by Jack Heath
Wright had thought that window washers wore protective harnesses to prevent that sort of thing, but all man-made equipment failed from time to time.
But how did the window get broken?
Wright frowned. The window washer might not have been on his platform – after all, there didn’t seem to be one up above. Perhaps he had been inside the building, and he’d been thrown through the window.
He pulled out his radio.
“Dispatch.”
“This is Detective Wright, reporting a probable homicide. I need forensics, coronial team and crowd control, over.”
His radio said, “Copy that. Location? Over.”
Wright gave them the address, and hit a key on his phone. “Belle, you’re not going to believe this.”
Ash dumped the last of her used paper towels in the bin and turned to the mirror. She looked more or less normal – her hair was a little fluffy, and all her make-up was gone, but her clothes no longer clung to her and her lips had lost their bluish tint.
She opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the corridor. She turned left. She wanted to check the south room next. Then she hesitated.
There was a man walking down the corridor away from her, talking on a mobile phone. It looked like Buckland. He was slightly hunched – not a conscious thing, just like he was hoping no one would notice him. And he was walking quickly. He disappeared around the corner seconds after Ash noticed him.
Maybe he needed the bathroom, maybe he was meeting someone in the foyer, maybe he just wanted to stretch his legs. Whatever the reason, he was on the 23rd floor. A long way from his office.
Ash pushed the up button beside the lift instead of down. This was an opportunity.
The doors slid open. There was already a man inside the lift, who made no move to get out. Probably $30,000 in the bank and a $50 note in his wallet, judging by his clothes – which looked slightly damp, although maybe it was the light. Ash recognized him as the guy who’d gone into Buckland’s office after her. What had Keighley called him? Mr. Stone, Mr. Fry…something with one syllable. Ford, that was it.
Why was he still here? She hoped he didn’t recognize her. She didn’t want to get into a conversation.
She reached up for the button for floor 25, but it was already lit. Ford must be going back up there.
The doors slid shut, sealing them in.
PART TWO
Two Worlds Collide
The lift glided upwards quietly. Ash watched the numbers on the screen as the other lifts descended, taking the employees down to the car park in the basement.
Would this be it? Would the money really be hidden in Buckland’s office?
“Ash? Can you hear me?”
Ford was standing too close for her to talk to herself without making him suspicious. She cleared her throat softly instead.
“I’ve been watching the news,” Benjamin said. “There are cops outside HBS.”
Ash’s eyes widened.
“Don’t worry, they’re not here for you. But I think you should hear this.”
A newscaster’s voice faded in, mixed with the hustle-bustle of street noise. “…five o’clock this afternoon, when witnesses reported seeing a window shatter on the top floor of Hammond Buckland Solutions. When the local police came to investigate, they found evidence that this alley was the scene of a violent murder. I’m here with Detective Damien Wright. Detective, what has led the police to believe that this is anything more than a suicide?”
A new voice came through Ash’s headphones. “Obviously I can’t present many hard facts so early in the investigation. But I can say first that it’s police policy to treat every suicide as a potential homicide, and second that a typical suicide victim would jump from the roof of a building like HBS instead of through a closed window. There are other elements of the crime scene that are not consistent with suicide, and so far there has been no sign of a suicide note.”
“By crime scene, are you referring to the alleyway that has been blocked off by police?” the reporter asked. “How can forensics determine whether someone fell or was pushed? What inconsistencies have you and your colleagues discovered?”
“I can’t comment on that,” Detective Wright said, “without compromising the investigation, and for the sake of the family of the victim, who have not yet been located.”
“But you believe that there is a killer and that he or she is still at large?”
“I can say that we believe there may have been more witnesses to the event, and we’d like them to come forward so we can close the case swiftly and satisfactorily. As we speak a hotline is being set up—”
Benjamin came back on the line, interrupting the detective. “They’re showing footage of the broken window. It’s the window of Buckland’s office.”
Ash’s mind was racing. Someone had been thrown through Buckland’s window? Who? The report said 5 p.m., and she’d seen Buckland since then, so it wasn’t him. Five was about the time…that Mr. Ford went into the office.
Ash’s skin erupted into goosebumps. She hadn’t seen anyone else go in after Ford, but if he was here, and Buckland was here, then someone else must have been the victim. And if someone had been thrown out the window, it seemed likely that Ford had done the throwing.
Ash reached casually into her handbag and pulled out her lipgloss and her mirror. She pressed the stick against her lips, and held up the mirror. Ford was still standing behind her, staring up at the screen with the numbers. He hadn’t moved since she walked in.
She rubbed her lips together and put the items back in her bag, but as she withdrew her hand, she snagged the bolt cutters. She slipped them into her free hand and used the other to close her handbag.
So who the hell was Ford? What was his agenda?
Ping. The lift doors slid open. Ash walked out and turned towards Buckland’s office. She heard Ford follow behind her.
Peachey wanted to walk faster, overtake the girl and get to Buckland’s office as quickly as possible. He had no idea how long it would be before Buckland returned to it, and while he had no problem waiting, he didn’t want to arrive too late. It was 5.25.
