Part 10 A Sinister Business #2
Thankfully, this one was just like the first paragraph, and I quickly set about writing out its text by hand and removing the 0s and 1s.
Within a few words, I sat bolt upright.
Because I saw my own name.
4071AY: JUST SAW SPEEDMAN POKING AROUND AT THE MILL BY THE CEMETERY
A cold knot twisted in my stomach.
Uh-oh, I thought.
I continued deciphering the paragraph for another twenty minutes till it was written out in full.
Then I read it:
4071AY: JUST SAW SPEEDMAN POKING AROUND AT THE MILL BY THE CEMETERY. HE’S SMART AND DETERMINED. IF HE GETS ANY CLOSER, WILL HAVE TO TAKE ACTION
4071FB: JUST CHECKED WITH MY CONTACT AT THE brIGHTON brATVA. KING’S WIFE HAS HIRED SPEEDMAN TO CLEAR HER NAME. HE SPOKE TO OBEROV AND ALSO WENT TO THE S.H. MORGUE
4071AY: HE’S GETTING TOO CLOSE. WE WILL HAVE TO ELIMINATE HIM. WON’T WE DR SPEEDMAN? SINCE I’M SURE YOU’RE READING THIS NOW. YOU KNOW, I ENJOYED CHATTING WITH YOU WHEN YOU WERE IN THE SAUNA AT 59WEST. SEE YOU AGAIN VERY SOON. XOX
Pure fear shot through me.
AY knew I was reading this.
He knew we’d hacked his comms.
I spun in my little room, my heart pounding, as if I might see him standing there in the darkness with me.
But I was alone.
My heart rate levelled off and I began to analyse his words.
I enjoyed chatting with you when you were in the sauna at 59West . . .
So, it had been AY who had shoved me into the sauna and spoken with me.
I’d met this guy . . .
I’d talked to him . . .
He’d been with us inside 59West during the whole thing on December 21st.
The balls on this man . . . I thought.
What he knew about me was disturbing.
He knew I was working for Yasmina Ivanova.
And that I’d met with Roman Oberov.
And that I’d gone to the Sleepy Hollow morgue.
And he’d seen me himself at the mill.
I recalled the dark figure—standing eerily still in the falling snow on the other side of the stream—watching me as I had emerged from the ruined water mill behind Georgy and Heidi.
It had been him.
This wasn’t good.
It all showed a level of calculation—plus confidence and ruthlessness—that I’d never witnessed in a criminal before.
‘There are no criminal masterminds in the real world,’ my criminology professor had said.
But Monty Woods was scared fucking shitless of Modern Alchemical Solutions. The legends he’d heard about it on the darknet were truly frightening.
And now here was ‘AY’, the man behind Modern Alchemical Solutions, writing directly to me.
Maybe there were criminal masterminds—
Bringgggg!
The old phone beside my cot rang so suddenly it made me jump.
The landline . . .
What the—
I picked it up but said nothing.
A voice at the other end—the same voice I’d heard when I was in the sauna at 59West—said pleasantly, ‘You know, when I put you on that list of five detectives, I wondered if you might become a problem. Hello, Dr Speedman. Mr Woods left a while ago but I didn’t see you leave 60 Hudson Street, so I figured you must be staying in the Tech Detect’s little back room. ’
He was watching the building.
He knew where I was.
I swallowed, summoning up the courage to speak.
‘Modern Alchemical Solutions,’ I said. ‘That’s you, right?’
‘It is.’
‘You solve problems for people?’
‘Like you do,’ he said. ‘A kind of mirror image, one might say. I solve problems by committing crimes. You solve problems by solving crimes.’
‘What were you trying to achieve at 59West on December 21?’ I asked straight up.
‘You’ve seen my communications. I was merely working for some clients.’
‘Like Xiao and the Chinese?’
‘I work for all kinds of entities. Private individuals, corporations, even national governments sometimes.’
‘Why all the riddles?’
‘I don’t accept every client who seeks my services. I choose those whose problems amuse or challenge me. This one came with substantial challenges.’
