Gridiron

And then he remembered.

He returned to the work-station and clicked the mouse to get the CCTV camera view of the computer room and Kenny still typing away, trying to solve the glitch. Everything looked normal. Everything except the hands of the clock on the wall. They read six-fifteen and had done so for the last forty-five minutes. And now that he looked more closely at the television picture, he began to see small repetitions in Kenny's behaviour: the same little jerk of the head, the same frown, the same finger movements across the keyboards. Mitch felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. He had been viewing nothing more than a tape recording of what had happened in the computer room. Someone had wanted them to think that Aidan Kenny was working at trying to debug the building management systems. But why? For the moment, Mitch kept the discovery to himself, hoping to avoid alarming everyone. He turned around in his chair and looked at David Arnon.

'Dave? Have you got that walkie-talkie?'

'Sure, Mitch.' Arnon handed over the set he always carried on site to speak to the construction people.

'They've got one of those in the security office, right?'

Arnon nodded.

'I'm going to get the security guy, Dukes, to see what's keeping Richardson.' He caught the tiny pupil in Birnbaum's pale blue eye and added, 'I don't give a fuck what he's doing.'

Birnbaum shrugged. 'It's your funeral, Mitch.'

'Maybe.'

Curtis was still wearing his sarcastic face. Mitch looked at him and nodded towards the door.

'Could I have a word with you please, Sergeant? Outside?'

'I'm not doing anything right now. Why not?'

Mitch said nothing until they were further up the corridor. 'I didn't want to say anything in front of everyone in there,' he said at last. 'I guess I didn't want to scare them the way I'm scared now.'

'Jesus, what's up?'

Mitch explained about the time on the clock in the computer room and his suspicion that for the last three-quarters of an hour they had been viewing a tape recording, a recorded loop of what was happening.

'Which means that something may have happened in the computer room just after six-fifteen. Something that someone is trying to hide from us.'

'You think Aidan Kenny is all right?'

Mitch let out a sigh and shrugged. 'I really don't know.'

'This someone,' Curtis said after a moment, 'do you think it could be your friend from the garage? The one who knocked you out?'

'The thought had crossed my mind, Sergeant.'

'How far do you think he would go?'

'I really don't figure Grabel for a murderer. But if Sam Gleig disturbed Grabel sabotaging the computer, then it's just possible he could have been killed for it. Maybe that part was an accident. Anyway, I think Grabel may have come back here to warn me. It could be that he had second thoughts about the whole thing.'

'Either way, we're in trouble.'

'Yes, I'm afraid so,' said Mitch.

'Well, hadn't we better go down to the computer room and find out if Mr Kenny is OK?'

'Sure. But if I'm right it means that we don't dare use the elevators.'

Curtis looked blank.

'Abraham controls the elevators,' explained Mitch. 'The whole building management system could be screwed.'

'Then we'd better take the stairs,' suggested Curtis.

'I'm not walking. We'll get Dukes to check on Kenny on his way up here. You see, if we are going to be trapped in the building for a while, it would make more sense for them to come up stairs where there's food and water, rather than remain down there where there's none.'

Curtis nodded. 'Sounds sensible.'

'At least until we can get help.'

Mitch pressed the call-button on the walkie-talkie and lifted the set to his ear. But as they came alongside the open space of the atrium it was the ground-level security alarm that he heard.

-###-

After he had recovered from the toxic effects of his futile attempt to revive Kay Killen, Ray Richardson had gone to a phone and tried, without success, to call the boardroom. A call to Aidan Kenny proved equally fruitless. So Richardson returned to the atrium to find Joan. She was sitting on the one of the big black leather sofas where he had left her, beside the still-playing piano, a handkerchief pressed to her nose and mouth against the foul smell that filled the building. Richardson sat down heavily beside her.

'Ray?' she protested, recoiling from his wet body. 'You're soaked. What happened?'

'I don't know,' he said quietly. 'But I don't see how anyone could say that it was my fault.' He shook his head nervously. 'I tried to help her. I jumped in and tried…'

'What are you talking about, Ray? Take it easy, dear, and tell me what's happened.'

Richardson paused as he tried to collect himself. He drew a big breath and then nodded.

'I'm OK,' he said. 'It's Kay. She's dead. I went into the pool and she was just floating there. I jumped in and pulled her out. Tried to revive her. But it was too late.' He shook his head. 'I don't understand what could have happened. How could she have drowned? You saw her yourself, Joan. She was a terrific swimmer.'

'Drowned?'

Richardson nodded nervously.

'You're sure she was dead?'

'Quite sure.'

Joan put a sympathetic hand on her husband's trembling back and shook her head. 'Well, I don't know. Maybe she dived in and hit her head on the bottom. It happens all the time. Even to the best of swimmers.'

'First Hideki Yojo. Then that security guy. Now Kay. Why does this have to happen to me?' He chuckled uncomfortably. 'Christ, what am I saying? I must be crazy. All I'm thinking about is the building. I was trying to pull the poor kid out of the water and you know what I kept thinking? I kept thinking, a swimming accident. Like Le Corbusier. Can you believe it? That's how obsessed I've become, Joan. That beautiful girl is dead and what's going through my fucking mind is that she went the same way as a famous architect. What's the matter with me?'

'You're upset, that's all.'

'And that's not the only thing. The phones aren't working. I just tried to call upstairs. To tell them that she's dead.' Richardson's jaw quivered a little. 'You should have seen her, Joan. It was terrible. A beautiful young woman like that, dead.'

As if on cue the piano stopped playing Bach's Goldberg Variations in the style of Glenn Gould and, in the style of Artur Rubinstein, began to play the insistent tolling bass of the funeral march from Chopin's Sonata in B-Flat Minor.

Even Ray Richardson recognized the unrelenting, sombre tones of the piece immediately. He stood up, fists clenched with outrage.

'What's the fucking idea?' he yelled. 'Is that someone's idea of a joke?

If so, then it isn't funny.'

He marched back to the hologram desk as indignantly as his wet shoes allowed.

'Hi!' said Kelly in her brightest-button-in-the-class voice. 'Can I help you, sir?'

'What's the idea with this music?' snapped Richardson.

'Well,' smiled Kelly, 'it's very much in the tradition of funeral marches born in the French Revolution. In the contrasting central episode, however, Chopin — '

'I didn't ask for the fucking programme notes. I meant that the music is in very bad taste. And why aren't the phones working? And why does the place smell like shit?'

'Please be patient. I'm trying to expedite your inquiry.'

'Cretin,' shouted Richardson.

'Have a nice day.'

Richardson stamped his way back to Joan.

'We'd better go back upstairs and tell everyone what's happened.' He shook his head. 'God knows what that fucking cop is going to say.' He turned on the heel of his squelching shoe and started towards the elevators.

Joan stood up and caught him by the sleeve of his wet shirt.