Two Women Read online

  Hilda did, hanging on for a full five minutes, before shaking her head and replacing the receiver. Hilda identified all the keys they found going through Janice’s desk drawers and finally, impatiently, Carver called Davis back and told him to alert the bank security manager that he did not have the necessary duplicate. Before he left his own office Carver carefully locked the two attaché cases into his private safe.

  Carver arrived at the Chase Manhattan imagining that the warning in advance would be sufficient but was irritated at the extent of the officialdom. Even though the vice president in charge of the division had met Carver both in the Plaza receiving line and later during Carver’s dutiful mingling at the reception the man still insisted upon Geoffrey Davis personally bringing from the Northcote offices the most recent boardroom minutes unanimously accepting Carver’s appointment, and even then he weakly protested that there should have been supporting legal proof of Carver’s accession before a duplicate key could be issued. The approval was finally agreed when a senior vice president accepted Davis’s argument that he physically represented legal proof. Carver thanked the lawyer for his help but said there was no need for him to stay for the opening of the box.

  It contained half a million dollars, in easily counted one-thousand-dollar bills individually bound in ten-thousand-dollar bundles, yellowing certificates and diplomas confirming George Northcote’s professional qualifications, two photographs, along with the lease, of Northcote’s original Wall Street building before its demolition for replacement by the present skyscraper, and three more prints, with handwritten annotation, of Anna and Northcote’s Italian and Spanish visit. Each yet again showed, to Carver’s eye, two people blissfully in love. Unlike those he’d discovered in Litchfield, each of the three clearly showed Anna wearing a wedding ring.

  There was nothing else.

  Despite the West 66th Street findings, and his deciding earlier that morning that he had sufficient, Carver was disappointed that the box was empty of anything other than more personal memorabilia. Had Anna Simpson been in yesterday’s cathedral congregation or the later receiving line of a thousand empty faces, the one mystery figure who, from all the photographs he’d now seen, he might have identified? What could – would – he have done, if he had recognized her? There would have been nothing he could have done in the church: little, with Jane so close beside him. But there would have been a chance for something as he moved about the room. An urgent whisper, for her to call him: an equally urgent demand, for a way to contact her. For what? Far better left in the past, a successfully – and properly – lost secret. He had to decide what to do with all the personal material, once he’d resolved the more important problem.

  Carver straightened from the box but paused, uncertainly, before taking out the photographs and putting them into his briefcase. He secured it and rang for a security official to complete the necessary double locking and let him out of the vault. It was the vice president in charge of the division who responded, a young, fair-haired man.

  As they went through the procedure, the man said: ‘I was not being intentionally awkward earlier, Mr Carver. I was strictly following regulations.’

  ‘You should always do that,’ said Carver.

  ‘We value your business, here at the bank.’

  There’d probably been some rebuke. ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘Is there anything else I can do?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you.’

  The man smiled. ‘Just one more regulation. You need to sign yourself out on the register against the box number.’

  It was not until he was bending over the bound book that the idea came to Carver and he covered the quick examination by pretending to fumble with the pen.

  ‘It’s ten forty-five,’ offered the young man, for the required departure time.

  Carver nodded, intent upon George Northcote’s signature at the bottom of the preceding page. George Northcote’s departure from the safe-deposit vault was timed at eleven-fifty-five and dated five days earlier, the day he’d had lunch at the Harvard Club with a person or persons designated in his diary as S–B.

  Alice said: ‘It’s been longer before, but this seems the longest.’

  Carver said: ‘It’s been a lifetime, in days.’

  They stood strangely awkward in front of each other. Carver reached out and she came to him and they kissed and held each other for several moments before separating again.

  ‘There’s coffee. Or do you want something else?’

  It still wasn’t noon but Carver said: ‘Something else?’.

  ’I mixed some, just in case.’ She poured the Martinis straight, without ice. As she handed him his drink she said: ‘You found anything?’

  She had to be kept out of it: kept out and kept safe. He was the only person capable of sorting everything out: of keeping everyone safe. Carver shook his head. ‘Nothing that properly helps. But you told me you knew what it was all about.’

  Now Alice shook her head. ‘I’m only guessing what it’s all about. I think I know how it works.’

  Carver sat, drink in hand, waiting. He had to get everything there was to get from her. And then work from that foundation.

  ‘You’re going to be angry. Disappointed in me. Please don’t be.’ She drank, deeply, the Martini made more for her benefit than for his.

  It was an attitude, a meekness, Carver hadn’t known in Alice before. ‘Why don’t you just tell me?’

  She’d rehearsed it, several different ways, but the admission of her hacking still came disjointedly and when she had finished Alice wasn’t sure that she’d explained it as fully or as understandably as she’d intended.

  Carver remained unspeaking for several minutes, his own Martini untouched. Then, quiet-voiced, he said: ‘For two days, longer, you’ve been hacking into their systems … into IRS records … company registrations … not just here in America … in other countries, too …?’

  ‘Yes,’ she confessed, simply.

