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Gavin Daly read the company names on the wall, then went through a door into a huge restaurant. It had a high ceiling with an exposed metal grid superstructure. A window ran the full length, giving a fine view across a small marina, the West River, and New Jersey on the far shore.
Mid-morning, the place was empty. Shiny wooden tables were neatly laid with place settings and bottles of ketchup. To their left was a curved bar, behind which was a row of tall copper beer vats. A balding, middle-aged bartender, polishing a beer glass, gave them a friendly smile. ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’
‘We’re looking for Hudson Scuba,’ Gavin Daly replied. ‘They told us to come here.’
‘You’re in the right place.’ The man pointed. ‘Go through that far door; you’ll see them on the boat, down at the dock.’
They walked through the bar and as Gavin Daly stepped outside, he stopped in his tracks, the memories catching him like a snare.
Something twisted inside his heart.
It was different now, of course it was. Ninety years later.
But it was the same, too.
The same place.
His eyes moistened.
He barely noticed the small powerboats and yachts berthed along the marina’s pontoons. He was staring beyond them at the ugly, grey, two-storey superstructure of Pier 54 in the distance, stretching out into the calm, muddy-looking water.
The very place he had stood, back in 1922, with his sister, Aileen, and his aunt, Oonagh, waiting to board the Mauretania.
The very place where the messenger had pushed through the melee of departing passengers, and handed him the package with the gun, pocket watch and newspaper cutting with the numbers and the names.
And the message.
Watch the numbers.
A sign in front of him in large red letters on a white background read, PRIVATE PROPERTY. OWNERS AND THEIR GUESTS ONLY ON CHELSEA PIERS.
Beyond was a steep, planked gangway down onto the dock. A substantial open fibreglass day boat, with twin outboards and a steering wheel and midship-mounted controls, was moored alongside. One man, in his early twenties, with bleached hair and wearing a wetsuit, stood on the boat, while another, older, stood on the dock passing him scuba tanks, fins, a snorkel, and then a cool box.
‘Hudson Scuba?’ Gavin Daly called out, as he made his way carefully down.
‘That’s us!’ the older man, good-looking and ta
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Stuart Campbell, and our diver today is Tommy Lovell.’
‘Thank you, gentlemen, I really appreciate this. How do I pay you? You take cards?’
‘We do indeed, sir.’
Stuart Campbell gripped Gavin’s arm and stick, and with Lucas holding his other arm, they helped him aboard. Campbell indicated a wide, cushioned bench seat in the stern. ‘You’ll be most comfortable there, sir. Driest place, too.’ Then Campbell ducked down beneath the helm and produced a credit-card machine, as if by magic. ‘We charge seven hundred and fifty bucks the first hour, then five hundred an hour after that, sir; fuel’s extra.’ He handed Daly the machine.
The old man slipped in his American Express card, then tapped in the information requested, and handed the machine back to Stuart Campbell.
Campbell looked at it, and then said, dubiously, ‘I think you’ve put a zero in the wrong place, Mr Daly.’
Gavin Daly studied it, then shook his head. ‘No, that’s what I said to the person who answered your phone. That I would give you a bonus of ten thousand dollars for doing this right away.’ He put his hand against the raised side of the seat to support himself, as the boat rocked in the wash.
‘Well, that’s very generous – incredibly so. But with respect, sir, that is a lot of money.’ Campbell frowned, as if looking at the two men in a different light now. ‘Are you able to give me some kind of assurance there is nothing illegal going on here?’
‘Dear boy, I can categorically assure you there’s nothing illegal whatsoever – if there was, I’d be giving you ten times this amount. Happy now?’
Campbell nodded doubtfully.
Lucas, standing with a sullen expression, leaned against the windshield support.
‘So do you have a specific location, Mr Daly?’
‘Manhattan Bridge.’
‘Manhattan Bridge? Okay.’
‘I’ll give you more details when we get there.’
‘You’re the boss.’ Campbell twisted the key in the ignition, firing up the engines. As they burbled, Tommy Lovell untied the mooring ropes.
For some moments they drifted, free, then with a clunk and a sharp change in pitch of the engines, they began moving forward, the water rustling beneath them. Gavin Daly smelled the tang of salt and petrol fumes in the air.
Inside he was jangling.
116
The Crown Victoria raced along Madison Avenue, weaving through the traffic, siren wailing, then slowed as the traffic ahead was heavy and moving at a crawl. Through the windscreen, Roy Grace saw a mass of strobing red lights ahead.
A cruiser was angled across two lanes, and another, a hundred yards further along, was similarly parked. Two further police cruisers were stopped in the middle of the street, and a large, box-shaped ambulance, its doors shut, was parked against the kerb. Not a good sign that the ambulance was still there, Grace thought. From his experience it meant they were working on the casualty in situ; something paramedic crews normally did only when a patient was in a critical condition.
They pulled up alongside the ambulance and he saw yellow and black POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS tape blocking off the sidewalk either side of a row of shops. Standing outside the tape were several NYPD cops. To one side, two men in suits, detectives, Grace presumed, were talking to an elderly, flamboyantly dressed and rather distinguished-looking man, who seemed in shock.
Lanigan, Cobb and Grace climbed out of the car, the two New York detectives flashing their badges at a police Captain who came over to them.
The Captain jerked a finger at the ambulance. ‘Not looking good,’ he said. ‘Femoral artery’s been shot through. The man’s lost a lot of blood; they’re trying to give him a transfusion before moving him to hospital.’
‘Who’s that guy?’ Pat Lanigan asked, pointing at the old man.
‘Owner of the premises where the shooting happened.’
‘We need to talk to him urgently.’
‘Go right ahead.’
‘Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,’ Lanigan said, nodding at the two detectives, who he clearly knew, before addressing the old man. ‘Detective Lanigan and Detective Lieutenant Cobb, and this is Detective Superintendent Roy Grace from Sussex, England. We believe the perpetrator might be an English gentleman, Gavin Daly.’
The man’s eyebrows were twitching, and he was shaking. ‘That’s right. He’s normally a – a very – how you say it – calm, nice guy. He went crazy in my office.’
‘And you are, sir?’
‘Julius Rosenblaum.’
‘Can you give us any idea where Mr Daly might be now?’
Despite his shaking, Rosenblaum’s voice was calm. ‘My guess would be Manhattan Bridge.’
‘Manhattan Bridge?’ Lanigan repeated.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘On the bridge?’
Rosenblaum shook his head. ‘No, sir, on the water, somewhere underneath it, or close by. His son’s gone with him.’
‘What’s his reason for going to the Manhattan Bridge?’
‘He’s looking for his father.’
117
As they left the marina, Stuart Campbell opened up the throttle. There was a slight chop on the Hudson, and as the boat came up onto the plane, it hit the waves with a jarring thump-thump-thump. Gavin Daly steadied himself by gripping the seat either side of him with his hands. To his left was a rack of oxygen tanks, a lifebuoy and a small fire extinguisher secured by two brackets. A sturdy winch handle lay amid a coil of rope close to his feet.