Russell paused, leaving that crucial question hanging.
As if granting them a pause for thought, the telephone on the desk started ringing. The captain reached out his hand and lifted the receiver to his ear.
‘Bellew.’
He listened in silence to whatever the person at the other end was telling him. Vivien and Russell saw his jaw gradually clench. When he hung up, it was clear from the expression on his face that he would have liked to smash the telephone.
‘It was the head of the explosives team that’s been examining the debris on the Hudson.’
He paused, then said what they were all expecting to hear.
‘It’s him again. Same explosive, same kind of primer.’
Russell stood up, as if he needed to move after that confirmation.
‘Something just occurred to me. I’m no expert, but for this man to have decided to carry out what his father had planned, he has to be a sociopath or something like that, with all that that implies.’
He turned to look at Vivien and Bellew.
‘I’ve read that people like that usually develop compulsive patterns of behaviour. The first blast took place on Saturday evening. The second between Monday and Tuesday. Nearly two days later. If that madman has fixed that in his mind as the interval between one explosion and the other, we should have two more days to catch him before he decides to act again. I don’t even want to think…’
He left the sentence hanging. Then he concluded it, expressing in his tone all the gravity of the situation.
‘I don’t even want to think about what would happen if another explosion took place. Maybe in a building where thousands of men and women work.’
He had saved the worst hypothesis until last.
‘Not to mention that he might even decide to blow up all the buildings on the same day.’
Vivien saw the captain looking at Russell as if, in spite of everything, he was still wondering who this guy was and what he was doing in his office. A civilian discussing with them facts that according to the rules should have been confined to the police. The situation that had been created was absurd but had its own warped logic. The three of them were linked by a secret that must not be divulged at any cost, that it was in nobody’s interest to divulge.
Bellew stood up and leaned with his clenched fists on the desk. ‘We urgently need a name to put with those photographs. We can’t publish them with the words Who knows thisman? If he saw that, the son might realize we’re on to him, panic and start to blow up the buildings one after the other.’
Vivien realized that they were referring to these two unknown people as the father and the son. Absurdly, memories of her childhood welled up to underline the tragic irony of the situation.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the HolySpirit…
The image of herself, still a child, in a church with the scent of incense around her was erased by other images: buildings in flames and bodies being put in ambulances.
There was a knock at the door. Detective Tyler entered the office holding a file. His stubbled chin and generally dishevelled appearance indicated a sleepless night. When he saw Russell, a grimace of disapproval crossed his face for a moment.
Ignoring Russell and Vivien, he said, ‘Captain, I have the results you wanted.’
His tone was that of someone who had done hard, boring work and knew that it wouldn’t be recognized. The captain reached out his hand, took the file and looked through it quickly.
He spoke without raising his eyes from the paper. ‘OK, Tyler. You can go.’
The detective went out, leaving a trace of stale cigarettes and surliness in the room. Bellew waited for him to move away from the door, before informing Vivien and Russell of what he had just read.
‘I put a couple of three-man teams on it. Telling them as little as I could. This is what he have.’
He turned his attention back to the papers in his hands.
‘The house that blew up on Long Island belonged to an ex-soldier, a Major Mistnick. Apparently he served in Vietnam. That may not mean anything, but it’s curious all the same. The firm that built it was indeed a small company in Brooklyn, Newborn Brothers. The company responsible for the building on the Lower East Side on the other hand is called Pike’s Peak Buildings. And here we’ve had a real stroke of luck. Some time ago, the management hired an IT company to put all its data on computer. That means we can look at everything, even from years ago.’
‘That’s good news,’ Vivien said.
‘There’s more.’ There was no joy in the captain’s voice. ‘We need to look at the company that fixed up Twelfth Avenue and built the warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen, the one that blew up last night. It was a municipal contract, so the company must have used union labour, which means the data should still be available. We’ll proceed in the same way with the company that renovated the building on 23rd Street, where the body was found. If we can get hold of the names of the people who worked on those four sites, we can compare them and see if any coincide.’
Bellew passed his hand through his hair, maybe thinking that he was too old for his professional expertise to be put to the test like this.
‘It’s not much of a lead but it’s all we’ve got. I’ll ask the commissioner for backup, and put as many men to work on this as I can. I’ll tell them it’s a Code RFL.’
Russell frowned. ‘Code RFL?’
Vivien intervened with an explanation. ‘It’s a code that doesn’t exist but every police officer in New York knows. RFL stands for Run for Life. In police jargon it means those cases where speed is of the essence.’
She looked back at her chief.
‘I want you to talk to Newborn Brothers. If it was a small company, with not many workers, the direct contact may be more productive. Someone may remember something. While you’re on your way down, I’ll ask the switchboard to get the number. You can pick it up from the desk officers.’
Vivien stood up, glad to do so. As they left the office they heard Bellew’s voice: he was already on the phone, getting them what he had promised.
They walked downstairs. Russell was in front of her, and Vivien could smell his eau de cologne. She remembered his lips in the hollow of her elbow and his hand in her hair. Then she remembered the blinding flash and the thunderous sound that had abruptly pulled them out of the time and space they had carved out for themselves.
After the blast they had dressed quickly, saying nothing. They had gone into the living room and switched on the TV. After a few minutes’ wait, Channel One had interrupted its broadcasts with news of the attack. They had continued hopping from one channel to another as the news was updated minute to minute. The magic there had been between them had vanished, lost in the flames now leaping on the TV screen.