  Carver shook his head, in genuine disbelief, his thoughts still coming out in bursts. ‘I can’t begin to guess … no one can … how many laws you’ve broken. Not just broken here … broken internationally …’

  ‘No one will ever find out … can ever find out,’ she insisted. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  Carver wasn’t angry. Disappointed, either. And although he’d said it, as if it was his major fear, he wasn’t thinking of the law, either. ‘What if they detected you … the people who did what they did to George?’

  ‘I told you how I’ve made sure they can’t.’

  ‘One hundred and one per cent, no-possibility-of-being-wrong sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘I’ve read, heard, that it’s possible for hackers to be caught … that there are devices.’

  ‘I didn’t use my own terminal, here. I used the double cutout of a computer cafe. And someone else’s system, further to hide myself.’

  Carver didn’t properly understand what she was telling him but he thought – because it was what he wanted to think – that maybe it would be OK. It sounded as if she knew what she was doing. Kids of fifteen had got in and out of the Pentagon and NASA systems without being detected. ‘No more. Promise me – give me your word and mean it – that you won’t do any more.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Mean it this time,’ he insisted. ‘Not like before.’

  Alice didn’t want to stop. There really wasn’t a chance of her ever being discovered and to prove she’d guessed the scam correctly she needed to get into one of the systems so far denying her entry. ‘I won’t do it again.’

  ‘So what is it?’ he finally demanded.

  ‘Money laundering, pure and simple. But absolutely brilliant.’

  ‘Show me.’

  She did, literally, leading him to her desk, upon which she had all the computer printouts sequentially arranged country by country, America dominant with Grand Cayman at the very pinnacle. ‘We’ll go left to right, r
ead it like a book, which I think we can,’ she declared. ‘What we’re looking at is a global shell game, things being moved so far so fast there’s no chance to see which cup the pea’s under. We start with five organized-crime – Mafia – offshore companies, out of reach and out of sight of any law, criminal or civil. Into them we have to channel – also out of reach and out of sight – all the illegal proceeds of every crime the Families commit: drugs, pornography, prostitution, loan sharking, protection, the lot. And if my theory is right it is a lot. Billions of dollars. You with me so far …?’

  Carver nodded, pouring fresh drinks for them both, following the electronic footsteps through the printouts.

  ‘Here’s how they do it,’ Alice picked up. ‘Mulder Inc., Encomp and Innsflow International establish dozens of subsidiaries, here in America, state by state, internationally, country by country. The trick – and I think initially it’s a quite legal trick – is trading only between each other, state by state and country by country. But never through their own subsidiaries. Mulder switches through Encomp, Encomp through Mulder and each through Innsflow. To do that, they need a conduit, again quite simply a very efficient, internationally established import-export organization. Which they’ve done with BHYF and NOXT, whose records and near-incalculable profits are also, ultimately, lost in the golden sand of the Cayman Islands, using the same shell-game technique. By constantly juggling the deals they avoid the legal requirement, particularly necessary in England, to record the tradings as a “related-party transaction”. Isn’t that brilliant?’

  The missing parts of his jigsaw, identified Carver, excitement moving through him: and interlocking perfectly with the handwritten, incomplete calculations from Northcote’s night-stand. ‘Offshore is tax evasion and avoidance but they don’t care about paying tax!’

  ‘Not in the process,’ smiled Alice. ‘Virtually everything Mulder, Encomp and Innsflow – and their subsidiaries – trade in is consumer-orientated, cash-orientated …’ She smiled again. ‘And all sharing two remarkable similarities. There are sky-high supply costs which continue to soar all the way along the state-by-state, country-by-country supply route. And matchingly high management, building and plant maintenance and depreciation costs.’

  ‘To account for the dirty money being pumped in?’ anticipated Carver.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Alice. ‘The genuine cost of what they’re moving between subsidiaries and states and countries has to be a fraction of what the books show, on every record I’ve managed to get into. Take blank videos, for instance: they start off charging one dollar each for bulk orders of up to ten thousand cassettes. By the time it passes through BHYF or NOXT, it’s up to seven dollars, sometimes even ten. No bona fide business could afford to buy or trade at supply costs like that: no bona fide business would accept supply costs like that. But Mulder, Encomp and Innsflow do …’

  ‘Buy for cents – fractions of cents – and pad it up into dollars and then tens of dollars and then hundreds of dollars, all the way along the chain,’ accepted Carver. ‘They boost true costs of say ten thousand dollars up to an inflated hundred thousand, pay forty thousand in tax …’

  ‘And they’ve laundered fifty thousand dollars worth of dirty money,’ completed Alice. ‘Multiply that by the number of subsidiaries throughout every state in this country and all the international locations – just those that we know about, by the way – and you’ve got your billions.’

  ‘Or more,’ agreed Carver, reflectively. Until that moment he’d had no conception of how big, almost literally how cosmic, the operation was.

  ‘You think George devised the whole thing?’

  Carver decided against a third Martini. ‘He said it had taken a long time to set up. But although it’s simple, like you said, no one man could operate and control such a system. And there are different tax laws in different countries.’