He gritted his teeth. This was turning out to be one of the most difficult, annoying jobs he’d done in a long time. He’d once had to shoot a woman as she walked through a revolving door because it was the furthest away from her bodyguards she’d been since he took the contract. He’d once had to jump out of a moving train to escape after a hit because the body was found too soon. Even killing Jeremy Quay had been easier than this, and Quay was a professional.
But still. It would all be over soon. He’d be drinking coffee across the street before he knew it.
Keighley wasn’t at the front desk. That was good – Peachey wasn’t sure if his cover story that he’d left his coat in Buckland’s office would be enough to get past him, and he couldn’t kill Keighley in front of the girl without killing her too, and then he’d have to dispose of two bodies before Buckland returned.
The girl didn’t turn off at the bathroom, or the fire stairs, or any of the conference rooms. She kept heading towards Buckland’s office. Peachey had a horrifying thought – what if she had left something behind after her interview with Buckland, and she was going back to get it? Like her handbag, or phone. No, she still had her handbag. But anyway, she’d want to wait outside the office until someone came to unlock it.
Peachey didn’t think he could come up with a convincing enough lie to get past her without arousing her suspicion. He’d have to deal with her before he could go in. But where could he hide the body? Should he drag her into Buckland’s office and throw her out the window, hoping she’d land in the same dumpster he’d used before? Someone might see her fall – better to drown her in the spa and weigh her down with something…
Keighley wasn’t at the other desk, either. The security guards were missing, too. In fact, besides the student, Peachey hadn’t seen a single person on floor 25. Excellent for privacy, but suspicious.
Where is everybody? he thought. Is Buckland so confident that I’m either dead or about to walk into his next trap that he’s called off all security?
That couldn’t be right. Hammond Buckland was a cautious man. Maybe that was it – maybe his security force was tailing him instead of guarding specific parts of the building. Lucky for Peachey. Unlucky for Buckland.
He was nearly at Buckland’s door. The girl was still in front of him, still walking slightly slower than he wanted to. Her iPod headphones were still jammed in her ears; she probably didn’t even know he was behind her.
The girl reached Buckland’s door.
She kept walking.
Peachey exhaled. Apparently her destination was further down the corridor. He was free to enter the office unseen.
Peachey turned the handle as the student disappeared down the corridor. Click – the door was locked. Peachey turned to Keighley’s desk and touched the mouse. The screensaver vanished and a game of Minesweeper appeared on the screen. Peachey typed the combination he’d seen Keighley use, and the door clicked again.
He slipped on his gloves and twisted the handle again. The door swung slowly open. He peered inside. Everything was exactly as he’d left it; shattered window, handcuffs on the desk, bullet holes in the walls. He stepped through the doorway and started scanning the floor for his Glock.
Where is it? he wondered. I could have sworn I dropped it right about—
Thunk! Pain exploded in the back of Peachey’s head and he staggered forward. His legs wobbled under him. What the—
Thunk! A second impact, and Peachey toppled over, the carpet fading to black as it rushed up to meet him.
Ash lowered the bolt cutters as she stared down at Ford’s body. She’d hit him with the handle-end, which had a thin skin of rubber covering the metal, but she still hadn’t expected to need two strikes to knock him out.
Her hands were still shaking. She’d had self-defence and martial arts training, she’d risked her life a dozen times, and she’d broken the law more times than she could count. But she’d never bludgeoned someone unconscious before.
Ford’s eyes were only half-closed. His tongue lolled out against the carpet.
Ash thought she knew who he was now. She’d watched him put on gloves before opening Buckland’s door – he must be a thief, the same as her. He’d been headed for Buckland’s office, just like she was, and he’d managed to get an appointment with Buckland this afternoon, just like she had.
But Ash had never killed anyone, whereas she suspected this man had thrown someone through a window.
She patted down his clothes. He had no weapons although there was a holster for a gun around his chest. If she restrained him, and kept her distance, he wouldn’t be able to harm her. She grabbed Ford’s (although she now realized that that probably wasn’t his real name) wrists and dragged him across the room. He was heavy; maybe 90 kilograms. She was short of breath by the time she’d dragged him to Buckland’s desk.
She tried pushing the desk to the side. It wouldn’t move. She tried pulling it. It still would not budge. Excellent – it was either way too heavy to move or attached to the floor somehow. She snatched the handcuffs off the table, and tightened one cuff around the man’s left wrist. She snapped the other around the narrowest part of the leg of the desk, and jiggled it up and down to check that it wouldn’t come off. It held.
The best thing would be to leave him here until somebody found him. She didn’t want to be the one who called the cops – there would be too many questions she couldn’t answer. Someone else would do the right thing; she had bigger fish to fry.
She left him on the floor and started checking the room. It had changed a lot since she last studied it. Shards of glass jutted out around the edges of the shattered window. There were seven bullet holes – two in the door, one in each wall, one in the ceiling, and one in the floor. Examining each one, she saw that there was steel behind the surfaces. The room was reinforced with it. She started tapping the walls, like she’d done in the north room on floor 24.
“Who the hell are you?” the man on the floor asked haltingly.
Ash emitted a shallow gasp. He was awake already. She kept tapping the walls, ignoring his question.