‘You mean taking on Aristo King, the richest man in the world? Getting inside his home?’
‘It certainly makes life less dull.’
‘Again, why the riddles?’
‘There was a reason for the riddles. They certainly made the show more enjoyable, watching the FBI and all you brilliant detectives grapple with them.’
‘You were there,’ I said. ‘In the building. You shoved me into the sauna. Was that part of the challenge or just a cheap thrill?’
‘Just a cheap thrill. Oh, I had a front row seat to it all. I was mildly impressed with you when you leapt into the elevator shaft to save the boy, that was brave. But I was even more impressed when you doubled back and snuck onto the sauna level while the others went to check on the nanny. That was crafty. Cunning. And I admire people with cunning.’
As he spoke, my mind buzzed.
A front row seat.
I thought about the superintendent, Lenny Grossman, and my theory that someone had impersonated Grossman at 59West—the ‘Grossman infiltration’ as the plaintext had put it.
But this guy couldn’t have done that:
When I was shoved into the sauna from behind by him, I’d been watching the other man in Grossman’s white coveralls down the hall.
Had this guy impersonated someone else that day . . .?
‘Did you impersonate someone at 59West on December 21?’ I asked.
He chuckled. ‘Oh, I do like your mind, Dr Speedman. You might be more like me than you care to admit. Maybe you should take up a life of crime. It would be more lucrative than detective work in Houston.’
‘I don’t think we’re alike,’ I said.
‘We both prepare deeply, we both analyse closely, we both immerse ourselves in the details of a matter, and we are both ill-suited to this banal world, although I am pleased to see you finally found a girlfriend. Still afraid of helicopters, though?’
I paused.
‘You’ve read my—’
‘Your personal file kept by Dr Lucille Hollins,’ he said. ‘Your therapist in Houston. She’s fond of you, you know. Good therapist, too, by the looks of it, but like many suburban psychologists, she really needs to install better security on her broadband network.’
‘Then you’ll also know that I’m on the autism spectrum and thus kind of impervious to psychological manipulation,’ I said.
‘We’ll see about that.’
‘So, you researched me?’ I said.
‘I had to. When I created that list of the five best detectives for December 21, I had no choice but to include you. I mean, after that big case you solved in the South, for a while there you were the most famous detective in America. How could you not be on a list of the country’s best private investigators? ’
This was something I’d wondered about.
Why bring five top detectives to 59West at all? Five professional crime-solvers who could unravel his plans?
Overconfidence? Arrogance? A vendetta I didn’t yet know about?
‘Why’d you bring the five of us to that tower anyway?’ I asked. ‘Any one of us could’ve wrecked your plans.’
‘But none of you did. As I said, sometimes I like to challenge myself, make things more difficult.’
‘What’s behind your company name, Modern Alchemical Solutions?’ I asked suddenly. ‘It seems very specific.’
‘It is. At its heart, the concept of alchemy is about transformation. The alchemists of old sought to turn lead into gold. My modern version involves transformations, too, but in both directions. I turn lead into gold and gold into lead.’
‘You’ll have to explain that to me.’
‘I transform people’s lives, for better and for worse.
I have turned poor people into rich people and I have made rich people poor.
I have made ugly people pretty and pretty people grotesque.
I have given the downtrodden satisfaction over their tormentors while I have also helped bad men like Roman Oberov and his Russians exact retribution on other bad men. ’
‘You think you’re doing good?’
‘I just am.’
‘What do you want?’ I demanded flatly.
And for the first time, he paused.
‘Why do you ask that?’ he said.
‘Because this isn’t about money. I don’t think you care for that. And this isn’t about Aristo King. I don’t think you care about him either. This is a game to you. One that’s not over yet.’
‘It was over,’ he said. ‘You’re the one who kept it alive.’
‘I can be like that.’
‘Gosh, I like you! So ingenuous and dogged!’ he exclaimed. ‘What do I want? To overcome the crushing tedium of this world. To make my life in some way interesting. To make people squirm as I push them beyond their psychological limits.