there was anyone who worked on both buildings. And find out the names of the heads of the company.’
‘I’ll get the men on it straight away.’
The captain changed tone. Now it was his turn to update them.
‘I’ve been moving in the meantime. I had a talk with Commissioner Willard. A private talk, if you know what I mean.’
‘Perfectly.’
‘When I showed him the letter, he almost jumped out of his chair. But, as I expected, he distanced himself and started to stall. He said he thought it was a pretty slim lead, though of course we can’t rule out anything. He wants to have the letter examined by a criminologist or a psychologist, but someone outside the police or the FBI. Someone who’ll keep it hush-hush, obviously. He’s looking at a list of names. He agreed that for the moment we should proceed with caution, keeping it strictly between ourselves, as agreed. It’s a tricky situation for everyone. People have died. Others may be in danger. As far as we’re concerned, we may end up praised to the skies, or we may be out on our ears. I’m talking about us, Vivien.’
Russell had the impression that Vivien had expected these words. Her only reaction was to say, ‘Received.’
‘Wade, can you hear me?’
Russell instinctively moved his head into the area he supposed the microphone to be. ‘Yes, captain.’
‘I didn’t tell the commissioner about our arrangement. If anything gets out before this thing is over, your life will be worse than your worst nightmares. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Very clear, captain.’
This meant that from now on their lives were inextricably linked, for better or worse. When Vivien next spoke, it was in a calm, detached voice. Russell admired her self-control, something he himself was quite lacking in.
‘Good. We’ve established that. Any other news?’
The captain’s tone retuned to being the professional tone of a police officer examining the elements of an investigation. The emotional break was over. They were getting back to work.
‘The good news is that, if we need it, we have the whole of the NYPD at our disposal. And the power to drag anyone from their beds at any time of the night, starting with the commissioner.’
There was a noise of papers being leafed through.
‘I have here in front of me the results of the first tests. The experts think they’ve identified the kind of primer used. It’s a simple but very ingenious device, which emits a series of radio impulses at different frequencies and in a specific sequence. Given all the radio waves in this city, this stops the mines from exploding at a chance signal.’
Russell had a question that had been nagging at him since this crazy story had started. He again intervened in the conversation.
‘The building that blew up was built some years ago. How come the bombs were still working after all this time?’
That question was one that the captain must also have asked himself, because he let out a sigh before answering. In spite of his experience, it was a small mark of his incredulity at the genius of madness.
‘No batteries. The son of a bitch connected the primer to the building’s current. It may be that in the course of years some deteriorated and are no longer active, but God knows how many places the man put that shit.’
There was a strange sound, and for a moment Russell was afraid that they had been cut off. Then Bellew’s voice again spread through the car.
‘You’re doing great work, guys. I wanted to tell you that. Great work.’
Vivien took over again and ended the conversation. ‘I’ll wait to hear from you, then. Call me as soon as you have anything.’
‘As fast as I can.’
Vivien hung up and for a few moments only the muted noise of the traffic competed with their thoughts in the silence of the car. Russell looked out at the street and the lights shining through the dark. On this day without memory, time had preceded them and the darkness had caught them almost by surprise.
It was Russell who spoke first, with words that reciprocated the trust Bellew had placed in him. ‘Do you want the original?’
Distracted by her thoughts, Vivien didn’t immediately grasp what he was saying. ‘What original?’
‘You were right when you accused me of coming to you with a photocopy of the paper I got from Ziggy. The real one I put in an envelope and sent to my home address. It’s a system he taught me. I think it’s in my mailbox right now.’
‘Where do you live?’
Russell was pleased that Vivien had made no other comment. ‘Twenty-ninth Street, between Park and Madison.’
Vivien drove in silence along Queens Boulevard and across the Queensboro Bridge. They emerged onto Manhattan at 60th Street, turned left onto Park Avenue and drove south, at the mercy of the traffic.
‘Here we are.’
Vivien’s voice reached his ears like a memory and Russell realised that he had dozed off. The car was now parked on 29th at the corner of Park, just across from his building.
Vivien saw him rubbing his eyes. ‘Are you tired?’
‘Afraid so.’
‘You’ll have time to sleep when this is all over.’
Without saying that what he was hoping for was not sleep, Russell took advantage of the green light and crossed to the other side of the street. When he got to the entrance to his building, he pushed open the glass door into the lobby. The building, like all those of a certain standing in New York, had the services of a doorman twenty-four hours a day. He approached the doorman behind his desk and was surprised, at this hour, to find Zef, the building manager, with him. Zef was a friendly man of Albanian origin, who had worked hard to get to his current position. Russell had always been on good terms with him. He was convinced that Zef, for all the dubious activities he’d been a witness to, was secretly his only fan.
‘Good evening, Mr Wade.’