“What is this?” he continued. “You work for Buckland? You’re a part of his next trap?”
Knock knock. This wall was completely solid. She started checking the next one.
“Who are you?” the man said again. “What are you doing?”
Ash kept tapping. Another wall cleared. She didn’t look at him – she didn’t want him to see her face too clearly.
“Did the government send you? Are you their backup plan?”
Government? Ash thought. Backup plan? Had the government sent him to steal the two hundred million for them? Buckland might have been right!
She finished tapping the last wall. No safe. She started across the floor, pounding it with her palm.
“Uncuff me,” the man said.
Thud thud. Thud thud.
“Uncuff me.” There was fury in his voice. Like he was used to people doing exactly what he said. Like even if she did it, he might throw her out the window just because she’d kept him waiting.
The floor was clear, too. She moved over to the fern in the corner and tried to shift it. It came free with a cracking noise, revealing a pipe that had come up through the floor and into the pot plant.
Weird. But too small to keep $200 million in. She kept looking.
“I’m going to count to three,” the man said. “If I’m not released by the time I reach it, I’m going to kill you. Understand?”
Ash pushed a couch aside. No sign of a floor safe, nothing under the cushions.
“One,” the man said quietly.
Ash turned to the spa. The water level seemed lower than the last time she looked, but it appeared to be a normal spa. She pushed the buttons on the side, and the jets clicked on and off.
“Two.”
Ash stood on the rim, stretched up and touched the ceiling. Reinforced, just like everywhere else. She scanned the room, looking for somewhere else to check.
The man on the floor roared and lunged forwards, the handcuffs rattling against the leg of the desk. The desk slid an inch towards Ash, and the man’s free hand clawed at the air. He screamed again, a furious, rattling howl, and he reached back and grabbed Buckland’s swivel chair by its stem. Veins bulging, he lifted it with one arm, swung it, and hurled it towards Ash. It crashed into the wall as she stepped aside, denting the wooden panelling and tumbling to the floor on its side.
The man grabbed the leg of the desk and tried to pull it across the carpet. It barely moved.
“I’ll kill you,” he panted. “You hear me? You’re dead!”
Ash didn’t make eye contact with him. The money wasn’t in Buckland’s office. Time to check the south room on floor 24.
“Doesn’t matter how far you run,” the man said, his voice low and threatening, “or where you try to hide. I will find you, and I will kill you and anyone else who tries to stand in my way!”
Buckland’s keys were still in the dish on the table beside the door. Maybe they included a master key. Ash stuffed them in her pocket, and opened the door.
“You can’t get away from me,” the man shouted. “No one ever does!”
Ash stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind her.
“Okay,” Benjamin said. “Who the hell was that?”
Ash took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I think he might be another thief, sent by the government to steal the money.”
“A psycho thief.”
“Yeah. A psycho thief who knows what I look like.” She took a deep breath, held it, and let it out.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Benjamin said, though he too sounded shaken. “One hundred million will buy a lot of hair dye, make-up and new outfits.”
“But what will I spend my share on?” she teased. She pushed the button to call the lift.
“Towchi. Where to now?”
“Floor 24, I think. The south room. Guess what I found in Buckland’s office?”
“Uh, two hundred million dollars’ worth of postage stamps?”
“Buckland’s keys.”
Benjamin laughed. “That’ll make things easier.”
Ash walked into the lift and pushed the button for floor 24. “Totally.” She smiled, and checked her hands. Not shaking.
“Ready to be rich?” she asked.
“Heck yes. But there’s some pretty serious security around the next room.”
“I know. I was there when we watched the video.”
“A camera, a lock and three guards,” Benjamin said, “all for 20 cubic metres of space.”
“I know.”
When Ash and Benjamin had watched the footage from the vacuum cleaner, at first they’d thought that the signal was jammed when it travelled through a certain door. The screen always went blank, like someone was holding a sheet of paper in front of the camera. Then they saw a second vacuum cleaner, just briefly as the original one turned around. Thinking quickly, Benjamin ran the footage through a brightness and contrast filter, and they watched it again. They were stunned by the precautions Buckland had taken to protect the locked room on the south corner of floor 24.
The door led to a short, brightly lit antechamber, the ceiling, floor and one of the walls painted pure white. Any trace of colour or shadow would be immediately obvious. The opposing wall was a mirror, which was why they had seen two vacuum cleaners on the video. There was a camera at the far end, covering the whole antechamber – too far away to spray with anything without crossing the threshold, and it wasn’t the kind of camera Ash could hide from after five minutes in a fridge. They could see the make and model number on the side – it filmed digital video at a rate of forty-eight frames per second and a resolution of 0.3 megapixels. When they watched the vacuum cleaner enter the room next door to the antechamber, they saw that the mirror was actually one-way glass, and that there were three security guards watching the antechamber through it.
The door the vacuum cleaner travelled through slid open when the pressure sensor in front of it was depressed. It was less than two metres tall and barely one metre wide. Anyone on the pressure sensor would be immediately visible to the guards and the camera the second the door opened. The door at the opposite end of the antechamber, the north end, was key-locked.