House of Glass | Complete ✔

Chapter 14

Location: Budapest Elisabeth bridge

Time: 8:54 am, 14 days after the murder

The cold was starting to settle in. Within the matter of a week, the season had started to changed. Ivan rubbed his palms against each other a blew on them from time to time, while Abigail kept her eyes open on the lookout for their anonymous tipper.

"Are you sure this wasn't just a prank?" Ivan asked, a bit irritated that she had asked him to accompany her early in the morning when the sun was barely up for an hour.

Abigail shrugged nonchalantly. "Could be. There's only one way to find out."

They stood there scanning left to right for a few more minutes, until a figure approaching them at turtle speed struck her. A tall man clad in a large brown jacket. His face wasn't clearly visible as he had a cap on and walked with his head hung low.

"Ivan, I think that's him."

Both of their attention was fully caught by the man, who was now only a few feet away.

"Officer Hughes, it's a pleasure meeting you." He lifted his face as he spoke, it wasn't familiar to either of them.

"I'm afraid I cannot say the same. Were you following us yesterday?"

He chuckled. "How does it matter? What matters is that I have information that can be of use to you."

"You do realize that you are talking to the Budapest police right? This is no lawful way of giving information to the police." Ivan interrupted.

"I agree. But this is the only way I could have talked to you, otherwise I would have been made to disappear from the face of the Earth before I could reach any of you."

"I'm listening." Abigail gestured Ivan to keep mum, and nodded agreeing with the man.

"I work for the security company that the Gilanis hired for the party. They had hired external staff for tighter security. That night, right before the commotion happened, their head of staff came to the surveillance room and sent me and my partner out for a while. He said he needed us to go canvas the outer perimeters of the garden for a while as there was shortage of staff there. We agreed and left. And when we came back about 10 minutes later, everything seemed normal. That is until the murder chaos happened. That was when I realized something was off."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because a few minutes before he sent us out, he and his mistress came to the surveillance room when we notified them of an intruder."

"Wait a second, a few minutes before? What was the time when they came?"

"I don't clearly remember, but it was half an hour or so after the party began. Around 7, 7:15 perhaps."

This piece of information hit her like a truck. Something clicked in her mind and immediately the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place.

"You're sure that there was a long gap between the time Faiza and Ali got to know about the man and them discovering the body?"

"Yes, absolutely. They discovered the body atleast 2 hours later."

"And what happened to the intruder?"