Brandon Eisenberg swept into Parker’s office three-quarters of an hour after his appointed time, with an entourage in double figures.
This included an icy blond woman in a lace-edged cream designer suit that seemed to emphasise all her hard edges rather than soften them. I had to look twice to recognise her as Nicola Eisenberg from the video clip Parker had siphoned off Torquil’s PDA. It was tempting to mention the fact she looked different with her clothes on, just to see if the barb would penetrate that cool facade. Somehow, I doubted it.
Of the others, I noted the red-haired Gleason, still standing protectively close to her principal, but wearing a slightly less possessive face than she had done the night of the charity auction, when Eisenberg’s wife was not in attendance.
Nicola Eisenberg had come with her own personal bodyguard, too. A solid-looking older guy who, I guessed, Eisenberg had selected as much for his middle-age and bland looks as for his experience.
The remainder of the party were assistants, and assistants to the assistants, and extremely high-priced legal people in handmade shoes. The latter were easy to spot by the way they mentally priced up the fittings through narrowed eyes as soon as they came in.
Leaving McGregor on guard with Dina, I’d travelled into Manhattan from Long Island by the fastest means possible after Parker’s summons. That meant I’d used the Buell. Fortunately, it was a house rule to keep a spare business suit at the office, so while I couldn’t remotely compete with the power couture on show as they all trooped in, I was at least no longer in my bug-splattered bike leathers.
Parker rose to greet them, urbane and radiating competent composure. Brief, forgettable introductions were made and he gestured the Eisenbergs to the low client chairs, clustered around a coffee table in the centre of the room.
There was seating for six in comfort, and hierarchy was quickly established by who got a seat and who was forced to stand. Eisenberg seemed slightly bored by the jockeying for position, as if people behaved like this around him all the time and he’d learnt simply to let them get on with it.
Nicola Eisenberg pretended not to notice. I understood she’d just flown in from Nassau, no doubt utilising the Lear 85 Torquil had mentioned so artlessly that day at the riding club. Maybe she was just suffering from executive-jet lag.
‘So,’ Parker said once the dust had settled. ‘You wanna read us in?’
To my surprise, it was Eisenberg himself who took a long inward breath. He glanced momentarily towards the most senior-looking of the lawyers, sitting bald-headed and gaunt-featured to his left. The man stared back, inscrutable, which didn’t seem to afford much by way of sound legal advice.
‘I trust I can speak frankly and in complete confidence, Mr Armstrong?’ Eisenberg said then.
Parker’s eyebrow twitched at the implied slur to his reputation, that the man opposite had felt the need to ask. ‘Of course,’ was all he said, voice neutral.
‘As you are no doubt aware, it seems that our son, Torquil, was kidnapped yesterday morning from a beach on Long Island.’
‘“It seems”?’ Parker repeated. ‘An interesting choice of words, sir, considering one of my people witnessed the abduction.’
The lawyers frowned collectively. Eisenberg ducked his head a little. ‘Relax, Mr Armstrong. I was not doubting that Miss Fox saw what she says she did, nor was I insinuating that the kidnap did not take place.’
His gaze swept over me, standing behind Parker’s desk where the light from the nearest window fell over my shoulder into the room. ‘I’m sure Miss Fox is aware of how highly I … value her skills,’ he added, and there was a tinge of regret and reproof in his tone, as if all this could have been avoided if only I’d accepted his job offer.
‘You think he arranged his own abduction as some kind of prank,’ I said, just to watch the lawyers squirm. They didn’t disappoint me. Nicola Eisenberg continued to look detached from the whole experience.
Eisenberg pursed his lips. ‘I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind at first.’
As much to see if I could get a reaction out of his wife as anything else, I said, ‘What possible reason could he have for doing that?’
‘I get my thrills from corporate finance, Miss Fox. Torquil? He’s hooked on thrills, period. Like I say, at first I thought this might be his idea of another one.’
Well, that explained their lack of urgency or action so far. ‘What’s happened to make you change your mind now?’
‘We received a package earlier today,’ he said, reaching into an inside pocket of his jacket and bringing out a clear case containing a recordable CD or DVD. He held it up over his shoulder and there was an unseemly scuffle behind him as two of the assistants hurried forwards to whisk it from his outstretched hand. The most senior – or the one with the sharpest elbows – took possession and carried the prize round the desk to Parker.
My boss eyed the unbagged evidence with concern, making no immediate moves to touch it. ‘How many people have handled this?’
‘My security people have already checked it out thoroughly for prints, trace elements, biological or digital viruses – just about every damn thing you could think of, and a few more besides,’ Eisenberg said gravely, flicking his gaze briefly to Gleason. ‘They tell me it’s clean. An ordinary DVD-R, the kind you can get at any office supply store across the state.’
Parker nodded, and didn’t ask the obvious question. If we wanted to know what was on the disk, clearly we were going to have to see for ourselves. He moved back around his desk and slotted the DVD into his laptop, his movements economical and precise.
It took a moment to load, then went straight into a video clip like the one from Torquil’s PDA I’d watched the day before, but this was no sexual adventure. Not unless you were catering for a very specific and twisted audience.
I only recognised Torquil because that’s who I was expecting to see. He was sitting on a steel-framed chair, ankles tightly bound to the front legs with wire. By the awkward hunch of his shoulders, his arms were secured behind him. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been taken in, now as torn and bloodied as their owner.
Someone with a professional interest in the job had worked him over very thoroughly indeed, I saw, falling back on detached clinical judgement to avoid a connection with the victim I could not afford to feel.
It took me back too easily to a time when I’d been the one taking punishment and, although they hadn’t tied me down, in the end they hadn’t needed to.
I swallowed, kept my face dispassionate, glanced across at Parker and found he was doing the same.
They’d paid particular attention to Torquil’s face, probably knowing that would prove the most effective emotional lever against his parents. His nose had been broken and possibly a cheekbone, but it was hard to tell under all the discoloured swelling. One eye was puffed shut, the other open a mere slit. His hair was matted with blood. From the rigid way he held himself, the rapid shallow breaths, I guessed at busted ribs, too.
I looked up abruptly, found Eisenberg watching me as if in condemnation. Because I hadn’t taken on the job of protecting his son, or hadn’t stepped in yesterday, regardless of formal contract? It was hard to tell.
After maybe thirty seconds of silence, Torquil’s head lifted slightly at some off-camera prompt. He swallowed with effort, running his tongue carefully over split lips before he spoke. Even with the volume cranked up, it was hard to catch his mumbled words clearly.
‘Mom … Dad, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m … real sorry. For everything, I guess. I—’ He broke off, cowered as if subjected to a sudden additional threat.
I glanced at the clock high on the far wall. It was now reading a few minutes after 12.30. Torquil was twenty-seven hours gone. For this recording to have been made and delivered by this morning, they’d worked on him hard and fast. It was a measure of what had been done that wasn’t visible, that they’d broken him so utterly in so short a space of time. It must have been relentless.
On screen, Torquil hung his head, unable to continue for a moment. I strained to see past his battered figure into the room itself, but they’d spotlit the chair brightly. Beyond him were only dark shadows. Maybe Bill Rendelson, who’d become Parker’s electronic surveillance expert, could finesse more detail from the background …
And that led to a rapid cascade of other thoughts and realisations, not least of which was why we were being shown this footage in the first place. My gaze flicked to Parker again, filled with questions I didn’t need to ask aloud. He shifted the cursor to pause the clip, straightened.
‘Mr Eisenberg—?’ he began, but Eisenberg was ready for him.
‘Just watch the damn tape,’ he said quietly. ‘Watch it and then you’ll know.’