  ‘It wouldn’t take many,’ suggested Alice. ‘Remember it’s basically done in-house, by their own accountants. They only need to go outside for the legally required independent audits, to keep the wheels moving. And those wheels move damned fast. The subsidiaries never deal with each other within the states in which they’re established. They’re spread – oh so very cleverly spread – throughout the regional centres, none impacting in such a way to enable cross-referencing. So no one local tax authority sees a return that can be compared to show how the costs are being inflated with dirty money.’

  Carver snorted a humourless laugh. ‘I wonder if they’ll use what happened to George – what they did to George – as an example to any others who want to get out?’

  ‘Something else we’ll never know,’ said Alice. She left the desk and her printouts, leading Carver back to the couch. She nodded to the Martini pitcher. ‘You want any more?’

  ‘Yes, but I won’t,’ he said.

  ‘So where does all this take us?’

  It takes you nowhere, decided Carver, positively. Where did it take him, coupled with everything else he’d assembled? The squaring of the circle. It was unquestionably enough to give to the FBI to initiate an investigation into off-sheet, double accounting. But as he’d known from the beginning, doing that would destroy in ignominy and disgrace the firm of George W. Northcote International. It would also mean Alice’s arrest on countless charges, a second reason why the FBI was not an option. But he could meet the men who’d controlled and manipulated George – if such an encounter ever occurred – with the ground level, knowing enough to confront them, and if it got bad make the threat of going to the FBI. Create a stand-off, on his own terms. Could, that is, if he had the courage to do so. And he did have that courage and that determination. George had failed because George was old and failing and fallible. Not up to confronting anyone. But he was, Carver knew. It wasn’t the arrogance that Alice – even Jane – sometimes accused him of. He was the only person who was up to it. Could do it.

  He limited his answer to confirming that he’d found incomplete, out-of-date BHYF and NOXT spreadsheets, missing out any mention of the photographs of Anna.

  ‘If there was anything else at Litchfield, it would have been found?’ she persisted.

  ‘Unquestionably.’

  ‘So everything could be all right? If they found whatever they forced George Northcote to disclose – lead them to – they’ve got no reason to pressure you or the firm?’

  How many times had he tried to reassure himself with that thought? ‘They’re still on the client list.’

  ‘Which you’re having to adjust and reduce, because of George’s death: you’ve had that as your out from the beginning.’

  Would he really be able – brave enough, strong enough, convincing enough – to meet the situation if it came to a confrontation? Pre-empt it, he thought. There were the post office box numbers in Georgetown, on Grand Cayman, on the client list, against all five companies. He’d write that afternoon severing all and every connection. It didn’t need to come down – or more accurately escalate – to confrontation and threats: just a simple business disassociation, the sort of thing that happened all the time. He said: ‘I want to take everything you’ve turned up.’

  Alice looked back to the desk. ‘Why?’

  To prevent you being a target, Carver thought. And then he thought, why not be honest? ‘You’ve stopped now, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alice, only just avoiding the hesitation.

  ‘There are some things I haven’t had time properly to look at – assess – yet. It might interface with what you’ve accessed and downloaded: make everything complete. I won’t know if it does unless I have your stuff.’

  ‘Why not bring what you’ve got back here and we’ll go through all of it together?’ Alice attempted to bargain.

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘I am involved!’

  ‘Not any longer. People this clever, they’ve got ways.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  Their first argument, about anything, recognized Carver. He wondered
if Alice recognized it, too. He said: ‘I want to take away with me everything you’ve got. We’ve already agreed – at least I’ve decided – that we can’t count the number of laws you’ve broken, getting what you have, let alone the other risks there could be. I don’t want any arguments about no one ever being able to find out and trace you …’ He hesitated, deciding to continue the honesty. ‘I’m not angry or disappointed. I’m frightened. Very, very frightened and I don’t even know completely what I’m frightened about. At the moment all I can think of is containing things. And containing – taking away from you – all that’s on that desk over there is the most important containment there is at this precise moment.’

  She could get it all again, thought Alice. That and more. It would be tiresome and time consuming but she knew the electronic doors through which she could go in and out as she pleased. And just to allay his fears – not that he’d ever know – when she finished she’d leave behind a trigger word to self-destruct her hidden presence when it was entered into the machine. She got up, gathered together everything from the desk and silently handed it to him. Then she said: ‘That was our first row.’

  ‘I already worked that out.’

  ‘I’m glad it wasn’t a serious one.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘Can you stay longer?’

  ‘Tonight. We’ll eat somewhere in the Village.’

  ‘Tonight then.’

  ‘Leave it alone now, darling. I thank you – love you – for helping. For working it out when I was approaching from entirely the wrong direction. But now I don’t want you to do anything more.’

  ‘I already promised,’ said Alice. When she was a child and made a promise she knew she wouldn’t keep she’d crossed her fingers behind her back, because then broken promises didn’t count. She crossed her fingers now.

  Carver walked back to the office, glad he was on foot because as usual SoHo was virtually gridlocked. It still took him almost half an hour, because the sidewalks weren’t much better.

  The ground-floor receptionist said: ‘People are looking for you, Mr Carver,’ and Hilda, red-eyed, was waiting outside the elevator doors when it reached his floor. ‘Your cellphone’s off.’