there. Like he’s moving his knight or his bishop around. He just
didn’t expect somebody to come along and blow the whole
chessboard away.’
Neagley said nothing. The tape sped on backward. Nothing
was happening on it. The square office area just sat there, dim
and steady.
‘Afterwards I was angry he was so careless,’ Reacher said.
‘But then I figured I couldn’t blame him for that. To be careless,
first of all you’ve got to know what you’re supposed to be
careful about. And he just didn’t. He didn’t know. He didn’t see
stuff like that. Didn’t think that way.’
‘So?’
‘So I guess I was angry I didn’t do it for him.’
‘Could you have?’
He shook his head. ‘I hadn’t seen him for seven years. I had
no idea where he was. He had no idea where I was. But
somebody like me should have done it for him. He should have
asked for help.’
I’oo proud?’
‘No, too naive. That’s the bottom line.’
‘Could he have reacted? At the scene?’
103
Reacher made a face. I’hey were pretty good, I guess.
Semi-proficient, by our standards. There must have been
some chance. But it would have been a split-second thing,
purely instinctive. And Joe’s instincts were all buried under the
cerebral stuff. He probably stopped to think. He always did. Just
enough to make him come out timid.’
‘Naive and timid,’ Neagley said. q3aey don’t share that
opinion around here.’
‘Around here he must have looked like a wild man. Everything’s
comparative.’
Neagley shifted in her chair and watched the screen.
‘Stand by,’ she said. ‘The witching hour approaches.’
The timer spun back through half past midnight. The office
was undisturbed. Then at sixteen minutes past midnight
the cleaning crew rushed backward out of the gloom of the
exit corridor. Reacher watched them at high speed until they
reversed into Stuyvesant’s office at seven minutes past. Then he
ran the tape forward at normal speed and watched them come
out again and clean the secretarial station.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘hey look pretty normal,’ Neagley said.
‘If they’d just left the letter in there, would they look so
composed?’
They weren’t hurrying. They weren’t furtive or anxious or
stressed or excited. They weren’t glancing back at Stuyvesant’s
door. They were just cleaning, efficiently and speedily. He
reversed the tape again and sped back through seven minutes
past midnight and onward until it jammed to a stop at midnight
exactly. He ejected it and inserted the first tape. Wound to
the far end and scanned backward until they first entered the
picture just before eleven fifty-two. Ran the tape forward and
watched them walk into shot and froze the tape when they were
all clearly visible.
‘So where would it be?’ he asked.
‘Like Froelich speculated,’ Neagley said. ‘Could be anywhere.’
He nodded. She was right. Between the three of them and the
cleaning cart, they could have concealed a dozen letters.
‘Do they look worried?’ he asked.
104
She shrugged. ‘Run the tape. See how they move.’
He let them walk onward. They headed straight for Stuyve
sant’s door and disappeared from view inside, eleven fifty-two
exactly.
‘Show me again,’ Neagley said.
He ran the segment again. Neagley leaned back and half
closed her eyes.
Fheir energy level is a little different than when they came
out,’ she said.
‘You think?’
She nodded. ‘A little slower? Like they’re hesitant?’
‘Or like they’re dreading having to do something bad in
there?’
He ran it again.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Kind of hard to interpret. And it’s no
kind of evidence, that’s for sure. Just a subjective feeling.’
He ran it again. There was no real overt difference. Maybe
they looked a little less wired going in than coming out. Or
more tired. But then, they spent fifteen minutes in there. And it
was a relatively small office. Already quite clean and neat.
Maybe it was their habit to take a ten-minute rest in there, out
of sight of the camera. Cleaners weren’t dumb. Maybe they put
their feet on the desk, not a letter.
‘I don’t know,’ Neagley said again.
‘Inconclusive?’ Reacher said.
‘Naturally. But who else have ,we got?’