shown in calculating the amount of iron and concrete for the foundations.
‘Did you mention him to the police at the time?’
Guilt fell like a shadow over Chuck Newborn’s face. ‘I’m afraid not.’
The reason was obvious from what he’d said earlier. Mentioning the man would have been the equivalent of handing himself in to the IRS, with the inevitable consequences. Vivien felt anger come over her like a gust of hot air.
‘Didn’t it occur to you there was something suspicious about the man’s behaviour, given the circumstances?’
Newborn bowed his head, unable to find a plausible excuse for what he was being accused of.
Vivien sighed. As she had done with Carmen Montesa, she took a business card from her bag, wrote her cellphone number on the back and held it out to the man.
‘We’re through for now. Here are my numbers. If you remember anything, let me know, any time.’
The man took the card and looked at it for a moment, as if afraid it was an arrest warrant. ‘I will, don’t worry.’
‘Goodbye, Mr Newborn.’
He said something in reply, but in such a low voice they barely heard him. Vivien and Russell walked to the door and went out. Neither of them could prove it, but deep down they were both sure that the man with the burned face who had been called the Phantom of the Site as a joke was the person they were looking for. They walked down the steps and headed for the car, leaving Chuck Newborn alone with the feeling that he’d done something terribly wrong, even though he didn’t know what it was. It would have been easy enough to tell him, if they had been able to. It might not have been so easy for him to accept.
If Newborn Brothers hadn’t been so determined to cut costs, the man would have been arrested, and years later hundreds of human lives might have been saved.
CHAPTER 26
Russell and Vivien were back on the street.
The sky had turned blue again and the city had absorbed the latest outrage. Madison Square Park looked the way it usually did on a fine spring day. Senior citizens in search of sun, and dogs in search of trees. Mothers with children still too young to go to school and adolescents too lazy to want to. In the middle, a mime dressed up as the Statue of Liberty waited motionlessly for someone to throw coins in the can on the ground in front of him, at which point he would respond with a couple of movements. As she looked at the familiar scene, Vivien had the feeling that one of these people would suddenly turn to her and reveal a face ravaged with scars.
She stopped Russell, who was already walking towards the car. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Not really.’
‘We ought to eat something. We have time now, while we’re waiting for results, but there probably won’t be time later. I know from experience that a rumbling stomach isn’t good for concentration.’
At the corner of the park, on the other side of the street, was a grey-painted stand serving hot dogs and hamburgers. In its very simplicity it had a certain elegance and did not jar with the natural setting. Vivien indicated a line of people.
‘The guides say it’s the best in New York. At lunchtime the line stretches all the way to Union Square.’
‘OK. A hamburger would be fine.’
They crossed the street and joined the line. As they waited, Vivien expressed in words what they had surely both been asking themselves.
‘What do you think about what Newborn said? The man with the scars, I mean.’
Russell took a moment before coming out with his conclusion. ‘I think he’s our man.’
‘So do I.’
Those words sealed their fate. From that moment on, this was the lead to follow, with all the means they had at their disposal. If it turned out to be the wrong one, then, rightly or wrongly, they would have the deaths of many people on their consciences.
Almost without realizing it, Vivien found herself at the window where the orders had to be placed. She ordered two cheeseburgers and two bottles of water and paid for them. In return she received a small electronic receiver that would inform her when the food was ready to be collected.
They moved away from the stand to a nearby bench. As they sat down, Russell had a slightly downcast expression. ‘I promise you this is the last time.’
‘The last time for what?’
‘The last time you pay for me.’
Vivien looked at him. He was genuinely sorry. She knew how humiliated he felt, and that was a remarkable thing in itself. The last trace seemed to have gone of the man that Russell Wade had been until a few days earlier.
It had happened abruptly, like an evil spell taken away at the utterance of a magic word. Unfortunately, the other person who seemed to have vanished without a trace was the man she had spent the night with.
She told herself it was stupid to regret something that had never really existed. She lowered her eyes to the object she had in her hands, which was the size of an old TV remote control.
‘It must be something like this he uses.’
‘Who does, and to do what?’
‘The man who set off those bombs. It must be a gadget like this that he used to send the impulses that set off the explosions.’
As she was looking at that innocuous device of plastic and Plexiglas, which in another situation might become a lethal weapon, the receiver buzzed, almost making them jump.
Russell stood up and took the receiver from her hands. ‘I’ll go. Let me do that at least.’
Vivien watched as he presented himself at the window, handed over the receiver and got a tray with the food in return. He came back and placed the tray on the bench between them.
They unwrapped the hamburgers and started eating in silence. The food was the same, but the atmosphere was very different than when they had eaten together in Coney Island, facing the sea. When Russell had confided in her and she had been sure she understood him.
Now it occurred to her that she had only understood what she wanted to understand.
The ringing of her cellphone jolted her out of these thoughts. She looked at the number on the display without recognizing it.
She took the call. ‘Detective Light.’
She heard a familiar voice. ‘Hello, Miss Light. This is Dr Savine, one of the doctors treating your sister.’
The voice and the words brought images flooding into Vivien’s mind. The Mariposa Clinic in Cresskill, Greta gazing into the distance with sightless eyes, white coats that meant both safety and anguish.
‘What is it, doctor?’
‘Unfortunately it isn’t good news.’
Vivien waited in silence for him to continue, instinctively clenching her fist.
